TL; DR: Agile’s Trial — Food for Agile Thought #450
Welcome to the 450th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,573 peers. This week, Sjoerd Nijland imagines Agile’s Trial, highlighting criticisms of Scrum Masters and chaotic environments while defending Agile’s focus on flexibility and continuous improvement. John Cutler reflects on teams losing touch with progress, suggesting tracking key metrics to address challenges, and Tobias Mayer emphasizes Scrum Masters’ roles in organizational transformation, not just team management. Also, Maarten Dalmijn explores SAFe’s popularity over LeSS, attributing its success to its appeal to C-level executives and a non-rebellious narrative comforting traditional businesses, and we gain insights into David Pereira’s approach to turning backlog managers into product managers.
Next, Jason Cohen argues against the obsession with disruption, advocating for useful, desirable products and incremental improvements for sustainable success. April Dunford warns against “overly pessimistic product thinking,” urging teams to leverage product strengths for growth. Meanwhile, Eira Hayward discusses the challenges product managers face in organizations that lack understanding of product management, offering advice from industry leaders on overcoming resistance and implementing effective processes. Moreover, Casey Winters shares insights on scaling and product growth in a podcast, discussing fundamentals, product-market fit, and acquisition strategies from his tech industry experience.
Lastly, Itamar Gilad emphasizes managing the lifecycle of goals through phases of research, discovery, delivery, and monitoring to steer organizations toward outcomes, and Jeff Gothelf breaks down OKRs, stressing the importance of outcome-based key results. Joost Minnaar highlights Mainfreight’s budgetless management model, emphasizing decentralized action, transparency, and culture for success. Dan Pilat and Dr. Sekoul Krastev explain the planning fallacy and suggest strategies like AI, specific goals, and task segmentation to mitigate its effects. Finally, Marc Andreessen shares the journey from co-inventing the web browser to founding Netscape.
🎓 September 1, 2024: The Advanced Product Backlog Management Course for Just $99!
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This week, the most popular discussion on LinkedIn was: There Are Many Ways to Undermine Software Development.
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🏆 The Tip of the Week: Agile’s Trial
(via Medium): Agile on Trial. The Case That’s Shaking the Tech World
Sjoerd Nijland imagines a mock trial of Agile, with critics targeting Scrum Masters and chaotic work environments. Defenders argue for Agile’s focus on flexibility, accountability, and continuous improvement, emphasizing its role in modern product management and adapting to dynamic environments.
🍋 Lemon of the Week
➿ Agile & Scrum
: Staying In Touch
John Cutler reflects on how teams, like individuals, can lose touch with their progress over time. He suggests tracking key metrics and qualitative observations to effectively understand shifts and address challenges.
: Who needs scrum masters?
Tobias Mayer asserts that Scrum Masters are essential for organizational transformation, not for long-term team management, emphasizing their role in restructuring, reducing waste, and increasing autonomy within the organization.
: Why Isn't LeSS (Large Scale Scrum) More Popular?
Maarten Dalmijn explores why SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) is more popular than LeSS (Large Scale Scrum), likening it to the marketing failure of “Fight Club.” SAFe succeeds by appealing to C-level executives, avoiding rebellion against the status quo, and crafting a non-shocking, comforting narrative that traditional businesses embrace.
🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training w/ PSM II Certificate — August 20-21, 2024
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🎯 Product
(via Jason Cohen): Not disruptive, and proud of it
Jason Cohen argues against the obsession with disruption, advocating instead for creating useful, desirable products. He emphasizes that modest, incremental improvements often lead to sustainable success and personal fulfillment.
(via Mind The Product): Successful product management in companies where it's least understood
Eira Hayward discusses the challenges product managers face in organizations that don’t understand product management, sharing advice from industry leaders on overcoming resistance, gaining advocacy, and implementing effective product processes.
: Positioning and Pessimistic Product Thinking
April Dunford discusses “overly pessimistic product thinking,” where teams fixate on perceived deficits, undermining effective positioning and commercial success. She emphasizes recognizing and leveraging product strengths to drive growth and success.
(via First Round Capital): 🎙 How to build and scale winning marketplaces
In this podcast, Casey Winters shares insights on scaling and product growth. He discusses marketplace fundamentals, product-market fit, scaling strategies, and methods for acquiring demand and supply, drawing from his experience with leading tech companies.
📯 Hands-on Agile #62: From Backlog Manager to Product Manager w/ David Pereira
What does product success mean? In this energizing Hands-on Agile Meetup, David Pereira talked about the challenges of being a product manager and how to move from managing the Product Backlog to driving value. You can expect provoking thoughts, actionable insights, and a bit of unconventional product management.
📺 Watch the video now: From Backlog Manager to Product Manager w/ David Pereira — Hands-on Agile #62.
🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring
: The Lifecycle of Goals: Research, Discover, Deliver, Monitor
Itamar Gilad emphasizes managing the lifecycle of goals—from definition to completion—through phases of research, discovery, delivery, and monitoring to effectively steer organizations toward business and user outcomes.
(via YouTube): 📺 What is an OKR?
Jeff Gothelf explains OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), breaking down the process into Objectives and Key Results, emphasizing that key results must be outcomes, and providing a practical example.
(via Corporate Rebels): Budgetless Companies: The Case of Mainfreight
Joost Minnaar highlights Mainfreight’s budgetless management model, emphasizing decentralized action, transparency, and a unique culture to achieve business success, proving rigid budgeting isn’t necessary for extraordinary results.
and (via The Decision Lab): Planning fallacy
Dan Pilat and Dr. Sekoul Krastev explain the planning fallacy, which is our tendency to underestimate time, costs, and risks for tasks. This leads to poor planning and systemic impacts, but they suggest strategies like using AI, setting specific goals, and segmenting tasks to mitigate it.
🎶 Encore
: 📺 The true story — as best I can remember — of the origin of Mosaic and Netscape.
Marc Andreessen shares the origin of Mosaic and Netscape, highlighting the unexpected journey from a small-town background to co-inventing the web browser, navigating early internet challenges, and ultimately founding Netscape.
📅 Scrum Training & Event Schedule
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📺 Join 6,000-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel to improve learning, for example, about the Lean Mindset:
- Hands-on Agile 62: From Backlog Manager to Product Manager with David Pereira.
- Hands-on Agile 61: Toyota Kata Coaching for Agile Teams & Transformations with Fortune Buchholtz.
- Hands-on Agile 59: Tackling Fake Agility with Johanna Rothman.
- Hands-on Agile 57: Humble Planning with Maarten Dalmijn.
- Hands-on Agile 53: An Agile Coaches Guide to Storytelling with Bob Galen.
- Hands-on Agile EXTRA: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business with Joe Justice.
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