TL; DR: Product Type Canvas — Food for Agile Thought #454
Welcome to the 454th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,673 peers. This week, Jeff Patton introduces his Product Type Canvas, aiding teams in understanding users and measuring product value. Cady Coleman shares lessons from her NASA career on risk assessment and cross-cultural communication, and Alex Ewerlöf discusses how organizational structure affects service reliability and the importance of consumer journeys. Moreover, Woody Zuill delves into mob programming with Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson, highlighting its impact on team effectiveness and skill development, and we ask: Are there regulated industries that are agile?
Then, Marty Cagan discusses his book Transformed, focusing on a product operating model that prioritizes outcomes, empowered teams, and continuous deployment, emphasizing engineers’ role in innovation. Steve Blank explores why large organizations struggle with disruption, highlighting legacy systems and leadership inaction. In an interview with Lenny Rachitsky, Roger Martin outlines five essential questions for effective strategy development, emphasizing clear aspirations, market focus, competitive advantage, necessary capabilities, and supportive management systems. Also, Andrew Chen examines the failure of high-growth, high-churn products, emphasizing the importance of retention and the challenges of sustaining growth in a dopamine-driven market.
Lastly, Marc Abraham highlights AI tools transforming product management and aiding PMs in understanding customer problems. We also examine competitive analysis, its importance, and practical templates for SaaS companies, while Matt O’Connell discusses handling overwhelming Opportunity Solution Trees (OSTs) with five archetypes and strategies to prioritize opportunities. Christoph Steinlehner introduces Reverse Impact Mapping to shift from feature requests to outcomes, focusing on business impact. Finally, Bandan Jot Singh explains software estimate inaccuracies and offers five modern roadmap methods prioritizing value-driven metrics over strict timelines.
🎓 October 23, 2024: The Advanced Product Backlog Management Course for Just $99!
👉 Please note:
- The course includes membership in the brand-new Hands-on Agile community of my former professional students.
- The course will only be available for sign-up until October 31, 2024!
Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought issue 453?
🗞 Shall I notify you about articles like this one? Awesome! You can sign up here for the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter and join 42,000-plus subscribers.
🎓 Join Stefan in one of his upcoming Professional Scrum training classes!
🏆 The Tip of the Week
: Product Type Canvas
Jeff Patton presents his Product Type Canvas to identify digital products in organizations. It provides teams with essential information to understand users and measure product value, emphasizing user roles, uses, and metrics.
🍋 Lemon of the Week
➿ Agile & Scrum
(via Harvard Business Review): 🎙 An Astronaut’s Advice on High-Stakes Collaboration
In her book Sharing Space, Cady Coleman shares lessons from her 24 years as a NASA astronaut on stress management, risk assessment, and cross-cultural communication that can be applied to various careers.
, and : 🎙 Mob Programming and Software Teaming with Woody Zuill
Woody Zuill discusses mob programming with Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson. It is a method where a cross-functional team collaboratively focuses on one feature at a time, significantly boosting team effectiveness, learning, and skills development.
: Organization Architecture
Alex Ewerlöf emphasizes that an organization’s shape, not just budget or headcount, impacts service reliability. He highlights how consumer journeys provide insights into creating reliable systems and stresses the importance of team communication and organizational structure.
🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training w/ PSM II Certificate — August 20-21, 2024
Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this official Scrum.org Advanced Scrum Master training class including the industry-recognized PSM II certification. The PSM II training class is designed as a live virtual class and will be offered in English.
Enjoy the benefits of a live virtual immersive class with like-minded agile peers from 09:00 – 17:30 CEST.
Learn more: 🖥 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training w/ PSM II Certificate — August 20-21, 2024.
Customer Voice: “Dear Stefan, Thanks a lot for two intense and mindblowing days. Your way of teaching suites me perfectly. I must admit that all the positive feedback you have gotten is spot on! I would any time a day recommand your class to a Scrum Master who wants to add a whole new level to his/her scrum game. To all of you reading this. You have to experience Stefans class to understand how good it is.” (Source.)
👉 From time to time, we can offer last-minute seats for training classes at cost to individuals who do not have access to a corporate training budget. If you would like to be notified about these opportunities, please register here.
🎯 Product
(via Mind The Product): 📺 Transformed: Moving to the product model
Marty Cagan discusses his book Transformed, emphasizing the shift to a product operating model focused on outcomes, empowered teams, and continuous deployment, highlighting the importance of engineers in the innovation process.
: Steve Blank Why Large Organizations Struggle With Disruption, and What to Do About It
Steve Blank explains why large organizations struggle with disruption, citing legacy systems and leadership inaction, and offers solutions like direct innovation pipelines, real-world experiments, and strategic outside advisors to adapt and thrive.
and : 📺 5 Essential Questions to Craft a Winning Strategy
In his interview with Lenny Rachitsky, Roger Martin outlines five key questions for developing an effective strategy. He emphasizes the importance of a clear winning aspiration, focused market segments, competitive advantage, essential capabilities, and supportive management systems to sustain long-term success.
: Why high growth, high churn products never seem to work
Andrew Chen explores why high-growth, high-churn products often fail, highlighting the fleeting success of meme apps due to poor retention and the challenges of sustaining long-term growth in a dopamine-driven market.
📯 Agile Regulated Industries: Hiring Scrum Masters Instead of Project Managers?
Are there agile regulated industries, or is that an oxymoron?
Recently, I received a project alert from an organization looking for a Scrum Master with “at least two years knowledge of information systems for rail and public transport travelers.”
Now, if you go through the job description, they do not seem to look for a Scrum Master but a project manager and glorified Jira clerk. If that is the case, why don’t they say so but pretend there is such a thing as agile regulated industries?
Learn more: Agile Regulated Industries: Hiring Scrum Masters Instead of Project Managers?.
🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring
: AI tools for Product Managers
Marc Abraham highlights how and which AI tools transform product management, assisting PMs with understanding customer problems, identifying target personas, creating product strategies, and managing the product lifecycle efficiently.
(via Userpilot): What is Competitive Analysis? [Example + Templates]
The author explains competitive analysis, detailing its importance in studying rivals’ strengths and weaknesses to improve strategies, and provides examples and templates to help SaaS companies conduct their analyses effectively.
: Taming Opportunity Solution Trees (Part One)
Matt O'Connell discusses managing overwhelming Opportunity Solution Trees (OSTs) by introducing five archetypes and providing strategies for structuring and prioritizing opportunities to maintain focus and achieve business outcomes.
: Shifting from Feature Requests to Outcomes: Reverse Impact Mapping
Christoph Steinlehner introduces Reverse Impact Mapping to shift conversations from feature requests to outcomes, helping product managers focus on business impact and make smarter decisions to drive the right results.
🎶 Encore
: Why software estimates suck? Here's what to do.
Bandan Jot Singh discusses why software estimates are often inaccurate and provides five modern roadmap methods to manage expectations and prioritize value-driven metrics over strict timelines in product development.
📅 Scrum Training & Event Schedule
You can secure your seat for Scrum training classes, workshops, and meetups directly by following the corresponding link in the table below:
See all upcoming classes here.
You can book your seat for the training directly by following the corresponding links to the ticket shop. If the procurement process of your organization requires a different purchasing process, please contact Berlin Product People GmbH directly.
📺 Join 6,000-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel to improve learning, for example, about the Product Type Canvas:
- 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.
✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn About the Product Type Canvas — Join the 20,000-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Community
I invite you to join the “Hands-on Agile” Slack Community and enjoy the benefits of a fast-growing, vibrant community of agile practitioners from around the world.
If you like to join all you have to do now is provide your credentials via this Google form, and I will sign you up. By the way, it’s free.
Help your team to learn about Product Management Organizations by pointing them to the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide:
