TL; DR: A Short Overview of PM Tools — Food for Agile Thought #470
Welcome to the 470th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,941 peers. This week, John Cutler shares tips for adaptable PM tools, Pim de Morree spotlights Bayer’s shift to self-managing teams, and Sean Goedecke emphasizes leadership alignment for shipping projects. Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson explore true agility with Johanna Rothman, while Mike Fisher debunks the “brilliant jerk” myth, highlighting collaboration and psychological safety as team essentials.
Next, Aakash Gupta and Paweł Huryn discuss risk-focused product discovery and storytelling, Paul McAvinchey emphasizes the power of clear product visions, and Martin Eriksson highlights strategy clarity. Meanwhile, Petra Wille showcases Novo Nordisk’s use of the PMwheel framework to drive role clarity and team empowerment during digital transformation.
Lastly, Gustavo Razzetti shares strategies for fostering a fearless culture, Maik Seyfert explores balancing user needs with business goals, and Jeff Gothelf introduces updated Lean canvases for strategic alignment. Mark Levison emphasizes clarity through Example Mapping, and Teresa Torres curates a global list of 2025 product conferences to inspire and connect professionals.
🎓 January 27, 2025: The Advanced Product Backlog Management Course for Just $99!
👉 Please note:
- The course includes membership in my former professional students' brand-new Hands-on Agile community.
- The course will only be available for sign-up until February 3, 2025!
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🏆 The Tip of the Week: PM Tools
: Quick Tool Tips
John Cutler shares practical tips for choosing and using “product management” tools effectively, urging teams to prioritize adaptability, involve diverse perspectives, test with low-fi solutions, and avoid rigid, oversimplified processes.
🍋 Lemon of the Week
(via Entrepreneur's Handbook): Don’t Worry About All That Tech Debt
Dismissing technical debt as harmless and glorifying recklessness over sustainability, the author misses the point of craftsmanship as a successful actor for agility. This is a prime example of short-term thinking packaged as innovative wisdom.
➿ Agile & Leadership
(via Corporate Rebels): Bayer's Bold Bet: How a 160-Year-Old Giant is Liberating 100,000 People
Pim de Morree highlights Bayer’s groundbreaking transformation into a network of self-managing teams through Dynamic Shared Ownership, aiming to align customer value, employee empowerment, and business outcomes for a sustainable, innovative future.
: How I ship projects at big tech companies
Sean Goedecke shares insights on successfully shipping projects in large tech companies, emphasizing prioritizing shipping, aligning with leadership expectations, maintaining trust, anticipating problems, and fostering a proactive, fearless mindset.
, and : 🎙 Agile Project Management with Johanna Rothman
Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson host Johanna Rothman on the No Nonsense Agile Podcast, exploring agile project management, fake corporate agility, continuous delivery, cross-functional teams, and focusing on outcomes over deliverables.
: The Brilliant Jerk vs. Team Performance
Mike Fisher explores the myth of the “brilliant jerk,” emphasizing how toxic high performers harm team cohesion and morale, advocating for collaboration, psychological safety, and prioritizing team success over individual brilliance.
🖥 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training w/ PSM II Certificate — December 18-19, 2024
Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this official Scrum.org Advanced Scrum Master training class, which includes the industry-recognized PSM II certification. The PSM II training class is designed as a live virtual class and will be in English.
Enjoy the benefits of a live virtual immersive class with like-minded agile peers from 09:00 – 17:30 CET.
Learn more: 🖥 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training w/ PSM II Certificate — December 18-19, 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.)
🎯 Product
and : 🎙 How to Do Product Discovery Right with Pawel Huryn
Aakash Gupta hosts Paweł Huryn in a podcast exploring effective product discovery, adaptive frameworks, risk-centric product management, prioritization strategies, and the art of storytelling as a critical success factor.
: What’s Holding Your Strategy Back? Clarity.
Martin Eriksson emphasizes that clarity is the cornerstone of effective strategy, urging leaders to consistently define, communicate, and embed strategy to ensure alignment, understanding, and actionable impact across their organizations.
(via Mind The Product): Deep dive: Crafting your product vision and mission
Paul McAvinchey explores crafting impactful product visions and missions, emphasizing their role in aligning teams, driving innovation, and guiding decision-making to transform product development into a meaningful, focused process.
: The PMwheel in Action: How Novo Nordisk Is Promoting Ownership of Growth and Learning Among Product Managers
Petra Wille highlights Novo Nordisk’s adoption of the PMwheel framework, demonstrating how tailored tools can enhance role clarity, foster development conversations, and empower product teams during digital transformation.
📯 Why Leaders Believe the Product Operating Model Will Succeed Where Agile Initiatives Failed
Why might leaders turn to the Product Operating Model (POM) after a previous Agile transformation, for example, based on SAFe, failed?
This article uncovers the psychological, organizational, and strategic reasons behind this seeming contradiction, exploring what motivates leaders to believe that a new approach will succeed where others have not.
Learn more: Why Leaders Believe the Product Operating Model Will Succeed Where Agile Initiatives Failed.
📅 Hands-on Agile 2025 Is Here — Join 450-plus Peers: From Concept-Based to Context-Based Agility
I am thrilled to announce that Hands-on Agile 2025 is officially on the horizon and will be free to attend from February 4-6, 2025. This time, we will focus on how Agile needs to evolve from concept-based agility to context-based agility.
But before we discuss what that means, let’s take a step back and consider why Hands-on Agile 2025 is going to be a can’t-miss event for everyone in the agile community.
For those unfamiliar, Hands-on Agile isn’t just another conference. It’s an event built around the Barcamp model, meaning it’s a self-organized, community-driven gathering with one goal: Sharing knowledge and experiences.
From February 4 to 6, 2025, we will spend three energizing days engaging in sessions, practicing agile games, sharing war stories, and learning directly from each other. Hands-on Agile is all about creating a space for practitioners, coaches, leaders, and newcomers to connect in a truly hands-on way.
Save Your Seat Now!
There are no tickets; Hands-on Agile 2025 is free.
However, you will need to register nevertheless. Otherwise, you would not receive, for example, the invitation to the HoA2025 community or have access to individual session access credentials:
Please note:
- For technical reasons, your sign-up confirmation will be sent from stefan [at] age-of-product.com.
- Your registration to Hands-on Agile 2025 will also subscribe you to Stefan’s Food for Agile newsletter, one of the largest independent newsletters on agile practices worldwide.
- Your invitation to join the Hands-on Agile 2025 community will be limited to February 28, 2025.
🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring
: How to Deliver Bad News Without Becoming the Scapegoat
Gustavo Razzetti provides actionable strategies to foster a fearless culture where bad news is delivered constructively and without blame, enabling organizations to address challenges proactively and transparently.
: User-Centricity vs. Company Constraints: Finding the Right Balance
Maik Seyfert explores balancing user-centricity with business constraints, offering strategies for aligning user needs and company goals through shared vision, flexible roadmaps, iterative development, and transparent communication.
: 📺 Video walkthrough: The Lean Strategy & Lean Product Canvases
Jeff Gothelf introduces two updated tools for product development: the Lean Strategy Canvas, which focuses on aligning teams around strategic goals and OKRs, and the Lean Product Canvas, which emphasizes risk reduction and shared understanding.
: Example Mapping: Your Secret Weapon for Effective Acceptance Criteria
Mark Levison highlights the power of Example Mapping in crafting effective acceptance criteria. By fostering collaborative conversations around user stories, rules, examples, and questions, example mapping ultimately enhances clarity, reduces risks, and improves outcomes.
🎶 Encore
: 2025 Product Conference List
Teresa Torres shares a comprehensive list of 2025 product conferences worldwide, which will provide opportunities for product professionals to connect, learn, and explore product management, innovation, and design trends.
📅 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 PM Tools:
- Hands-on Agile 64: Mastering Work Intake: The Key to Sustainability and Flow with Jeremy Willets and Tom Cagley.
- 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 EXTRA: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business with Joe Justice.
✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn About PM Tools — 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 Disagree And Commit by pointing them to the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide:
🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition
Read more: Food for Agile Thought #469: Disagree And Commit, Amazon’s Big Bet Leadership, Who Needs OKRs, PM Nightmares.