TL; DR: Bureaucracies — Food for Agile Thought #474
Welcome to the 474th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,8883 peers. This week, John Cutler examines the tension between adhocracies and bureaucracies in tech, while Miljan Bajić uses Kuhn’s paradigm shift theory to frame the transition from Waterfall to true agility. Christoph Roser warns against “Dark Lean,” where cost-centric misuse of lean practices undermines safety and respect. Maarten Dalmijn highlights the importance of simplicity and emergence in navigating uncertainty, and John Rauser champions probabilistic thinking and adaptive systems for large-scale software delivery success. Also, we consider whether “pure Scrum” is actually applicable.
Next, Richard Mironov emphasizes the need for product managers to tailor communication to diverse audiences, aligning with stakeholder needs. Pavel Samsonov highlights the pitfalls of focusing on product problems over customer needs, advocating outcome-driven planning. Aakash Gupta shares strategies for proactive product quality, including pre-mortems, lifecycle planning, user testing, and robust monitoring to build trust and avoid reactive issues.
Lastly, Gergely Orosz and Sean Goedecke discuss navigating Big Tech projects, blending technical expertise with management savvy, and Jason Yip challenges traditional productivity metrics, focusing on value and impact. Tejas Kumar introduces the TJS Collaboration Model to foster meaningful professional relationships, while Madeleine Wyatt explores navigating office politics with integrity to build authentic and effective connections.
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🏆 The Tip of the Week: Bureaucracies
: Adhocracies and Bureaucracies
John Cutler contrasts adhocracies in rapid-growth tech companies with bureaucracies in enterprises, exploring implicit bureaucracy, cultural swings, and the balance between team independence and global collaboration to drive organizational success.
🍋 Lemon of the Week
: Definition of Dumb
The author delivers a misguided takedown of Scrum’s Definition of Done, confusing a critical quality alignment tool for bureaucratic blame-shifting, all while ignoring its intent to empower teams toward shared excellence.
➿ Agile & Leadership
: Moving from Agile to Agility — Kuhn’s Cycle
Miljan Bajić explores the journey from Waterfall to Agile and beyond, using Kuhn’s paradigm shift theory to highlight the evolution toward true organizational agility as a systemic capability.
: Dark Lean
Christoph Roser introduces “Dark Lean,” drawing parallels to “Dark Scrum,” highlighting how misusing lean practices to prioritize cost over safety, quality, and respect can harm workers and long-term success.
: Agile in One Sentence
Maarten Dalmijn explains Agile as working with knowns to uncover unknowns, cautioning against premature optimization, overcomplication, and false certainty while emphasizing emergence, simplicity, and embracing uncertainty to adapt effectively.
(via InfoQ): Beat the Plan: Probabilistic Strategies for Successful Software Delivery at Scale
John Rauser advocates for probabilistic thinking and adaptive systems in large-scale software delivery, emphasizing systems design, risk control, and embracing uncertainty to achieve consistent outcomes and thrive beyond traditional planning.
🖥 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training w/ PSM II Certificate — February 12-13, 2025
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 — February 12-13, 2025.
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
: Reading the Room / Knowing Your Audience
Richard Mironov emphasizes the importance of tailoring communication to diverse audiences, urging product managers to adapt their messaging, structure, and style to align with stakeholders’ needs and organizational contexts.
(via Medium): Stop inventing product problems; start solving customer problems
Pavel Samsonov highlights how low-performing teams focus on product problems instead of solving real customer needs, emphasizing the importance of outcome-driven planning to create meaningful and practical solutions.
: Proactive Product Quality - How to Prevent Issues Before Users Even Notice
Aakash Gupta outlines proactive strategies for product quality, emphasizing prevention through pre-mortems, lifecycle planning, user testing, and robust monitoring to avoid reactive firefighting and build user trust.
📯 Can Pure Scrum Actually Work?
Can you rely on pure Scrum to transform your organization and deliver value? Not always. While Scrum excels in simplicity and flexibility, applying it "out of the box" often falls short in corporate contexts due to limitations in product discovery, scaling, and portfolio management.
This article explores the conditions under which pure Scrum thrives, the organizational DNA required to support it, and practical scenarios where it works best—along with a candid look at where it struggles. Discover whether pure Scrum is a realistic approach for your team and how thoughtful adaptation can unlock its true potential.
📺 Learn more: Can Pure Scrum Actually Work?
📅 Hands-on Agile 2025 Is Here — Join 500-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
and : 📺 Shipping projects at Big Tech with Sean Goedecke
Gergely Orosz discusses how to ship projects in Big Tech with Sean Goedecke, emphasizing technical skills, management lingo, proactive demos, and strategies for thriving in remote engineering roles.
(via Medium): Bad idea: You can’t measure productivity
Jason Yip critiques traditional productivity metrics, advocating for a focus on delivered value and impact, using intermediate outcomes as shorter-term indicators to bridge lagging impact in product development.
We engage in activities (effort) to build features (output) that cause changes in customer behaviours (outcomes) that eventually lead to value to the organization (impact).
: How to Grow Professional Relationships
Tejas Kumar introduces the TJS Collaboration Model, outlining seven states of professional relationships, from competition to collaboration, emphasizing synergy, alignment, and actionable steps to strengthen meaningful connections.
🎶 Encore
(via Harvard Business Review): 🎙 How to Master Office Politics Without Compromising Your Values
Madeleine Wyatt explores how leaders can navigate office politics with integrity, emphasizing sincerity, networking, and influence to build authentic relationships and enhance workplace effectiveness.
📅 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 Bureaucracies — Join the 20,000-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Community
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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 Effective Product Teams by pointing them to the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide: