Food for Agile Thought #173: Agile Common Sense, Agile Team Building, Product-Oriented Engineers

Food for Agile Thought’s issue #173—shared with 20,138 peers—focuses on agile common sense as we learn more about the history of ‘agile’ and what defines the learning space that makes it successful.

We also get better at cycle time scatterplot diagrams, what conditions product teams require to support hypergrowth, and why leadership is not always about having a plan.

Lastly, we learn five encouraging ways how to engage the engineers in creating the product beyond its mere coding.

Did you miss last week’s Food for Agile Thought’s issue #172?

Food for Agile Thought #173: Agile Common Sense, Agile Team Building, Product-Oriented Engineers

🏆 The Essential Read: Agile Common Sense

Martyn Puddephatt (via Noteworthy): Agile Isn’t New, It’s Just Common Sense Rebranded

Martyn Puddephatt dives into the history of ‘agile.’ Guess what: it is older than 2001.

Agile & Scrum

Charles Lambdin (via Medium): Iterating != Pivoting ∴ Agile != Agility – Columbus’ Egg

Charles Lambdin elaborates eloquently on the kind of learning environment required to become agile—from iterations to pivots.

Adam Grant and Stan McChrystal (via Next Big Idea Club): Why the Best Leaders Don’t Always Have a Plan

Adam Grant hosts Stan McChrystal at Wharton for an hour on leadership.

Sebastian Radics: On Measurements – applied actionable agile metrics for predictability – Part I

Sebastian Radics shares his insight into actionable agile metrics.

📅 Tickets Are available now: Agile Camp Berlin 2019: April 26–27, 2019

The Agile Camp Berlin 2019 will happen from April 26 to April 27, 2019. The ACB19 venue will be the Evangelische Schule Berlin Zentrum right in the middle of Berlin.

📅 Agile Camp Berlin 2019: April 26–27, 2019

Experience two energizing days with 200 agile peers focusing on community, sharing, and learning. Moreover, I am particularly excited that we will dedicate the second day to practicing games and exercises—from Liberating Structures to paper snowflakes and airplanes to building castles with 50 other folks, you have never met in your life!

Ticket prices will range from € 79 incl. VAT (the regular ticket) to € 99 incl. VAT (the late-bird ticket).

We expect the official website to be available mid of January 2019. There you will be able to see who will participate, suggestions for talks, games, and exercises as well as the details of the Agile Camp Berlin 2019. If you like to stay tuned, consider joining the Hands-on Agile Slack group.

Product & Lean

Ryan Ashcraft (via Amplitude): How to Build Product-Oriented Engineering Teams

Ryan Ashcraft suggests five ways engineering teams can better influence ‘their’ products.

Paul Adams (via Intercom): Scaling Product Teams: How to Build and Structure for Hypergrowth

Paul Adams shares Intercom’s product creation process—from guidelines, clear accountability, to a transparent roadmap, to its culture of goal setting.

Shaun Juncal (via ProductPlan): Dealing with Dealbreakers: How to Handle Feature Requests from Prospects

Shaun Juncal shares an approach on how to deal with must-have feature requests from prospective customers.

From the Blog: Speaking Truth to Power

Do you need an emergency fund as a change agent—whether you are acting as Scrum Master, Product Owner or agile coach—because conflict is inevitable, but change is not?

In my experience, speaking truth to power, pointing at the emperor’s new clothes and the reality in the trenches, is necessary a trait for every change agent — including Scrum Masters and agile coaches — in organizations that lack strong leadership. Learn more, how this form of professional honesty can backfire when the incumbents, privileged by the existing system, strike back.

Speaking Truth to Power — When the System Strikes back

Read more: Speaking Truth to Power.

📺 Join 1,025-plus Agile Peers on Youtube

Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel:

✋ Do Not Miss Out: Join the 4,475-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.

Large scale agile: Join the Hands-on Agile Slack Group

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.

Scrum Master Interview Question: free download of the most popular ebook on Scrum Master job interviews — by Age-of-Product

🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition

Read more: Food for Agile Thought #172: Taylorism & Agility, Agile Planning Myths, Product Discovery, Leadership in an Agile World.

Find this content useful? Share it with your friends!

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.