Food for Agile Thought #166: Agile Transformation Challenges, Empowered Teams, Is Holacracy a Cult?

Food for Agile Thought’s issue #166—shared with 19,896 peers—focuses on agile transformation challenges: from the agile industrial complex and imposed agile to figuring what problem you are trying to solve to the conditions under which agile teams can flourish.

We also learn what differentiates the Googles and Netflixes of this world from the weak product organizations, what a senior product manager should be capable of handling, and how to avoid common product development pitfalls.

Lastly, we ask: is Holacracy the cure to the malaise that stems from the widespread application of the industrial paradigm or is it just a cult?

Have a great week!

Food for Agile Thought #166: Agile Transformation Challenges, Empowered Teams, Is Holacracy a Cult?

🏆 The Essential Read

Aimee Groth (via Quartz): Is holacracy the future of work or a management cult?

Aimee Groth dives deep into an interesting discussion among agilists: is Holacracy the answer to overcoming the industrial paradigm?

Agile Transformation Challenges & Scrum

Ron Jeffries: Imposition and Dark Agile

Agile transformation challenges: Ron Jeffries reflects on some of the forces acting that make it difficult for any person or any organization to become agile.

Mackenzie Fogelson (via Medium): What All Great Teams Practice

Mackenzie Fogelson claims that successful cultural transformations require both: new ways of doing and new ways of being.

(via Lean Enterprise Inst): What's your problem

John Shook on the essence of Art Smalley’s new book ‘Four Types of Problems,’ from troubleshooting to a gap from a standard.

Hands-on Agile Webinar: Sprint Retrospective Anti-Patterns — November 27th, 2018

The tenth Hands-on Agile webinar on sprint retrospective anti-patterns covers twelve anti-patterns of the sprint retrospective—from #NoRetro to the dispensable buffer to UNSMART action items to a missing product owner.

Webinar Sprint Retrospective — Hands-on Agile  Webinar #10

Download your invitation now: Sprint Retrospective Anti-Patterns — November 27th, 2018.

Product & Lean

Marty Cagan: Empowered Product Teams

Marty Cagan analyzes what differentiates teams in strong product organizations—Google, Netflix, Amazon—from the rest of the pack.

Hiten Shah (via RealtimeBoard): Hiten Shah on how to avoid common pitfalls of product development

RealtimeBoard asked Hiten Shah for his insights on building and scaling successful products and how to avoid common mistakes.

Blair Reeves: What's a Senior Product Manager's job?

Blair Reeves shares his view on the most critical things senior product managers do.

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🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition

Read more: Food for Agile Thought #165: Agile Collaboration, Why Agile Goes Awry, Actionable Metrics, UX & Scrum.

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