Food for Agile Thought #368: Successful Product Development, Gracefully Firing People, Mental Models to Help Kill Projects, Dysfunction Mapping

TL; DR: Successful Product Development — Food for Agile Thought #368

Welcome to the 368th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 36,252 peers. This week, we delve into the importance of opportunity, output, outcome, and impact for successful product development. Moreover, we describe a step-by-step process on how to identify and subsequently also rectify dysfunctions within organizations. Then, Farnam Street points at essential leadership lessons from Michael Abrashoff’s book ‘It’s Your Ship,’ from rewarding risk-takers to skipping commend-and-control to letting go of your ego.

Also, referring to Astro Teller, CEO of Google’s moonshot factory, Annie Duke describes ways that help to kill innovation projects responsibly, and Marty Cagan defines the foundation of empowered product teams concerning customers, stakeholders, and engineers. Additionally, we advocate that using Gherkin as a notation for user stories will significantly improve communication with engineers.

Finally, Julie Zhuo lists five values of being data-informed, from accepting probabilities to setting verifiable goals, and we share an approach to answering a classic leadership question on the nature of a metric’s plunge. Also, given the turbulent week at Twitter, Lenny Rachitsky interviews Matt Mochary on how to best approach layoffs without botching the process and killing culture and innovation with one stone.

Food for Agile Thought #368: Successful Product Development, Gracefully Firing People, Mental Models to Help Kill Projects, Dysfunction Mapping — Age-of-Product.com

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Hands-on Agile #48, December 7, 2022: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business with Joe Justice - Age-or-Product.com

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🏆 The Tip of the Week: Successful Product Development

Jeff Patton: Tension – Help your organization focus on successful outcomes

Jeff Patton delves into the importance of opportunity, output, outcome, and impact, as well as tensions and unexpected implications, for product development.

➿ Agile & Scrum

(via Medium): Dysfunction Mapping; A tool for effective Agile Coaching

Michael Lloyd describes a step-by-step process on how to identify and subsequently also rectify dysfunctions within organizations.

(via Farnam Street): Lessons on Leadership: Michael Abrashoff on Turning the Worst Ship in the Navy into the Best

Farnam Street cites essential leadership lessons from Michael Abrashoff’s book ‘It’s Your Ship,’ from rewarding risk-takers to skipping commend-and-control to letting go of your ego.

Jason Evanish (via Get Lighthouse): The Power of Repetition: the #1 Secret of Successful Leaders

Jason Evanish points to the essential practice of flourishing leadership.

🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — December 12-13, 2022

Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this guaranteed 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 compact immersive class with like-minded agile peers from 09:00 – 17:30 o’clock CET.

Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — December 12-13, 2022 — Berlin-Product-People.com

Learn more: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — December 12-13, 2022.

“Very hands-on class with lots of concrete takeaways to help in real world scenarios. Reinforced practices and highlighted things that helped in passing the PSM II exam but that was merely a bonus as the content of the class is so useful – certifications or not. Stefan Wolpers is an excellent trainer with broad practical and theoretical knowledge on the subject and his classes seem to have very good working atmosphere (this was a second class by him that I have taken).”

(Link.)

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🎯 Product

Annie Duke (via Behavioral Scientist): Mental Models to Help You Cut Your Losses

Referring to Astro Teller, CEO of Google’s moonshot factory, Annie Duke describes ways that help to kill innovation projects responsibly.

Marty Cagan (via Silicon Valley Product Group): The Foundation of Product

Marty Cagan defines the foundation of empowered product teams concerning customers, stakeholders, and engineers.

(via Medium): Gherkin for Product Owners, or how to communicate efficiently with engineers

Alberte Mozo advocates that using Gherkin as a notation for user stories will significantly improve communication with engineers.

📈 📖 Product Owner & Product Manager Salary Report 2022

How do you compare? The Product Owner and Product Manager Salary Report 2022 is based on 500-plus replies from practitioners gathered globally during the 3rd and 4th quarter of 2022. Learn more about your Product Owner or Product Manager career opportunities for free.

By the way, the average salary of our participants is $91,000, with a standard deviation of roughly $49,400. In the complete report, you will find more detailed information; download your copy below.

Product Owner & Product Manager Salary Report 2022 — Age-of-Product.com

Learn more: Product Owner & Product Manager Salary Report 2022.

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

Julie Zhuo (via Medium): The Data-Informed Manifesto

Julie Zhuo lists five values of being data-informed, from accepting probabilities to setting verifiable goals.

Todd Lewandowski (via Medium): Master the Classic Question: ‘What Does a Dip in the Metrics Mean?’

Todd Lewandowski shares his approach to answering a classic leadership question on the nature of a metric’s plunge.

🎶 Encore

Lenny Rachitsky and Matt Mochary: 🎙 📺 How to fire people with grace, work through fear, and nurture innovation

Lenny Rachitsky interviews Matt Mochary on how to best approach layoffs should those become inevitable.


📅 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:

Date Class and Language City Price
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 April 2-30, 2024 GUARANTEED: Product Backlog Management Cohort Class (English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €499 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 April 9, 2024 GUARANTEED: Hands-on Agile #60: A Q&A on Dynamic Reteaming with Heidi Helfand (English) Live Virtual Meetup FREE
🖥 💯 🇩🇪 April 10-11, 2024 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 April 23-24, 2024 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Master (Advanced) Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 7, 2024 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Training (PSFS; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €749 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 7, 2024 GUARANTEED: Hands-on Agile #61: Toyota Kata Coaching for Agile Teams & Transformations with Fortune Buchholtz (English) Live Virtual Meetup FREE
🖥 🇩🇪 May 14-15, 2024 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇬🇧 May 28-29, 2024 Professional Scrum Master (Advanced) Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,189 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 June 6, 2024 GUARANTEED: Hands-on Agile #62: From Backlog Manager to Product Manager: From Outputs to Outcomes w/ David Pereira (English) Live Virtual Meetup FREE
🖥 🇩🇪 June 25-26, 2024 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT

See all upcoming classes here.

Professional Scrum Trainer Stefan Wolpers

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 4,000-plus Agile Peers on Youtube

Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel to improve learning, for example, about successful product development:

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✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn more about Successful Product Development — Join the 12,000-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Community

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Help your team with successful product development by pointing them to the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide:

Download the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide by PST Stefan Wolpers — 160 ways to improve as a Scrum Team — Age-of-Product.com

🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition

Read more: Food for Agile Thought #367: The Power of Working Together, Product Leadership, No Learning w/o Closing Loops, Decisions under Complexity — Age-of-Product.com.

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