Age of Product’s Food for Thought of November 20th, 2016—shared with 4,841 peers—provides 100 agile techniques, explains why output is obsolete, and why open floor plans suck at making the creative worker productive.
You are looking for a new product management job? We got you covered: 10 actionable tips how to improve your LinkedIn product.
We then dive deep into how to use Machiavellian principles and happiness hormones like Dopamine for product issues. We also learn how to create shared understanding, and what “Scaling Lean” in the enterprise requires at project, program, and portfolio level.
Last but not least, we join VCs Mark Suster and Brad Feld when they teaching entrepreneurship to inmates from the California State Prison in Lancaster.
Enjoy a great Sunday!
Agile Techniques & Scrum
: 100 Powerful Agile Techniques to Conquer All Projects
Shane Drumm shares a massive list of tools, best practices, games, techniques, and exercises to effectively analyze issues and design solutions in agile environments.
: How to Use 9 Machiavelli’s Advices for Better Decisions
As Napoleon Bonaparte mentioned, Machiavelli’s “The Prince” is worthwhile reading. Learn with Sathish how to apply its principles and make better decisions on products, people and perspectives.
: Outcomes not outputs
Leon Tranter summarizes his most important learning from Jez Humble’s book “Lean Enterprise”: Abandon the traditional focus on output, and switch to outcome.
: ScrumMasters – Protecting the team from…“themselves”
Bob Galen provides us with a long list of anti-patterns on how a team can hamper its own progress.
(via Crisp): The importance of size and proximity
Hans Brattberg explains in this video why agile processes favor co-located and cross-functional teams, and why remote work and part-time workers may result in an exponentially rising overhead.
From the Blog: Agile Workspace—The Undervalued Success Factor
If you want your organization to become agile, adding more whiteboards to the workspace will not suffice. You have to abandon the idea that the workspace is an assembly line for white-collar workers. You need to let go Taylorism. We are now in the age of the creative worker.
To become agile – and reap its benefits such as becoming more innovative –, you need a diversity of workspaces to support all forms of creative work: focus, collaborate, learn, and socialize. Also, you have to let your creative workers choose which space is best suited for a task.
Read more: Agile Workspace: The Undervalued Success Factor — Agile Transition (Part 4)
Product & Lean
(via Mind The Product): Scaling Lean Principles: Project, Program, Portfolio.
Coach, lean advocate, and author Jeff Gothelf talked about scaling Lean principles at the 2016 London mind the PRODUCT conference.
(via ProductPlan): Product Management Chalk Talk: How Do I Build Shared Understanding?
John Cutler shares in this chalk talk a framework for building shared understanding with your team and other stakeholders.
(via Medium): Understanding User Psychology: Meet Your Happy Chemicals
Sachin Rekhi introduces us to the science of happiness which tells us that happiness is simply the result of releasing happiness-related chemicals into your brain — legal doping of the user, so to speak.
and : Creating a culture of innovation
Gloria Lombardi interviews business model canvas innovator Alexander Osterwalder to explore how companies can create a thriving culture of innovation.
(via 280 Group): Top 10 Tips for your Product Management LinkedIn Profile
Mira Wooten, 280 Group’s Director of Recruiting, shares her top ten tips you can apply right now to beef up your LinkedIn profile and get noticed by recruiters searching for product managers.
Essential Read
: I spent 12 hours in prison with 75 venture capitalists and founders. Here’s what happened
Caroline Fairchild shares her experience with VCs Mark Suster and Brad Feld and their initiative to educate 70+ volunteers from the California State Prison in Lancaster in entrepreneurship.