TL; DR: JTBD Guide, Good Retrospectives — Food for Agile Thought #250
Welcome to the 250th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 26,776 peers. This week, we appreciate a comprehensive JTBD guide with templates; we learn how to figure out whether a team is capable of having meaningful Retrospectives, and we reconsider our inclination to favor feature teams over component teams.
We then delve into opportunity mapping to improve our product work; we embrace the idea that we are probably not charging enough and that we should run some pricing experiments, and we explore the timing and the dynamic of innovation.
Lastly, we learn more about OKR throughout the different stages of product development work.
TL; DR: Ruinous Scrum, Losing Out to SAFe — Food for Agile Thought #249
Welcome to the 249th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 26,763 peers. This week, we analyze the ruinous Scrum claim of some developers; we empathize with a failed attempt to avoid SAFe, and we learn about the success of an ambitious change project with Scrum.
We then delve into the journey of Sarah Cooper and her approach to product discovery as a comedian; we reassure our belief that lying to customers is unacceptable, and we analyze five critical success criteria of Design Thinking.
Lastly, we thank Bob Sutton for an interview on change and identifying pockets of excellence.
TL; DR: Results of a Test of Using Unhangout to Host Virtual Barcamps
Last week, 30-plus attendees of the 24th Hands-on Agile meetup ran a virtual Barcamp experiment w/ MIT’s Unhangout, an open-source platform for organizing attendee-driven virtual open space events.
Read on and learn whether Unhangout is a suitable solution to remote collaboration challenges.
TL; DR: Large Scale Agility, Silos & Politics — Food for Agile Thought #248
Welcome to the 248th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 26,751 peers. This week, we learn to assess agile coaches regarding their competence for large scale agility; we integrate chaos into the organization, and we have a look at 32 Jira competitors.
We then come back to product work beyond the product-market fit threshold; we learn how to use cohort analysis to forecast revenue, and we listen to the maestro of innovation: Is it an art form or a craft?
Lastly, we are grateful for Ryan Dawson and Laura Edwards shedding some light on an unpleasant topic: silos, local optimization, and politics.
TL; DR: The Agile Movers & Shakers Interview w/ Ryan Ripley
Today’s guest is Ryan Ripley. Ryan is a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) with Scrum.org. He hosts the Agile for Humans podcast and most recently co-wrote Fixing Your Scrum: Practical Solutions for Common Scrum Problems with Todd Miller for PragProg.
TL; DR: Agile 101, Inspecting and Adapting Agility — Food for Agile Thought #247
Welcome to the 247th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 26,724 peers. This week, we unearth a great introductory video for stakeholders, the Agile 101. In the light of the pandemic, we inspect and adapt the principles of agile management, and we learn about the importance of no longer giving in to a need: tell people what to do or hand them solutions.
We also think about how to influence others without having any real authority, a handy trick for every product mensch. We try to understand why some people can regularly create product success and follow the difference between an MVP and a prototype.
Lastly, we thank Hugo Bowne-Anderson for pointing at something not immediately obvious: an adverse outcome doesn’t mean a wrong decision.
