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Food for Agile Thought #490: Escaping the Feature Factory, Funding Agility, Prioritization Comparison, AI PM Course: RAG, PRD, Agents

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-04-25 News

TL; DR: A Simplified Scrum Guide — Food for Agile Thought #490

Welcome to the 490th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,688 peers. This week, Tobias Mayer reintroduces Scrum as a minimalist, team-empowering practice rooted in empiricism with a simplified Scrum Guide, and David Pereira challenges the feature factory’s enduring grip with seven sharp tactics for reclaiming product purpose. Aakash Gupta and Paweł Huryn offer an AI PM crash course, while Simon Willison finds AI search finally usable. Also, Dwarkesh Patel urges humility over certainty when navigating uncertain AGI trajectories.

Next, Roni Ben Aharon reflects on the power of sunsetting features to sharpen product focus, and Jenny Wanger champions AI for productivity without losing human connection. Ethan Mollick introduces “Jagged AGI,” while Zvi Mowshowitz warns of its risks, testing o3. Moreover, John Cutler reframes team conversations as core infrastructure shaping alignment, performance, and adaptive capacity.

Lastly, Philippe Bonneton and Mike Cottmeyer explain why AI stalls beyond the pilot phase, while Fredrik Delin calls for funding persistent teams over projects. Itamar Gilad critiques outdated prioritization, Scott Sehlhorst warns of diminishing returns, and Johanna Rothman shows how frequent, collaborative deliveries replace blame with trust. Together, they spotlight the structural shifts needed for real agility and sustainable impact.

Food for Agile Thought #490: Escaping the Feature Factory, Funding Agility, Prioritization Comparison, AI PM Course: RAG, PRD, Agents - Age-of-Product.com

How to Use AI to Analyze Interviews from Teammates, Stakeholders, and the Management

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-04-21 Featured Agile and Scrum

TL, DR: AI Interview Analysis

When you step into a new role as Scrum Master or agile coach for a team under pressure, you’re immediately confronted with a challenging reality: you need to understand the complex dynamics at play, but have limited time to process all the available information. This article explores how AI interview analysis can be a powerful sensemaking tool for agile practitioners who need to synthesize unstructured qualitative data quickly, particularly when joining a team mid-crisis.

AI Interview Analysis: How to Use AI to Analyze Interviews from Teammates, Stakeholders, and the Management — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #489: Wrong Product Development Models, Empowerment by AI, PM Agents, Rebuilding Trust

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-04-18 News

TL; DR: Wrong Product Development Models — Food for Agile Thought #489

Welcome to the 489th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,673 peers. In this week’s edition, John Cutler dissects the fallacy of linear product development models, advocating for messy, fractal approaches that mirror real-world complexity. Marty Cagan sees generative AI as a lever for genuine team autonomy beyond legacy constraints. Dan Shipper champions OpenAI’s o3 for complex, agentic workflows, while Gary Marcus rebuts AGI hype Tyler Cowen advocates. Moreover, Maarten Dalmijn warns against Big Bang rewrite failures, urging incremental progress, better morale, and reduced risk through visible, sustainable change.

Next, John Cutler clarifies the four distinct jobs of prioritization, warning against their conflation, and Hamel Husain shares AI product lessons centered on iteration and domain expertise. Ant Murphy offers a path out of OKR theatre through focused, product-driven goals. Additionally, Tina Huang reveals how AI and fundamentals combine for intuitive, context-aware app development.

Lastly, Aakash Gupta and Anthony Maggio share how they built a no-code AI PM agent in under 90 minutes. David Burkus explains how trust is rebuilt through consistent leadership action. Also, Gregor Ojstersek urges culture-first AI adoption in engineering, avoiding its imposition. Finally, Kevin O’Sullivan demystifies product analytics, while Paweł Huryn shares a no-code guide to building voice agents with n8n and MCP servers.

Food for Agile Thought #489: Wrong Product Development Models, Empowerment by AI, PM Agents, Rebuilding Trust — Age-of-Product.com

The Fantastic Optimus Alpha Approach to Data-Informed Retrospectives

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-04-13 Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: Optimus Alpha Creates Useful Retrospective Format

In this experiment, OpenAI’s new stealthy LLM Optimus Alpha demonstrated exceptional performance in team data analysis, quickly identifying key patterns in complex agile metrics and synthesizing insights about technical debt, value creation, and team dynamics. The model provided a tailored Retrospective format based on real team data.

Its ability to analyze performance metrics and translate them into solid, actionable Retrospective designs represents a significant advancement for agile practitioners.

Breaking the Feature Factory: The Optimus Alpha Approach to Data-Informed Retrospective Design — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #488: Product vs Engineering, Reflexive AI Usage, Psychological Safety and Lean, Guide to Stakeholders

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-04-11 News

TL; DR: Reflexive AI Usage — Food for Agile Thought #488

Welcome to the 488th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,671 peers. This week, Tobi Lütke calls for reflexive AI usage as a baseline at Shopify, positioning it as a creative and productivity multiplier. Jeremy Brown offers human-centered principles for product–engineering ownership that avoid RACI wars. Aakash Gupta shows how OpenAI and Notion treat experimentation as strategic infrastructure, and Roman Pichler explores AI’s role in product strategy, emphasizing its benefits while reinforcing the irreplaceable role of human judgment. Meanwhile, the 2025 AI Index Report reveals explosive AI progress and investment and flags persistent global gaps in regulation, education, and reasoning performance.

Next, John Cutler unpacks how flawed models and stale dashboards hinder creating shared understanding at scale. Mark Graban explains why psychological safety is key to Lean success, not a nice-to-have. Mike Cottmeyer and Eric Flecher connect AI readiness to the same structural shifts required for real agility. Also, Pim de Morree makes a strong case for replacing hierarchy with well-supported self-management.

Lastly, Wes Kao shares actionable tactics with Lenny Rachitsky for clearer, more persuasive communication—especially when managing up or handling objections. Abby Covert reminds us that stakeholder misalignment, not poor structure, derails excellent information architecture. Hyunsun Park and Subra Tangirala reveal why ambiguity silences employees; they call for cultures where sensing risk isn’t just leadership’s job.

Food for Agile Thought #488: Product vs Engineering, Reflexive AI Usage, Psychological Safety and Lean, Guide to Stakeholders — Age-of-Product.com

Change Questions, The Agile Way, Humans Robots Agents — Hands-on Agile 2025

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-04-06 Agile and ScrumVideos

TL; DR: Dr. Lynn Kelley, Peter Merel, and Jurgen Appelo speaking at Hands-on Agile 2025

The first videos of Hands-On Agile 2025 sessions are in, and you don’t want to miss them: Dr. Lynn Kelley reveals her “Change Questions” framework with its remarkable 90% success rate for sustainable organizational transformation, while Peter Merel challenges conventional agile thinking with “The Agile Way,” connecting ancient wisdom to modern AI-agile alignment through six essential themes. Also, Jurgen Appelo explores how AI is revolutionizing leadership in “Humans Robots Agents,” offering practical strategies for thriving amid technological disruption.

These industry veterans bring decades of enterprise transformation experience, providing actionable insights you can implement immediately. Watch the session recordings to transform how you approach agility.

Change Questions, The Agile Way, Humans Robots Agents: Dr. Lynn Kelley, Peter Merel, and Jurgen Appelo speaking at Hands-on Agile 2025 — Age-of-Product.com