TL; DR: Ignoring the Capacity Check during Sprint Planning
There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Since Scrum is an intentionally incomplete framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. For example, the Developers are ignoring a capacity check during the Sprint Planning, and as a result, the Scrum team creates a Sprint Goal that most likely cannot be accomplished.
Join me and delve into the effects of this trust-shattering practice in less than 80 seconds.
TL; DR: 20 Product Prioritization Techniques, The Simplified Scrum Guide — Food for Agile Thought #319
Welcome to the 319th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 33,623 peers. This week, we point to an epic guide on 20 product prioritization techniques, and we summarize seven lessons learned on change; from change is happening anyway to you never know when your efforts will pay off. Also, we point to an ‘extremely simplified definition of the Scrum framework,’ primarily based on the SG 2020 with a bit of the 2017 edition.
We then delve into gold-plating and its consequences, and we share Lenny Rachitsky’s definition of the job of a product manager, from delivering business impact to solving the most impactful customer problems. Moreover, we follow Teresa Torres when she suggests avoiding hands-offs between the product trio leading discovery and the team building the product.
Lastly, we praise the best-designed ‘thinking tool’ in history; we share Jeff Gothelf’s free OKR tracking spreadsheet using Google Docs, and we provide a good primer on how a statistical method can contribute to your team’s forecasting quality.
TL; DR: High-Performance Teams: Core Protocols with Richard Kasperowski
Want fabulous teams that build great products? Great teams don’t happen by accident. However, they don’t have to take a long time to build either. Learn more from Richard Kasperowski on employing core protocols for psychological safety and emotional intelligence from this Hands-on Agile session.
TL; DR: Kodak’s Shirley Cards, Dark Side of Metrics — Food for Agile Thought #318
Welcome to the 318th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 33,565 peers. This week, we tell the story of a lack of diversity and its consequences for humanity, photography, and product design: Kodak’s Shirley Cards. Also, we share a long list of improv games to support team building and help prevent burnout and fatigue, and we point at five possible values you could provide when asked for an estimate, from optimistic to risk-averse to worst-case estimates.
We then ask whether uncertainty might establish a better foundation for product discovery and product design, and we listen to Melissa Perri interviewing John Cutler on the importance of product education. Moreover, we advocate thinking of ‘time as a blade, a tool that can sharpen focus and trim waste,’ detailing Honeycomb’s approach to planning, and we reflect on how to overcome the annual planning waste while pointing at the reasons continuous planning fails in practice.
Lastly, we name the dark side of metrics: Companies expose themselves to metric corruption when optimizing those at the cost of all else, and we share an epic list of resources to further your change agent skills.
If you value agile practices, it is crucial to know if a job offering or a prospective business partner that claims to be “agile” really keeps its promises. Unfortunately, as agility usually cannot be observed directly, and certainly not from the outside of an organization, there is no way of knowing in advance if you will enter an agile environment that serves your own working needs or if a lot of frustration lies ahead of you. Therefore, we ran an extensive survey throughout 2020 and 2021 with more than 1,000 participants from all walks of agility: the Agile Metrics Survey 2021.
With the Agile Metrics Survey 2021, we present the first results and conclude with some thoughts about possible application scenarios of our instrument as well as possible next steps in our research.
TL; DR: Underperforming Dev Team, PO vs. PM Madness — Food for Agile Thought #317
Welcome to the 317th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 33,471 peers. This week, we share advice on how to support an underperforming dev team. Moreover, we listen to Richard Kasperowski and Woody Zuill talking about leadership, and we reflect on the agile mantra of failing fast. Could it be wrong?
We then delve into the Product Manager vs. Product Owner debate; we express concern about the rise of the third class beyond makers and managers in product teams: the process people, and we share Teresa Torres’ first version of her 2022 conference list.
Lastly, we explain three simple ways of getting a grip on splitting user stories, and we point out a surprising truth: the number of people needed for an interview study is often smaller than expected.
