From Backlog Manager to Product Manager w/ David Pereira — Hands-on Agile #62

TL; DR: Hands-on Agile #62: From Backlog Manager to Product Manager w/ David Pereira

What does product success mean? In this energizing Hands-on Agile Meetup, David Pereira talked about the challenges of being a product manager and how to move from managing the Product Backlog to driving value. You can expect provoking thoughts, actionable insights, and a bit of unconventional product management.

📺 Watch the video now: From Backlog Manager to Product Manager w/ David Pereira — Hands-on Agile #62.

From Backlog Manager to Product Manager w/ David Pereira — Hands-on Agile #62 — Age-of-Product.com
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Product Discovery for Scrum Teams — Scrum Tools, Part 2

TL; DR: Product Discovery for Scrum Teams

While Scrum excels at building and releasing Increments, it does not guarantee that those are valuable—garbage in, garbage out. Scrum teams can equally make things no one is interested in using at all. The critical artifact to create value is the Product Backlog, “an emergent, ordered list of what is needed to improve the product.” (Source.) However, Scrum does not elaborate on how the Product Owner identifies Product Backlog-worthy work items. That would be the job of the process that feeds into the Product Backlog: product discovery.

Learn more about which frameworks have proven useful to augment Scrum with product discovery practices.

Product Discovery for Scrum Teams — Scrum Tools, Part 2 — Age-of-Product.com
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The Expensive Folly of the Oversized Product Backlog

TL; DR: The Costs of an Oversized Product Backlog

Some Product Owners believe that a comprehensive Product Backlog is the best way to accomplish the Product Goal and be fully transparent simultaneously—never let a possibly valuable idea slip away. However, a comprehensive backlog may quickly become an oversized Product Backlog with unintended side effects.

Learn more about an oversized Product Backlog’s negative impact on innovation, your Scrum team’s ability to create value, and your relationship with stakeholders.

The Oversized Product Backlog Problem — Making Your Scrum Work #11 — Age-of-Product.com
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Shift Left: Value Creation in Scrum

TL; DR: Value Creation in Scrum

As a tactical framework, Scrum is good at delivering Increments into customers’ hands. As we work in iterations, we probably do that several times per month, mitigating risk by closing feedback loops. Nevertheless, there is a potentially hazardous void in the framework that successful Scrum teams start plugging early: how to figure out what is worth building—product discovery—in the first place. As a result, value creation in Scrum is not as straightforward as you might have thought.

Value Creation in Scrum — Shift Left — Age-of-Product.com
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Allan Kelly: Honey, I Shrunk the Backlog — Hands-on Agile 44

TL; DR: HoA #44: Honey, I Shrunk the Backlog w/ Allan Kelly

In this energizing 44th Hands-on Agile session on product backlog management, Allan Kelly clarified one thing: The backlog was a great idea until it wasn’t. Many successful teams deliver backlog items daily, but their backlogs aren’t getting smaller. The never-ending backlog overshadows delivery success. Product discovery, dual-track agile, OKRs, etc., make it worse by accelerating backlog growth without taking any of the rotting items away.

Learn more about Allan’s remedy for oversized product backlogs in less than an hour.

Allan Kelly: Honey, I Shrunk the Backlog — Hands-on Agile 44 — Age-of-Product.com

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The Product Backlog: 14 First Principles to Help Your Scrum Team Succeed

TL; DR: Product Backlog Principles

Contrary to popular belief, the Product Owner does not have dictatorial powers regarding the composition and order of the Product Backlog. Instead, Scrum as a framework is based on a delicate system of checks and balances, collaboration, and joint decision-making to mitigate risk; for example, the Product Owner falling in love with their solution over the problem of the customers. Learn more about critical Product Backlog principles, from the size and growth of the Product Backlog to whether a Product Backlog is necessary in the first place. (Some lean practitioners dispute its existence is justified.)

Product Backlog Principles — Age-of-Product.com
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