Food for Agile Thought #281: Product-Led Companies, #NoProjects, 80/20 Rule for Product Managers, Root Cause Analysis
Stefan Wolpers
🚀 I help Product Owners, Product Managers, Scrum Masters & Agile Coaches Grow w/ Classes, Courses, Books & Community. 📖 Author of the ”Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide;” 🏅Trainer at Scrum.org; ⬇️ Book a 1-on-1; talk chances!
TL; DR: Product-Led Companies, #NoProjects — Food for Agile Thought #281
Welcome to the 281st edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 30,412 peers. This week, we learn to identify product-led companies; we reflect on the effects of top-down decisions on imposing agile frameworks without identifying problems first, and we remind us of signs that an organization lacks the ‘agile mindset’ yet pretends to be agile.
We then gain insight into how to innovate within Google after being acquired — or not. We suggest embracing Pareto’s principle to execute an effective product strategy by supporting ruthless prioritization, and we acknowledge the importance of picking appropriate metrics to guide our product teams to success.
Lastly, we appreciate introducing critical root cause analysis techniques, from ‘5 Whys’ to ‘Pareto Analysis.’
Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue #280?
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🏆 The Tip of the Week: Product-Led Companies
Andrew Skotzko: How to know if you’re interviewing at a product-led company
Andrew Skotzko suggests a set of five questions you can use as a candidate to figure out whether you are applying for the right job opening.
Source: How to know if you’re interviewing at a product-led company
Author: Andrew Skotzko
➿ Agile & Scrum
Johanna Rothman: Want a Successful Agile Project? Start with Why Before How
Johanna Rothman reflects on the effects of organizations’ top-down decisions on imposing agile frameworks without identifying problems that shall be addressed in the first place.
Source: Want a Successful Agile Project? Start with Why Before How
Author: Johanna Rothman
(via Product Coalition): When Agile isn’t Agile: Signs your organization has missed the point of Agile
In this article, Irzana Golding reminds us of signs that an organization lacks the ‘agile mindset’ yet pretends to be agile.
Source: Product Coalition: When Agile isn’t Agile: Signs your organization has missed the point of Agile
🎙 Shane Hastie and Allan Kelly (via InfoQ): Allan Kelly on Continuous Digital, #NoProjects, Minimally Viable Teams and OKRs
In this podcast, Shane Hastie interviews Allan Kelly about his new book on the impact of digital transformations.
Source: InfoQ: Allan Kelly on Continuous Digital, #NoProjects, Minimally Viable Teams and OKRs
Authors: Shane Hastie and Allan Kelly
🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — March 10–11, 2021
This guaranteed Advanced Scrum Master Training (PSM II) is an official Scrum.org class for advanced Scrum Masters, including the industry-acknowledged PSM II certification. The PSM II training class is designed as a live virtual class from 9:00 am to 5:45 pm CET and will be offered in English.
Learn more: 📅 🖥 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — March 10–11, 2021.
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🎯 Product
Noam Bardin: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
Noam Bardin — founder and CEO of WAZE — remembers his attempts to innovate within a corporate Google after the acquisition.
Source: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
Author: Noam Bardin
Ryan Seamons (via ProductCraft): Why product managers need to understand the 80/20 rule
Ryan Seamons suggests embracing Pareto’s principle to execute an effective product strategy by supporting ruthless prioritization.
Source: ProductCraft: Why product managers need to understand the 80/20 rule
Author: Ryan Seamons
(via Medium): Creating an actionable Product Roadmap: My approach to balance certainty and flexibility
Jan-Henrik Franetzki shares his approach to creating valuable product roadmaps.
Source: Medium: Creating an actionable Product Roadmap: My approach to balance certainty and flexibility
🛠 Tools & Measuring
(via KaiNexus): 5 Root Cause Analysis Techniques to Breakthrough Barriers
Kade Jansson takes us to critical root cause analysis techniques, from ‘5 Whys’ to ‘Pareto Analysis.’
Source: KaiNexus: 5 Root Cause Analysis Techniques to Breakthrough Barriers
🎙 Richard Kasperowski: Know How to Use Evidence to Quickly Improve Your Leadership
In this podcast, Richard Kasperowski interviews Patricia Kong about the importance of picking appropriate metrics to guide your product teams to success and how Evidence-Based Management might help in the process.
Source: 🎙 Know How to Use Evidence to Quickly Improve Your Leadership
Author: Richard Kasperowski
📯 Product Discovery Anti-Patterns Leading to Failure
Scrum has proven to be an effective product delivery framework for all sorts of products. However, Scrum is equally well suited to build the wrong product efficiently as its Achilles heel has always been the product discovery part. What product discovery part, you may think now. And this is precisely the point: The Product Owner miraculously identifies what is the best way to proceed as a Scrum Team by managing the Product Backlog. How that is supposed to happen is nowhere described in the Scrum Guide. Consequently, when everyone is for themselves, product discovery anti-patterns emerge.
From sunk costs, HIPPO-ism, my-budget-my-features to self-fulfilling prophecies — learn more about the numerous product discovery anti-patterns that can manifest themselves when you try to fill Scrum’s product discovery void.
👉 Learn more: Product Discovery Anti-Patterns Leading to Failure.
🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition
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Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel:
- 🆕 Scrum Guide 2020: Eight Remarkable Changes — Hands-on Agile #28.
- Remote Agile (1) Replay: Practices and Tools for Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, and Product Owners.
- Scrum Sprint Retrospective Anti-Patterns.
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Food for Agile Thought #281: Product-Led Companies, #NoProjects, 80/20 Rule for Product Managers, Root Cause Analysis was first published on Age-of-Product.com.