Food for Agile Thought #369: Joy of Agility, CEOs and Product Leaders, Team Change is Inevitable, Product Data Mistakes
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: Joy of Agility — Food for Agile Thought #369
Welcome to the 369th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 36,291 peers. This week, we delve into the Joy of Agility and learn about the inevitability of team change and how dynamic reteaming may support dealing with it. Then we consider whether how decisions are made is more important than who makes them and why startups should have a risk roadmap, a plan for what they need to learn, from de-risking their organization to techniques used.
Also, we notice that ‘strong alignment and candid communication between a CEO and CPO’ are prerequisites for an organization’s product success. However, they can slowly dissipate when the organization is on a growth trajectory. Marty Cagan delves into multiple product management topics, from strategy, vision, and ethics, to the ways of working on a recent podcast. Additionally, Lenny Rachitsky interviews Alex Hardiman, the Chief Product Officer at the New York Times, for example, about the background of the Wordle acquisition.
Finally, we use a well-known Indian parable to point at three anti-patterns when using data, from rejecting ‘unfitting’ data to not turning disagreements into learnings. Moreover, we highlight the criticality of developing ‘inclusive mindsets to understand your own perspectives, the perspectives of others, and how they influence collaboration in design.’ Lastly, W.B. explores fundamental limitations to A/B tests that many businesses fail to consider — with possibly grave consequences.
Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue 368?
🗞 Shall I notify you about articles like this one? Awesome! You can sign up here for the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter and join 36,000-plus subscribers.
🎓 Join Stefan in one of his upcoming Professional Scrum training classes!
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — December 12–13, 2022.
📈 Let Us Create Transparency — join 900-plus peers: Join the Anonymous Scrum Master Salary Report 2023.
🏆 The Tip of the Week: The Joy of Agility
🎙 Andy Cleff and Joshua Kerievsky: The Joy of Agility with Joshua Kerievsky
In this podcast, Andy Cleff and Jay Hrscko chat with Joshua Kerievsky about his latest book that addresses a critical topic: experiencing joy while working in an agile organization. The book ‘reflects over two decades of experimenting, learning, unlearning, and explores the nature of agility.’
Authors: Andy Cleff and Joshua Kerievsky
➿ Agile & Scrum
🎙 Jason Knight and Heidi Helfand: Team Change is Inevitable — What’s Important is How we Respond to It
Jason Knight interviews Heidi Helfand about team change, its inevitability, and how dynamic reteaming may support dealing with change.
Authors: Jason Knight and Heidi Helfand
Jason Yip (via Medium): Some thoughts on decision making
Jason Yip believes that ‘how decisions are made is more important than who makes them.’
Author: Jason Yip
John Zeratsky (via Medium): The Risk Roadmap
John Zeratsky suggests that startups should have a risk roadmap, a plan for what they need to learn, from de-risking their organization to techniques used.
Source: Medium: The Risk Roadmap
Author: John Zeratsky
🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — December 12–13, 2022
Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this guaranteed official Scrum.org Advanced Scrum Master training classincluding the industry-recognized PSM II certification. The PSM II training class is designed as a live virtual class and will be offered in English.
Enjoy the benefits of a compact immersive class with like-minded agile peers from 09:00–17:30 o’clock CET.
Learn more: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — December 12–13, 2022.
“Very hands-on class with lots of concrete takeaways to help in real world scenarios. Reinforced practices and highlighted things that helped in passing the PSM II exam but that was merely a bonus as the content of the class is so useful — certifications or not. Stefan Wolpers is an excellent trainer with broad practical and theoretical knowledge on the subject and his classes seem to have very good working atmosphere (this was a second class by him that I have taken).”
(Link.)
👉 From time to time, we can offer last-minute seats for training classes at cost to individuals who do not have access to a corporate training budget. If you like to be notified about these opportunities, please register here.
🎯 Product
Ken Norton: CEOs and Product Leaders
Ken Norton notices that ‘strong alignment and candid communication between a CEO and CPO’ are prerequisites for an organization’s product success. However, they can slowly dissipate when the organization is on a growth trajectory.
Source: CEOs and Product Leaders
Author: Ken Norton
🎙 Marty Cagan (via Mind The Product): Product Vision and Strategy
In this podcast, Marty Cagan delved into multiple product management topics, from strategy, vision, and ethics, to the ways of working.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Author: Marty Cagan
🎙 Lenny Rachitsky and Alex Hardiman: An inside look at how the New York Times builds product
Lenny Rachitsky interviews Alex Hardiman, the Chief Product Officer at the New York Times, for example, about the background of the Wordle acquisition.
Authors: Lenny Rachitsky and Alex Hardiman
📯 Scrum Tools and Practices to Enhance an Incomplete Framework, Part 1
“The Scrum framework is purposefully incomplete, […].” (Source.) This half-sentence is probably one of the more often misinterpreted statements of the Scrum Guide. On the one side, it defines the necessity to enhance Scrum with other practices and tools. On the other side, it is the reason that so many attempts to practice Scrum are simply botched, resulting in ScrumBut versions of epic diversity. So, let’s look at proven Scrum tools and practices enhancing a purposefully incomplete framework without defying or negating its first principles.
Please note that the following Scrum tools and practices list is not complete. Please feel free to add more suggestions by commenting.
🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring
Julie Zhuo (via Medium): The Blind Men, the Elephant, and the 3 Data Mistakes
Julie Zhuo uses a well-known Indian parable to point at three anti-patterns when using data, from rejecting ‘unfitting’ data to not turning disagreements into learnings.
Author: Julie Zhuo
(via IDEO U): How to Get Started with Inclusive Design
Coe Leta Stafford and Nusrat Ahmed point to the criticality of developing ‘inclusive mindsets to understand your own perspectives, the perspectives of others, and how they influence collaboration in design.’
Senior PowerPoint Engineer (Not Parody): Caveats and Limitations of A/B Testing at Growth Tech Companies
W.B. explores fundamental limitations to A/B tests that many businesses fail to consider — with possibly grave consequences.
🎶 Encore
John Cutler: The problem with outcomes vs outputs, problems vs. solutions, opportunity
John Cutler talks about the dichotomy in product development.
Author: John Cutler
📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events 2022/23
Upcoming classes and events:
🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition
📺 Join 4,000-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel:
✋ Do Not Miss Out: Join the 12,000-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Community
I invite you to join the “Hands-on Agile” Slack Community and enjoy the benefits of a fast-growing, vibrant community of agile practitioners from around the world.
If you like to join all you have to do now is provide your credentials via this Google form, and I will sign you up. By the way, it’s free.
🎓 Do You Want to Read more like this?
Well, then:
Food for Agile Thought 369: Joy of Agility, CEOs and Product Leaders, Team Change is Inevitable, Product Data Mistakes was first published on Age-of-Product.com.