Food for Agile Thought #384: The Decline of the Agile Brand, Product Managers Devs Don’t Hate, Product Core Competencies, Scrum a Natural Pattern?
Stefan Wolpers
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TL; DR: The Decline of the Agile Brand — Food for Agile Thought #384
Welcome to the 384th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 45,437 (1) peers. This week, we listen to Brett Maytom and Michael Küsters on the decline of the Agile brand. Moreover, we explore whether Scrum is not only applied empiricism but also “some sort of natural pattern” before Seth Godin suggests tried and tested practices to help you maneuver complex projects, from “budgets are a tool, not a weapon” to “heroism is more fun but less reliable than good planning.” Moreover, we describe four effectiveness-impacting biases, from the urgency effect to the planning fallacy.
Then, we sketch a developer-friendly role model of a product manager, from demonstrating evident expertise to helping with the dirty work, which pairs well with Marty Cagan’s concept of roles of an empowered product team. Next, Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion discuss the responsibility of empowered product teams for their outcomes, while Lenny Rachitsky interviews Stanford University professor and author Christina Wodtke on how OKRs can help your team achieve better results.
Finally, we share a bunch of primers on user story mapping, planning poker and story points, and practical user research. Lastly, we ask: Can wisdom from the past still be relevant to today’s VUCA-determined world? Is there something like a Stoic Scrum Master?
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🏆 The Tip of the Week: The Decline of the Agile Brand
Michael Küsters and Brett Maytom: #0075 — The Agile Brand Has Been Destroyed by Con Men and Clowns
🎙 In this podcast, Brett Maytom and Michael Küsters delve into their perspective on the state of the agile industry.
Source: 0075 — Brett Maytom and Michael Kusters — The agile brand has been destroyed by con men and clowns
Authors: Michael Küsters and Brett Maytom
🍋 The Lemon of the Week
(via Medium): Why Scrum Never Works
Instinctively, The Cynical Manager chose anonymity to publish this article, claiming Scrum was invented “impose impossible goals on their unsuspecting workforce,” only to stray into failure patterns on the organizations’ side to support Scrum properly.
Source: Medium: Why Scrum Never Works
➿ Agile & Scrum
(via Medium): Scrum is a natural pattern
Francis Laleman believes that Scrum is not only applied empiricism but also “some sort of natural pattern.”
(via TechTello): 4 Cognitive Biases That Impacts Productivity
Vinita Bansal describes four effectiveness-impacting biases, from the urgency effect to the planning fallacy.
Seth Godin: Simple techniques for complex projects
Seth Godin suggests tried and tested practices to help you maneuver complex projects, from “budgets are a tool, not a weapon” to “heroism is more fun but less reliable than good planning.”
Author: Seth Godin
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🎯 Product
staysaasy: How to Be a [Product Manager] That Engineers Don’t Hate
Stay Saasy sketches a developer-friendly role model of a product manager, from demonstrating obvious expertise to helping with the dirty work.
Author: staysaasy
Recommended by LinkedIn
Marty Cagan (via Silicon Valley Product Group): Product Core Competencies
Marty Cagan sketches the roles of an empowered product team.
Author: Marty Cagan
📺 Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion: Building a Culture of Accountability for Empowered Product Teams
Does autonomy without accountability equal anarchy? In this video, Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion discuss the responsibility of empowered product teams for their outcomes.
Authors: Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion
📯 The Stoic Scrum Master — Making Your Scrum Work (30)
Can wisdom from the past still be relevant to today’s VUCA-determined world? I started reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations some time ago and found it intriguing; maybe it applies to “Agile?” In other words: is there something like a Stoic Scrum Master?
If I understand Stoicism correctly, it is about living a life of virtue, which comprises wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation. (All of those can be further subdivided, see Stoic Ethics.) For whatever reason, I felt reminded of Scrum Values and thought: could it be that the first principles of “agile” haven’t been defined by the Agile Manifesto but by “Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE?”
So, I embarked on a fun exercise of asking our beloved LLM to create an essay that applies Stoicism to Scrum, notably the Stoic Scrum Master.
👉 Learn more: The Stoic Scrum Master — Making Your Scrum Work (30)
🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring
🎙 Lenny Rachitsky and Christina Wodtke: The ultimate guide to OKRs
Lenny Rachitsky interviews Stanford University professor and author Christina Wodtke on how OKRs can help your team achieve better results.
Source: 🎙 The ultimate guide to OKRs
Authors: Lenny Rachitsky and Christina Wodtke
Mike Cohn: How to Create a Story Map When Writing User Stories
Mike Cohn created a simple-to-understand primer for user story mapping.
Author: Mike Cohn
(via Parabol Focus): Story Points: The Complete Guide & FAQ
Parabol created a primer on planning poker and story points.
🎶 Encore
Paul Boag (via Smashing Magazine): A Pragmatist’s Guide To Lean User Research
Paul Boag points to some practical approaches to user research.
Author: Paul Boag
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Food for Agile Thought 384: The Decline of the Agile Brand, Product Managers Devs Don’t Hate, Product Core Competencies, Scrum a Natural Pattern? was first published on Age-of-Product.com.
Author: Rethink Imposter Syndrome, Upgrade Your Mindset | Founder techtello.com | Scaling products ￫ Scaling thinking (⊙_⊙) | Ex-(Swiggy, Flipkart)
1yThanks for sharing my article
Thought Provoker / COO - AI / Edge Computing
1yOh how the Lemon coincides with what Brett Maytom and me have to say about the state of, "Agile." I feel that when the Scrum Master can't create an environment of realistic expectations where the perspective of developers is heard and considered, we have a massive competence gap in Scrum coaching. While I agree that in part, it's a bigger systemic issue within the organization that the Scrum team is considered a playball of the stakeholders, this impediment should be made transparent and escalated to management early and relentlessly. If this isn't happening, then we really need to ask whether the SM is bearing their accountability. If it's happening, but nobody is listening, then as SM, I would pull other registers and "make it the problem of someone who can solve it." Unfortunately, we see too many organizations who hire Scrum Masters who won't escalate such impediments, and too many Scrum Masters who ignore the Elephant in the room. That turns Scrum and Agile into a mockery. Rather than an empirical approach to better ways of working, it's becoming the whip to beat developers. And that's a clown show, not Agile as it's meant to be. We need to say, "No!" to that. But our lemon is just the messenger. Let's not shoot them.