Food for Agile Thought #393: The Double Diamond Problem, Why Agile Coaches Fail, Waterfall's Comeback?
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: The Double Diamond Problem — Food for Agile Thought #393
Welcome to the 393rd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 46,731 peers. This week, Jason Godesky takes a deep dive into the well-established design process, pointing to the Double Diamond problem. Also, we reflect on the hype the agile coaching industry is experiencing, causing the market entry of less qualified players, and we listen to Dave Farley interviewing Kent Beck on a classic topic of the agile community: Is Waterfall experiencing a comeback? Moreover, we offer a primer to creating ChatGPT prompts for Scrum practitioners to get you started running.
Then, John Cutler states that the (product) world does not need yet another prioritization framework. Instead, he suggests prioritizing a focus area. We share insights and examples on dealing with PMF’s evolving, fluctuating, and changing nature, and Lenny Rachitsky interviews Ayo Omojola on the aspects of creating outstanding products. Also, we point to the importance of inspecting and adapting OKRs regularly and provide a guide on how to do this.
Finally, we appreciate Mark Graban interviewing Joshua Kerievsky, discussing how ‘agility’ doesn’t strictly mean ‘Agile’ in software, and Gergely Orosz shares an “interview with the four researchers behind a new developer productivity framework: The three dimensions of DevEx.” Lastly, we close this week’s edition with a simple question: Should we be polite to chatbots?
🏅 The most popular discussion on LinkedIn this week was: Agile Failure Patterns in Organizations.
Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue 392?
🗞 Shall I notify you about articles like this one? Awesome! You can sign up here for the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter and join 46,000-plus subscribers.
🎓 Join Stefan in one of his upcoming Professional Scrum training classes!
📖 Get notified when the Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide book is available!
🏆 The Tip of the Week
Jason Godesky (via Medium): The Problem with the Double Diamond
Jason Godesky takes a deep dive into the well-established design process, noting that “double diamond is a great reflection of the way we often think of innovation happening, but it’s not the way that it actually happens.”
Author: Jason Godesky
🍋 The Lemon of the Week
Mark Jivko: Scrum fails for many reasons, but mostly because it’s a religious cult.
This is complete nonsense: Scrum is a practical framework designed to enhance productivity in complex projects. It’s not a religion or cult because it doesn’t demand blind faith or adherence to a set of unquestionable beliefs. Instead, Scrum is not prescriptive but encourages adaptation, learning, and improvement based on empirical evidence and tangible outcomes. Furthermore, its principles and practices are grounded in clear logic and can be adapted to constraints.
Author: Mark Jivko
➿ Agile & Scrum
Anton Zotin: Why Agile Coaches & Agile Coaching Fail
Anton Zotin reflects on the hype the industry is experiencing, causing the market entry of less qualified players, resulting in a “decline in the overall quality of the profession.”
Author: Anton Zotin
📺 Kent Beck and Dave Farley (via YouTube): Kent Beck On AGILE vs WATERFALL
Dave Farley interviews Kent Beck on a classic topic of the agile community: Is Waterfall per se evil? Moreover, is it probably experiencing a comeback?
Authors: Kent Beck and Dave Farley
🎙 Mark Graban and Joshua Kerievsky: Interview with Joshua Kerievsky on the Joy of Agility — It’s Not Just for Software Companies
Mark Graban interviews Joshua Kerievsky, discussing how ‘agility’ doesn’t strictly mean ‘Agile’ in software.
Source: Interview with Joshua Kerievsky on the Joy of Agility — It’s Not Just for Software Companies
Authors: Mark Graban and Joshua Kerievsky
🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — May 30–31, 2023
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 an live-virtual immersive class with like-minded agile peers from 09:00–17:30 o’clock CEST.
Learn more: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — May 30–31, 2023.
👉 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
John Cutler: Effort vs. Value Curves
John Cutler states that the (product) world does not need yet another prioritization framework. Instead, he suggests prioritizing a focus area.
Source: Effort vs. Value Curves
Author: John Cutler
andrea saez (via uxdesign.cc): What to do when you don’t have strong product-market fit
Andrea Saez shares insights and examples on dealing with PMF’s evolving, fluctuating, and changing nature.
Author: andrea saez
Recommended by LinkedIn
🎙 Lenny Rachitsky: Frameworks for product differentiation, team building, and thinking from first principles
Lenny Rachitsky interviews Ayo Omojola on the aspects of creating outstanding products.
Author: Lenny Rachitsky
📯 60 ChatGPT Prompts Plus Prompt Engineering Guide for Scrum Practitioners
ChatGPT can be an excellent tool for those who know how to create prompts. The simplest form of prompting ChatGPT is to feed it the task and ask for results. However, this approach is unlikely to trigger the best response from the model.
Instead, invest more time in prompt engineering, and provide ChatGPT with a better context of the situation, desired outcomes, data, constraints, etc. The following article offers a primer to creating ChatGPT prompts for Scrum practitioners to get you started running. You will learn:
🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring
Gergely Orosz: DevEx: A new way to measure developer productivity — from the creators of DORA and SPACE
Gergely Orosz shares an “interview with the four researchers [Abi Noda, Margaret-Anne Storey, Nicole Forsgren, and Michaela Greiler] behind a new developer productivity framework: The three dimensions of DevEx.”
Author: Gergely Orosz
(via Substack): My 20 Year Career is Technical Debt or Deprecated
Matt Watson observes that his career mainly comprises deprecated technology and that everything you build becomes technical debt.
Peter Kappus: A guide to OKR check-ins
Peter Kappus points to the importance of inspecting and adapting OKRs regularly, providing a guide on how to do this.
Source: A guide to OKR check-ins
Author: Peter Kappus
🎶 Encore
Cennydd Bowles (via ethical.net): Should we be polite to chatbots?
Cennydd Bowles reflects on the pros and cons of using etiquette when talking to ChatGPT & Co. After all; chatbots are not sentient, are they?
Author: Cennydd Bowles
Ethan Mollick: Catastrophe / Eucatastrophe: We have more agency over the future of AI than we think
Ethan Mollick reflects on the future of artificial intelligence, pointing out that “focus on apocalyptic events also robs most of us of agency.”
Author: Ethan Mollick
📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events 2023
Upcoming classes and events:
🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition
📺 Join 5,000-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 393: The Double Diamond Problem, Why Agile Coaches Fail, Effort vs. Value Curves, Waterfall’s Comeback? was first published on Age-of-Product.com.