Food for Agile Thought #470: A Short Overview of PM Tools, Product Strategy and Clarity, Bayer’s Bold Bet, Delivering Bad News
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!
Hello everyone!
Welcome to the 470th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,941 peers.
This week, John Cutler shares tips for adaptable PM tools, Pim de Morree spotlights Bayer’s shift to self-managing teams, and Sean Goedecke emphasizes leadership alignment for shipping projects. Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson explore true agility with Johanna Rothman, while Mike Fisher debunks the “brilliant jerk” myth, highlighting collaboration and psychological safety as team essentials.
Next, Aakash Gupta and Paweł Huryn discuss risk-focused product discovery and storytelling, Paul McAvinchey emphasizes the power of clear product visions, and Martin Eriksson highlights strategy clarity. Meanwhile, Petra Wille showcases Novo Nordisk’s use of the PMwheel framework to drive role clarity and team empowerment during digital transformation.
Lastly, Gustavo Razzetti shares strategies for fostering a fearless culture, Maik Seyfert explores balancing user needs with business goals, and Jeff Gothelf introduces updated Lean canvases for strategic alignment. Mark Levison emphasizes clarity through Example Mapping, and Teresa Torres curates a global list of 2025 product conferences to inspire and connect professionals.
🎓 January 27, 2025: The Advanced Product Backlog Management Course for Just $99!
👉 Please note:
Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought issue 469?
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🏆 The Tip of the Week
John Cutler: Quick Tool Tips
John Cutler shares practical tips for choosing and using “product management” tools effectively, urging teams to prioritize adaptability, involve diverse perspectives, test with low-fi solutions, and avoid rigid, oversimplified processes.
Source: Quick Tool Tips
Author: John Cutler
🍋 Lemon of the Week
Avi Siegel (via Entrepreneur’s Handbook): Don’t Worry About All That Tech Debt
Dismissing technical debt as harmless and glorifying recklessness over sustainability, the author misses the point of craftsmanship as a successful actor for agility. This is a prime example of short-term thinking packaged as innovative wisdom.
Author: Avi Siegel
➿ Agile & Leadership
Pim de Morree (via Corporate Rebels): Bayer’s Bold Bet: How a 160-Year-Old Giant is Liberating 100,000 People
Pim de Morree highlights Bayer’s groundbreaking transformation into a network of self-managing teams through Dynamic Shared Ownership, aiming to align customer value, employee empowerment, and business outcomes for a sustainable, innovative future.
Author: Pim de Morree
Sean Goedecke: How I ship projects at big tech companies
Sean Goedecke shares insights on successfully shipping projects in large tech companies, emphasizing prioritizing shipping, aligning with leadership expectations, maintaining trust, anticipating problems, and fostering a proactive, fearless mindset.
Author: Sean Goedecke
🎙 Murray Robinson, Shane Gibson, and Johanna Rothman: Agile Project Management with Johanna Rothman
Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson host Johanna Rothman on the No Nonsense Agile Podcast, exploring agile project management, fake corporate agility, continuous delivery, cross-functional teams, and focusing on outcomes over deliverables.
Authors: Murray Robinson, Shane Gibson and Johanna Rothman
Mike Fisher: The Brilliant Jerk vs. Team Performance
Mike Fisher explores the myth of the “brilliant jerk,” emphasizing how toxic high performers harm team cohesion and morale, advocating for collaboration, psychological safety, and prioritizing team success over individual brilliance.
Author: Mike Fisher
🖥 🇬🇧 Align, Discover, Deliver: The Product Backlog Management Cohort Class of March 6-April 3, 2025
Turn your Product Backlog into a strategic tool for empowered product teams to discover solutions, align stakeholders, and deliver measurable outcomes.
Are you ready to elevate your Product Management practice and drive meaningful outcomes for your team and stakeholders?
This immersive cohort class will guide you in turning your Product Backlog into a strategic asset that aligns your vision, stakeholders, and team with customer needs and business goals.
Engage in three live, hands-on sessions, pre- and post-class events, and two work exercises with fellow students to maximize your learning experience:
Learn more: 🖥 🇬🇧 Align, Discover, Deliver: The Product Backlog Management Cohort Class of March 6-April 3, 2025.
Customer Voice: “If you are looking to move beyond merely delivering features and want to start consistently delivering outcomes and valuable deliverables to your customers, this course is essential. Stefan provides the focus and tools necessary to embark on a journey toward excellent product management. With a curriculum that includes vision, strategy, roadmap, product discovery, continuous delivery, idea management, hypothesis management, and backlog management, this course promises less than it delivers — a truly transformative experience.” (Hector Feliciano.)
🎯 Product
🎙 Aakash Gupta and Pawel Huryn: How to Do Product Discovery Right with Pawel Huryn
Aakash Gupta hosts Paweł Huryn in a podcast exploring effective product discovery, adaptive frameworks, risk-centric product management, prioritization strategies, and the art of storytelling as a critical success factor.
Authors: Aakash Gupta and Pawel Huryn
Martin Eriksson: What’s Holding Your Strategy Back? Clarity.
Martin Eriksson emphasizes that clarity is the cornerstone of effective strategy, urging leaders to consistently define, communicate, and embed strategy to ensure alignment, understanding, and actionable impact across their organizations.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Author: Martin Eriksson
Paul McAvinchey (via Mind The Product): Deep dive: Crafting your product vision and mission
Paul McAvinchey explores crafting impactful product visions and missions, emphasizing their role in aligning teams, driving innovation, and guiding decision-making to transform product development into a meaningful, focused process.
Author: Paul McAvinchey
Petra Wille: The PMwheel in Action: How Novo Nordisk Is Promoting Ownership of Growth and Learning Among Product Managers
Petra Wille highlights Novo Nordisk’s adoption of the PMwheel framework, demonstrating how tailored tools can enhance role clarity, foster development conversations, and empower product teams during digital transformation.
Author: Petra Wille
📯 Why Leaders Believe the Product Operating Model Will Succeed Where Agile Initiatives Failed
Why might leaders turn to the Product Operating Model (POM) after a previous Agile transformation, for example, based on SAFe, failed?
This article uncovers the psychological, organizational, and strategic reasons behind this seeming contradiction, exploring what motivates leaders to believe that a new approach will succeed where others have not.
Learn more: Why Leaders Believe the Product Operating Model Will Succeed Where Agile Initiatives Failed.
📅 Hands-on Agile 2025 Is Here — Join 500-plus Peers: From Concept-Based to Context-Based Agility
I am thrilled to announce that Hands-on Agile 2025 is officially on the horizon and will be free to attend from February 4–6, 2025. This time, we will focus on how Agile needs to evolve from concept-based agility to context-based agility.
But before we discuss what that means, let’s take a step back and consider why Hands-on Agile 2025 is going to be a can’t-miss event for everyone in the agile community.
For those unfamiliar, Hands-on Agile isn’t just another conference. It’s an event built around the Barcamp model, meaning it’s a self-organized, community-driven gathering with one goal: Sharing knowledge and experiences.
From February 4 to 6, 2025, we will spend three energizing days engaging in sessions, practicing agile games, sharing war stories, and learning directly from each other. Hands-on Agile is all about creating a space for practitioners, coaches, leaders, and newcomers to connect in a truly hands-on way.
👉 Save Your Seat Now! 👈
Please note:
🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring
Gustavo Razzetti: How to Deliver Bad News Without Becoming the Scapegoat
Gustavo Razzetti provides actionable strategies to foster a fearless culture where bad news is delivered constructively and without blame, enabling organizations to address challenges proactively and transparently.
Author: Gustavo Razzetti
Maik Seyfert: User-Centricity vs. Company Constraints: Finding the Right Balance
Maik Seyfert explores balancing user-centricity with business constraints, offering strategies for aligning user needs and company goals through shared vision, flexible roadmaps, iterative development, and transparent communication.
Author: Maik Seyfert
📺 Jeff Gothelf: Video walkthrough: The Lean Strategy & Lean Product Canvases
Jeff Gothelf introduces two updated tools for product development: the Lean Strategy Canvas, which focuses on aligning teams around strategic goals and OKRs, and the Lean Product Canvas, which emphasizes risk reduction and shared understanding.
Author: Jeff Gothelf
Mark Levison: Example Mapping: Your Secret Weapon for Effective Acceptance Criteria
Mark Levison highlights the power of Example Mapping in crafting effective acceptance criteria. By fostering collaborative conversations around user stories, rules, examples, and questions, example mapping ultimately enhances clarity, reduces risks, and improves outcomes.
Author: Mark Levison
🎶 Encore
Teresa Torres: 2025 Product Conference List
Teresa Torres shares a comprehensive list of 2025 product conferences worldwide, which will provide opportunities for product professionals to connect, learn, and explore product management, innovation, and design trends.
Source: 2025 Product Conference List
Author: Teresa Torres
📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events 2024
Upcoming classes and events:
🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition
Read more: Food for Agile Thought 469: Disagree And Commit, Amazon’s Big Bet Leadership, Who Needs OKRs, PM Nightmares.
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Now available on the Age-of-Product YouTube channel:
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Currently focussed on building out an automated SaaS Metrics Information Product to help SaaS startups and scale ups.
2wThanks for the mention, it was my last No Nonsense podcast as co-host and it was awesome to have the Johanna Rothman as my last amazing guest.
Thanks for including that podcast. I had so much fun with them.
I help organizations and teams use #Scrum, #Kanban and #Agile effectively. Called: "The Yoda of Scrum". | I’ve helped 8000+ people build better teams. Certified Scrum Trainer
4wHonoured to join such an august group.