Food for Agile Thought #344: Product Waste, Little’s Law & Forecasts, Stripe’s Product-Led Growth, Sprint Review Anti-Patterns

Welcome to the 344th edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 35,342 peers. My name is Stefan Wolpers.

This week, we delve into the patterns of product waste resulting from an ‘organizational and conceptual gap’ between product and engineering teams on the one side and sales and marketing teams on the other side. Also, we outline how to support your teams emotionally in challenging times, and we visualize the mental model of developers as systems thinkers, from inner and outer loops to flow states to context switching. Moreover, we reflect on those who ‘dodge gatekeepers and dance around policies, doing whatever it takes to get the job done.’

Then, we provide insight into Stripe’s product strategy, resulting in a ‘microcosm of product-led, developer-centric growth.’ Moreover, we guide the reader from JTBD to user-centered design to the CCVC framework, and we listen to Chad McAllister interviewing Mike Mace on how to get customer insights quickly to counter demands from your resident HiPPO or a pushy sales team.

Also, we show how the application of Little’s Law can support your team’s forecast quality, and, finally, we address the widespread belief that Kanban is nothing more than some columns on a board and a handful of cards to push around, resulting in highly complex boards of little value.

PS: 🗞 Did you miss past issues? No worries, here we go: 343, 342.

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📅 Join your peers on July 14, 2022: Outcome-Based Product Planning with Jeff Gothelf.

🏆 Tip of the Week

Rich Mironov delves into the patterns of product waste resulting from an ‘organizational and conceptual gap’ between product and engineering teams on the one side and sales and marketing teams on the other side: "Product Waste and The ROI of Discovery."

➿ Agile & Scrum

• First Round Capital: In this interview, author Liz Fosslien outlines how to support your teams emotionally in challenging times: "A Manager’s Guide to Helping Teams Face Down Uncertainty, Burnout and Perfectionism."
  
  

• Sourcegraph: Using pictures and diagrams, Beyang Liu visualizes the mental model of developers as systems thinkers, from inner and outer loops to flow states to context switching: "A dev's thoughts on developer productivity."

• Zain Rizvi reflects on those who ‘dodge gatekeepers and dance around policies, doing whatever it takes to get the job done:’ "Dangerous Professionals: Hacking the Bureaucracy to Get Stuff Done."

🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Master Training w/ PSM I Certificate — Live Virtual Class: June 20-23, 2022

Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this official Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master training class, leading to and including the industry-recognized PSM I certification. The training will be offered in English.

👉 New in 2022: Free refresher classes by appointment.

Enjoy the benefits of an immersive class of four sessions with like-minded agile peers in the morning hours from 09:00 – 13:00 o’clock CEST.

Learn more: 🖥 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Master Training w/ PSM I Certificate — Live Virtual Class: June 20-23, 2022.

👉 From time to time, we can offer last-minute seats for Professional Scrum 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 apply here.

🎯 Product

• Will Larson provides insight into Stripe’s product strategy, resulting in a ‘microcosm of product-led, developer-centric growth:’ "Stripe's model of product-led, developer-centric growth."

• Medium: Wolfram Nagel guides the reader from JTBD to user-centered design to the CCVC framework: "Customer-Centric Value Creation."
  
  

• 🎙 In this podcast, Chad McAllister interviews Mike Mace on how to get customer insights quickly to counter demands from your resident HiPPO or a pushy sales team. "Fast user insights for product managers and innovators - with Mike Mace."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Johanna Rothman shows how the application of Little’s Law can support your team’s forecast quality: "Little's Law for Any Kind of Product Development: How to Learn How Long Your Work Will Take."

• Kanbanize Blog: Robert S. Falkowitz addresses the widespread belief that Kanban is nothing more than some columns on a board and a handful of cards to push around, resulting in highly complex boards of little value: "Using 5S to Keep your Kanban Board Organized in Practice."

✂️ Cutting Room Floor

There are no posts in this category.

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 30 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile #42: The Skinny on Lean Roadmapping and OKRs w/ Janna Bastow (English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 31-Jun 1 — Live Virtual Class: Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; English)
• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Jun 7-10 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; German)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 Jun 20-23 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; English)
• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Jun 28 - Jul 1 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 July 14 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile #43: Outcome-Based Product Planning w/ Jeff Gothelf (English)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 Aug 29-30 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; German)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 Sep 6-9 — Live Virtual Class: Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; English)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 Sep 12-13 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; English)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 Sep 26-27 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Agile Leadership Essentials Training (PAL-E; German)

See all upcoming classes here.

📺 Youtube Channel

• David Burkus: Hands-on Agile #40: The Best Team Ever.

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Best,