Food for Agile Thought #366: Taming Product Complexity, Agile Bureaucracy, Good Activation Rates, Innovation at Scale

Welcome to the 366th edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 36,188 peers. My name is Stefan Wolpers.

This week, we identify five practical ways of taming product complexity to avoid feature creep and pushing away users and share “examples of organizations that operate beyond the traditional set of agile practices and have been able to break down the bureaucratic hierarchy.” Also, we have a look at building high-trust and high-performing teams at Shopify in a remote working world, and suggest shifting “from leading with goals to leading with questions,” referring to Nobel laureate Richard Feynman.

Then, we point out that many companies may run experiments to test product ideas with users and customers; however, they fail to follow up with meaningful action. Following this example of failing innovation, we share lessons learned from a 100-plus-year-old company that is still a market leader, trying to innovate itself out of decline. Moreover, we appreciate a global benchmarking survey on activation rates with participants from Expedia, Grammarly, Canva, Duolingo, and others and examine the Lean UX Canvas in detail, pointing to shortcomings such as the need for a root cause analysis or mapping dependencies.

Finally, we share a primer on why “interviewing stakeholders provides helpful information about their context, [allowing] us to identify business goals.” And we close this edition of the newsletter with a video that explains what it takes to successfully use OKRs and points to common anti-patterns in their application, from tying them to compensation to excessive use.

PS: 🗞 Did you miss past issues? No worries, here we go: 365, 364.

👉 📈 Join 800-plus peers: The Anonymous Scrum Master and Agile Coach Salary Report 2023.

🏆 Tip of the Week

Following on Scott Belsky’s notion that users flock to simple products, Casey Winters sketches five practical ways to avoid feature creep and other forms of self-inflicted complexity, pushing away users: "Five Ways to Address Complexity In Your Product."

Quote: “There is no easy way out of the product lifecycle. Like scaling a culture, it requires a lot of intentionality to scale a product without losing the simplicity that drove so many people to it in the first place.”

➿ Agile & Scrum

• 📺 Jurriaan Kamer shares “examples of organizations that operate beyond the traditional set of agile practices and have been able to break down the bureaucratic hierarchy by adopting radical forms of consent, participation, and self-management:” "We're stuck in agile bureaucracy - but there is hope!."
  
  

• InfoQ: Jesse McGinnis shared lessons on building high-trust teams at Shopify in a remote working world: "Building High-Trust and High-Performing Teams at Shopify in a Remote World."

• Tiago Forte claims that “the future has become so uncertain that goals are now obsolete” and suggests shifting “from leading with goals to leading with questions,” referring to Nobel laureate Richard Feynman: "How to Thrive in a World of Uncertainty."

🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Hands-on Agile #47: How much Product Discovery Is Enough? W/ Itamar Gilad on November 3, 2022

How much product discovery is enough?

Figuring out what is worth building often feels valuable in and of itself. The problem is that becoming stuck in an endless discovery cycle neither solves your customers’ issues nor contributes to your organization’s sustainability.

Don’t worry; help is on the way in the form of Itamar Gilad’s Confidence Meter! During the 47th Hands-on Agile session, you will learn how to calculate your confidence level in a product idea with the Confidence Meter by adding evidence. The Confidence Meter tool will then return a number in the range of 0-10, answering a simple question: Will we deliver the expected impact?

RSVP now: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Hands-on Agile #47: Evidence-guided Development Using the Confidence Meter w/ Itamar Gilad on November 3, 2022.

👉 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

• Itamar Gilad shares his observation that many companies may run experiments to test product ideas with users and customers; however, they fail to follow up with meaningful action. Learn more from Itamar on how to avoid this failure: "The Build-Measure-LooksGood! Loop."
  
  

• Steve Blank shares lessons learned from a 100-plus-year-old company that is still a market leader, trying to innovate itself out of decline: "A Simple Map for Innovation at Scale."

• 📺 Crisp: Marcus Castenfors introduces his framework, sharing background information from product discovery first principles to a proven risk mapping technique: "An intro to Holistic Product Discovery."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• 📈 Lenny Rachitsky and Yuriy Timen ran a global benchmarking survey on activation rates with participants from Expedia, Grammarly, Canva, Duolingo, and others: "What is a good activation rate?"
  
  

• Medium: Debbie Levitt examines the Lean UX Canvas in detail, pointing to shortcomings such as the need for a root cause analysis or mapping dependencies: "Critical Thinking About The ‘Lean UX’ Canvas."

• Nielsen Norman Group: Sarah Gibbons shares a primer on why “interviewing stakeholders provides helpful information about their context, allows us to identify business goals they are concerned with, and increases their support:” "Stakeholder Interviews 101."

🎶 Encore

• 📺 Mind The Product: In this video, Jenny Herald explains what it takes to successfully use OKRs and points to common anti-patterns in their application, from tying them to compensation to excessive use: "The good, bad, and ugly of OKRs."

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Oct 31-Nov 3 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Nov 3 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile 47: Evidence-guided Development Using the Confidence Meter w/ Itamar Gilad (English)
• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Nov 15-18 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Dec 7 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile 48: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business w/ Joe Justice (English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Dec 12-13 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; English)
• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Dec 14-15 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 Dec 19-20 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; German)
• 🖥 🇺🇸 Jan 23-27 👉 US Timezone — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; English)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 Jan 24-28 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; English)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 Jan 31-Feb 3 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; German)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 Feb 3-10 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; English)
• 🖥 🇺🇸 Feb 13-16 👉 US Timezone — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; English)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 Feb 3-Mar 3 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)

See all upcoming classes here.

📺 Youtube Channel

• James Shore: FAST Scaling: An Innovative Way to Scale Agile.

Your Opinion Matters

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Best,