Food for Agile Thought #367: The Power of Working Together, Product Leadership, No Learning w/o Closing Loops

Welcome to the 367th edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 36,223 peers. My name is Stefan Wolpers.

This week, we enjoy an interview with Alan Mulally, former President and CEO of the Ford Motor Company, on the “principles of how a team can work together toward a larger goal, creating a culture of love by design.” Also, we point at a critical element of the seemingly dull Deming cycle: incomplete execution loops result in zero learning. Moreover, we explore our need for certainty and how this influences decisions in complex systems, reflect on what it takes to create successful (engineering) teams, and close with a simple thought: When is it time to stop using Scrum?

Then, we describe a Product Owner’s startup journey from an enthusiastic start in a new position to figuring out that he was oversold to fixing the whole thing. Also, we point to common backlog issues preventing you from reaping the benefits of the artifact and reflect on product leadership from leadership styles—are you a fixer or an artist?—to necessary traits.

Finally, we revisit Melvin Conway’s epochal discovery, delve into a list of metrics by product type that can inspire you to design your dashboards for discovery, and appreciate the first list of product conferences in 2023.

PS: 🗞 Did you miss past issues? No worries, here we go: 365, 366.

👉 📈 Join 825-plus peers—just 175 to go: The Anonymous Scrum Master and Agile Coach Salary Report 2023.

🏆 Tip of the Week

🎙 📺 Farnam Street: Shane Parrish interviews Alan Mulally, former President and CEO of the Ford Motor Company, on the “principles of how a team can work together toward a larger goal, creating a culture of love by design:” "The Power Of Working Together."

Quote: “Who you are as a person is going to have more to do with your success in whatever you’re choosing to do than anything else. That’s the most important thing about the leadership team is the be and the do. Who you are and what you do.”

➿ Agile & Scrum

• Commonplace: Cedric Chin points at a critical element of the seemingly dull Deming cycle: incomplete execution loops result in zero learning: "You Aren't Learning If You Don't Close the Loops."

• Cutter Consortium: In this article, Dave Martin, Tony Ponton, and Kim Ballestrin explore our need for certainty and how this influences decisions in complex systems: "Decision Making in the Time of Complexity."
  
  

• Medium: Guy Grinapell reflects on what it takes to create successful (engineering) teams: "Understanding Antifragility and Black Swans, and How They Impact to Your R&D Organization."

🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Hands-on Agile #48: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business with Joe Justice on December 7, 2022

Joe Justice worked for Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk.

In this Hands-on Agile meetup, Joe will share DX, or Digital Transformation, the agile operating system for TeslaSpeed—a term coined by the EU Commission to talk about how fast Tesla moves and how fast they need to move now.

The 12-step DX process brings companies from where they are now toward their manifest destiny.

RSVP now: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Hands-on Agile #48, December 7, 2022: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business with Joe Justice.

🎯 Product

• Medium: David Theil describes his startup journey from an enthusiastic start in a new position to figuring out that he was oversold to fixing the whole thing and how he did so: "How we made the turnaround in Product Management."

• Roman Pichler points to common backlog issues preventing you from reaping the benefits of the artifact: "10 Product Roadmapping Mistakes to Avoid."

• Marc Abraham shares his take on product leadership, from leadership styles—are you a fixer or an artist?—to necessary traits: "What does it mean to be a product leader?!"
  
  

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Martin Fowler revisits Melvin Conway’s epochal discovery about systems design: "Conway’s Law."
  
  Quote: “Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure.” [Source.]

• Department of Product: Richard Holmes delves into a list of metrics by product type that can inspire you to design your dashboards for discovery: "Metrics that Matter to Product Managers."
  
  

🎶 Encore

• 📅 Teresa Torres started putting together the list of 2023 product conferences: "2023 Product Conference List."

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 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,