Food for Agile Thought #374: The Hidden Micromanager, Defining Product Outcomes, Product-Market Fit Engineering

Happy 2023 and welcome to the 374th edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 36,451 peers. My name is Stefan Wolpers.

This week, we share a short assessment of whether you fall into the category of the “hidden micromanager.” Speaking of which, we delve into nurturing a blame-free learning organization, from accepting the inevitability of failure, embracing the resulting learning opportunity, reflecting, and moving on. Moreover, we listen to Jason Knight and Douglas Squirrel diving deep into how tech teams can get closer to the business side, improve decision processes, and have effective conversations across the whole organization whiling pointing to five habits of high-performing teams, from using pre-mortems to a disagree-but-commit attitude to making learning a priority.

Then, we follow Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion, delving into the intricate details of getting outcomes right, from avoiding masquerading outputs as outcomes to not choosing outcomes outside your team’s control to not measuring action instead of value, and we reflect on the inherent risks of continuing to work with your prototypes beyond product-market fit, which is all too common. Additionally, we point out that failures are inevitable, and product managers learn in public. Consequently, it would help if you improved dealing with failure in public, too.

Finally, we provide a comprehensive guide on the OKR framework and its application to product management. Moreover, we reframe the investigative and often intrusive ‘why’ question so you “indirectly but effectively get the answers you need.” Amazingly, John Cutler created a live diagram of his modeling process. As an example, he aims to identify the drivers of a healthy community. Lastly, Jason Yip advocates using Blink Estimation, User Story Mapping, and swimlane sizing to improve project-level forecasting.

PS: 🗞 Did you miss past issues? No worries, here we go: 372, 373.

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🏆 Tip of the Week

Corporate Rebels: Joost Minnaar shares a short assessment of whether you fall into the category of the “hidden micromanager:” "Let’s Fire All The Micromanagers."

➿ Agile & Scrum

• MIT Sloan Management Review: Ben Laker shares his take on nurturing a blame-free learning organization, from accepting the inevitability of failure, embracing the resulting learning opportunity, reflecting, and moving on: "Embrace Mistakes to Build a Learning Culture."

• 🎙 Jason Knight and Douglas Squirrel dive deep into how tech teams can get closer to the business side, improve decision processes, and have effective conversations across the whole organization: "Helping Tech Teams Get Closer to ”The Business” with Effective Conversations."

• TechTello points to five habits of high-performing teams, from using pre-mortems to a disagree-but-commit attitude to making learning a priority: "5 Excellent Habits of High Performing Teams."
  
  

🎓 🖥 💯 🇺🇸 Professional Scrum Product Owner — January 23-26, 2023

Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this guaranteed official Scrum.org Professional Scrum Product Owner training class, leading to and including the industry-recognized PSPO I certification. (This live-virtual class will be offered in English.)

Enjoy the benefits of a live immersive class with like-minded agile peers in the morning hours from 9 am – 1 pm EST.

Learn more: 🖥 🇺🇸 Professional Scrum Product Owner — January 23-26, 2023.

“Great Depth of Knowledge & Experience: The depth is experience that Stefan Wolpers possesses was evident in his ability to answer questions of all levels during the 4 training sessions. I particularly appreciated his willingness to tease apart Scrum answers into application in real life with examples.” (Source.)

👉 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

• 📺 In this video, product coaches Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion delve into the intricate details of getting outcomes right, from avoiding masquerading outputs as outcomes to not choosing outcomes outside your team’s control to not measuring action instead of value: "Defining Product Outcomes: The 8 Most Common Mistakes You Should Avoid."
  
  

• Andre Schweighofer reflects on the inherent risks of continuing to work with your prototypes beyond product-market fit, which is all too common. For example, how often have I heard founders and investors claim: “We do not want to die in beauty; we fix tech debt after the next funding round.” Which, of course, rarely happens: "The Product-Market Fit Engineering Trap."

• Medium: Lisa Zane points out that failures are inevitable, and product managers learn in public. Consequently, it would help if you improved dealing with failure in public, too: "Responding Better After Failure. Mistakes will happen."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Amplitude: Clement Kao provides a comprehensive guide on the OKR framework and its application to product management. Moreover, he also points out traps to avoid at all costs: "OKR Product Management Guide for Outcome-Oriented Goals."

• Product Coalition: Tia Loehnert reframes the investigative and often intrusive ‘why’ question so you “indirectly but effectively get the answers you need:” "15 Ways To Ask Why Without Asking Why."

• John Cutler created a “live diagram” of his process. As an example, he aims to identify the drivers of a healthy community: "Making a Model (Step-by-Step)."
  
  

• Medium: Jason Yip advocates using Blink Estimation, User Story Mapping, and swimlane sizing to improve project-level forecasting: "My preferred approaches to estimation on Agile projects."

🎶 Encore

• The Guardian: Agile software development saves lives: "‘Our weapons are computers’: Ukrainian coders aim to gain battlefield edge."
  
  Quote: “These were not bureaucrats from the defence ministry. They were from the corporate sector who were mobilised to serve in the army,” she said. “They started to make Delta with their own minds and hands, because they had this culture of agile development. The creative process has a short circle. You develop it, you test it, you launch it.”

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇺🇸 Jan 23-26 👉 US Timezone — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Jan 24-27 — 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 1 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile 49: ChatGPT (English)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 Feb 7-10 — 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 28-Mar 3 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 11 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile EXTRA: Joe Justice on Elon Musk (English)

See all upcoming classes here.

📺 Youtube Channel

• Diana Larsen: The Agile Fluency Model®.

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Best,