Food for Agile Thought #379: Patton’s Product Vision, Henrik’s Spotify Model, Design Thinking’s Failure, More Scrum Bashing

Welcome to the 379th edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 36,703 peers. My name is Stefan Wolpers.

This week, we follow Jeff Patton when he revisits his beliefs on the product vision. Also, Henrik Kniberg reflects on the ‘Spotify Model,’ if there is such a model, to begin with, how it started, what its principles are, and whether copying it is a good idea, and Reforge engages in more Scrum bashing with little knowledge of how Scrum works in practice when not run by dogmatic lunatics. Moreover, we sketch how to help your stakeholders build trust in your delivery capabilities and point to twelve success principles of employing a Definition of Done to ensure that.

Then, we learn why Rebecca Ackermann fears that, instead of democratizing access to design, Design Thinking accomplished the opposite, and we reject the idea that ‘90% of product managers are incompetent or lazy or quietly quitting’ because stakeholders consider them unresponsive to their product requests. Our weekly dose of AI is provided by Lenny Rachitsky and Marily Nika, who delve into the importance of artificial intelligence concerning the future of product management.

Finally, we enjoy Tanmay Vora’s illustration of ‘six components of creating a culture of change acceptance,’ from ownership to relevance, and listen to Jocko Willink diving into decision-making and why people closest to problems need a voice in how to solve them. Lastly, Dan Shipper details how he used GPT-3 and the content from a newsletter archive to create a niche chatbot.

PS: 🗞 Did you miss past issues? No worries, here we go: 378, 377.

PPS: 🎓 📅 See all upcoming events and classes here.

Join 50-plus peers on April 5, 2023: The Product Community of Practice w/ Petra Wille — Hands-on Agile #50.

🏆 Tip of the Week

Jeff Patton revisits his beliefs on product vision — a ‘story we tell about how people use our products in the future’ — and what it isn’t, for example, a plan, a growth target, or a business goal: "Product Vision is Science Fiction – Help your organization focus on successful outcomes."

➿ Agile & Scrum

• 📺 Crisp: In this video, Henrik Kniberg reflects on the ‘Spotify Model,’ if there is such a model, to begin with, how it started, what its principles are, and whether copying it is a good idea: "Henrik Kniberg’s Thoughts On The Spotify Model."
  
  

• Reforge engages in more Scrum bashing with little knowledge of how Scrum works in practice when not run by dogmatic lunatics: "What is a Scrum Master? Why the Role is no Longer Relevant."

• Building on an earlier post from John Cutler, Johanna Rothman sketches how to help your stakeholders build trust in your delivery capabilities: "How to Create Partnerships Instead of Using Stakeholders."

🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class — March 23, 2023

The Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills (PSFS) training by Berlin Product People is a one-day official Scrum.org class for advanced Scrum practitioners and agile coaches, including the industry-acknowledged PSFS certification. This PSFS training class is in English.

Enjoy the benefits of a live-virtual immersive class with like-minded agile peers from 09:00 – 17:30 o’clock CET.

👉 New in 2023: Refresher Classes: Attend a free refresher class as a former student upon arrangement and availability.

Learn More: 🖥 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class — March 23, 2023.

👉 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

• MIT Technology Review: Rebecca Ackermann fears that, instead of democratizing access to design, Design Thinking accomplished the opposite: "Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong?"
  
  

• Rich Mironov rejects the idea that ‘90% of product managers are incompetent or lazy or quietly quitting’ because stakeholders consider them unresponsive to their product requests: "Why Product Request SLAs Fail."

• 🎙 Lenny Rachitsky and Marily Nika delve into the importance of artificial intelligence concerning the future of product management: "AI and product management."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Tanmay Vora illustrated ‘six components of creating a culture of change acceptance based on a recent HBR article,’ from ownership to relevance: "How to Create a Culture of Change Acceptance."
  
  

• Sebastian Bensusan encourages abandoning the path of Scientific Management, which seeks to limit variances for better predictability, in favor of allowing more variance when developing new software products: "High Variance Management."

• George Georgovassilis relates the total cost of ownership to the cost of an improvement task, thus quantifying technical debt: "Technical Debt Ratio."

🎶 Encore

• 🎙 Jocko Willink delves into decision-making and why people closest to problems need a voice in how to solve them: "Jocko Underground: Calandra’s Barometer. Good Questions VS Bad Ones."

• Dan Shipper details how he used GPT-3 and the content from Lenny’s newsletter archive to clone Lenny as a chatbot: "I built a Lenny chatbot using GPT-3. Here’s how to build your own."

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Feb 28-Mar 3 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 Mar 14-15 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; German)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 Mar 20-21 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Agile Leadership Essentials Class (PAL I; German)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 Mar 23 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class (PSFS; English)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 Mar 28-29 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Apr 5 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile 50: The Product Community of Practice w/ Petra Wille (English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 11 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile EXTRA: Joe Justice on Elon Musk (English)

See all upcoming classes here.

📺 Youtube Channel

• Itamar Gilad: How much Product Discovery Is enough? The Confidence Meter — HoA #47.

Your Opinion Matters

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Best,