Food for Agile Thought #382: Avoiding Product Waste; Meaningful Product Metrics, Prompt Engineering Guide; Club Scrum?

Welcome to the 382nd edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 36,960 peers. My name is Stefan Wolpers.

This week, we explore the best approaches to avoid building stuff no one wants. Also, drawing ideas from prolific experts in the field of complexity like Dave Snowden, John Cutler provides an easy ‘entry point into a discussion about complexity [and] complex systems.’ Dealing with complexity eases when an organizational culture guarantees psychological safety. We share four ways of safely creating teams, two based on trust and two based on respect. Lastly, our weekly ChatGPT dose addresses the typical workload of a Scrum Master.

Then, we share insights into metrics of Duolingo’s long game of building a product user love and share voluntarily. Moreover, Teresa Torres dives into the results of the first Continuous Discovery Habits survey and shares outstanding results; for example, shifting from outputs to outcomes. (Pair that one with Cori Widen’s article on the pitfalls of continuous discovery research.) Also, Jiaona Zhang, teaching Stanford’s graduate-level product management course, discusses careers.

Finally, we speculate on why some reject a highly successful practice: the Double Diamond. Is it just a personal agenda? Additionally, we share a primer on best employing ChatGPT for user research, from competitor analysis to defining key metrics to reaching the target audience for insights. Speaking of which: DAIR.AI created a ‘new prompt engineering guide that contains all the latest papers, learning guides, lectures, references, and tools related to prompt engineering.’

PS: 🗞 Did you miss past issues? No worries, here we go: 380, 381.

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

Join 75-plus peers on April 5, 2023: The Product Community of Practice w/ Petra Wille — Hands-on Agile #50.

🏆 Tip of the Week

Michael Mace interviews Rich Mironov on the best approaches to avoid building stuff no one wants: "How to Prevent Product Waste."

🍋 The Lemon of the Week

We are lemon-free this week!

➿ Agile & Scrum

• Drawing ideas from prolific experts in the field of complexity like Dave Snowden, John Cutler provides an easy ‘entry point into a discussion about complexity [and] complex systems:’ "Fixing Messy Problems."

• ‘Scrum is not Agile’ — Andrew Michael Miller believes that the video’s creator is far too idealistic in their approach: "A Critique Of ‘You're Doing Agile Wrong.’"

• David Burkus shares four ways of building psychologically safe teams, two based on trust and two based on respect: "What Makes A Psychologically Safe Team?"
  
  

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

The Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills (PSFS) training by Berlin Product People is a guaranteed 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

• Duolingo Blog: Erin Gustafson shares insights into metrics of Duolingo’s long game of building a product user love and share voluntarily: "Meaningful metrics: How data sharpened the focus of product teams."
  
  

• Teresa Torres dives into the results of the first Continuous Discovery Habits survey and shares outstanding results; for example, shifting from outputs to outcomes: "Insights from the CDH Benchmark Survey: How Are Teams Adopting Discovery Habits?"
  
  👉 Pair with Cori Widen’s article, see below.

• First Round Capital: Jiaona Zhang ‘shares candid and thoughtful advice earned from every stage of her career journey, from an early career PM to the executive role she holds now.’ (She ought to know, teaching Stanford’s graduate-level product management course.) "Sweat the Details - Lessons for Mapping Out a Career in Product."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Medium: Malcolm Ryder speculates on why some reject a highly successful practice. Is it just a personal agenda? "Why People Keep Attacking the Double Diamond."

• Dovetail: Cori Widen reflects on continuous discovery’s current popularity, particularly with stakeholders, and points to the fallacy of believing it might be sufficient for all user research needs: "The pitfalls of continuous discovery research (and how to avoid them)."
  
  👉 Quote: “There is a misconception that continuous discovery research doesn’t require actual analysis methodology and that every user touch point offers actionable insights; this can lead to misleading results and poor decision-making.”

• Nick Babich wrote a primer on best employing ChatGPT for user research, from competitor analysis to defining key metrics to reaching the target audience for insights: "Using ChatGPT for User Research."
  
  

🎶 Encore

• DAIR.AI created a ‘new prompt engineering guide that contains all the latest papers, learning guides, lectures, references, and tools related to prompt engineering:’ "Prompt-Engineering-Guide: Guide and resources for prompt engineering."

📯 Club Scrum: What Are You Doing all Day, ChatGPT — as a Scrum Master?

A few years ago, I ran a survey to figure out what Scrum Masters serving a single Scrum team do all day. Now that we have a new kid, pardon: a new LLM, on the block, I reran the old questionnaire: Club Scrum: What Are You Doing all Day, ChatGPT — as a Scrum Master?

Based on the survey results from 2018, the normalized total amount of time spent on Scrum events, educating themselves, or coaching teammates and stakeholders, respectively, was approximately 12 hours per week, which leaves a lot of room for dealing with impediments.

👉 Learn more: Club Scrum: What Are You Doing all Day, ChatGPT — as a Scrum Master?

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 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)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 Apr 18-21 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; German)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 Apr 25-28 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 4 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile EXTRA: Joe Justice on Elon Musk (English)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 May 9-10 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; German)

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,