Food for Agile Thought #390: AI Replacing Developers? OKRs & User Story Mapping, Good Goals/Bad Goals, Agile Architecture

Welcome to the 390th edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 46,277 peers. My name is Stefan Wolpers.

This week, we ask a simple question: Is AI replacing Developers a likely future? In the meantime, we delve into the importance of (software) architecture in an agile context, suggest alleviating some of the additional cognitive load developers shouldering with DevOps, and deep-dive into lessons learned on overcoming long-standing behaviors and winning hearts and minds.

Then, we suggest that as a product leader, that you must negotiate the right aspects by going beyond debating solutions. Moreover, Itamar Gilad cautions against using generative AI to produce product management artifacts, pointing to serious tradeoffs, and Mike Cohn dissects a familiar template, looking at the “elements, advantages, and drawbacks of the three-part story template.”

Finally, we advocate using OKRs with Story Maps to support your release strategy, list positive attributes your goals should reflect, and cherish the ProductOps Manifesto. Lastly, we applaud Matt Schlicht for creating an epic intro to the latest AI trend; we might all become managers, herding bots.

PS: 🗞 Did you miss past issues? No worries, here we go: 388, 389.

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

PPPS: 📖 Get notified when the Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide will become available.

Join 200-plus peers on May 4, 2023: HoA EXTRA: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business with Joe Justice.

🏆 Tip of the Week

Hups: Henrik Kniberg discusses the emergence of generative AI and its potential implications for development teams: "Are Developers Needed in the Age of AI?"

🍋 The Lemon of the Week

Medium: Emil gives us an “exclusive glimpse into the bizarre world of team building, Scrum Master and Agile Coach style:” "When Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches Unleash Their Team Building Madness."

➿ Agile & Scrum

• InfoQ: Kurt Bittner and Pierre Pureur delve into the importance of (software) architecture in an agile context: "Agility and Architecture."

• InfoQ: Mykyta Protsenko suggests alleviating some of the additional cognitive load developers are shouldering with DevOps: "Dark Side of DevOps - the Price of Shifting Left and Ways to Make it Affordable."

• 📺 Leading Agile: Mike Cottmeyer deep-dives into lessons learned on overcoming long-standing behaviors and winning hearts and minds: "Building a Culture of Agility."

🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class — May 16, 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 an immersive class of two compact sessions with like-minded agile peers from 09:00 – 17:30 o’clock CEST.

👉 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 — May 16, 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

• Medium: Noa Ganot suggests that as a product leader, you must ensure that you negotiate the right aspects by going beyond debating solutions and delving deeper to reach a consensus: "Negotiate the Problem, Not the Solutions."
  
  

• Itamar Gilad cautions against using generative AI to produce product management artifacts, pointing to serious tradeoffs: "On GenML, Artifacts, and Product Management."

• Mike Cohn dissects a familiar template, looking at the “elements, advantages, and drawbacks of the three-part story template:” "What Is a User Story Template and Why Does It Work So Well?"

• John Cutler shares a fantastic list of positive attributes your goals should reflect. "Good Goals/Bad Goals."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Jeff Gothelf advocates using OKRs with Story Maps to support your release strategy: "OKRs and User Story Mapping."
  
  

• Michael Goitein goes full in on OKRs, combining Christina Wodtke’s work with a cadence to help your teams achieve their goals: "The OKR Stack – Crushing Your Goals With The Four Square."

• Antonia Landi and colleagues created a manifesto for ProductOps: "The Product Operations Manifesto."

🎶 Encore

• Matt Schlicht created an epic intro to the latest AI trend; we might all become managers, herding bots: "The Complete Beginners Guide To Autonomous Agents."
  
  
  
  Quote: “Autonomous agents are programs, powered by AI, that when given an objective are able to create tasks for themselves, complete tasks, create new tasks, reprioritize their task list, complete the new top task, and loop until their objective is reached.”

📯 Self-Management

Is self-management an essential building block on an organization’s path to business agility or a nice-to-have cultural twist to, for example, keep teams happy and attract new talent?

While many people, particularly at the management level, are skeptical about the concept, I am convinced that organizations need to descale and regroup around aligned, autonomous, self-managing teams in a complex environment. Ultimately, only the people closest to the customers’ problems can solve those within the given constraints while contributing to an organization’s sustainability.

👉 Learn more: Self-Management: The Top Ten Business Reasons to Trust Your Teams.

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 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)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 16 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class (PSFS; English)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 May 23-24 — Live Virtual Class: Advanced Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO II; German)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 30-31 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; English)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 June 13-16 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 June 14 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile 51: Fast, NoWaste Agile Estimating w/ Ron Lichty (English)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 June 21-22 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; German)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 June 27-30 — Live Virtual Class: Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; German)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 July 4-7 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; English)

See all upcoming classes here.

📺 Youtube Channel

• Petra Wille: The Product Community of Practice — Hands-on Agile 50.

Your Opinion Matters

Would you like to suggest a post for next week's edition or provide general feedback? You can reply to this email, or contact stefan@age-of-product.com.

If you like the newsletter, please forward it to a friend or colleague—it would mean a lot to me! 🙏

If you want to receive even more news, just follow @AgeOfProduct or @StefanW on Twitter for your daily dose.

Last, but not least: If you are a first time reader of this newsletter, click here to subscribe and join 46,277 peers.

Best,