Food for Agile Thought #395: Micromanagement Is Good, Cracking Product Strategy, FAST Agile Beats Scrum

Welcome to the 395th edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 47,112 peers. My name is Stefan Wolpers.

This week, Jim Highsmith advocates that the agile community’s “don’t micromanage” tenet is entirely wrong; in other words: Micromanagement is good in some places. We then share a success story of replacing Scrum with FAST Agile, highlighting the differences between the two approaches, while claiming that a prerequisite for change is to make it simple and cheap. Also, we list reasons someone might not speak up when encountering issues, even in relatively psychologically safe environments.

Then, Peter Yang interviews Jackie Bavaro regarding practical tips on defining a product strategy and getting buy-in across your organization. Moreover, we learn about Notion’s ‘evolving internal processes, product reviews, planning cadences, and increasing shift to synchronous communication.’ Are you considering how to integrate generative AI into your current product best? Look no further: Aniket Deosthali details a proven approach to creating AI products. Also, we delve into how to ‘create a library of user insights to keep track of research findings.’

Finally, we learn how Agile works at Tesla; we list four team assessment categories, from checklists of key practices to quantitative assessments of desired outcomes. Moreover, according to David Heinemeier Hansson, running a flat organization requires substituting the traditional managerial approach with an asynchronous, self-managing paradigm. Lastly, Sketchplanations visualized Richard Feynman’s approach to understanding something deeply.

🏅 The most popular discussion on LinkedIn this week was: Agile Metrics — The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

PS: 🗞 Did you miss past issues? No worries, here we go: 394, 393.

PPS: 🎓 📅 Für die Scrum-Master-Klasse am 21. und 22. Juni 2023 gibt es ein Community-Ticket mit 50 % Nachlass. Bei Interesse an einer Teilnahme antwortet bitte auf diese Email.

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

📅 Join your peers on June 14: Hands-on Agile 51: Fast, NoWaste Agile Estimating w/ Ron Lichty (English).

🏆 Tip of the Week: Micromanagement Is Good

Jim Highsmith advocates that the agile community’s “don’t micromanage” tenet is entirely wrong: "Micromanaging the Right Way."

🍋 The Lemon of the Week: Percentage Complete Is Back

Medium: Stephen Fells elaborates on how to make the Daily Scrum more efficient, suggesting, for example, brief status updates including metrics like ‘percentage complete: US123 John. 50% done. Est. complete EOD today. NB:’ "Being Agile, Doing Scrum: Adding Accountability To Your Scrum Team In Three Steps."

➿ Agile & Scrum

• Agile Alliance: Per Beining shares a success story of replacing Scrum with FAST Agile, highlighting the differences between the two approaches: "Going FAST – When Scrum is slowing you down [M]."
  
  

• Medium: Jason Godesky claims that a prerequisite for change is to make it simple and cheap: "Embracing Change with System-Driven Design."

• John Cutler lists reasons someone might not speak up when encountering issues, even in relatively psychologically safe environments: "Why Aren't They Saying Anything?"

🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training — August 29-30, 2023

Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this official Scrum.org Advanced Scrum Master training class including the industry-recognized PSM II certification. The PSM II training class is designed as a live virtual class of two compact sessions from 9 am to 5:30 pm CEST and will be offered in English.

Learn more: 🖥 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — August 29-30, 2023.

Customer voices: “Outstanding PSM II experience: Having looked forward to attending this class, literally for years, it was everything I expected, hoped for and then some. I am so grateful that this was an online virtual class, as it added an additional dimension to the learning, and was incredibly insightful. The trainer did an outstanding job of taking us through the learning plan, facilitating discussions, guiding the outcome and believing in the structures. Whether the learning was tangible curriculum, or intangible observation, it was excellent – made even more solid by the open sharing from my classmates and willingness from everyone to participate.” (Link.)

👉 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

• Peter Yang interviews Jackie Bavaro regarding practical tips on defining a product strategy and getting buy-in across your organization: "How to Crack Your Product Strategy."
  
  

• Lenny Rachitsky shares an interview with Michael Manapat on Notion’s ‘evolving internal processes, product reviews, planning cadences, and increasing shift to synchronous communication:’ "How Notion builds product."

• Reforge: Aniket Deosthali details a proven approach to creating AI products: "How to Build AI Products People Want."

• Amplitude: Clement Kao shares a good primer on how to use Teresa Torres’ to create products customers want: "Opportunity Solution Tree: A Visual Tool for Product Discovery."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Medium: Jason Yip lists four team assessment categories, from checklists of key practices to quantitative assessments of desired outcomes: "Four categories of Agile team assessments."

• According to David Heinemeier Hansson, running a flat organization requires substituting the traditional managerial approach with an asynchronous, self-managing paradigm: "Manage process before people: “Get the processes right and the rest will follow.”"

• UX Collective: Eva Katharina Wolf delves into how to ‘create a library of user insights to keep track of research findings.’ "Creating a User Insights Knowledge Base to keep track of research findings."

🎶 Encore

• Sketchplanations visualized Richard Feynman’s approach to understanding something deeply: "The Feynman Learning Technique."
  
  

📯 How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business mit Joe Justice — Hands-on Agile EXTRA

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

In this Hands-on Agile meetup, Joe shared 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.

👉 Learn more: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business mit Joe Justice — Hands-on Agile EXTRA.

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 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)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 August 29-30 — Live Virtual Class: Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; English)
• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 September 5-6 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; German)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 October 4 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Training (PSFS; English)

See all upcoming classes here.

📺 Youtube Channel

• Joe Justice: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business — Hands-on Agile EXTRA.

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Best,