Food for Agile Thought #399: Winnable (Strategy) Games, Rapid Experimentation, Selling Agile to the C-Suite

Welcome to the 399th edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 47,711 peers. My name is Stefan Wolpers.

This week, John Cutler suggests considering your way of working as an enticing, challenging, and winnable game, and we dig into how to get bosses on board with Agile with trust-building tactics, busting fears around big shake-ups. Also, we flip the ADHD narrative, revealing its potential strengths for teams. Moreover, Fred Hebert argues that complexity is inevitable in life and systems, and efforts to control it overly can backfire. Instead, the goal is to delay chaos by carefully steering complex systems.

Then, Aatir Abdul Rauf shares insights on what Product Managers can learn from Product Marketing Managers and vice versa, given Airbnb’s decision to eliminate the PM role and merge PM & PMM functions. Jason Cohen breaks down the essence of ‘leverage,’ achieving big impacts with little effort, while we explore the power of rapid experimentation in tackling uncertainties

Finally, we use the Sydney Opera House’s infamous miscalculation to explain why we are rubbish at estimating and delve into probabilistic forecasting in Agile, analyzing data from 25 ASOS teams to test this forecasting method’s accuracy. Additionally, we learn more about FAST agile, a practice that remarkably enhances the scaling of super-sized teams and self-organization within organizations. We also share a cheat sheet for understanding tech debt.

🏅 The most popular discussion on LinkedIn this week was: Introducing: The Minimum Viable Library — Metrics & Measuring edition!

PS: 🗞 Did you miss past issues? No worries, here we go: 398, 397.

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

🏆 Tip of the Week

John Cutler suggests considering your way of working as an enticing, challenging, and winnable game. This concept is at the core of the North Star Framework, encouraging autonomy and tying work to sustainable business outcomes. However, beware of setting up unwinnable games or not adding value to customers, employees, or the business: "Winnable and Unwinnable Games (Part 1)."

🍋 The Lemon of the Week

Medium: Where is the benefit of recommending ointment when someone needs surgery? "What if you renamed all the scrum events?"

➿ Agile & Scrum

• Leading Agile: Dennis Stevens digs into how to get bosses on board with Agile. Dive into the trust-building tactics and busting fears around big shake-ups. "Selling Agile to the C-Suite to Get Buy-In."

• InfoQ: Dietrich Moerman flips the ADHD narrative, revealing its potential strengths for teams. We need to ditch the stigma and foster psychological safety to build neuro-inclusive spaces, cut back on cognitive overload, respect focus time, and offer solid mentoring: "Embracing ADHD and Other Neurodivergencies in Software Development Teams."

• Fred Hebert argues that complexity is inevitable in life and systems, and efforts to control it overly can backfire. The goal, then, is to delay chaos by carefully steering complex systems: "Embrace Complexity; Tighten Your Feedback Loops."
  
  

🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class — October 4, 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 — October 4, 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

• Airbnb’s decision to eliminate the PM role and merge PM & PMM functions has sparked a lively discussion. Reflecting on nine years in a hybrid PM/PMM role, Aatir Abdul Rauf shares insights on what PMs can learn from PMMs and vice versa: "Why did Airbnb combine Product Management with Product Marketing?"
  
  

• In this article, Jason Cohen breaks down the essence of ‘leverage,’ achieving big impacts with little effort. Learn to utilize your unique strengths to create ‘head-scratching’ results and outperform the competition: "The three kinds of leverage that anchor effective strategies."

• Medium: Brant Cooper explores the power of rapid experimentation in tackling uncertainties, unearthing the potential of testing ideas quickly, challenging assumptions, and reducing failure risk for better decision-making and strategic planning: "Rapid Experimentation: The Fast Track to Overcoming Uncertainty."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Medium: Ever thought, ‘Why are we rubbish at estimating?’ Kyle Evans uses the Sydney Opera House’s infamous miscalculation to explain the problem: "Why We’re So Bad At Estimating. And What We Can Do About It."

• Medium: Nick Brown delves into probabilistic forecasting in Agile, analyzing data from 25 ASOS teams to test this forecasting method’s accuracy: "The Full Monte. Just how accurate are Monte Carlo [Simulations?]"
  
  

• DZone: Jade Rubick delves into FAST agile, a practice that remarkably enhances the scaling of super-sized teams and self-organization within organizations: "Can a Team Have 150 People in It? FAST Agile Says Yes."

🎶 Encore

• Carl Vellotti shares a cheat sheet for understanding tech debt. If you’re non-technical, this resource - outlining types, causes, mitigation strategies, and long-term impacts of tech debt - will help foster more constructive dialogues: "Technical Debt Cheat Sheet for Non-technical People."

• 😂Shipping Tomorrow: Four strategies product managers may apply to deflect stakeholder questions, cartoon edition. "What to do when you don’t have ‘em answers 🥳."

📯 Useless Agile Metrics

Ideally, a metric is a leading indicator for a pattern change, allowing your Scrum team to analyze the cause in time and take countermeasures. However, what if you picked the wrong metrics?

What if these useless agile metrics lead you in the wrong direction while providing you with the illusion that you know where your team is heading?

👉 Learn more: Useless Agile Metrics.

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 🇬🇧 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,