Food for Agile Thought #408: Developer Productivity, Double Diamond Fix, Defining Problems, Scrum a Failure by Design?

Welcome to the 408th edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 48,813 peers. My name is Stefan Wolpers.

This week, Kent Beck and Gergely Orosz dispute McKinsey’s measure of developer productivity, underscoring the essence of tailored metrics. Dave West at Agile 2023 notes a perceived halt in Agile’s evolution, highlighting issues from wavering executive support to misdirected investments. Maarten Dalmijn debates Scrum’s pitfalls, suggesting an organizational focus rather than dictating team dynamics. Meanwhile, Pim de Morree shares the Dutch National Police’s transformative journey from top-down to bottom-up methods, providing valuable takeaways for aspiring changemakers. Also, we ask why SAFe® is so successful, although many agile practitioners despise it.

Then, Jayendran Gopalsami exposes biases, like groupthink and popularity bias, that stealthily skew product trajectories. Scott Sehlhorst pinpoints a frequent product management error: addressing symptoms over root causes. Meanwhile, a riveting discourse between Chad McAllister and Atif Rafiq showcases a tripartite formula for expedited innovation. Rafiq, leveraging insights from industry giants, unveils “Decision Sprint,” bridging the chasm between strategy and tangible results.

Lastly, Ciera Jaspan and Collin Green explore the “technical debt” metaphor’s human-centric origins and its implications on software engineering. Lars Jerichau challenges the trend of collaborative ideation, spotlighting studies that laud the superior results of individual brainstorming over group efforts. Additionally, Andy Budd reshapes the revered “Double Diamond” design process, presenting a version more aligned with actual project executions, emphasizing optimal design leverage.

PS: 🗞 Did you miss past issues? No worries, here we go: 406, 407.

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🏆 Tip of the Week

Kent Beck and Gergely Orosz challenge McKinsey’s recent assertion about measuring developer productivity, highlighting the nuances of software engineering. They argue against one-size-fits-all metrics, emphasizing the importance of understanding and nurturing high-performing development teams: "Measuring developer productivity? A response to McKinsey."

🍋 Lemon of the Week

This week’s Lemon critiques Scrum, likening it to a detrimental force in software development. Drawing from personal experiences, it laments the overemphasis on ceremonies, impractical estimations, and management complexities. The problem is that practically nothing he mentions has anything to do with Scrum. What is missing is self-management, technical excellence, and including everyone in identifying what is worth building: "Scrum Is a Cancer"

➿ Agile & Scrum

• Maarten Dalmijn expresses concerns over Scrum’s perceived flaws. While Scrum intends to empower teams, it often feels disempowering. The article suggests Scrum’s team-level approach should shift to an organizational-level focus, emphasizing conditions for team success rather than prescribing team actions: "Scrum: Failure By Design?"

• Scrum.org: At Agile 2023, Dave West sensed a stagnation in Agile progress. Issues with Scrum adoption revolve around misalignment, superficial executive support, conflicting incentives, dwindling interest, and skewed investment focus: "Has Agile Stalled?"
  
  

• Corporate Rebels: Jeroen Hammer and Roel Wolfert, two trailblazers within the Dutch National Police, discussed the move from top-down bureaucracy to a bottom-up approach, enhancing engagement and innovation. Their ongoing transformation offers insights for other changemakers: "Bypassing Traditional Hierarchy: A Bold, Bottom-Up Movement in the Dutch Police Force."

🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 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

• Scott Sehlhorst highlights the common misstep of addressing immediate situations instead of the underlying problems in product management: "Defining the Problems."

• Mind The Product: Jayendran Gopalsami delves into hidden biases that also influence product development trajectories, from popularity bias to attribution bias to groupthink. "Unconscious biases - how do they impact the product roadmap?"

• 🎙 Chad McAllister’s and Atif Rafiq’s discussion centers on a three-part framework for swift problem-solving and innovation. Drawing from his vast experience in top companies, Rafiq introduces “Decision Sprint,” a new approach to bridging strategy and action: "Using Exploration, Alignment, and Decision-making to Innovate into the Unknown."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• IEEE Spectrum: Ciera Jaspan and Collin Green dive into the evolution of the “technical debt” metaphor, underscoring its human-centered roots and the often misunderstood consequences for software engineering. Learn more about demystifying technical debt: "Defining, Measuring, and Managing Technical Debt."

• Smashing Magazine: Andy Budd critiques the traditional “Double Diamond” design process, suggesting a version more reflective of real-world project delivery. His approach aims to pinpoint better where design has maximum impact, offering a more feasible solution: "Improving The Double Diamond Design Process."

• UX Collective: Despite the popularity of collaborative ideation tools, Lars Jerichau points to multiple studies that suggest individual ideation outperforms group brainstorming in quality and quantity. Research indicates that accumulating ideas from individuals yields better results than those from a group of the same number: "The tyranny of collaborative ideation."

🎶 Encore

There are no entries to this category this week.

📯 SAFe® — Despised, Yet Successful?

Many in the Agile community consider the Scaled Agile Framework designed by Dean Leffingwell and Drew Jemilo as unagile, violating the Agile Manifesto and the Scrum Guide. “True agilists” would never employ SAFe® to help transition corporations to agility. SAFe® is an abomination of all essential principles of “agility.” They despise it.

Nevertheless, SAFe® has proven not only to be resilient but thriving. SAFe® has a growing market share in the corporate world and is now the agile framework of choice for many large organizations.

How come? Learn more about nine reasons for this development.

👉 Learn more: SAFe® — Despised, Yet Successful?

PS: I have no affiliation with SAFe® whatsoever and consider it harmful. Yet there are lessons to learn.

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 September 5 — Meetup: Hands-on Agile #53: An Agile Coaches Guide to Storytelling w/ Bob Galen (English)
• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 September 26-29 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 October 4 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Training (PSFS; English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 October 10 — Meetup: Overcoming Common Product Backlog Management Traps w/ David Pereira
• 🖥 🇩🇪 October 30-31 — Live Virtual Class: Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; German)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 November 1-2 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; German)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 November 21-24 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 November 28 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Training (PSFS; English)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 December 11-12 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; German)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 December 13-14 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 December 18-19 — Live Virtual Class: Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; German)

See all upcoming classes here.

📺 Youtube Channel

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

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