Food for Agile Thought #410: Best Product Teams, Communication in Low Trust, Killing Features

Welcome to the 410th edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 49,013 peers. My name is Stefan Wolpers.

This week, Shane Parrish discusses with Shreyas Doshi the nuances of team-building and product development; Charity Majors touches upon communication dynamics in strained relationships, emphasizing the role of trust; Jason Cohen advocates for redefining the narrative around business setbacks, championing terms like “experiment” over “fail,” and Ryan Holiday dissects the art of leadership, reminding us that leadership roles manifest in diverse ways throughout life. Also, we shed a light on unspoken reasons to resist Agile transformations.

Then, Andrew Quan delves into the self-doubt that plagues many Product Leaders, shedding light on their challenges and offering guidance. Assaph Mehr sets an intriguing take on the potential value of altering favorite product features, elucidating its long-term benefits for the product and business. Meanwhile, Roman Pichler examines the intricate process of assembling product teams in organizations unfamiliar with the digital product’s true essence.

Lastly, Jason Yip debunks common productivity myths, urging a deeper understanding of effectiveness. Jeff Gothelf emphasizes the value of consistent customer interactions to gain insights without hefty investments. Stephen Puiszis highlights the intricacies of evaluating product roadmaps, providing tools for those outside product management. Lastly, Łukasz Korecki offers a candid reflection on the challenges of implementing OKRs within software engineering teams.

🏅 The most popular discussion on LinkedIn last week was: Scrum is a remarkably egalitarian affair! 💯 🎯

PS: 🗞 Did you miss past issues? No worries, here we go: 408, 409.

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🏆 Tip of the Week

🎙 Farnam Street: Shane Parrish interviews Shreyas Doshi, a seasoned tech expert from Stripe, Twitter, Google, and Yahoo, and discusses team-building, product development, and conflict resolution: "Better Teams, Better Products."

🍋 Lemon of the Week

PMO Global Institute: This week’s lemon claims that Spotify succeeded by implementing an “Agile PMO,” thus enabling cross-functional teams to work autonomously yet align with broader objectives: "Agile PMO: Transforming Project Management."

➿ Agile & Scrum

• Charity Majors highlights the challenges of communicating in low-trust relationships and emphasizes the importance of small, positive interactions to rebuild trust, recommending, for example, overcommunication: "How to Communicate When Trust Is Low (Without Digging Yourself Into A Deeper Hole)."

• Jason Cohen argues that the term “fail” is overly negative and doesn’t accurately describe the iterative process of exploration in business. Instead of “fail,” phrases like “experiment” or “test” better encapsulate the journey: "Stop saying ‘fail’."

• Ryan Holiday emphasizes that leadership isn’t innate but an art to be studied, suggesting that everyone inherently leads in various life roles. Learn more about the essence and development of leadership skills: "24 Leadership Principles From The Greatest Business, Military, Political and Sports Leaders."

🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 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

• Medium: Andrew Quan highlights the self-doubt many Product Leaders face due to on-the-job learning and high expectations. They often feel torn in multiple directions, hindering progress. Quan shares personal experiences and offers navigation tips: "The Daily Dichotomies of Product Leadership."

• Mind The Product: Assaph Mehr highlights the counterintuitive value of occasionally upsetting users by modifying beloved product features, emphasizing its potential to enhance overall product health and business: "When was the last time you pissed off your users off?"

• Roman Pichler underscores the complexities of forming product teams in organizations that may not fully grasp the essence of a digital product: "Building High-Performing Product Teams."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Medium: Jason Yip highlights the misconceptions about productivity, such as mistaking responsiveness for efficiency and equating busyness with genuine output. Learn more about the pitfalls of misguided productivity beliefs: "5 things that are typically confused for productivity."

• Jeff Gothelf stresses that even with confidence, entrepreneurs can make mistakes in product development or target audience selection. Emphasizing regular customer interactions provides insights with minimal investment and promotes patience: "Case Study: How 3 startups built their customer discovery practice."

• Better Programming: Łukasz Korecki reflects on their experiences with OKRs in software engineering teams over the years, noting that while the concept sounds appealing, its application often results in team issues: "OKRs? More like, R U OK?"

📯 Resistance to Agile Transformations

Stakeholders often revert to resistance to agile transformations due to fears about job security, perceived loss of control, comfort with established practices, and misconceptions about Agile.

However, we can help: Agile practitioners can ease the change process by employing techniques such as empathetic listening, co-creating the change process, introducing incremental changes, offering targeted education, and showcasing internal success stories. Addressing resistance with understanding and respect is pivotal to a successful agile transformation.

👉 Learn more: Resistance to Agile Transformations: Reasons and How To Overcome Them.

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 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 8 — Meetup:Designing Agile Ecosystems with Org Topologies™ w/ Alexey Krivitsky and Roland Flemm (Free; English)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 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; English)

See all upcoming classes here.

📺 Youtube Channel

• Jim Highsmith: Wild West to Agile — An Interview with the Co-Creator of the Agile Manifesto.

Your Opinion Matters

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Best,