Food for Agile Thought #416: Feature Team Fallacy, Measuring Product Discovery, Forget the Spotify “Model”

Welcome to the 416th edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 49,471 peers. My name is Stefan Wolpers.

This week, we dive into compelling critiques and analyses: Bryan Finster assesses the LeSS approach to team structures, while Mark Levison sheds light on misconceptions about the “Spotify Model.” Johanna Rothman highlights the pitfalls of dehumanizing metaphors in software development. Additionally, a collaborative piece delves deep into the implications and nuances of the Agile Mindset in decision-making and its role in organizational behavior. Moreover, we address how to Say No without burning bridges.

Then, Jeff Gothelf discusses the actual indicators of product discovery’s effectiveness, cautioning against vanity metrics. Charles Lambdin parallels Gandalf’s adventures and Agile’s inherent adaptability, questioning traditional roadmaps. Dan Collins underscores the pivotal role of churn prevention in SaaS, emphasizing customer-centric strategies. Moreover, Laura Morgan provides a personal account, highlighting three transformative moments in her professional journey.

Finally, Paulo Caroli introduces a Press Release template inspired by Amazon’s customer-centric approach. Also, Jim Morris tackles the challenges of sharing group dynamics techniques to combat dominant voices and foster inclusivity. Marcus Castenfors laments the absence of robust product visions in companies and champions the Design Sprint process for alignment. Lastly, Tim Harford at #mtpcon London 2023 enlightens on common tech innovation missteps, emphasizing the transformative power of simple solutions and AI’s impending influence on employment.

🗞️ Exclusively on my New Substack: Welcome DALL•E 3 — Transformative Analysis for Agile Practitioners.

PS: 📖 Preorder the Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide book now for delivery in January 2024!

PPS: Did you miss past issues? No worries, here we go: 414, 415.

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🏆 Tip of the Week

Medium: Bryan Finster critiques the LeSS approach to team structure, specifically the debate between organizing teams around features or product capabilities. While acknowledging LeSS’s advocacy for feature teams, he leverages his decades-long developer experience to challenge their stance, dissecting various claims and emphasizing that team structure should align with business needs and delivery goals rather than rigid methodologies: "The Feature Team Fallacy."

🍋 Lemon of the Week

Medium: In another tragic moment of following the herd instinctively, this Week’s Lemon attempts to prove that Scrum is inadequate, ignoring that his experience may be influenced by people selling snake oil: "Scrum sucks.. Breaking news: Scrum is bad."

➿ Agile & Scrum

• Mark Levison discusses the misconceptions surrounding the “Spotify Model.” This structure, showcasing Squads, Tribes, and Guilds, is frequently misapplied in organizations, resulting in mere label changes without the necessary cultural shift. The original intent of fostering collaboration and minimizing dependencies often gets lost in the process: "The Spotify Model of Scaling – Spotify Doesn’t Use It, Neither Should You."

• Johanna Rothman critiques traditional metaphors in software development, emphasizing their dehumanizing effects. She advocates for recognizing the uniqueness of individuals, avoiding construction metaphors, and retiring outdated comparisons, especially those perpetuating sexism: "Retire These Metaphors & Reframe the Discussion to be More Effective."

• Karen Eilers, Necmettin Ozkan, Mehmet Sahin Gök examine Agile Mindset’s significance in decision-making and behavior. The study reviews its understanding, success factors, and challenges in implementation through comprehensive research: "Back to the Essential: A Literature-Based Review on Agile Mindset."

🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class — November 28, 2023

The Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills (PSFS) training by Berlin Product People is a guaranteed 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 — November 28, 2023.

🎯 Product

• 📺 Agile On The Beach: Laura Morgan shares three critical moments in her professional life that helped her become more experienced: "My three favourite product discovery mistakes."

• Jeff Gothelf claims that product discovery’s effectiveness is measured by evaluating its implementation, its impact on work processes, and the quality of products/services produced. Vanity metrics can mislead, so focus on insights generated, sustained discovery practices, and clear customer behavior changes: "How do you measure product discovery?"

• Charles Lambdin argues that while many blindly follow traditional roadmaps, true Agile emphasizes adaptability and learning, suggesting that a more exploratory approach, akin to Gandalf’s adventures, is needed over rigid planning: "Roadmaps and Twyman’s Law."

• ProdPad: Dan Collins emphasizes the importance of churn prevention in SaaS, highlighting the need to understand and address customer dissatisfaction while continuously adapting to their evolving needs and preferences to ensure business longevity: "Churn Prevention: A Product Manager’s Guide."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Paulo Caroli shares his Press Release template, modeled after Amazon’s ‘Working Backwards’ approach, streamlining product development by emphasizing the end-user experience: "Working Backwards – Press Release Template."

• Jim Morris discusses facilitating group sessions, emphasizing the pitfalls of dominant voices stifling conversation. He offers techniques to counter groupthink, encouraging full participation and diverse input in team discussions: "Facilitation Skills: Avoid Groupthink and One-Sided Discussions."

• Crisp: Marcus Castenfors highlights most companies lack a compelling, tangible product vision, leading to misalignment. To overcome this, he advocates collaboratively using the Design Sprint process to craft an inspiring, aligning product vision: "How to facilitate a Product Vision Sprint."

🎶 Encore

• 📺 Mind The Product: Tim Harford underscores two tech innovation errors: overvaluing complexity and underestimating simple, affordable solutions. Moreover, he emphasizes societal change and AI's potential impact on jobs at #mtpcon London 2023: "What we get wrong about technology."

📯 How to Say No

Are you navigating the delicate art of saying No as a Product Owner or product manager? Actually, it’s more of a strategic ‘yes’ to higher priorities, turning down lower-level requests without shutting down communication.

This article will dive into various approaches, from reframing conversations and fostering stakeholder collaboration to being transparent to data-informed rationale and empathetic engagement. Discover how to maintain a harmonious balance between driving Product Goals and nurturing professional relationships with your stakeholders.

Learn more: Saying No as a Product Owner or Product Manager.

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 November 8 — Meetup Hands-on Agile 55: 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 21 — Meetup Hands-on Agile 56: The Big Product Picture — Creating Value through Alignment (Free; English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 November 28 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Training (PSFS; English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 December 6 — Meetup Hands-on Agile #57: Humble Planning: How To Make Your Plans Suck Less w/ Maarten Dalmijn (Free; 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

• Bob Galen: An Agile Coaches Guide to Storytelling.

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