Food for Agile Thought #420: Triple Track Development, Outcome Roadmaps, Building Trust, ProductOps Guide

Welcome to the 420th edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 49,687 peers. My name is Stefan Wolpers.

This week, Paulo Caroli introduces Triple Track Development, blending Business Strategy, Discovery, and Delivery for digital product evolution. Jacob Kaplan-Moss discusses trust-building in management, emphasizing the need for consistency and transparency. We delve into Wharton research by Peter Cappelli, revealing how “excessive comfort” impacts workplace performance, and Gergely Orosz examines the evolution of software backend development with insights from Joshua Burgin. Plus, we tackle the feature factory dilemma in large organizations, exploring its effects on Agile principles and strategies to overcome it.

Then, Itamar Gilad proposes a blended roadmap approach for adaptability in planning. Lenny Rachitsky interviews Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles, highlighting the significance of product operations. At the same time, Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion discuss balancing product discovery with delivery, while Marc Abraham emphasizes the importance of prioritization and saying “no” in decision-making.

Lastly, John Cutler explores systems thinking and business efficiency with Leah Tharin, and Jeff Gothelf presents a guide on designing lightweight experiments. Moreover, Christoph Roser examines the impact of overburden in manufacturing on employees and machinery. Finally, Dennis Hambeukers highlights the role of good design in fostering agility and collaboration.

🗞️ Exclusively on my New Substack: Sprint Planning Anti-Patterns — An Excerpt from the Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide (5).

👉 Join 600-plus peers and help create the next edition of the Scrum Master Salary Report!

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: 418, 419.

🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Black Friday Deal — get one of five tickets 50% off with the code “PBM2024”: Product Backlog Management Class of Jan 23 to Feb 20, 2024.

🏆 Tip of the Week

Paulo Caroli introduces Triple Track Development, an innovative approach combining Business Strategy, Discovery, and Delivery, reshaping digital product development and business agility: "Triple Track Development: Business Innovation Through Continuous Discovery and Continuous Delivery."

🍋 Lemon of the Week

In a misguided take, the author challenges Scrum’s relevance in the modern, fast-paced world, overlooking its core principles and adaptability, and suggests questionable alternatives: "It is time to kill SCRUM."

➿ Agile & Scrum

• Jacob Kaplan-Moss delves into the complexities of building trust in management, emphasizing consistent, transparent actions and the importance of being good at management basics: "How to Build Trust."

• Knowledge @ Wharton: The author suggests Wharton research by Peter Cappelli and his colleagues finds excessive workplace comfort can dampen performance, advocating for a balanced approach to psychological safety: "The Downside of Psychological Safety in the Workplace."

• Gergely Orosz explores evolving software backend development practices from virtualization to cloud computing, featuring insights from industry veteran Joshua Burgin, ex-Amazon, and now at VMware: "The Roots of Today's Modern Backend Engineering Practices."

🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 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

• Itamar Gilad debates the efficacy of classic roadmaps versus outcome-based ones in yearly planning, proposing a hybrid approach that balances goals with adaptability: "Planning With Outcome Roadmaps."

• 🎙 Lenny Rachitsky interviews Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles on the emerging role of product operations, discussing its benefits, key responsibilities, and integration with product management: "The Ultimate Guide to Product Operations."

• 📺 Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion emphasize that product discovery doesn’t hinder delivery but should occur alongside it for optimal product development, addressing common objections to incorporating discovery into busy schedules: "No Time for Discovery? Here’s How to Fix It."

• Medium: Marc Abraham points to the importance of saying “no” in product management, focusing on prioritization, constraints, and risk management as key factors in decision-making: "My product management toolkit (20): the art of saying ‘No’."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• 🎙 In this pod with Leah Tharin, John Cutler delves into systems thinking, exploring the complexities of business efficiency, decision-making biases, and the balance between individual and team habits: "Everything wrong with everything in a business."

• 📺 Jeff Gothelf shares a video guide on designing lightweight experiments, detailing the journey from identifying a business problem to formulating and testing hypotheses in various time frames: "How to Design Lightweight Experiments."

• Christoph Roser examines the overburden concept (muri) in manufacturing, exploring its impact on employees and machinery, and emphasizes the importance of respect and resource management: "What Exactly Is Overburden (Muri)?"

🎶 Encore

• Medium: Dennis Hambeukers illustrates how good design, far beyond aesthetics, is crucial for agility, fostering collaboration, rapid prototyping, and a user-centric approach: "How good design enhances agility (Agile principle #9)."

📯 Escaping the Feature Factory

The feature factory fate is not inevitable; there is hope to avoid becoming a mere cog in the machinery. Learn how!

In many large organizations, Scrum teams fall into the ‘feature factory’ trap, focusing more on churning out features than creating real value. It’s too bad that this shift undermines Agile principles and hampers long-term success and innovation. Let’s discuss how and why this happens and what we can do to break the chains of the feature factory.

Learn more: Escaping the Feature Factory — Refocussing From Output to Outcome.

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 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)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Jan 23-Feb 20 — Live Virtual Class: Product Backlog Management Cohort Class (English)

See all upcoming classes here.

📺 Youtube Channel

• David Pereira: Overcoming Common Product Backlog Management Traps.

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Best,