Food for Agile Thought #432: Agility Creates Valuable Firms, Product Focus, Balancing LTV and CAC

Welcome to the 432nd edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 42,247 peers.

This week, Steve Denning reveals how agility creates valuable firms by focusing on customer value and empowerment. Matt Van Itallie and Cassidy Williams discuss the importance of addressing tech debt for improved outcomes. Also, Tom Kerwin and John Cutler present strategies for leaders in complexity, advocating for innovation through embracing uncertainty. Stephanie Ockerman critiques productivity culture’s impact on agility, suggesting a shift towards outcome-focused approaches, and we ask: Is it worth creating custom GPTs for Scrum?

Then, Richard Mironov emphasizes the importance of product leaders providing support for product managers to focus by using strategic refusals. David Pereira explains the necessity of balancing customer lifetime value and acquisition costs for sustainable growth and profitability. Moreover, Lea Hickman and Marty Cagan critique the “theater” in product management and leadership that blocks true transformation, while Itamar Gilad critiques the “hype economy” in tech, arguing for an evidence-guided approach over salesmanship for smarter product decisions and a healthier organizational culture.

Lastly, Tanmay Vora addresses the pitfalls of misapplying metrics in line with Goodhart’s Law, advocating for a balanced approach of qualitative and quantitative measures to ensure desired behaviors. Douglas Squirrel introduces the “Elephant Carpaccio” concept from his talk, and Wes Kao champions the practice of Super Specific Feedback (SSF) on work outputs, underlining the importance of precise, actionable advice for elevating team performance and decision-making skills.

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👉 1 Community Ticket at € 594.50 off: Join the Advanced Professional Scrum Master Class of March 26-27, 2024, with the code March50! 👈

🎙 The backstory of the Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide book is explored in my interview with Dave West.

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🏆 Tip of the Week

Forbes: Steve Denning explains how Agile principles, beyond applying mere frameworks and methodologies, drive the success of the world’s most valuable firms, emphasizing customer value and employee empowerment: "Surprise! The World’s Most Valuable Firms Are Agile."

🍋 Lemon of the Week

There is no Lemon this week.

➿ Agile & Scrum

• 🎙 Stack Overflow: Matt Van Itallie discusses convincing CEOs of the value of addressing tech debt for better outcomes for users, companies, and developers with Cassidy Williams. "How to convince your CEO it’s worth paying down tech debt."

• John Cutler and Tom Kerwin outline key capabilities for leaders navigating complexity, emphasizing the need for holistic approaches, embracing uncertainty, and fostering collaborative environments for innovation and problem-solving: "How Capable Leaders Navigate Uncertainty and Ambiguity."

• Stephanie Ockerman highlights how productivity culture, prioritizing output over outcomes, undermines business agility, creativity, and collaboration, suggesting a shift towards value-driven approaches: "5 ways productivity culture kills business agility."

🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Product Backlog Management Cohort Class of April 2-30, 2024

👉 2 Community Tickets at $249.50 off: Join the Advanced Product Backlog Management Cohort of April 2-30, 2024,
with the code March50 — join for $249.50! 👈

Discover the Product Owner success principles in this guaranteed engaging Product Backlog Management cohort class and accelerate your professional growth and career perspective with tried & tested, hands-on practices:

• Excel at delivering value regularly — your #1 career success factor.
• Learn to distinguish between valuable and useless ideas.
• Abandon the feature factory. Instead, learn to contribute to customer and organizational success.
• Gain actionable insights, learn supportive tools, and practice everything in a safe community of like-minded peers.
• Learn to say no and build trust and rapport with stakeholders while focusing on creating value.
• Create engaging feedback loops.

Enjoy the benefits of an immersive cohort class and its community with like-minded agile peers on April 2, April 16, and April 30, 2024, from 4-7 pm CEST. The class will be offered in English.

👉 Join now: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Product Backlog Management Class of April 2-30, 2024.

🎯 Product

• Rich Mironov highlights the role of product leaders in providing organizational support for product managers to maintain focus and avoid overload by saying ‘No’ or ‘Later:’ "Permission To Stay Focused."

• David Pereira details how optimizing business health by balancing customer lifetime value (LTV) and acquisition costs (CAC) is essential for strategic planning, growth, and profitability: "Understanding How to Balance Customer Lifetime Value and Acquisition Costs."

• Itamar Gilad discusses the detrimental “hype economy” in tech, advocating for evidence-guided development over salesmanship for better product decisions and a healthier company culture: "The Hype Economy."

• Silicon Valley Product Group: Lea Hickman and Marty Cagan discuss typical “theater” in product management and leadership, hindering fundamental transformation and advocating for evidence-guided development and genuine stakeholder collaboration. "Transformation Theater"

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Tanmay Vora warns against misusing metrics due to Goodhart’s Law, suggesting holistic measures and a mix of qualitative and quantitative metrics to foster correct behaviors: "Measuring Right: Understanding Goodhart’s Law."

• XKCD Comic: More on Goodhart’s law, cartoon-style: "Goodhart's Law."

• 📺 YouTube: Douglas Squirrel highlights “Elephant Carpaccio” from his talk “Are My Engineers Doing Anything??” focusing on breaking down tasks for efficiency and clarity in engineering work: "Elephant Carpaccio"

🎶 Encore

• Wes Kao advocates for Super Specific Feedback (SSF) on work output, emphasizing detailed, actionable coaching to improve team performance and judgment: "Super Specific Feedback: How to give actionable feedback on work output."

📯 Scrum Anti-Patterns GPT — Useful or a Gaming Exercise?

Can a custom Scrum Anti-Patterns GPT align teams with Scrum principles?

Dive into how leveraging custom GPTs might offer a novel path through Scrum’s common hurdles, focusing on creating actual customer value in the face of organizational and team-level challenges.

Learn more: Scrum Anti-Patterns GPT — Useful or a Gaming Exercise?

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Mar 5 — Live Virtual Meetup: “Agile” Does Not Work for You? Tackling Fake Agility with Johanna Rothman (English)
• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Mar 5-6 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 Mar 26-27 — Live Virtual Class: Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Apr 2-30 — Live Virtual Cohort: Product Backlog Management Cohort (English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Apr 9 — Live Virtual Meetup: A Q&A on Dynamic Reteaming with Heidi Helfand (English)
• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Apr 10-11 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 Apr 23-24 — Live Virtual Class: Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; English)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 May 7 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class (PSFS; English)

See all upcoming classes here.

📺 Youtube Channel

• Michael Lloyd: Dysfunction Mapping.

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