Food for Agile Thought #434: Product Management Theater, Fighting Unemployment, From Conflict to Negotiation

Welcome to the 434th edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 42,302 peers.

This week, Marty Cagan, in discussion with Lenny Rachitsky, critiques “product management theater” and the pandemic-induced over-hiring of PMs, offering solutions in his book, “Transformed.” Johanna Rothman advises unemployed agilists on transitioning to impactful roles, while Kurt Bittner and Pierre Pureur advocate combining Agile and Lean in software architecture for sustainability. Also, Fred Wynyk suggests using the Reverse Conway Maneuver to align organizational structures with software architecture goals for innovation, and we delve into Sprint anti-patterns.

Then, Roman Pichler introduces the Strategy Stack, a framework designed to align and clarify business and product strategies for better strategic execution. Itamar Gilad challenges the stereotypes limiting product manager roles, promoting the concept of a ‘Full-Stack PM’ who leads with a blend of strategy and user-centric innovation. At the same time, David Pereira critiques the growing popularity of Product Ops, advocating for role simplification over expansion to tackle fundamental issues. Moreover, Roger Martin discusses how AI impacts strategic thinking, suggesting that while generative AI can streamline the progression from mystery to algorithm, it risks oversimplifying complex heuristics.

Lastly, Derek Jones delves into the intricacies of software effort estimation in 2024, highlighting the role of individual risk profiles. Tanmay Vora shares William Ury’s methods for turning workplace conflicts into constructive negotiations, and Barry Overeem presents ten Retrospective formats based on the Agile Team Effectiveness Model, designed to enhance team improvement processes with Liberating Structures. Finally, Morgan Housel discusses the drawbacks of high intelligence, such as overconfidence and resistance to simpler solutions, challenging the notion that more intelligence directly correlates with better outcomes.

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👉 There is a Community Ticket at € 649.50 off: Join the Advanced Professional Scrum Master Class of April 23-24, 2024, with the code March50 👈

📖 Your single best investment to improve your professional standing: Order the Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide book now!

🏆 Tip of the Week

🎙 In this podcast with Lenny Rachitsky, Marty Cagan discusses “product management theater” and the need for PMs with fundamental value creation and business alignment skills. He critiques the over-hiring of ineffective PMs during the pandemic and advocates for empowered teams. His new book, “Transformed,” provides strategies for successful product organizations and emphasizes discerning product management advice and the right timing for hiring PMs in startups: "Product management theater: Marty Cagan."

🍋 Lemon of the Week

This Agile Project Management guide whimsically simplifies Agile’s essence, presenting it as a magic potion for project woes. It lightly tiptoes around practices like Scrum and Kanban, painting an idealistic picture that might leave experts bemused. The narrative implies Agile is a universal solution, possibly simplifying the complexity of Agile practices in a manner that might have purists raising an eyebrow at its optimistic naivety: "Agile Project Management Guide (Skills & Methodologies)."

➿ Agile & Scrum

• Johanna Rothman discusses how unemployed agilists can pivot from perceived staff roles to valuable line jobs, emphasizing the importance of demonstrating tangible value and reevaluating technical skills to contribute directly to product development and revenue: "Unemployed Agilists: How to Move from a Staff Role to a Line Job, Part 2."

• InfoQ: Kurt Bittner and Pierre Pureur discuss the distinct benefits of Agile and Lean practices in software architecture. They emphasize Agile’s empirical approach for MVPs and MVAs and Lean’s efficiency in well-defined environments, advocating for a balanced application of both to achieve effective and sustainable software development: "Agile Architecture, Lean Architecture, or Both?"

• Medium: Fred Wynyk explores Conway’s Law’s impact on software architecture, advocating the Reverse Conway Maneuver to align organizational structures with desired software designs for innovation and effective team collaboration: "Conway’s Law in Team Topologies: Did you really get it?"

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

👉 There are two Community Tickets at 25 % off: Join the Advanced Product Backlog Management Cohort of April 2-30, 2024, with the code March50 — join for $374.25! 👈

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

• Roman Pichler introduces the Strategy Stack, a framework aligning business, portfolio, product, and technology strategies to enhance strategic decisions and clarify ownership, aiming to streamline strategic alignment and execution: "The Strategy Stack: Connecting Business, Product, and Technology Strategy."

• Itamar Gilad warns against six stereotypes restricting product manager roles, advocating for the ‘Full-Stack PM’ who combines leadership, strategy, and user focus to maximize impact and innovation: "6 Product Manager Stereotypes To Avoid."

• David Pereira argues against the rising trend of Product Ops, suggesting that simplifying existing roles might be more beneficial than adding new ones, as it addresses the root issues more effectively than band-aid solutions: "Product Ops: Necessary or Not?"

• Medium: Roger Martin explores the intersection of strategy and AI, arguing that generative AI accelerates knowledge through the “Knowledge Funnel” from mystery to heuristic to algorithm, democratizing information but averaging out heuristics: "Strategy & Artificial Intelligence."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Derek Jones highlights the ongoing challenges and insights in software effort estimation as of 2024, noting the persistent use of round numbers, the tendency to underestimate or overestimate based on task length, and the stable accuracy of developer estimates despite experience. The findings underscore the complexity of estimation and the influence of individual risk profiles on accuracy: "What is known about software effort estimation in 2024."

• Tanmay Vora highlights William Ury’s strategies for transforming workplace conflicts into constructive negotiations, emphasizing the importance of calmness, perspective, understanding needs, and involving broader community support: "How to Turn Conflict Into a Constructive Negotiation."

• The Liberators: Barry Overeem introduces ten Retrospective formats based on the Agile Team Effectiveness Model, using Liberating Structures to help teams identify improvements and familiarize themselves with scientific insights on team effectiveness: "10 Retrospective Formats Based On The Agile Team Effectiveness Model."

🎶 Encore

• Collaborative Fund: Morgan Housel explores the paradox of high intelligence, illustrating how being too smart can lead to overconfidence, closed-mindedness, and difficulty adapting, often obscuring simpler, more effective solutions: "The Dumber Side of Smart People."

📯 Sprint Anti-Patterns

Welcome to Sprint anti-patterns. This article covers the three Scrum accountabilities (formerly roles) and addresses interferences of stakeholders and IT/line management with this crucial Scrum event. Moreover, I added some food for thought. For example, could a month-long Sprint be too short for accomplishing something meaningful? And if so, what are the consequences?

Learn more: Sprint Anti-Patterns.

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 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)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 7 — Live Virtual Meetup: Toyota Kata Coaching for Agile Teams & Transformations with Fortune Buchholtz (English)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 May 14-15 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 May 28-29 — Live Virtual Class: Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; English)

See all upcoming classes here.

📺 Youtube Channel

• Michael Lloyd: Dysfunction Mapping.

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