Food for Agile Thought #442: Value-Add Activities Metric, Post-PMF Adjacency Matrix , Destroying Trust, EBM Guide 2024

Welcome to the 442nd edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 42,518 peers.

This week, James Shore delves into the complexities of measuring productivity in software development, while Willem-Jan Ageling identifies seven leadership missteps that destroy organizational trust. Former Cisco executive Ashley Goodall critiques traditional disruptive leadership methods, advocating for stability and connection. Joost Minnaar argues that self-managing organizations reduce employee burnout by balancing demands with control. Moreover, Parsa Saljoughian highlights four leadership principles essential for high-performing teams, focusing on psychological safety and effective communication, and we ask ourselves: Should a Product Owner be technical?

Then, Jason Cohen introduces the Adjacency Matrix for strategic expansion post-PMF, using existing strengths for wise market entry. The “Paths to PMF” series highlights diverse, customized strategies for startup success, and XKCD reevaluates ideas like solar cars and laser eye surgery, challenging our perceptions in a fantastic cartoon. Also, Nima Torabi emphasizes the integration of vision, strategy, and metrics in crafting impactful product roadmaps.

Lastly, Patricia Kong and Kurt Bittner updated the 2024 Evidence-Based Management Guide, enhancing its clarity and practical utility. Christina Wodtke presents a method for aligning personal values with life goals using Ikigai and Personal OKRs, ensuring measurable progress, while Bob Moesta explores the practical application of the Jobs to Be Done framework, sharing its best uses and common pitfalls. Finally, Ethan Mollick introduces the Prompt Library, a Creative Commons licensed resource providing structured prompts for educational and general use to boost engagement and AI interaction.

🚀 Elevate your Product skills: Discover User Story Mapping secrets and help shape our upcoming class with your insights through our survey!

🎓 Launch on July 1, 2024: Learn How to Master the Most Important Artifact in the Advanced Product Backlog Management Course!

👉 Please note:

• The course includes membership in a new community of agile professionals.
• Become fully reimbursed if you also choose to join the Advanced Product Backlog Management Cohort of June 13 - July 11, 2024, at € 399.
• The course will only be available until July 8, 2024, for sign-up!

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🏆 Tip of the Week

James Shore grapples with measuring productivity, a notoriously elusive metric in software development, exploring alternative approaches, and implementing a value-add capacity measure to assess engineering efficiency: "A Useful Productivity Measure?"

🍋 Lemon of the Week

Medium: The author champions “Sprint Prep” as a magical elixir for Sprint Planning woes, but one might wonder if it’s just a new label on an old bottle. Is this reinventing the wheel, or is it just another meeting to add to the calendar? "The Missing Agile Ceremony (If You Want Smoother Sprints)."

➿ Agile & Scrum

• Willem-Jan Ageling discusses seven detrimental leadership behaviors that erode trust within organizations, such as punishing messengers and stifling creativity, ultimately fostering a pathological culture that undermines cooperation and innovation: "7 ways leaders cripple their organization by destroying trust."

• 🎙 In an interview with Daniel Stillman, the former Cisco executive and author Ashley Goodall challenges conventional leadership practices, advocating for stability and genuine connection over disruptive change to enhance workplace contributions and performance. "The Problem with Change and the Power of Stability, Humanity and Praise."

• Corporate Rebels: Joost Minnaar explains that self-managing organizations, contrary to increasing burnout, actually empower employees by balancing high job demands with high control, leading to engagement and reduced stress: "Thriving in Autonomy: Why Self-Management Doesn't Lead to Burnout."

• Medium: Parsa Saljoughian outlines four pivotal leadership principles to enhance team performance, emphasizing psychological safety, assuming positive intent, active listening, and focusing on controllable factors: "Building High-Performance Teams: 4 Essential Leadership Principles."

🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Advanced Product Backlog Management Cohort Class of June 13-July 11, 2024

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.

Additional bonuses:

1. You will become a member of an exclusive community of product professionals comprising participants from all my classes since 2019.
2. You will have free access to the corresponding online course; revisit all topics of the cohort at your convenience.

Quote: “If you are looking to move beyond merely delivering features and want to start consistently delivering outcomes and valuable deliverables to your customers, this course is essential. Stefan provides the focus and tools necessary to embark on a journey toward excellent product management. With a curriculum that includes vision, strategy, roadmap, product discovery, continuous delivery, idea management, hypothesis management, and backlog management, this course promises less than it delivers—a truly transformative experience.” (Hector Feliciano.)

Enjoy the benefits of an immersive cohort class and its community with like-minded agile peers on Juni 13, June 27, and July 11, 2024, from 3-6 pm CEST. The class will be offered in English.

👉 Join now: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Product Backlog Management Class of Juni 13-July 11, 2024.

🎯 Product

• Jason Cohen explores strategic expansion post-PMF with the Adjacency Matrix to assess business growth potential without overreaching, utilizing existing strengths, and strategically entering new markets: "Adjacency Matrix: How to expand after PMF."

• First Round Capital: After showcasing dozens of founders, the “Paths to PMF” series offers diverse and tactical advice on achieving product-market fit, underscoring there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to startup success: "20 Lessons From 20 Different Paths to Product-Market Fit — Advice for Founders, From Founders."

• XKCD categorizes ideas like “solar cars” and “laser eye surgery” on a scale from “sounds like a good idea” to “actually a bad idea,” sparking reflection on unconventional concepts: "Good and Bad Ideas."

• Medium: Nima Torabi emphasizes the critical integration of vision, strategy, and metrics in crafting effective product roadmaps that guide teams toward measurable, impactful outcomes in product development: "Crafting Effective Roadmaps: The Role of Vision, Strategy, and Metrics."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Scrum.org: Patricia Kong and Kurt Bittner revised the 2024 Evidence-Based Management Guide, clarifying concepts and incorporating feedback to enhance EBM’s practical application and understanding in organizational settings: "Evidence-Based Management Guide, 2024 - What’s New?"

• 🎙 Mind The Product: Bob Moesta, co-creator of the Jobs to Be Done framework, delves into its practical application, discussing optimal uses, common missteps, and various case studies in an excellent primer: "Getting real with Jobs to Be Done - Bob Moesta (CEO & Founder, The Re-Wired Group)."

• Christina Wodtke combines Ikigai with Personal OKRs, offering a structured approach to aligning life goals with personal values, ensuring progress through measurable outcomes and quarterly objectives: "Using Ikigai with Personal OKRs."

🎶 Encore

• Ethan Mollick highlights his Prompt Library, a versatile resource under a Creative Commons License, offering structured prompts for educational and general use, fostering classroom engagement and AI interaction: "Prompt Library."

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 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)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 June 6 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile 61: Backlog Manager to Product Manager with David Pereira (English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Jun 13-Jul 11 — Live Virtual Cohort: Advanced Product Backlog Management Cohort (PBM; English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 June 25 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Training (PSFS; English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 July 3 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile 63: The Anti-Pattern Canvas — A Tool Session (1) (English)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 Jul 9-10 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 Aug 27-28 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; German)

See all upcoming classes here.

📺 Youtube Channel

• Johanna Rothman: Tackling Fake Agility.

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