Food for Agile Thought #445: Sprint Review Guide, Data-driven Product Decisions, Healthy Failure Culture, 11 Razors

Welcome to the 445th edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 42,591 peers.

This week, Maarten Dalmijn critiques Sprint Reviews as dull and ineffective, advocating for revitalized Scrum events. John Cutler discusses the complexities of systems thinking and its challenges in professional contexts, while Melissa Perri and Amy Edmondson emphasize the necessity of a healthy failure culture for innovation, focusing on intelligent failure and psychological safety. David Rock identifies leaders as crucial ‘change architects,’ highlighting skills like cognitive capacity and coherence for effective cultural transformation. Also, Alain Goudsmet and Ludo Van der Heyden use David Breashears’ Everest climb to exemplify essential team dynamics for peak performance, and we ask: Can a Product Owner be a Scrum Master at the same time?

Then, Andrew Chen outlines the dilemmas in data-driven decision-making, noting the often necessary reliance on intuition over data. Aatir Abdul Rauf emphasizes the importance of tailored go-to-market strategies for enhancing feature adoption and retention, and Jason Cohen discusses the need for translating between customer desires, product features, and business goals to improve business collaboration. Moreover, David Pereira and Shyvee Shi delve into AI’s ability to connect with human emotions, highlighting the importance of fostering trust and psychological safety.

Lastly, Chris Meyer introduces eleven strategies to simplify decision-making by eliminating unlikely explanations. Gerry Duffy views UX as storytelling that engages stakeholders. Additionally, Rosie Hoggmascall shows how Monzo uses user research for product development, and Shane Drumm offers a guide on value stream mapping to enhance production efficiency. Lastly, Anthropic researchers reveal insights into the AI model Claude Sonnet, enhancing understanding and potential safety.

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🏆 Tip of the Week

Maarten Dalmijn reveals that most Sprint Reviews are seen as boring and ineffective, suggesting a dire need to revitalize this Scrum event to engage the team and stakeholders and deliver value genuinely: "Maarten's Sprint Review Guide V0.8."

🍋 Lemon of the Week

We are Lemon-free this week.

➿ Agile & Scrum

• John Cutler delves into the intricacies of systems thinking, offering insightful lessons and personal experiences that highlight the challenges and subtleties of navigating complex problem-solving scenarios, especially in professional settings: "20 Things I've Learned as a Systems (Over) Thinker."

• 🎙 Produx Labs: Melissa Perri interviews Amy Edmondson on the Product Thinking podcast. They discuss building a healthy failure culture by differentiating intelligent failure and psychological safety, underscoring that innovation needs room to fail: "🎙 Building a Healthy Failure Culture for Innovation and Learning with Amy Edmondson."

• Fast Company: David Rock underlines the pivotal role of leaders as ‘change architects,’ empowering them to guide cultural transformations effectively. He highlights cognitive capacity, coherence, and habit activation as key skills, instilling a sense of capability in the audience: "Why leaders need to become 'change architects' (and 3 skills to get there)."

• INSEAD Knowledge: Alain Goudsmet and Ludo Van der Heyden note that teams with clear goals, values, rules, roles, processes, and total individual commitment, as demonstrated by David Breashears’ Everest expedition, exemplify the six dimensions essential for peak performance: "The Six Dimensions of Winning Teams."

🎓 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!

🎯 Product

• Andrew Chen discusses the challenges of making data-driven product decisions, highlighting the frequent reliance on intuition despite the aspiration to be data-driven and the limitations and paradoxes inherent in the process: "Why data-driven product decisions are hard (sometimes impossible)."

• Jason Cohen highlights the importance of translating between the three critical languages in business—customer desires, product features, and business goals—to enhance understanding and cooperation across different sectors: "Disentangling the three languages: customers, product, and the business."

• Aatir Abdul Rauf explores the critical role of go-to-market strategies for new features, emphasizing the need for tailored approaches and focusing on existing customers to boost feature adoption and long-term retention: "How to market features to existing customers (+ mistakes to avoid)."

• 🎙 David Pereira and Shyvee Shi explore AI's potential to understand and connect with human emotions, emphasizing the need for AI companions to foster psychological safety and trust: "Redefining Connection: Should AI Understand Your Hearts and Your Secret Life?"

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Chris Meyer presents eleven practices to streamline decision-making by eliminating unlikely explanations, enhancing our ability to manage daily information overload and complex decisions effectively: "11 Philosophical Razors to Simplify Your Life."

• A List Apart: Gerry Duffy highlights the theatrical element in UX, positioning user research as a storytelling journey crucial for engaging stakeholders and guiding product teams through a narrative-structured approach to uncovering and resolving user problems: "User Research Is Storytelling."

• Medium: Rosie Hoggmascall outlines how Monzo, the UK’s 7th largest bank, employs user research to test assumptions and inform product development, illustrating effective techniques for eliciting insightful user feedback: "How Monzo does assumption testing."

• Shane Drumm’s guide on value stream mapping offers templates and tools for visualizing and optimizing the production process, enhancing efficiency from supplier to customer: "10 Free Value Stream Map Templates."

🎶 Encore

• Anthropic: Researchers have revealed groundbreaking insights into the AI model Claude Sonnet. They have identified millions of concept representations and advanced our understanding of AI’s internal mechanisms, potentially enhancing future model safety: "Mapping the Mind of a Large Language Model."

📯 Product Owner and Scrum Master Combined in One Individual?

Combining the roles of Product Owner and Scrum Master in one individual is a contentious topic in the Agile community. A recent LinkedIn poll, see below, revealed that 54% of respondents consider this unification useless, while 30% might accept it in rare moments. (Read online.)

This blog post explores the implications of merging these roles, emphasizing the importance of distinct responsibilities and the potential pitfalls of combining them. We also consider exceptions where this approach might be temporarily justified and analyze the insightful comments from industry professionals.

Learn more: Product Owner and Scrum Master Combined in One Individual?

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 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-Patterns Canvas — A Tool Session (1) (English)
• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Jul 9-10 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 Aug 20-21 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master - Advanced Training (PSM II; English)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 Aug 27-28 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; German)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 Sep 3-6 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)

See all upcoming classes here.

📺 Youtube Channel

• Fortune Buchholtz: Toyota Kata Coaching for Agile Teams & Transformations.

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