Food for Agile Thought #451: Product Manager Replacement, Agile Backlash: Try XP, Sales-Driven to Product-Led, Defending Vanity Metrics

Welcome to the 451st edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 42,601 peers.

This week, Mike Taylor shows how close AI is to replacing product managers, often outperforming humans in complex PM tasks, while Dave Rooney addresses Agile backlash and advocates for Extreme Programming (XP). Woody Zuill highlights the benefits of Mob Programming, and Maarten Dalmijn introduces a Sprint Goal template to avoid anti-patterns. Also, Todd Lankford emphasizes reducing dependency on experts to reclaim team flow, and we ask: Why don’t we regard teams as investors?

Next, Jason Knight explores the challenges of transforming sales-driven companies into product-led ones. Moreover, Johanna Rothman shares five critical ideas for effective product development, including understanding customers and solving one problem at a time. Richard Mironov highlights building executive coalitions by understanding C-level priorities, and Roman Pichler emphasizes involving key stakeholders in co-creating product strategies and roadmaps for successful execution.

Lastly, Jeff Gothelf argues that vanity metrics, while not ultimate success measures, provide early insights into activities and idea resonance. Wes Kao emphasizes the importance of effectively defending your work to build leadership credibility. At the same time, Pim de Morree critiques downsizing, advocating for employee engagement and innovation instead. Aatir Abdul Rauf shares how the SPACER framework aligns Product Managers and Marketers on feature value. Finally, Gergely Orosz discusses recent changes in the tech industry and their impact on software engineering in a post-pandemic world.

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🎓 Launch on September 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.
• The course will only be available until September 8, 2024, for sign-up!

🏆 Tip of the Week

Mike Taylor reveals how close AI is to replacing product managers, demonstrating AI’s ability to handle complex PM tasks through real-world tests and expert prompting, showing AI often outperforms humans: "How close is AI to replacing product managers?"

🍋 Lemon of the Week

We are Lemon-free this week.

➿ Agile & Scrum

• Dave Rooney addresses the backlash against Agile, noting that poorly implemented Scrum often fuels criticism. He advocates revisiting Extreme Programming (XP) for its practical, adaptable practices in achieving true agility: "Agile (is dead|sucks|is (🐂|)💩|is irresponsible|is a bad idea)."

• Crisp: Woody Zuill highlights the power of genuine collaboration through ‘Software Teaming’ or Mob Programming. He shares how teamwork eliminates delays and waste, leading to smoother workflows and faster problem-solving: "Interview with Woody Zuill - Software Teaming (Mob Programming) - addressing complexity with genuine collaboration."

• Maarten Dalmijn introduces his Sprint Goal template, designed to address critical weaknesses in existing templates. It focuses on the importance of collaboration and context and avoids common Sprint Goal anti-patterns: "Maarten's Sprint Goal Template."

• Medium: Todd Lankford outlines how to reclaim team flow by reducing dependency on experts, emphasizing that spreading knowledge and decentralizing decision-making leads to a more self-reliant, productive team: "How to Reclaim Team Flow Fast by Relieving Your Dependency on Experts."

🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Advanced Product Backlog Management Cohort Class of August 29-September 26, 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 August 29, September 12, and September 26, 2024, from 3-6 pm CEST. The class will be offered in English.

👉 Join now: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Product Backlog Management Class of August 29-September 26, 2024.

🎯 Product

• Jason Knight explores whether sales-driven companies can transform into product-led ones, highlighting the complexities of defining key terms and aligning company values and goals: "Can Every Sales-Driven Company be Transformed to Being Product-Led?"

• Johanna Rothman shares five key ideas for effective product development: understand your customer, solve one problem at a time, deliver solutions quickly, act as a bridge between stakeholders, and facilitate the team’s environment for success: "Five Big Ideas to Effectively Manage Your Product Development."

• Rich Mironov emphasizes the importance of building executive coalitions by understanding C-level priorities instead of focusing on technical details to advocate for product management decisions effectively: "Coalition-Building and Corporate Anthropology."

• Roman Pichler emphasizes the importance of involving key stakeholders in co-creating product strategies and roadmaps, ensuring their support to achieve alignment and successful execution: "Maximising Stakeholder Buy-in to Product Strategy and Product Roadmap."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Jeff Gothelf argues that vanity metrics, while not ultimate success measures, provide early insight into whether activities are taking place and if ideas are resonating, guiding initial steps toward meaningful impact: "In defense of vanity metrics."

• Wes Kao discusses the importance of effectively defending your work when questioned, emphasizing that how you respond can either build or diminish your credibility as a leader: "Playing defense: How to control the narrative if your work is being questioned."

• Corporate Rebels: Pim de Morree argues that downsizing fails to improve financial performance and harms productivity and morale. He advocates focusing on employee engagement and innovative transformations rather than cost-cutting measures: "Managers Believe Downsizing Is Effective. Research Says: Nope."

• Aatir Abdul Rauf shares how the SPACER framework helps Product Managers and Product Marketers align on feature value, preventing rework and ensuring a shared understanding of pricing, user stories, abilities, and roadmap: "How the SPACER framework can align PMs & PMMs on the value of a feature."

🎶 Encore

• 📺 Gergely Orosz discusses the recent changes reshaping the tech industry, exploring their impacts on businesses and development teams, and predicting future pragmatic software engineering approaches in a post-pandemic world: "What is Old is New Again."

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 🇬🇧 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)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Aug 29-Sep 26 — Live Virtual Cohort: Advanced Product Backlog Management Cohort (English)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 Sep 3-6 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Sep 5 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile 64: Mastering Work Intake: The Key to Sustainability and Flow (English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Oct 9 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile 65: The Lean Tech Manifesto with Fabrice Bernhard (English)

See all upcoming classes here.

📺 Youtube Channel

• David Pereira: From Backlog Manager to Product Manager.

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