Food for Agile Thought #457: Blaming Agile for Lacking Innovation, Structuring Product Organizations, Cost of Delay, Unhealthy Team Tension

Welcome to the 457th edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 42,744 peers. I am Stefan Wolpers, offering hands-on, actionable advice to agile professionals.

This week, Rupert Goodwins critiques Moxie Marlinspike’s view of Agile, emphasizing innovation’s evolution and the need for fresh thinking, while Jim Highsmith urges a shift from productivity metrics to value creation. Dave Rooney highlights simple defect management using an analog tool, and Jeff Gothelf advocates for trust-based leadership. Following up, Ant Murphy stresses the importance of healthy team tension and collaboration over fear for creativity and the effectiveness of teams.

Next, John Cutler and Leah Tharin emphasize the need for a well-defined operating model in product organizations, focusing on team structure and accountability during growth. David Pereira stresses aligning strategy, discovery, and delivery for value creation in product management, and Melissa Suzuno highlights Ramsey Solutions’ engineer rotation in product trios for balanced skill development. Also, Richard Mironov explains how a company’s price point shapes its organizational behavior, especially in B2C versus B2B environments.

Lastly, Johanna Rothman discusses using the Cost of Delay to prioritize work, emphasizing determining if the work is still valuable first. Chris Stone introduces the Lean Experiment Canvas, a tool for teams to design and test hypotheses in Retrospectives. Then, Jenny Wanger provides a checklist for influencing product managers, focusing on understanding their challenges and simplifying changes, and Rolf Mistelbacher highlights how generative AI helps creators rapidly prototype by bridging skill gaps. Finally, Shane Gibson, Murray Robinson, and Gene Kim discuss the importance of organizational wiring, including leadership and communication, in fostering high-performing DevOps and agile teams.

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🎓 Launch on October 23: Learn How to Master the Most Important Artifact in the Advanced Product Backlog Management Course!

👉 Please note:

• The course includes membership in my professional students' brand-new Hands-on Agile community.
• The course will only be available for sign-up until October 31, 2024!

🏆 Tip of the Week

The Register: Rupert Goodwins argues that Moxie Marlinspike’s critique of Agile as stifling innovation is misplaced, suggesting that innovation has evolved significantly and that fresh thinking and embracing new approaches are essential to staying relevant: "Sorry, Moxie. Blaming Agile for software stagnation is wrong."

🍋 Lemon of the Week

We are Lemon-free this week.

➿ Agile & Scrum

• Jim Highsmith argues that 21st-century enterprises should shift from measuring productivity to value creation, emphasizing customer-centric, collaborative, and adaptive management models over traditional productivity metrics: "You won’t create 21st century enterprises measuring productivity!"

• Dave Rooney shares how his team effectively managed defects using a simple analog tool: a red file folder. He emphasizes the value of addressing issues immediately and keeping solutions straightforward over digital tools "The Red File Folder: When an analog tool does a better job than a digital one!"

• Jeff Gothelf argues that building a high-performance culture requires trust, proper incentives, and adaptive leadership rather than fostering fear and cutthroat competition, which only leads to mediocrity and employee burnout: "How to build a high-performance culture without culling the herd."

• Ant Murphy explores the dynamics of healthy versus unhealthy tension within teams, emphasizing the importance of compromise, leadership, and fostering an environment that encourages collaboration without stifling progress: "Health and Unhealthy Tension."

🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 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

• 🎙 Leah Tharin and John Cutler discuss the importance of defining and documenting an operating model in product organizations, emphasizing team structure, shared accountability, and the challenges of cross-functional collaboration, especially during growth and change: "How to Structure a Product Organization."

• Userpilot: David Pereira delves into the importance of focusing on value creation in product management by aligning strategy, discovery, and delivery while avoiding distractions and traps that hinder effective product development: "Anti-BS Product Management: Driving Value When Everyone Distracts You."

• Melissa Suzuno shares how Ramsey Solutions rotates engineers in product trios to balance continuous discovery with technical skill development, fostering a culture of experimentation, shared learning, and strong team cohesion: "Why Ramsey Solutions Rotates Engineers in Their Product Trios."

• Rich Mironov explains how a company’s price point influences its organizational behavior, especially in B2C versus B2B environments. This influences everything from decision-making to C-level dynamics: "Price Points Drive Organizational Behaviors."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Johanna Rothman introduces prioritizing work using the Cost of Delay, starting with assessing whether the work is still valuable before calculating the various costs associated with delays: "How to Calculate the Cost of Delay to Rank All the Work, Part 1."

• Chris Stone introduces the Lean Experiment Canvas, a simple template that guides teams in Retrospectives to design experiments focused on solving problems, testing hypotheses, and achieving tangible improvements: "The Lean Experiment Canvas."

• Jenny Wanger outlines a checklist for influencing product managers, focusing on understanding their challenges, simplifying changes, and emphasizing benefits to drive value without overwhelming them: "Your go-to checklist for influencing product managers."

• Fresh van Root: Rolf Mistelbacher explains how generative AI empowers creators across all roles to quickly turn ideas into clickable prototypes by filling skill gaps and making prototyping more accessible and innovative: "Prototyping Products with Generative AI."

🎶 Encore

• 🎙 Shane Gibson, Murray Robinson, and Gene Kim discuss how effective organizational wiring, encompassing leadership, architecture, and communication, is crucial for fostering high-performing teams, particularly in DevOps and agile practices: "Wiring the Winning Organisation with Gene Kim."

📯 TRANSFORMED Meets the Scrum Guide

Despite criticism from the product community regarding Scrum as a framework for effective product creation, namely Marty Cagan himself, I believe that it is worthwhile to compare the principles that help form successful product teams with those of Scrum.

Let’s delve into an analysis of “Transformed” and how its principles align with Scrum’s.

Learn more: TRANSFORMED Meets the Scrum Guide.

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events

Upcoming classes and events:

• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 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 1-2 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Oct 9 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile 65: The Lean Tech Manifesto with Fabrice Bernhard (English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Oct 15-16 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master - Advanced Training (PSM II; English)
• 🖥 🇩🇪 Nov 6-7 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)

See all upcoming classes here.

📺 Youtube Channel

• David Pereira: From Backlog Manager to Product Manager.

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