Food for Agile Thought #470: A Short Overview of PM Tools, Product Strategy and Clarity, Bayer’s Bold Bet, Delivering Bad News

Welcome to the 470th edition of the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter, shared with 42,942 peers. I am Stefan Wolpers, offering hands-on, actionable advice to agile professionals.

This week, John Cutler shares tips for adaptable product management tools, Pim de Morree spotlights Bayer’s shift to self-managing teams, and Sean Goedecke emphasizes leadership alignment for shipping projects. Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson explore true agility with Johanna Rothman, while Mike Fisher debunks the “brilliant jerk” myth, highlighting collaboration and psychological safety as team essentials.

Next, Aakash Gupta and Paweł Huryn discuss risk-focused product discovery and storytelling, Paul McAvinchey emphasizes the power of clear product visions, and Martin Eriksson highlights strategy clarity. Meanwhile, Petra Wille showcases Novo Nordisk’s use of the PMwheel framework to drive role clarity and team empowerment during digital transformation.

Lastly, Gustavo Razzetti shares strategies for fostering a fearless culture, Maik Seyfert explores balancing user needs with business goals, and Jeff Gothelf introduces updated Lean canvases for strategic alignment. Mark Levison emphasizes clarity through Example Mapping, and Teresa Torres curates a global list of 2025 product conferences to inspire and connect professionals.

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🏆 Tip of the Week

John Cutler shares practical tips for choosing and using “product management” tools effectively, urging teams to prioritize adaptability, involve diverse perspectives, test with low-fi solutions, and avoid rigid, oversimplified processes: "Quick Tool Tips."

🍋 Lemon of the Week

Entrepreneur's Handbook: Dismissing technical debt as harmless and glorifying recklessness over sustainability, the author misses the point of craftsmanship as a successful actor for agility. This is a prime example of short-term thinking packaged as innovative wisdom: "Don’t Worry About All That Tech Debt."

➿ Agile & Leadership

• Corporate Rebels: Pim de Morree highlights Bayer’s groundbreaking transformation into a network of self-managing teams through Dynamic Shared Ownership, aiming to align customer value, employee empowerment, and business outcomes for a sustainable, innovative future: "Bayer's Bold Bet: How a 160-Year-Old Giant is Liberating 100,000 People."

• Sean Goedecke shares insights on successfully shipping projects in large tech companies, emphasizing prioritizing shipping, aligning with leadership expectations, maintaining trust, anticipating problems, and fostering a proactive, fearless mindset: "How I ship projects at big tech companies."

• 🎙 Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson host Johanna Rothman on the No Nonsense Agile Podcast, exploring agile project management, fake corporate agility, continuous delivery, cross-functional teams, and focusing on outcomes over deliverables: "Agile Project Management with Johanna Rothman."

• Mike Fisher explores the myth of the “brilliant jerk,” emphasizing how toxic high performers harm team cohesion and morale, advocating for collaboration, psychological safety, and prioritizing team success over individual brilliance: "The Brilliant Jerk vs. Team Performance."

🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 Align, Discover, Deliver: The Advanced Product Backlog Management Course — Release Date: January 27, 2025

Are you facing problems aligning vision, stakeholders, and your team and delivering real value?

Is your contribution as a product leader questioned?

Then, prepare to transform your career with my comprehensive, self-paced online class. Dive deep into professional Product Backlog management techniques supported by videos, exercises, and an engaging online community.

👉 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 February 3, 2025!

🎓 Join the Launch on January 27: Learn How to Master the Most Important Artifact for any Successful Agile Practitioner!

🎯 Product

• 🎙 Aakash Gupta hosts Paweł Huryn in a podcast exploring effective product discovery, adaptive frameworks, risk-centric product management, prioritization strategies, and the art of storytelling as a critical success factor: "How to Do Product Discovery Right with Pawel Huryn."

• Martin Eriksson emphasizes that clarity is the cornerstone of effective strategy, urging leaders to consistently define, communicate, and embed strategy to ensure alignment, understanding, and actionable impact across their organizations: "What’s Holding Your Strategy Back? Clarity."

• Mind The Product: Paul McAvinchey explores crafting impactful product visions and missions, emphasizing their role in aligning teams, driving innovation, and guiding decision-making to transform product development into a meaningful, focused process: "Deep dive: Crafting your product vision and mission."

• Petra Wille highlights Novo Nordisk’s adoption of the PMwheel framework, demonstrating how tailored tools can enhance role clarity, foster development conversations, and empower product teams during digital transformation: "The PMwheel in Action: How Novo Nordisk Is Promoting Ownership of Growth and Learning Among Product Managers."

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

• Gustavo Razzetti provides actionable strategies to foster a fearless culture where bad news is delivered constructively and without blame, enabling organizations to address challenges proactively and transparently: "How to Deliver Bad News Without Becoming the Scapegoat."

• Maik Seyfert explores balancing user-centricity with business constraints, offering strategies for aligning user needs and company goals through shared vision, flexible roadmaps, iterative development, and transparent communication: "User-Centricity vs. Company Constraints: Finding the Right Balance."

• 📺 Jeff Gothelf introduces two updated tools for product development: the Lean Strategy Canvas, which focuses on aligning teams around strategic goals and OKRs, and the Lean Product Canvas, which emphasizes risk reduction and shared understanding: "Video walkthrough: The Lean Strategy & Lean Product Canvases."

• Mark Levison highlights the power of Example Mapping in crafting effective acceptance criteria. By fostering collaborative conversations around user stories, rules, examples, and questions, example mapping ultimately enhances clarity, reduces risks, and improves outcomes: "Example Mapping: Your Secret Weapon for Effective Acceptance Criteria."

🎶 Encore

• Teresa Torres shares a comprehensive list of 2025 product conferences worldwide, which will provide opportunities for product professionals to connect, learn, and explore product management, innovation, and design trends: "2025 Product Conference List."

📯 Why Leaders Believe the Product Operating Model Will Succeed Where Agile Initiatives Failed

Why might leaders turn to the Product Operating Model (POM) after a previous Agile transformation, for example, based on SAFe, failed?

This article uncovers the psychological, organizational, and strategic reasons behind this seeming contradiction, exploring what motivates leaders to believe that a new approach will succeed where others have not.

Learn more: Why Leaders Believe the Product Operating Model Will Succeed Where Agile Initiatives Failed.

📅 Training Classes & Cohorts, Courses, Meetups & Events

Upcoming events:

• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Dec 10-11 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Dec 12 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Product Discovery and Validation Training (PPDV; German)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Dec 18-19 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master - Advanced Training (PSM II; English)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Jan 27 — Online Class Release: Align, Discover, Deliver — The Advanced Product Backlog Management Course
• 🖥 🇩🇪 Jan 28-31 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
• 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Feb 4-6, 2025 — Live Virtual Open Space: Hands-on Agile 2025: From Concept-Based to Context-Based Agility
• 🖥 🇬🇧 Feb 12-13 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master - Advanced Training (PSM II; English)
• 🖥 🇬🇧 Mar 6-Apr 3 — Live Virtual Cohort: Align, Discover, Deliver: The Product Backlog Management Cohort Class (English)

See all upcoming classes here.

📺 Youtube Channel

• Jeremy Willets and Tom Cagley: Mastering Work Intake: The Key to Sustainability and Flow.

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