Food for Agile Thought #410: Best Product Teams, Communication in Low Trust, Killing Features, Stop Using ‘Failure’ When Learning

TL; DR: Best Product Teams — Food for Agile Thought #410

Welcome to the 410th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 49,013 peers. This week, Shane Parrish discusses with Shreyas Doshi the nuances of best product teams and product development; Charity Majors touches upon communication dynamics in strained relationships, emphasizing the role of trust; Jason Cohen advocates for redefining the narrative around business setbacks, championing terms like “experiment” over “fail,” and Ryan Holiday dissects the art of leadership, reminding us that leadership roles manifest in diverse ways throughout life. Also, we shed a light on unspoken reasons to resist Agile transformations.

Then, Andrew Quan delves into the self-doubt that plagues many Product Leaders, shedding light on their challenges and offering guidance. Assaph Mehr sets an intriguing take on the potential value of altering favorite product features, elucidating its long-term benefits for the product and business. Meanwhile, Roman Pichler examines the intricate process of assembling product teams in organizations unfamiliar with the digital product’s true essence.

Finally, Jason Yip debunks common productivity myths, urging a deeper understanding of effectiveness. Jeff Gothelf emphasizes the value of consistent customer interactions to gain insights without hefty investments. Stephen Puiszis highlights the intricacies of evaluating product roadmaps, providing tools for those outside product management. Lastly, Łukasz Korecki offers a candid reflection on the challenges of implementing OKRs within software engineering teams.

🏅 The most popular discussion on LinkedIn last week was: Scrum is a remarkably egalitarian affair!

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🏆 The Tip of the Week: Best Product Teams

Shreyas Doshi and Shane Parrish (via Farnam Street): 🎙 Better Teams, Better Products

Shane Parrish interviews Shreyas Doshi, a seasoned tech expert from Stripe, Twitter, Google, and Yahoo, and discusses building best product teams, product development, and conflict resolution.

🍋 Lemon of the Week

(via PMO Global Institute): Agile PMO: Transforming Project Management

This week’s lemon claims that Spotify succeeded by implementing an “Agile PMO,” thus enabling cross-functional teams to work autonomously yet align with broader objectives.

➿ Agile & Scrum

Charity Majors: How to Communicate When Trust Is Low (Without Digging Yourself Into A Deeper Hole)

Charity Majors highlights the challenges of communicating in low-trust relationships and emphasizes the importance of small, positive interactions to rebuild trust, recommending, for example, overcommunication.

Jason Cohen (via Jason Cohen): Stop saying ‘fail’

Jason Cohen argues that the term “fail” is overly negative and doesn’t accurately describe the iterative process of exploration in business. Instead of “fail,” phrases like “experiment” or “test” better encapsulate the journey.

Ryan Holiday: 24 Leadership Principles From The Greatest Business, Military, Political and Sports Leaders

Ryan Holiday emphasizes that leadership isn’t innate but an art to be studied, suggesting that everyone inherently leads in various life roles. Learn more about the essence and development of leadership skills.

🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class w/ PSFS Certificate — October 4, 2023

The Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills (PSFS) training by Berlin Product People is a guaranteed one-day official Scrum.org class for advanced Scrum practitioners and agile coaches, including the industry-acknowledged PSFS certification. This PSFS training class is in English.

Enjoy the benefits of a compact immersive class with like-minded agile peers from 09:00 – 17:30 o’clock CEST.

Learn more: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class w/ PSFS Certificate — October 4, 2023.

👉 From time to time, we can offer last-minute seats for training classes at cost to individuals who do not have access to a corporate training budget. If you like to be notified about these opportunities, please register here.

🎯 Product

Andrew Quan (via Medium): The Daily Dichotomies of Product Leadership

Andrew Quan highlights the self-doubt many Product Leaders face due to on-the-job learning and high expectations. They often feel torn in multiple directions, hindering progress. Quan shares personal experiences and offers navigation tips.

Assaph Mehr (via Mind The Product): When was the last time you pissed off your users off?

Assaph Mehr highlights the counterintuitive value of occasionally upsetting users by modifying beloved product features, emphasizing its potential to enhance overall product health and business.

Roman Pichler: Building High-Performing Product Teams

Roman Pichler underscores the complexities of forming product teams in organizations that may not fully grasp the essence of a digital product.

📯 Resistance to Agile Transformations: Reasons and How To Overcome Them

Stakeholders often revert to resistance to agile transformations due to fears about job security, perceived loss of control, comfort with established practices, and misconceptions about Agile.

However, we can help: Agile practitioners can ease the change process by employing techniques such as empathetic listening, co-creating the change process, introducing incremental changes, offering targeted education, and showcasing internal success stories. Addressing resistance with understanding and respect is pivotal to a successful agile transformation.

Learn more: Resistance to Agile Transformations: Reasons and How To Overcome Them.

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

Jason Yip (via Medium): 5 things that are typically confused for productivity

Jason Yip highlights the misconceptions about productivity, such as mistaking responsiveness for efficiency and equating busyness with genuine output. Learn more about the pitfalls of misguided productivity beliefs.

Jeff Gothelf: Case Study: How 3 startups built their customer discovery practice

Jeff Gothelf stresses that even with confidence, entrepreneurs can make mistakes in product development or target audience selection. Emphasizing regular customer interactions provides insights with minimal investment and promotes patience.

Łukasz Korecki (via Better Programming): OKRs? More like, R U OK?

Łukasz Korecki reflects on their experiences with OKRs in software engineering teams over the years, noting that while the concept sounds appealing, its application often results in team issues.

🎶 Encore

Stephen Puiszis: How-to Evaluate a Product Roadmap, for Engineers

Stephen Puiszis addresses the challenge of evaluating product roadmaps, noting a resource gap for non-product managers, and offering insights on engaging with and assessing a product manager’s roadmap.

See all upcoming classes here.

You can book your seat for the training directly by following the corresponding links to the ticket shop. If the procurement process of your organization requires a different purchasing process, please contact Berlin Product People GmbH directly.

📺 Join 5,000-plus Agile Peers on Youtube

Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel to improve learning, for example, how to avoid to be unproductive:

Hands-on Agile 52: From Wild West to the Agile Manifesto with Jim Highsmith.

Hands-on Agile EXTRA: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business with Joe Justice.

Hands-on Agile 50: The Product Community of Practice with Petra Wille.

Hands-on Agile 46: The Agile Fluency Model ® with Diana Larsen.

Hands-on Agile 43: Outcome-Based Product Planning with Jeff Gothelf.

Hands-on Agile 42: Lean Roadmapping and OKRs with Janna Bastow.

Hands-on Agile 38: The Product Owner with Roman Pichler.

✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn More About Best Product Teams — Join the 12,000-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Community

I invite you to join the “Hands-on Agile” Slack Community and enjoy the benefits of a fast-growing, vibrant community of agile practitioners from around the world.

If you like to join all you have to do now is provide your credentials via this Google form, and I will sign you up. By the way, it’s free.

Help your team to explore best product teams by pointing them to the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide:

🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition

Read more: Food for Agile Thought #409: How to Be Unproductive, Customers Hate the MVP, Waterfall Misconceptions, Supporting Continuous Discovery.

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