Food for Agile Thought #459: Challenging Assumptions, High-Performing Product Teams, Product Strategy Discovery, The Reason for Agile’s Decline

TL; DR: Challenging Assumptions — Food for Agile Thought #459

Welcome to the 459th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,779 peers. This week, John Cutler suggests structuring organizations to become comfortable with challenging assumptions and thrive amid changing conditions, while Simon Powers examines culture’s impact on individuals and Agile’s decline. Bob Galen emphasizes the shift from rigid frameworks to flexible, context-driven agile patterns, Ted Neward highlights common ‘manager antipatterns’ in leadership, and Gustavo Razzetti stresses intellectual humility to prevent doubling down on poor decisions.

Next, Melissa Suzuno highlights how Botify’s transition to product-trio-supported enhanced collaboration and decision-making, while Todd Lankford offers a 5-step guide for teams to prioritize user needs over excessive planning. Stephanie Leue shares her approach to building high-performing teams, and Vlad Loktev, interviewed by Lenny Rachitski, discusses leadership insights from his decade at Airbnb, emphasizing chaos, impact, and balance in product development.

Lastly, Jacob Bennett shares his structured approach to work estimation for better outcomes, and Roman Pichler introduces product strategy discovery to minimize failure risk. Also, Pim de Morree critiques hierarchical team structures, advocating for more collaborative models, and Chris Stone presents the ‘Days Since Last’ metric for driving team accountability. Finally, Paul Graham reflects on the importance of a ‘founder mode’ approach to scaling companies, challenging conventional management wisdom.

🎓 October 23, 2024: The Advanced Product Backlog Management Course for Just $99!

👉 Please note:

The course includes membership in the brand-new Hands-on Agile community of my former professional students.

The course will only be available for sign-up until October 31, 2024!

<!–

This week, the most popular discussion on LinkedIn was: Scrum Masters, are you working too much?

–>

Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought issue 458?

🗞 Shall I notify you about articles like this one? Awesome! You can sign up here for the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter and join 42,000-plus subscribers.

🎓 Join Stefan in one of his upcoming Professional Scrum training classes!

🏆 The Tip of the Week: Challenging Assumptions

John Cutler: Boundary of Safely Challenged Assumptions

John Cutler explores the challenges of managing assumptions and legitimacy in software development, suggesting that organizations should be structured to adapt and thrive when conditions change, rather than relying on idealized models.

I have a theory. The idealized view is simultaneously: a) Very effective when the stars align—“ perfect execution of an ideal system.” b) Surprisingly fragile when things “go wrong” (you lose legitimacy, accumulate chronic issues, the business landscape changes, etc.)

🍋 Lemon of the Week

We are Lemon-free this week.

➿ Agile & Leadership

Simon Powers: State vs Step Change – The individual inside culture

Simon Powers explores how culture impacts the individual and how understanding these influences can help protect against negative effects, enhance personal well-being, and foster significant cultural change. He also points to the possible reason for Agile’s decline.

Bob Galen: Coaching Frameworks or Patterns

Bob Galen discusses the shift from rigid frameworks to more flexible pattern-based approaches in agile, emphasizing the need for experienced practitioners and context-driven solutions for sustainable and effective agility.

Ted Neward: Manager Antipatterns

Ted Neward highlights common ‘manager antipatterns,’ where companies repeatedly make mistakes in leadership roles, offering insights into identifying and addressing these dysfunctional management styles to improve team effectiveness.

Gustavo Razzetti: When Leaders Double Down on Bad Decisions

Gustavo Razzetti explores why leaders often double down on bad decisions, emphasizing the importance of intellectual humility, self-awareness, and adopting a learning mindset to avoid costly mistakes.

🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training w/ PSM II Certificate — October 15-16, 2024

Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this guaranteed official Scrum.org Advanced Scrum Master training class including the industry-recognized PSM II certification. The PSM II training class is designed as a live virtual class and will be offered in English.

Enjoy the benefits of a live virtual immersive class with like-minded agile peers from 09:00 – 17:30 CEST.

Learn more: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training w/ PSM II Certificate — October 15-16, 2024.

Customer Voice: “Dear Stefan, Thanks a lot for two intense and mindblowing days. Your way of teaching suites me perfectly. I must admit that all the positive feedback you have gotten is spot on! I would any time a day recommand your class to a Scrum Master who wants to add a whole new level to his/her scrum game. To all of you reading this. You have to experience Stefans class to understand how good it is.” (Source.)

👉 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 would like to be notified about these opportunities, please register here.

🎯 Product

Teresa Torres: Product in Practice: How Botify Broke Down Silos and Moved to Product Trios

Melissa Suzuno shares how Botify successfully broke down silos by transitioning to product trios, fostering collaboration and improved decision-making, and creating a more user-focused and efficient product development process.

Todd Lankford (via Medium): The Real Reasons Why Most Product Teams Struggle to Delight Users

Todd Lankford explains that product teams often fail by focusing too much on planning rather than user needs, offering a 5-step guide to prioritize learning, adaptability, and user engagement.

Aakash Gupta: 🎙 How to Build High Performing Product Teams: Lessons from 15+ Years in Product with Stephanie Leue

In this podcast with Aakash Gupta, Stephanie Leue shares insights from her 15+ years in product management. She focuses on building high-performing teams by fostering trust, leveraging frameworks, and aligning around solving real user problems.

Lenny Rachitsky and Vlad Loktev: 🎙 Airbnb’s Vlad Loktev on embracing chaos, inquiry over advocacy, poking the bear, and ‘impact, impact, impact’

Lenny Rachitski interviews Vlad Loktev, who shares insights from his ten years at Airbnb. They discuss leadership, the importance of embracing chaos, prioritizing impact, and balancing speed with quality in product development and company culture.

📯 From Transparency to the Perils of Oversharing

While transparency is often touted as essential in Agile, too much can have negative consequences. Oversharing can lead to micromanagement, misinterpretation, and loss of trust within the team. Examples include excessive scrutiny during Daily Scrums, misreading progress metrics, and creating a blame culture that erodes psychological safety.

Strategic opacity may sometimes be necessary to protect the team’s autonomy and maintain a healthy dynamic. Be transparent, but not at the expense of the team’s independence and well-being.

Learn more: From Transparency to the Perils of Oversharing.

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

(via Medium): How to estimate work like a senior software engineer

Jacob Bennett shares his structured approach to work estimation, emphasizing understanding requirements, breaking tasks into components, identifying risks, and iterating estimates based on new insights for better project outcomes.

Roman Pichler: Product Strategy Discovery

Roman Pichler introduces product strategy discovery as a systematic approach to minimize the risk of failure and maximize product success by developing an effective, well-aligned product strategy.

Pim de Morree (via Corporate Rebels): Hierarchy in Teams: Why It Often Does More Harm Than Good

Pim de Morree argues that hierarchical team structures often harm performance, fostering conflict and reducing coordination, and advocates for flatter, more collaborative structures to unlock teams’ full potential.

Chris Stone- TheVirtualAgileCoach: Have you heard of DSL metrics: The Simple Metric Most Teams Don’t Know About?

Chris Stone introduces the ‘Days Since Last’ (DSL) metric, a simple visual tool for reminding teams of essential behaviors, driving accountability, and focusing on desired outcomes by tracking time since key events.

🎶 Encore

Paul Graham: Founder Mode

Paul Graham reflects on how conventional wisdom about scaling companies can mislead founders, advocating for a ‘founder mode’ approach, which emphasizes direct involvement and challenges traditional management practices

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 6,000-plus Agile Peers on Youtube

Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel to improve learning, for example, about Challenging Assumptions:

Hands-on Agile 62: From Backlog Manager to Product Manager with David Pereira.

Hands-on Agile 61: Toyota Kata Coaching for Agile Teams & Transformations with Fortune Buchholtz.

Hands-on Agile 59: Tackling Fake Agility with Johanna Rothman.

Hands-on Agile 57: Humble Planning with Maarten Dalmijn.

Hands-on Agile 53: An Agile Coaches Guide to Storytelling with Bob Galen.

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

✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn About Challenging Assumptions — Join the 20,000-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 learn about Challenging Assumptions by pointing them to the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide:

🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition

Read more: Food for Agile Thought #458: Engineers in Customer Support, Product & Tech Debt, Product Launch Mistakes, Cynics Rarely Succeed.

The post Food for Agile Thought #459: Challenging Assumptions, High-Performing Product Teams, Product Strategy Discovery, The Reason for Agile’s Decline appeared first on Age-of-Product.com.