Food for Agile Thought #316: Fixed Scope & Date, Yet Agile? Taking a Wedge to the Market, Agile Hangover, Value Stream Mapping Best Practices
Stefan Wolpers
?? I help Product Owners, Product Managers, Scrum Masters & Agile Coaches Grow w/ Classes, Courses, Books & Community. ?? Author of the ”Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide;” ??Trainer at Scrum.org; ?? Book a 1-on-1; talk chances!
TL; DR: Fixed Scope, Yet Agile? Agile Hangover — Food for Agile Thought?#316
Welcome to the 316th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 33,419 peers. This week, we ask: Fixed scope & date, yet there is agility? Moreover, we sum up some observations regarding agile transformations, from the beginning of the party to the probably ‘inevitable.’ We also list five stupid yet still popular management practices, from stack ranking to open offices, and we share seven principles and five steps to enhance your change leadership skills.
We then delve into a successful product strategy pattern that made Shopify, Tesla, or Airbnb successful: wedge yourself into the market, then expand, and ask: “What happens when your biggest strength and greatest asset as a product development organization becomes your biggest weakness?” Additionally, we elaborate on the Use Case Frequency Spectrum and how it applies to growing products that customers use once a year or less.
Lastly, we share a helpful infographic with the core elements of VSM to kickstart continuous improvement and a framework to improve user research, leading to better-informed decision-making.
Did you miss the previous?Food for Agile Thought’s issue #315 ?
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?? The Tip of the?Week
Mike Cohn: Constraints on Your Project Still Leave Room to Be?Agile
Mike Cohn shares his take on a controversial topic: He believes there can be agility in fixed-everything — date, scope, budget — projects.
Author:?Mike Cohn
? Agile &?Scrum
Dave West (via Scrum.org): The Agile?Hangover
Dave West sums up some of his observations regarding agile transformations, from the beginning of the party to the probably ‘inevitable.’
Source:?Scrum.org: The Agile Hangover
Author:?Dave West
David Burkus: The Five Worst Ideas In Management
David Burkus lists five stupid yet still popular management practices, from stack ranking to open offices.
Author:?David Burkus
Aric Wood (via XPLANE): Seven Principles and Five Steps to Confidently Lead Organizational Change
Aric Wood shares seven principles and five steps to enhance your change leadership skills.
Author:?Aric Wood
(via InfoQ): Promoting Creativity in Software Development with the Kaizen?Method
Sarma Manthravadi suggests using the Kaizen practice to improve your software development skills and details the necessary steps to get going.
?? November 30, 2021: Hands-on Agile #37: Agile Metrics Survey 2021 — Alexander Bergmann & Stefan?Wolpers
We crowdsourced data and information on a critical topic: Who is using what metrics under which context to what success during an agile transformation.
We collected the data in two subsequent phases. In the 1st phase, from 2019–11–17 to 2020–02–13, we collected 534 data sets. In the second phase, from 2020–07–22 to 21–01–30, we collected another 629 data sets. Overall, 1,153 people participated in our survey.
Join us and learn what we have found with the?Agile Metrics Survey 2021 .
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?? Product
Lenny Rachitsky: Picking a?wedge
Lenny Rachitsky delves into a successful product strategy pattern that made Shopify, Tesla, or Airbnb successful: wedge yourself into the market, then expand.
Source:?Picking a wedge
Author:?Lenny Rachitsky
Steven Sinofsky: Alleviating Bloatware, First?Attempt
Steven Sinofsky asks a simple question: “What happens when your biggest strength and greatest asset […] becomes your biggest weakness?” Read on and learn more about Microsoft Office’s struggle with feature bloat.
Author:?Steven Sinofsky
Vivek Kumar (via Reforge): ICED Theory — Growing Infrequent Products
Vivek Kumar elaborates on the Use Case Frequency Spectrum and how it applies to growing products that customers use once a year or less.
Author:?Vivek Kumar
?? Overruling the Product Owner? — Making Your Scrum Work?#21
There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Since Scrum is an intentionally incomplete framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. For example, what if the stakeholders — who bring the budget that is funding your Scrum team — insist on calling the shots by overruling the Product Owner’s prerogative to define the composition and the ordering the Product Backlog? What if your stakeholders suffer from the “my budget, my feature” syndrome?
Join me and delve into the effects of overruling the Product Owner in less than 140 seconds.
?? Tools & Measuring
(via KaiNexus): Value Stream Mapping Best Practices
KaiNexus shares a helpful infographic with the core elements of VSM to kickstart continuous improvement.
Roberta Dombrowski (via User Interviews): A Framework for Decision Driven?Research
Roberta Dombrowski shares a framework to improve user research, leading to better-informed decision-making.
Author:?Roberta Dombrowski
?? Training Classes, Meetups & Events?2021
Upcoming classes and events:
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Food for Agile Thought #316: Fixed Scope & Date, Yet Agile? Taking a Wedge to the Market, Agile Hangover, Value Stream Mapping Best Practices was first published on Age-of-Product.com.