Food for Agile Thought #432: Agility Creates Valuable Firms, Product Focus, Balancing LTV and CAC
Stefan Wolpers
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Hello everyone!
Welcome to the 432nd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,247 peers.
This week, Steve Denning reveals how agility creates valuable firms by focusing on customer value and empowerment. Matt Van Itallie and Cassidy Williams discuss the importance of addressing tech debt for improved outcomes. Also, Tom Kerwin and John Cutler present strategies for leaders in complexity, advocating for innovation through embracing uncertainty. Stephanie Ockerman critiques productivity culture’s impact on agility, suggesting a shift towards outcome-focused approaches.
Then, Richard Mironov emphasizes the importance of product leaders providing support for product managers to focus by using strategic refusals. David Pereira explains the necessity of balancing customer lifetime value and acquisition costs for sustainable growth and profitability. Moreover, Lea Hickman and Marty Cagan critique the “theater” in product management and leadership that blocks true transformation, while Itamar Gilad critiques the “hype economy” in tech, arguing for an evidence-guided approach over salesmanship for smarter product decisions and a healthier organizational culture.
Lastly, Tanmay Vora addresses the pitfalls of misapplying metrics in line with Goodhart’s Law, advocating for a balanced approach of qualitative and quantitative measures to ensure desired behaviors. Douglas Squirrel introduces the “Elephant Carpaccio” concept from his talk, and Wes Kao champions the practice of Super Specific Feedback (SSF) on work outputs, underlining the importance of precise, actionable advice for elevating team performance and decision-making skills.
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Did you miss the previous?Food for Agile Thought’s issue 431?
?? The Tip of the Week: Agility Creates Valuable?Firms
Steve Denning (via Forbes): Surprise! The World’s Most Valuable Firms Are?Agile
Steve Denning explains how Agile principles, beyond applying mere frameworks and methodologies, drive the success of the world’s most valuable firms, emphasizing customer value and employee empowerment.
Author:?Steve Denning
?? Lemon of the?Week
There is no Lemon this week.
? Agile &?Scrum
?? Matt Van Itallie (via Stack Overflow): How to convince your CEO it’s worth paying down tech?debt
Matt Van Itallie discusses convincing CEOs of the value of addressing tech debt for better outcomes for users, companies, and developers with Cassidy Williams.
Author:?Matt Van Itallie
John Cutler and Tom Kerwin: How Capable Leaders Navigate Uncertainty and Ambiguity
Tom Kerwin and John Cutler outline key capabilities for leaders navigating complexity, emphasizing the need for holistic approaches, embracing uncertainty, and fostering collaborative environments for innovation and problem-solving.
Authors:?John Cutler?and?Tom Kerwin
Stephanie Ockerman: 5 ways productivity culture kills business?agility
Stephanie Ockerman highlights how productivity culture, prioritizing output over outcomes, undermines business agility, creativity, and collaboration, suggesting a shift towards value-driven approaches.
Author:?Stephanie Ockerman
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Customer Voice: “Since about 12 people have already asked me these last 2 days: Yes, taking one of Stefan Wolpers' classes is a mind-blowing experience. He’s actually the most adroit facilitator I’ve met after Guy Kawasaki & Roland Busch. It all flows like a silk ribbon in a soft spring breeze but with a strong authenticity that prevents the thing from feeling all Del Monte Canned Corporate Facilitation(tm). It may be due to his seemingly effortless mastery of the Liberating Structures. He doesn’t “teach to the test,” yet when you take the open practice assessments, you somehow score 95+ the first time. I dunno, it’s magic or Mozart, you pick.” (Source.)
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?? Product
Rich Mironov: Permission To Stay?Focused
Richard Mironov highlights the role of product leaders in providing organizational support for product managers to maintain focus and avoid overload by saying ‘No’ or ‘Later.’
Source:?Permission To Stay Focused
Author:?Rich Mironov
David Pereira: Understanding How to Balance Customer Lifetime Value and Acquisition Costs
David Pereira details how optimizing business health by balancing customer lifetime value (LTV) and acquisition costs (CAC) is essential for strategic planning, growth, and profitability.
Author:?David Pereira
领英推荐
Itamar Gilad: The Hype?Economy
Itamar Gilad discusses the detrimental “hype economy” in tech, advocating for evidence-guided development over salesmanship for better product decisions and a healthier company culture.
Source:?The Hype Economy
Author:?Itamar Gilad
Marty Cagan and Lea Hickman (via Silicon Valley Product Group): Transformation Theater
Lea Hickman and Marty Cagan discuss typical “theater” in product management and leadership, hindering fundamental transformation and advocating for evidence-guided development and genuine stakeholder collaboration.
Authors:?Marty Cagan?and?Lea Hickman
?? Scrum Anti-Patterns GPT?—?Useful or a Gaming Exercise?
Can a Custom Scrum Anti-Patterns GPT align teams with Scrum principles? Dive into how leveraging custom GPTs might offer a novel path through Scrum’s common hurdles, focusing on creating actual customer value in the face of organizational and team-level challenges.
???Read more:?Scrum Anti-Patterns GPT?—?Useful or a Gaming Exercise?
?? Concepts, Tools & Measuring
Tanmay Vora: Measuring Right: Understanding Goodhart’s Law
Tanmay Vora warns against misusing metrics due to Goodhart’s Law, suggesting holistic measures and a mix of qualitative and quantitative metrics to foster correct behaviors.
Author:?Tanmay Vora
(via XKCD Comic): Goodhart’s Law
More on Goodhart’s law, cartoon-style.
Source:?XKCD Comic: Goodhart’s Law
?? Douglas Squirrel (via YouTube): Elephant Carpaccio?—?Talk Highlight from Are My Engineers Doing Anything?
Douglas Squirrel highlights “Elephant Carpaccio” from his talk “Are My Engineers Doing Anything??” focusing on breaking down tasks for efficiency and clarity in engineering work.
Author:?Douglas Squirrel
?? Encore
Wes Kao: Super Specific Feedback: How to give actionable feedback on work?output
Wes Kao advocates for Super Specific Feedback (SSF) on work output, emphasizing detailed, actionable coaching to improve team performance and judgment.
Author:?Wes Kao
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??? Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought?Edition
Read more:?Food for Agile Thought 431: Custom GPTs, Leah’s Team Guide, Agile Rehab, Inescapable Deadlines.
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Food for Agile Thought #432: Agility Creates Valuable Firms, Product Focus, Down Paying Tech Debt, Balancing LTV and CAC was first published on?Age-of-Product.com.
So much valuable insights packed in this edition! Can't wait to dive in. ??
Product Coach – Kundenwert messbar liefern, IT-Teams voranbringen, Produktorganisationen auf Wachstum ausrichten
1 年Trigger Warnung: bei der Anzahl der Ausgaben fehlt eine 1 am Ende. Das sollte auf jeden Fall 4321 hei?en! "Das w?re aber nicht korrekt"? Otto hat der Produktmanagement-Sage nach bei seinem ersten Versandhauskatalog nicht die Nummer 1, sondern eine viel h?here Katalognummer verwendet. Damit sollte das Kundenvertrauen für einen dem Anschein nach langj?hrig erfolgreichen Versandh?ndler erweckt werden. Und, ist Otto heute erfolgreich? Eben! Von den Besten lernen! Und mich nicht triggern ... ;-)
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1 年Awesome collection , Stefan Wolpers. The cartoon saying, "when a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good metric." Jeff Bezos touched on this in a recent interview.... Many people get totally lost in metrics, and miss the big pictures that the metrics fit into.
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1 年Thanks for the mention!