Food for Agile Thought #433: The Right Product Idea, Accountability & Safety, Mitigating Product?Risk
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!
Hello everyone!
Welcome to the 433rd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,271 peers. This week, Jeanette Mellinger provides a guide for customer discovery to support your search for the right product idea, while Marc Abraham discusses building high-performing teams, as seen in Christina Wodtke’s book. Tom Hunsaker highlights execution gaps in change initiatives based on a study of 257 firms. Joost Minnaar suggests a self-management transition for organizations. Plus, we share strategies to navigate the Agile job crisis, emphasizing skill refinement, networking, and community support for growth and success in the Agile field.
Then, Pawe? Huryn and Aakash Gupta interview Marty Cagan, sharing insights on transitioning to product operating models, stressing empowerment and product discovery. Jason Cohen addresses AI startups’ unique challenges against incumbents, underlining the need for innovative strategies, and Phil Vander Broek discusses AI development risks, advocating for technical research and iterative learning to enhance product education. Lastly, Ant Murphy discusses the power of niching down, using Square, Lululemon, and Amazon as examples, and introduces the Niche Canvas tool for market segmentation and strategic growth.
Lastly, Dr. Amy Edmondson and Dr. David Rock dismantle the myth that psychological safety and accountability can’t coexist in high-performing teams. Gabriel Robaina and Kieran Murphy share insights from their experiment on daily pair rotation in programming, highlighting its enhanced benefits and addressing common concerns. Moreover, Carmen DeCouto presents ten essential metrics for assessing freemium and free trial performance, focusing on comprehensive customer and product insights. Finally, we explore the concept of entropy, clarifying its role in increasing life’s complexity and its integral connection to the passage of time.
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The most popular discussion on LinkedIn last week was: TeamMetrics can be game-changers?—?but do you track the right ones? !
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?? The Tip of the Week: The Right Product?Idea
Jeanette Mellinger (via First Round Capital): How to Know if Your Idea’s the Right One?—?A Founder’s Guide for Successful Early-Stage Customer Discovery
Jeanette Mellinger offers a three-step early-stage customer discovery guide for founders. It focuses on rigorous research to build products users truly desire and emphasizes planning, unbiased interviewing, and reflective analysis.
Author: Jeanette Mellinger
?? Lemon of the?Week
(via AgileGenesis): The Evolution of the Scrum Master in SAFe?6.0
In SAFe 6.0’s latest act of genius, we meet the “Scrum Master / Team Coach,” tasked with mind-blowing responsibilities like using Kanban for clarity and enhancing team collaboration. Groundbreaking, isn’t it? Apparently, classic Scrum basics are now “advanced expertise.” It seems we’re celebrating the rediscovery of the wheel.
? Agile &?Scrum
Joost Minnaar (via Corporate Rebels): 5 Steps (and 9 Experiments) for a Successful Transition to a Self-Managing Organization
Joost Minnaar advocates for transforming work environments to foster self-management in organizations. His approach involves diagnosing current practices, simplifying workflows, defining roles, and promoting transparency to shift behaviors toward autonomy.
Author: Joost Minnaar
(via Harvard Business Review): How to Actually Execute Change at a?Company
Tom Hunsaker’s analysis across 257 firms reveals only 60% of planned change initiatives achieve their goals due to gaps in communication, resources, alignment, and strategic measurement, highlighting the crucial role of execution in realizing potential
?? Marc Abraham (via Medium): ‘The Team that Managed Itself’ (Book?Review)
Marc Abraham reflects on Christina Wodtke’s “The Team that Managed Itself,” which delves into the essence of forming high-performing teams through goal-setting and coaching.
Author: Marc Abraham
?? ?? ???? Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training w/ PSM II Certificate?—?April 23–24,?2024
Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this official Scrum.org class for Advanced Scrum Masters, including the industry-acknowledged PSM II certification. This PSFS training class is in English.
Enjoy the benefits of a live virtual immersive class with like-minded agile peers from 09:00–17:30 o’clock CEST.
Learn more: ?? ???? Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training w/ PSM II Certificate?—?April 23–24, 2024 .
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?? Product
?? Pawel Huryn, Aakash Gupta, and Marty Cagan: Marty Cagan on TRANSFORMED: Moving to the Product Operating Model
Pawe? Huryn and Aakash Gupta discuss with Marty Cagan how to shift from traditional to product operating models, emphasizing empowerment, accountability, and the significance of product discovery for high-performing teams.
Authors: Pawel Huryn , Aakash Gupta , and Marty Cagan
领英推荐
(via Dopt): How we mitigated product risk while building AI?features
Phil Vander Broek emphasizes the inherent risks in developing AI features, contrasting them with traditional ones due to the unknown outcomes until built. They highlight the importance of technical research, risk quantification, and building as iterative steps to learn and mitigate risks, ultimately enhancing product onboarding and education.
Jason Cohen (via Jason Cohen): AI startups require new strategies: This time it’s actually different
Jason Cohen highlights the unique challenge AI startups face, where traditional strengths like agility and innovation don’t counterbalance the incumbents’ advantages in data, talent, and existing innovation, requiring a rethought strategy for success.
Author: Jason Cohen
Ant Murphy: ‘Niching’ Down
Ant Murphy highlights the importance of niching down for startups, showcasing Square, Lululemon, and Amazon’s journeys from narrow focuses to massive successes. He introduces a Niche Canvas tool to help define a product’s target market, emphasizing the importance of segmentation and strategic expansion possibilities.
Source: ‘Niching’ Down
Author: Ant Murphy
?? Navigating the Agile Job Crisis: Strategies for?Success
While the current Agile job crisis is apparent, there is also hope for practitioners willing to refine their skills, share knowledge, and network with peers.
This article outlines actionable strategies for thriving in challenging times, emphasizing that growth and success are achievable by leveraging community strength and readily accessible resources. Check out also how I can support you on your journey below.
?? Read more: Navigating the Agile Job Crisis: Strategies for Success .
?? Concepts, Tools & Measuring
(via NeuroLeadership Institute): Psychological Safety and Accountability: Three Insights From NLI’s Conversation With Amy Edmondson
Dr. Amy Edmondson and Dr. David Rock discuss the synergy between psychological safety and accountability in high-performing teams, debunking misconceptions that they’re mutually exclusive.
Gabriel Robaina and Kieran Murphy: What if we rotate pairs every?day?
Gabriel Robaina and Kieran Murphy detailed an experiment on daily pair rotation in programming, revealing that it significantly boosts pairing benefits alongside a methodology to address common fears and insights.
Author: Martin Fowler
(via Amplitude): Top 10 Metrics to Measure Freemium and Free Trial Performance
Carmen DeCouto outlines ten metrics for tracking freemium and free trial performance, emphasizing the importance of measuring beyond revenue to understand customer acquisition and product value.
?? Encore
(via Farnam Street): Entropy: The Hidden Force That Complicates Life
Entropy, often misunderstood as a mere disorder, underpins why life’s complexity escalates over time. It illustrates its pervasive influence from daily routines to cosmic phenomena, fundamentally intertwining with the fabric of time itself.
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