Food for Agile Thought #436: State of Agile 2024, Amazon Product Model, Innovation and Disaster
Also: Why PMs Hate Their Job, People Pleaser, Tech Debt, Dynamic Reteaming
Hello everyone!
Welcome to the 436th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,352 peers.
This week, we dive into pivotal insights on Agile’s current landscape and organizational impacts. The State of Agile 2024 Report, as discussed by Joyce Tompsett and Shane Hastie, uncovers the evolving challenges and adaptations within Agile practices, highlighting a trend towards hybrid methodologies and the crucial alignment of Agile with business outcomes. Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson’s conversation with Ron Westrum sheds light on organizational culture, using insights from NASA and Boeing. Ben Hartshorne shares Honeycomb’s journey, illustrating the strategic incorporation of technical debt resolution to foster business growth. Lastly, Ben Werdmuller reflects on the evolution of web development, emphasizing the importance of purpose, teamwork, and a culture promoting innovation and inclusivity.
Then, Marty Cagan and Richard Russell delve into Amazon’s customer-focused approach through Prime, showcasing how to fuel technological advancements and long-term value. Leah Tharin discusses the realities versus the idealistic expectations in product management. At the same time, Geoff Watts addresses the challenge of people-pleasing in leadership, presenting techniques for maintaining project integrity while fostering positive relationships. Lastly, Petra Wille emphasizes the critical role of saying “no” in product management, proposing strategies to prioritize and encourage innovation within resource constraints.
Lastly, Andy Walker critiques traditional productivity metrics, advocating for a focus on team dynamics and best practices to enhance development. Willem-Jan Ageling explores the benefits and strategies of dynamic reteaming in product development, and Corinna Baldauf shares insights on using Open Space sessions for effective company-wide retrospectives. Also, we explore how Scrum teams can lose stakeholder support. Finally, David Luan discusses leading Adept in developing practical AGI, reflecting on missed opportunities with GPT-3 at Google.
🎓 May 30, 2024: Learn to Master Your Most Important Artifact w/ the Advanced Product Backlog Management Course for Just $149!
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🏆 The Tip of the Week: State of Agile 2024
📖 (via Digital.ai): 17th State of Agile Report
The 17th State of Agile Report reveals a critical moment for Agile, facing challenges adapting to current shifts like AI, developer burnout, and hybrid work environments. While small organizations praise Agile’s benefits, larger companies express dissatisfaction, leaning towards hybrid frameworks combining Agile with other methods. Leadership in Agile transformation primarily comes from business leaders and executives, with many organizations adopting a mixed approach to software development strategies.
Source: Digital.ai: 📖 17th State of Agile Report
🍋 Lemon of the Week
We are lemon-free this week.
➿ Agile & Scrum
🎙 Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson: Innovation and disaster with Ron Westrum
Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson discuss how organizational culture impacts innovation and disasters with Ron Westrum. They explore generative, bureaucratic, and pathological cultures, using NASA and Boeing as examples, emphasizing leadership integrity and the role of technical maestros in fostering an environment where information flows freely, and innovation thrives.
Source: 🎙 Innovation and disaster with Ron Westrum
Authors: Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson
(via InfoQ): How to Get Tech-Debt on the Roadmap
Ben Hartshorne advocates aligning technical debt resolution with business goals to prioritize it on roadmaps, using Honeycomb’s growth and scaling challenges as examples to enhance business efficiency and growth.
Source: InfoQ: How to Get Tech-Debt on the Roadmap
🎙 Shane Hastie and Joyce Tompsett (via InfoQ): The State of Agile in 2024
Joyce Tompsett and Shane Hastie discuss the 17th State of Agile report, which highlights the disconnect between Agile practitioners and business perspectives, the trend towards hybrid methodologies, the emphasis on business outcomes, and the broad adoption of Agile practices across various organizational domains.
Source: InfoQ: The State of Agile in 2024
Authors: Shane Hastie and Joyce Tompsett
Ben Werdmuller: Building engineering
Ben Werdmuller reflects on over two decades in web development, emphasizing the shift from ‘what’ and ‘how’ to build to focus on organizational purpose, teamwork, and navigating technology trends. They advocate for a culture of innovation, inclusion, and servant leadership to empower teams for creative problem-solving.
Source: Building engineering
Author: Ben Werdmuller
🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 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 CEST.
Learn more: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training w/ PSM II Certificate — April 23–24, 2024.
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
Marty Cagan and Richard Russell (via Silicon Valley Product Group): The Product Model at Amazon
Marty Cagan and Richard Russell detail Amazon’s approach with Prime, highlighting a focus on customer-centric innovation and agile development. They illustrate how strategic experimentation and strong leadership drive Amazon’s ability to harness technology for improved service, showcasing Prime as a testament to its commitment to long-term value and impactful outcomes.
Source: Silicon Valley Product Group: The Product Model at Amazon
Authors: Marty Cagan and Richard Russell
Leah Tharin: Why Product Managers hate their jobs…
Leah Tharin highlights the gap between the idealistic expectations for product management and the realities faced by product managers, emphasizing the need for empathy, empowerment, and addressing organizational challenges to align aspirations with practical outcomes.
Source: Why Product Managers hate their jobs…
Author: Leah Tharin
Geoff Watts: The People Pleasing Product Leader
Geoff Watts explores Jordan’s struggle with people-pleasing, risking project integrity. It advocates for balanced “people-pleasing” with strategies like boundary setting, value clarification, assertiveness, and self-care to ensure leadership effectiveness.
Source: The People Pleasing Product Leader
Author: Geoff Watts
Petra Wille: The Art of Saying No, Product Leadership Edition
Petra Wille underscores the importance of saying “no” in product management, offering strategies for balancing resources and aligning with strategy. She advocates for nuanced responses, using data and focusing on customer-centric decisions to navigate constraints and encourage innovation.
Source: The Art of Saying No, Product Leadership Edition
Author: Petra Wille
📯 How Scrum Teams Fail Stakeholders and What You Can Do About It
In this article, we uncover typical ways in which Scrum teams fail stakeholders, from overpromising results to poor risk communication to neglecting feedback. Moreover, we will also explore actionable strategies to overcome these anti-patterns by building trust, aligning priorities, and enhancing collaboration for successful product development.
Read more: How Scrum Teams Fail Stakeholders and What You Can Do About It.
🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring
(via Better Programming): No, you shouldn’t measure software engineers — but you should help them adopt best practices
Andy Walker argues against measuring software engineer productivity through metrics alone, advocating instead for fostering team dynamics, educating on best practices like DORA and SPACE, and empowering teams to share progress and context, thus enhancing overall software development effectiveness.
Willem-Jan Ageling (via LogRocket): An introduction to dynamic reteaming
Willem-Jan Ageling, inspired by Heidi Helfand, highlights the inevitability and benefits of dynamic reteaming in product development. He discusses strategies for managing team changes and embracing team evolution as an opportunity.
Source: LogRocket: An introduction to dynamic reteaming
Author: Willem-Jan Ageling
Corinna Baldauf: Organization-wide retrospectives? Open Space!
Corinna Baldauf reflects on discovering that Open Space sessions functioned as effective company-wide Retrospectives without the traditional structure. This format encouraged diverse participation and problem-solving, providing a platform for addressing issues beyond the scope of team-level Retrospectives.
Source: Organization-wide retrospectives? Open Space!
Author: Corinna Baldauf
🎶 Encore
🎙 (via Latent Space Podcast): Why Google failed to make GPT-3 + why Multimodal Agents are the path to AGI — with David Luan of Adept
David Luan, ex-OpenAI and Google, now leads Adept in advancing AGI with multimodal agents that perform diverse computer tasks, emphasizing enterprise applications and high reliability. He explores Google’s missed opportunity with GPT-3 and Adept’s strategic focus on practical AGI development.
📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events 2024
Upcoming classes and events:
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 April 2–30, 2024 — Live Virtual Cohort: Product Backlog Management Cohort Class of April 2–30, 2024 (English)
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 April 9 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile 60: A Q&A on Dynamic Reteaming with Heidi Helfand (English)
🖥 💯 🇩🇪 April 10–11 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 April 23–24 — Live Virtual Class: Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; English)
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 7 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Training (PSFS; English)
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 7 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile 61: Toyota Kata Coaching f. Agile Teams & Transformations — Fortune Buchholtz (English)
🖥 🇩🇪 May 14–15 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
🖥 🇬🇧 May 28–29 — Live Virtual Class: Advanced Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM II; English)
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 June 6 — Live Virtual Meetup: Hands-on Agile 62: Backlog Manager to Product Manager: Outputs to Outcomes w/ David Pereira (English)
🖥 🇩🇪 June 25–16 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
👉 See all upcoming classes here
🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition
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Now available on the Age-of-Product YouTube channel:
Hands-on Agile 59: Tackling Fake Agility w/ Johanna Rothman
Hands-on Agile 58: Dysfunction Mapping w/ Michael Lloyd
Hands-on Agile 57: Humble Planning w/ Maarten Dalmijn
Hands-on Agile 54: Overcoming Common Product Backlog Management Traps w/ David Pereira
Hands-on Agile 53: An Agile Coaches Guide to Storytelling w/ Bob Galen
Hands-on Agile Extra: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business mit Joe Justice
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
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