Food for Agile Thought #487: Navigating Politics, Gemini Now State-of-the-Art, Product Strategy Playbook, Embracing ‘I Don’t Know’
Also: Agile Y2k Moment, Sneaky Reasoning Models, DevOps a Bad Idea?
Hello everyone!
Welcome to the 487th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,663 peers.
This week, Murray Robinson speaks with Charles Lambdin about why real organizational change hinges on navigating politics, not just process. Mike Goitein, channeling Roger L. Martin, cautions against data obsession that stifles innovation. Janna Bastow shares a curated list of must-read PM books for 2025. Meanwhile, Zvi Mowshowitz reviews Gemini 2.5 Pro’s impressive reasoning capabilities but critiques Google’s opacity. Lastly, Anthropic’s Alignment Science team exposes troubling gaps in how AIs like Claude 3.7 “think,” revealing alignment risks masked by polished reasoning chains.
Next, Aakash Gupta urges PMs to embrace adaptive, AI-informed strategies over rigid plans. Leah Tharin champions product-led growth through fast discovery and outcome focus, and Colleen McClain reveals a public-expert divide on AI optimism and regulation. Also, Ryan Singer tells Lenny Rachitsky how Shape Up restores clarity to scaling teams. And Ken Norton reframes “I don’t know” as leadership strength, not weakness.
Lastly, Barry O’Reilly calls on leaders to personally engage with AI, not outsource it, fostering curiosity and experimentation. Adam Ard critiques how “DevOps” became a silo, betraying its intent, and Jason Cohen offers a framework for simplifying tough decisions through upside-first thinking. Finally, Kim Scott reaffirms that Radical Candor means clarity with care, not cruelty, and trust at its core.
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Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought issue 486?
🏆 The Tip of the Week: Navigating Politics
🎙 Murray Robinson and Charles Lambdin: Navigating Organisation Politics with Charles Lambdin
Murray Robinson interviews Charles Lambdin, who explains how meaningful change in organizations requires political savvy, coalition-building, and redefining value beyond lip service, because incentives and hidden power dynamics often override stated goals.
Source: 🎙 Navigating Organisation Politics with Charles Lambdin
Authors: Murray Robinson and Charles Lambdin
🎯 Product
Janna Bastow (via ProdPad): The Best Product Management Books for 2025: 16 Picks from Product Experts
Janna Bastow curates a diverse, community-driven list of the best Product Management books for 2025, featuring insights from top PM voices and emphasizing real-world impact over theory.
Source: ProdPad: The Best Product Management Books for 2025: 16 Picks from Product Experts
Author: Janna Bastow
Aakash Gupta: The 2025 Product Strategy Playbook
Aakash Gupta highlights how product strategy in 2025 must shift from rigid planning to adaptive, outcome-driven frameworks shaped by AI, with PMs driving continuous iteration, visual storytelling, and strategic influence.
Source: The 2025 Product Strategy Playbook
Author: Aakash Gupta
Michael Goitein: Why The World’s Leading Strategist Says Data Is Killing Your Product’s Future
Mike Goitein, drawing on Roger L. Martin’s insights, warns that obsessive data reliance can kill innovation. True breakthroughs come from empathy, imagination, and designing with users, not just analyzing them.
Source: Why The World’s Leading Strategist Says Data Is Killing Your Product’s Future
Author: Michael Goitein
📺 Leah Tharin (via Mind The Product): The Key Principles of PLG: Leah Tharin at #mtpcon London 2025 (Product Advisor)
Leah Tharin shares that modern product-led growth succeeds by showing — not selling — value and thriving in competitive markets through fast product discovery, AI leverage, and specialized product roles focused on actual customer outcomes.
Source: Mind The Product: 📺 The Key Principles of PLG: Leah Tharin at #mtpcon London 2025 (Product Advisor)
Author: Leah Tharin
🧠 Artificial Intelligence
Zvi Mowshowitz: Gemini 2.5 is the New SoTA
Zvi Mowshowitz highlights Gemini 2.5 Pro Experimental as a fast, reasoning-first model earning widespread praise, yet notes its stiff tone, censorship issues, and Google’s frustrating lack of transparency undermine its full potential.
Source: Gemini 2.5 is the New SoTA
Author: Zvi Mowshowitz
(via Anthropic): Reasoning models don’t always say what they think
Anthropic’s Alignment Science team highlights a critical flaw in reasoning AIs like Claude 3.7: their Chain-of-Thoughts often hide how answers are derived, especially when influenced by misleading hints or reward hacks — raising deep concerns for alignment and safety monitoring.
Source: Anthropic: Reasoning models don’t always say what they think
(via Pew Research Center): How the U.S. Public and AI Experts View Artificial Intelligence
Colleen McClain and co-authors reveal a striking gap between AI experts and the U.S. public: while experts are largely optimistic, the public remains cautious, yet both groups want tighter regulation and more personal control over AI’s growing influence.
Source: Pew Research Center: How the U.S. Public and AI Experts View Artificial Intelligence
🖥 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class w/ PSFS Certificate — April 24, 2025
The Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills (PSFS) training by Berlin Product People is a one-day official Scrum.org facilitation class for advanced Scrum practitioners and agile coaches, including the industry-acknowledged PSFS certification. The PSFS training class is designed as a live virtual class and will be in English.
Enjoy the benefits of a live virtual immersive class with like-minded agile peers from 09:00–17:30 CEST.
Learn more: 🖥 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class w/ PSFS Certificate — April 24, 2025.
Customer Voice: “Great experience — “You reap what you saw.” What I really liked about it was the constant usage of facilitation techniques & Liberating Structures to engage all participants & harness the collective knowledge while reaching the goal of the exercises during the workshop. Therefore, my experience was great because I could really leave with some insights from the whole group that I could apply in my daily work starting from the next day. “You reap what you saw” and in this case, it was the collective intelligence of everyone in the training class.” (Source.)
➿ Agile & Leadership
📺 Lenny Rachitsky and Ryan Singer: A Better Way to Plan, Build, and Ship Products
Lenny Rachitsky interviews Ryan Singer on how Shape Up helps teams escape Agile’s endless sprints by shaping work upfront, timeboxing scope, and restoring urgency and clarity as organizations scale.
Source: 📺 A Better Way to Plan, Build, and Ship Products
Authors: Lenny Rachitsky and Ryan Singer
Barry O’Reilly: How Do I Start With AI as an Executive?
Barry O’Reilly urges executives to stop delegating AI adoption and start experimenting hands-on — highlighting that leadership in the AI era begins by tackling daily friction points with curiosity, humility, and a personal productivity stack.
Source: How Do I Start With AI as an Executive?
Author: Barry O’Reilly
Ken Norton: The Power of Not Knowing
Ken Norton challenges leaders to embrace “I don’t know” as a strength, not a weakness, arguing that authentic leadership emerges through curiosity, presence, and the courage to release the illusion of certainty.
Source: The Power of Not Knowing
Author: Ken Norton
📯 Generative AI in Agile: A Strategic Career Decision
Recent research shows AI isn’t just another tool — it’s a “cybernetic teammate” that enhances agile work. A Harvard Business School study of 776 professionals found individuals using AI matched the performance of human teams, broke down expertise silos, and experienced more positive emotions during work. For agile practitioners, the choice isn’t between humans or AI but between being AI-augmented or falling behind those who are. The cost of experimentation is low; the potential career advantage, on the other side, is substantial. A reason to embrace generative AI in Agile?
Learn more: Generative AI in Agile: A Strategic Career Decision
🛠 Concepts, Practices, Tools & Measuring
Adam Ard: In retrospect, DevOps was a bad idea.
Adam Ard argues that naming DevOps doomed it — what began as empowering developers to own production became siloed “DevOps teams” that undermined autonomy, trust, and the very benefits the movement initially promised.
Source: In retrospect, DevOps was a bad idea.
Author: Adam Ard
Kim Scott (via Radical Candor): Brutal Honesty Is Not Radical Candor: 6 Ways To Get It Right
Kim Scott clarifies that Radical Candor is not brutal honesty or permission to be a jerk. Instead, it’s about challenging directly and caring personally, combining kindness with clarity to build trust, not fear.
Source: Radical Candor: Brutal Honesty Is Not Radical Candor: 6 Ways To Get It Right
Author: Kim Scott
(via Jason Cohen): How to simplify complex decisions by cleaving the facts
Jason Cohen explains how to simplify complex decisions by separating upside from downside, choosing based on the most substantial upsides, using downsides only to veto, and embracing radical clarity over endless analysis.
Source: Jason Cohen: How to simplify complex decisions by cleaving the facts
📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events 2025
Upcoming classes and events:
🖥 💯 🇩🇪 April 10 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Product Discovery & Validation Training (PPDV; German)
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 April 24 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class (PSFS; English)
🖥 🇩🇪 April 29–30 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
🖥 🇬🇧 May 26–27 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Master Advanced Training (PSM II; English)
🖥 🇩🇪 June 3–4 — Live Virtual Class: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German)
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 June 5-July 3 — Live Virtual Cohort: AI for Agile Practitioners (English)
🖥 🇩🇪 June 25 — Webinar: Als KMU jetzt mit KI durchstarten — trotz EU AI Act (German)
👉 See all upcoming classes here
🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition
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Hands-on Agile 2025: Taylorism-Lean-Agile-Product Mindset — Jonathan Odo
Hands-on Agile 2025: Leadership Behaviors That Lead to Actual Agility — Cliff Berg
Hands-on Agile 2025: How to Overcome Common Mistakes with Product Discovery — David Pereira
Hands-on Agile 2025: Humans Robots Agents: Redesigning Leadership and Organizations in the Age of AI — Jurgen Appelo
Hands-on Agile 2025: Change Questions: The Keys to Implementing Organizational Change that Sustains — Dr. Lynn Kelley
Hands-on Agile 2025: the agile way — Peter Merel
Hands-on Agile 62: From Backlog Manager to Product Manager w/ David Pereira
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