TL; DR: Beneficial Pre-Mortems, Scaled Feature Factories — Food for Agile Thought #347
Welcome to the 347th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,417 peers. This week, we delve into five success-critical topics for every product manager, from the benefits of pre-mortems to prioritizing your time to ROI and opportunity-cost thinking. Also, we explain code cruft in a metaphor for non-technical people to help the looming conflict between developers and management, and we share learnings from supporting agile transformations at three companies in the insurance and automation industries.
Then, we detail a pattern of non-tech companies heavily investing in digitalization: Despite good intentions, they end up as big feature factories. Moreover, we point out a) how iterating behavioral changes and applying experiments help build the right products and b) the often overlooked signal-to-noise ratio critical for innovation, or: asking for ideas is a bad idea.
Finally, we embrace a simple process that allows everyone on a team to start writing user stories: the Product Backlog Building Canvas. Also, the folks at ProductLed asked 600-plus SaaS businesses about their paths to product-led growth and core metrics such as free to paid accounts conversion rates.
Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue 346 ?
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🎓 Join Stefan in one of his upcoming Professional Scrum training classes !
🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training w/ PSPO Certificate — Online: June 28-July 1, 2022 .
📅 Join 200-plus peers on July 14, 2022: Hands-on Agile 43: Outcome-Based Product Planning with Jeff Gothelf .
🏆 The Tip of the Week: Beneficial Pre-Mortems
and : 🎙 Pre-mortems, the LNO Framework, 3 Levels of Product Work, [and] why most Execution Problems Are Strategy Problems
In this podcast, Shreyas Doshi delves into five success-critical topics for every product manager, from the benefits of pre-mortems to prioritizing your time to ROI and opportunity-cost thinking.
➿ Agile & Scrum
(via Agile Alliance): Optimize Your Organizational Structure for Agility
Wolfgang Steffens shares learnings from supporting agile transformations at three companies in the insurance and automation industries.
(via Industrial Logic): How To Understand Refactoring
Tim Ottinger explains code cruft in a metaphor for non-technical people to help the looming conflict between developers and the management.
: Succeeding with OKRs in Agile Infographic
Allan Kelly shares Noel Warnell’s visualization of how to make OKRs achievable for your team.
🎓 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training w/ PSPO Certificate — Online: June 28-July 1, 2022
Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this guaranteed official Scrum.org Professional Scrum Product Owner training class , leading to and including the industry-recognized PSPO I certification. The class will be offered in German.
Enjoy the benefits of an immersive class of four sessions with like-minded agile peers in the morning hours from 09:00 – 13:00 o’clock CEST.
Learn more: 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training w/ PSPO Certificate — Online: June 28-July 1, 2022 .
“Excellent class, revealing more hands-on practices and strategies to find solutions in the role of PSPO than I expected.”
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🎯 Product
: Scaled Feature Factories
John Cutler details a pattern of non-tech companies heavily investing in digitalization: Despite good intentions, they end up as big feature factories.
and : 🎙 Teams Should Celebrate Learning Fast, Not Failing Fast
In this podcast, Janel Wellborn shares how iterating behavioral changes and applying experiments help build the right products.
: 3. Asking for Ideas is a Bad Idea
Stephen Shapiro points at the often overlooked signal-to-noise ratio critical for innovation.
📖 Scrum Developer Anti-Patterns
After covering the anti-patterns of the Scrum Master, the Product Owner, and the stakeholders, this article addresses Scrum Developer anti-patterns, covering all Scrum Events and the Product Backlog artifact. Continue reading and learn more about what to look out for if you want to support your teammates who build the Increment.
Read more: Scrum Developer Anti-Patterns .
🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring
: Product Backlog Building Canvas
Paulo Caroli shares a simple process that allows everyone on a team to start writing user stories: the Product Backlog Building Canvas.
✂️ Cutting Room Floor
(via ProductLed): 📈 Product-Led Growth Benchmarks 2022
The folks at ProductLed asked 600-plus SaaS businesses about their paths to product-led growth and core metrics such as free to paid accounts conversion rates.
📅 Scrum Training & Event Schedule
You can secure your seat for Scrum training classes, workshops, and meetups directly by following the corresponding link in the table below:
| Date | Class and Language | City | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 June 20-23, 2022 | GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; English; Live Virtual Class) | Live Virtual Class | €1.189 incl. 19% VAT |
| 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 June 28-July 1, 2022 | GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) | Live Virtual Class | €1.189 incl. 19% VAT |
| 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 July 14, 2022 | GUARANTEED: Hands-on Agile 43: Outcome-Based Product Planning with Jeff Gothelf (English; Live Virtual Meetup) | Live Virtual Meetup | FREE |
| 🖥 🇩🇪 August 29-30, 2022 | Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; German; Live Virtual Class) | Live Virtual Class | €1.189 incl. 19% VAT |
| 🖥 🇬🇧 September 6-9, 2022 | Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) | Live Virtual Class | €1.189 incl. 19% VAT |
| 🖥 🇩🇪 September 26-27, 2022 | Professional Agile Leadership Essentials Schulung (PAL I; German; Live Virtual Class) | Live Virtual Class | €1.189 incl. 19% VAT |
See all upcoming classes here .
You can book your seat for the training directly by following the corresponding links to the ticket shop. If the procurement process of your organization requires a different purchasing process, please contact Berlin Product People GmbH directly.
📺 Join 3,900-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel to improve learning:
- 🆕 Hands-on Agile 40: The Best Team Ever with David Burkus.
- 🆕 Hands-on Agile 38: The Product Owner with Roman Pichler.
- Agile Camp Berlin 2021: The Power and Pains of Autonomy with Jimmy Janlén.
- Hands-on Agile 31: The Zones of Value Framework with Valerio Zanini & Zeina Zeitouni.
- Hands-on Agile 35: Designing Powerful Questions to help you Coach & Create with Daniel Stillman.
- Hands-on Agile 34: Core Protocols for Psychological Safety with Richard Kasperowski.
✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn more about Pre-Mortems — Join the 11,000-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Community
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🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition
Read more: Food for Agile Thought 346: Pro Frameworks, Ensuring (Product) Excellence, Islands of Agility, 6 Common KPI Mistakes .
The post Food for Agile Thought #347: Beneficial Pre-Mortems, Agility Follows Structure, Scaled Feature Factories, Understanding Refactoring appeared first on Age-of-Product.com .