🗞️ Food for Agile Thought #101

Stefan Wolpers
Jul 22, 2017 ¡ 5 min read

Food for Thought’s issue #101 focusses on how to get ‘agile’ to work in your organization. We learn that an old OSS manual on do-it-yourself organizational sabotage still sounds very familiar today. We then get advice on how C-level manager may become more agile, and why we should replace Taylorism’s mindset of command & control with trust.

We also listen to John Cutler explaining his feature factory concept and embrace the importance of mental models to improve the way we learn. Speaking of stepping up the game, you can do so, too, with your next set of A/B tests. Kevin Shanahan provides a step-by-step guide.

Finally, we follow Piyush Tantia when he describes a new way for engineering applications and human interactions: behavioral design.

Have a great week!

Agile Sabotage & Scrum


Bob Sutton (via Stanford ECorner): Rebecca Hinds: DIY Sabotage: Lick The Cookie

Bob Sutton and his co-conspirator Rebecca Hinds crack open a recently declassified World War II OSS field manual for undercover saboteurs, drawing parallels to the ways businesses undermine themselves and competitors.

Source: Stanford ECorner: Rebecca Hinds: DIY Sabotage: Lick The Cookie

Author: Bob Sutton


(via Harvard Business Review): How to Make Agile Work for the C-Suite

Eric Garton and Andy Noble of Bain & Company recommend senior management teams to do the following to become agile.

Source: Harvard Business Review: How to Make Agile Work for the C-Suite


Paulo Rebelo (via Front Row Agile): Don’t Limit the Role of the Scrum Master

Paulo Rebelo shares some tips and practices to help Scrum Masters excel in their role and add real value to their organization.

Source: Front Row Agile: Don’t Limit the Role of the Scrum Master

Author: Paulo Rebelo


(via Corporate Rebels): Get Rid of Your Outdated Industrial Age Thinking and Let Your People Go Surfing

Joost Minnaar and Pim de Morree on getting rid of control mechanisms and the outdated industrial age thinking and introducing high levels of freedom and trust instead.

Source: Corporate Rebels: Get Rid of Your Outdated Industrial Age Thinking and Let Your People Go Surfing


(via Hackernoon): Taking [Microsoft] Office Agile

Terry Crowley talks about are the engineering and organizational changes of the Microsoft Office team when they started shipping software more often.

Source: Hacker Noon: Taking [Microsoft] Office Agile


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Product & Lean


Ryan Ripley and John Cutler: AFH 072: Agile Product Management with John Cutler

John Cutler and Amitai Schleier joined host Ryan Ripley to discuss feature factories, outcomes, and excellent agile product management.

Source: AFH 072: Agile Product Management with John Cutler

Authors: Ryan Ripley and John Cutler


Hiten Shah (via Product Habits): 5 Mental Models that Help Product Managers Acquire and Retain Users

Hiten Shah suggests embracing mental models to become a product management ‘learning machine.’

Source: Product Habits: 5 Mental Models that Help Product Managers Acquire and Retain Users

Author: Hiten Shah


Jackie Bavaro (via Medium): How we build our Product Roadmap at Asana

How we build our Product Roadmap at Asana
Image from medium.com

Jackie Bavaro introduces the ‘Pyramid of Clarity’ concept for product roadmaps that helps everyone at Asana do their best work.

Source: Medium: How we build our Product Roadmap at Asana

Author: Jackie Bavaro


(via Mind The Product): Stepping up Your A/B Tests

Kevin Shanahan shares some of the learnings from 60+ A/B tests at Peak, looking at each step of the A/B testing cycle.

Source: Mind The Product: Stepping up Your A/B Tests


Sachin Rekhi (via Medium): The Hierarchy of User Friction

The Hierarchy of User Friction
Image from medium.com

Sachin Rekhi shares his view of a hierarchy of user friction and provides examples for solving for each.

Source: Medium: The Hierarchy of User Friction

Author: Sachin Rekhi


The Essential Read


(via Social Innovation): The New Science of Designing for Humans

Piyush Tantia describes how the rise of behavioral science has created a new way for engineering applications and human interactions: behavioral design.

Source: Social Innovation: The New Science of Designing for Humans


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Food for Agile Thought #101 was first published on Age of Product.

Food for Agile Thought

Best posts from last week on agile and lean methodologies, Scrum and product management. Manually curated, no robots involved.

Stefan Wolpers

Written by

I have worked for 13-plus years as an agile coach, Scrum Master, and Product Owner. Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) with Scrum.org.

Food for Agile Thought

Best posts from last week on agile and lean methodologies, Scrum and product management. Manually curated, no robots involved.

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