Food For Thought #80
Age of Product’s Food for Thought of February 26th, 2017 focuses on brilliant jerks and the havoc they cause on culture. You may have heard of Susan Fowler and her working “experience” as a software engineer at Uber. The case is symptomatic of everything that goes wrong when building a truly inclusive, non-discriminating — and thus innovative — culture is sabotaged by the leadership.
On the product side, we dive deep into slicing & dicing of user stories, how to up your prototyping game, twelve lessons learned about product/market fit, and your organization has to scale the product team.
Last but not least: New kinds of work require new ideas — and new ways of organizing work altogether. The New York Times Magazine has more on it.
Jerks Kill Agile Culture
Susan Fowler: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber
Susan Fowler reflects on her year as an engineer with Uber: a strange, fascinating, and slightly horrifying story that turned into a nightmare for Uber over the course of the week.
Source: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber
Author: Susan Fowler
(via The New York Times): Inside Uber’s Aggressive, Unrestrained Workplace Culture
The New York Times reports on Uber’s workplace culture that some current and former Uber employees describe as largely unrestrained.
Source: The New York Times: Inside Uber’s Aggressive, Unrestrained Workplace Culture
Priya Anand (via Buzzfeed): Uber Women To CEO Travis Kalanick: We Have A Systemic Problem
Priya Anand reports on an hourlong Thursday meeting with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, during which a group of more than 100 female engineers called on the company to address issues of sexism and sexual harassment.
Source: Buzzfeed: Uber Women To CEO Travis Kalanick: We Have A Systemic Problem
Author: Priya Anand
(via Retrospective.co): Brilliant Jerks Cost More Than They Are Worth
Anonymous explains why keeping a 10x team member who happens to be a ‘brilliant jerk’ is hurting the team’s morale, and consequently also its productivity, and cohesion.
Source: Retrospective.co: Brilliant Jerks Cost More Than They Are Worth
Corinna Baldauf: How teams form and break up when there are no managers
Corinna Baldauf describes how people join and leave Scrum teams in their organization in an entirely self-managed manner.
Source: How teams form and break up when there are no managers
Author: Corinna Baldauf
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Product & Lean
Ellen Gottesdiener: Slicing User Stories, Delivering Value
Ellen Gottesdiener summarizes a webinar with Jeff Sutherland which helped teams manage their backlogs, improve sprints and release planning, and increase delivered value.
Source: Slicing User Stories, Delivering Value
Author: Ellen Gottesdiener
Caitlin Kalinowski (via First Round): Six Steps to Superior Product Prototyping: Lessons from an Apple and Oculus Engineer
Caitlin Kalinowski, now at Oculus and formerly the technical lead for Apple’s MacBook Air and Mac Pro, on how she became a master of the prototyping process.
Author: Caitlin E Kalinowski
Tren Griffin: A Dozen Lessons About Product/Market Fit
Tren Griffin shares a list of twelve lessons learned on Andy Rachleff’s idea of product-market fit.
Source: A Dozen Lessons About Product/Market Fit
Author: Tren Griffin
Roman Pichler: Making Consensus-based Product Decisions
Roman Pichler believes that consensus is a powerful approach to generate strong buy-in and shared ownership of a decision. But it can also create mediocre results.
Source: Making Consensus-based Product Decisions
Author: Roman Pichler
(via UserVoice): When and How to Scale your Product Team
UserVoice shares key moments that indicate that growing the product team of your organization is no longer optional.
The Essential Read
Barbara Ehrenreich (via The New York Times): Divisions of Labor
Barbara Ehrenreich on the future of work: New kinds of work require new ideas — and new ways of organizing work altogether.
Source: The New York Times: Divisions of Labor
Author: Barbara Ehrenreich
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