Food for Agile Thought #294
TL; DR: Spotify Model Fallacy, Pirates & Leadership — Food for Agile Thought #294
Welcome to the 294th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 31,412 peers. This week, we dissect the Spotify model fallacy. (By the way, Spotify is no longer using product squads.) We also point at the forward-thinking approach of pirates regarding governance and self-management and why some people have difficulties embracing the idea of autonomous action by self-directed individuals.
We then learn the two only ways of pushing back requests to build features to close deals. Moreover, we list core principles that come with experimentation and what it takes to drive the change; finally, we analyze the popular leadership fallacy to mandate creating ‘innovative feature,’ probably, with a timeline, incentivized by OKRs.
Lastly, we delve into the origins of feature creep, adding on top of the usual suspects — such as gold-plating — the difficulties that distributed teams face. (See also Gold-Plating Beyond Done — Making Your Scrum Work #7.)
Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue #293?
🗞 Shall I notify you about articles like this one? Awesome! You can sign up here for the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter and join 31,000-plus other subscribers.
🎓 Join Stefan in one of his upcoming Professional Scrum training classes!
Join more than 2,800 peers of the Hands-on Agile Meetup group — a vibrant, international community!
🏆 The Tip of the Week: Spotify Model Fallacy
(via Chameleon): Why Spotify Squads Are a Popular Failure for Product Teams
Ray Slater Berry, Nasko Terziev, and Ben Paton dissect the original ‘Spotify model.’ By the way, Spotify is no longer using product squads.
Source: Chameleon: Why Spotify Squads Are a Popular Failure for Product Teams
➿ Agile & Scrum
Francesca Gino: What Pirates Have to Teach Us About Leadership
Francesca Gino points at the forward-thinking approach of pirates regarding governance and self-management.
Source: What Pirates Have to Teach Us About Leadership
Author: Francesca Gino
Joost Minnaar (via Corporate Rebels): Some Can Handle Self-Management. Some Can’t. Here’s Why.
Joost Minnaar shares further insights originating from his Ph.D. thesis and why some people have difficulties embracing the idea of autonomous action by self-directed individuals.
Source: Corporate Rebels: Some Can Handle Self-Management. Some Can’t. Here’s Why.
Author: Joost Minnaar
Derk-Jan de Grood (via Agile Alliance): The Changing Role of the Agile Coach
Derk-Jan de Grood shares a success story of guiding an organization to becoming agile and what the path meant for the role of the agile coach.
Source: Agile Alliance: The Changing Role of the Agile Coach
Author: Derk-Jan de Grood
Join more than 2,800 peers of the Hands-on Agile Meetup group — a vibrant, international community!
🎯 Product
John Cutler: Building Stuff to Close Deals
John Cutler points at the two only ways of pushing back to these requests: have a) a compelling product strategy and b) a track record of noticeable impact.
Source: Building Stuff to Close Deals
Author: John Cutler
Itamar Gilad: Think Learning, Not Experiments
Itamar Gilad shares core principles that come with experimentation and what it takes to drive the change.
Source: Think Learning, Not Experiments
Author: Itamar Gilad
Rich Mironov: We Can’t Schedule Innovation, But We Can Schedule Discovery
Rich Mironov analyzes the popular leadership fallacy to mandate creating ‘innovative feature,’ probably, with a timeline, incentivized by OKRs.
Source: We Can’t Schedule Innovation, But We Can Schedule Discovery
Author: Rich Mironov
(via Stack Overflow): How to prevent scope creep when managing a project from home
In this article, Owen Jones delves into the origins of feature creep, adding on top of the usual suspects — such as gold-plating — the difficulties that distributed teams face.
Source: Stack Overflow: How to prevent scope creep when managing a project from home
📯 Why Scrum Requires a Failure Culture — Making Your Scrum Work #10
There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. To make things worse, a crucial success factor of every Scrum team is not even mentioned in the Scrum Guide: Any organization that wants to employ Scrum to learn faster than its competitors needs to have a solid failure culture.
📺 Join me and explore the consequences of not living a failure culture in less than three minutes.
Learn more: Why Scrum Requires a Failure Culture — Making Your Scrum Work #10.
📺 Also: The Frustrated Scrum Master — When all the Effort Leads Nowhere.
🛠 Tools & Measuring
I am afraid, this week, there is nothing to list here.
🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition
📺 Join 2,900-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel:
✋ Do Not Miss Out: Join the 10,000-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Community
I invite you to join the “Hands-on Agile” Slack Community and enjoy the benefits of a fast-growing, vibrant community of agile practitioners from around the world.
If you like to join all you have to do now is provide your credentials via this Google form, and I will sign you up. By the way, it’s free.
🎓 Do You Want to Read more like this?
Well, then:
- 📰 Join 31,412 peers and sign-up for my weekly newsletter
- 🐦 Follow me on Twitter and subscribe to my blog Age of Product
- 💬 Alternatively, join 10,000-plus peers of the Slack team “Hands-on Agile” for free.
Food for Agile Thought #294: The Spotify Model Fallacy, Pirates & Leadership, Building Stuff to Close Deals, Scheduling Innovation? was first published on Age-of-Product.com.
