Food for Agile Thought #158
Food for Agile Thought’s issue #158 visits the poster child of self-managed organizations — Semco — , we deal with building trust in teams, and we learn why agile companies no longer require plans.
We appreciate Roman Pichler’s sprint planning tips & tricks for product owners, we dive into the commandments of outstanding products, and we understand how falling in love with a solution can wreck a whole organization.
Lastly, we come back to product discovery and learn a new approach how to reinvent a strategy to figure out what’s worth building.
Have a great week!

🏆 The Essential Read: Semco Transformation
(via Corporate Rebels): Fixing Work That Sucks: Semco’s Step-By-Step Transformation
Corporate Rebels interviewed Ricardo Semler, Clovis Bojikian and Semco workers how the poster child of self-management is doing.
Source: Corporate Rebels: Fixing Work That Sucks: Semco’s Step-By-Step Transformation
Agile & Scrum
Roman Pichler: Sprint Planning Tips for Product Owners

Roman Pichler shares tips for product owners on how to get more out of Scrum’s most important event — the sprint planning.
Source: Sprint Planning Tips for Product Owners
Author: Roman Pichler
Tanner Wortham: How Do I Foster Trust Within My Team?

Tanner Wortham reflects on the most challenging task for any Scrum Master.
Source: How Do I Foster Trust Within My Team?
Author: Rob Wortham
Dilbert: We Don’t Need a Plan. We Are an Agile Company.
The pointy-haired boss suggests to move fast and fix the mistakes on the go.
Source: We Don’t Need a Plan. We Are an Agile Company.
Author: Scott Adams
If you enjoyed the article, do me a favor and smack the 👏👏 👏 multiple times — your support means the world to me!
If you prefer a notification by email, please sign-up for my weekly newsletter and join 18,935 peers.
📯 The Meta-Retrospective
A meta-retrospective is an excellent exercise to foster collaboration within the extended team, create a shared understanding of the big picture, and immediately create valuable action-items. It comprises of the team members of one or several product teams — or representative from those — and stakeholders. Participants from the stakeholder side are people from the business as well as customers. Meta-retrospectives are useful both as a regular event, say once a quarter, or after achieving a particular milestone, for example, a specific release of the product.

Read more: The Meta-Retrospective — How To Get Customers and Stakeholders Onboard.
Product & Lean
Jeff Davidson (via The Startup): The 10 Commandments of Good Products

Jeff Davidson examines why we buy what we buy, and how a product ‘spreads’ to reach profitability.
Source: The Startup: The 10 Commandments of Good Products
Author: Jeff Davidson
Hope Gurion (via Insight Venture Partners): The Best Product Teams Crave Truth and Do Math

Hope Gurion analyzes the failure of PlayPump, rooted in the unfounded feeling of certainty among its makers.
Source: Insight Venture Partners: The Best Product Teams Crave Truth and Do Math
Author: Hope Gurion
Matteo Cavucci (via Avanscoperta Blog): Product Discovery Strategy with EventStorming and Lean Value Tree

Matteo Cavucci shares a success story on how to invent a new strategy to figure out what’s worth building.
Source: Avanscoperta Blog: Product Discovery Strategy with EventStorming and Lean Value Tree
Author: Matteo Cavucci
📺 Join 675-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel:
✋ Do Not Miss Out: Join the 3,850-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 now 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 18,935 peers and sign-up for my weekly newsletter
- 🐦 Follow me on Twitter and subscribe to my blog Age of Product
- 💬 Alternatively, join 3,850-plus peers of the Slack team “Hands-on Agile” for free.
Food for Agile Thought #158: Semco Transformation, Trust, 10 Product Commandments, Unfounded Confidence was first published on Age-of-Product.com.

