Food For Thought #38
Age of Product’s Food for Thought of April 24th, 2016 covers how to get an agile product roadmap right, the attention “agile” is enjoying in HBR, eleven habits of high-performing agile teams, and why human psychology is usually an impediment to agile adoption.
We explore ways to talk management out of business plans when innovating, how to create a culture for innovation IDEO style, why product should talk more to sales, and what makes people love your products.
Last, but least, we cover continuous user testing, how to retire products with style, that you’re absolutely not to blame for procrastination — it’s in your genes — , and how Amazon turned a dud into a mega-seller: Echo.
From the Blog: The Agile Product Roadmap
John Cutler (via Age of Product): Product Roadmap Failure: Stop Setting Them Up To Fail
John on how to build roadmaps that will be successful.
Source: Age of Product: Product Roadmap Failure: Stop Setting Them Up To Fail
Author: John Cutler
Agile & Scrum
Amit Kaura (via Medium): The 11 habits of highly effective Agile delivery teams
Amit lists eleven best practices of high-performing agile teams, from ‘work in progress limits’ to ‘understand the business value of technical tasks’.
Source: Medium: The 11 habits of highly effective Agile delivery teams
Author: Amit Kaura
Steve Denning (via Forbes): HBR’s Embrace Of Agile
Steve on the flood of attention, ‘Agile’ is currently receiving from established traditional publications such as Harvard Business Review.
Source: Forbes: HBR’s Embrace Of Agile
Author: Steve Denning
Eric Elliott (via Medium): How One Jira Ticket Made My Employer $1MM/Month: 7 Metrics that Actually Matter
Eric shares his take on worthwhile metrics in software development.
Forget points. Forget estimates and commitments. Estimates are all worthless lies. Try weekly demos, instead.
Source: Medium: How One Jira Ticket Made My Employer $1MM/Month: 7 Metrics that Actually Matter
Author: Eric Elliott
Jeffrey Fredrick (via InfoQ): Agile Adoption: #LearningIsHorrible, and Other Harsh Realities
Jeffrey on how human psychology works against successful agile adoption and that seeking excellence in agile development requires difficult emotional work.
Source: InfoQ: Agile Adoption: #LearningIsHorrible, and Other Harsh Realities
Author: Jeffrey Fredrick
Kavi Guppta (via Strategyzer): How To Convince Leaders To Avoid Business Plans When Validating New Ideas
Kavi on how to convince leadership to move away from business planning, and to embrace a culture of testing for new business ideas.
Scott Cook, founder of Intuit: Behind every big failure at out company, there was marvelous spreadsheet.
Source: Strategyzer: How To Convince Leaders To Avoid Business Plans When Validating New Ideas
Author: Kavi Guppta
Mollie West (via Co.Design): IDEO: The 7 Most Important Hires For Creating A Culture Of Innovation
Mollie — an organizational designer with IDEO — describes the seven roles that make or break the creation of a culture of innovation.
Source: Co.Design: Ideo: The 7 Most Important Hires For Creating A Culture Of Innovation
Author: Mollie West
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Product & Lean
Jo Johansson (via Close.io): Hey product, your salespeople know something you don’t
Jo on the importance of product managers and sales people to start talking with each other much more intensely to provide the best products and customer experience.
Source: Close.io: Hey product, your salespeople know something you don’t
Author: Jo Johansson
Amrit Richmond (via Medium): Why People Buy Things, and How to Make Consumers Fall in Love with Your Products
Amrit provides a brief, yet insightful overview on the psychology of buying things.
Source: Medium: Why People Buy Things, and How to Make Consumers Fall in Love with Your Products
Author: Amrit Richmond
Edmond Lau (via User Testing Blog): How to integrate continuous user testing into your product development workflow
Edmond on Quip’ lessons from the trenches on how to integrate continuous user testing into the product development workflow to iterate faster and more incrementally.
Source: User Testing Blog: How to integrate continuous user testing into your product development workflow
Author: Edmond Lau
Erik K (via Medium): Designing complex products
Erik on managing the complexity of product design and development.
Source: Medium: Designing complex products
Author: Erik K
Rimas Silkaitis: A Methodology for Retiring Products
Rimas on creating and curating a great experiences for your customers by retiring obsolete features in a structured, non-NEST-ish way.
Source: A Methodology for Retiring Products
Author: Rimas Silkaitis
Essential Reads
Dayna Winter (via Shopify): Procrastination, Explained by Science
Dayna on why you should not be too hard on yourself — procrastination is mostly biology and you’re not really to blame falling for it.
Source: Shopify: Procrastination, Explained by Science
Author: Dayna Winter
Joshua Brustein (via Bloomberg): The Real Story of How Amazon Built the Echo
Joshua on the talking speaker started as part of a secret augmented-reality project and ended up as a surprise hit.
Source: Bloomberg: The Real Story of How Amazon Built the Echo
Author: Joshua Brustein
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