Food For Thought #44
Age of Product’s Food for Thought of June 5th, 2016 provides Mary Meeker’s epic 2016 Internet Trends report, lists signs of Scrum helicopter parenting, shows eight ways how to measure your success as an agile coach, stresses the importance of impact over velocity, and asks: Is “Agile” jumping the shark with SAFe?
We also explore the Agility Readiness Canvas, how we got stuck with the waterfall methodology in the first place, and how to stay focused by grounding product decisions with simple convictions. Wait, the best is yet to come: Facebook’s VP of Product Design shares her long list of lessons learned.
Last, but least, we understand that disruption is not a strategy, and how to avoid the eight classic rookie product management mistakes. We learn, when to stand firm and when to pivot, and we relax with an epic interview: Tim Ferriss is joined by Marc Andreessen of a16z.
Agile & Scrum
Len Lagestee: 8 Ways to Measure Your Impact as an Agile Coach
Len on how to know if you — the agile coach — really have an impact? How do we assess if we’re making enough of a difference to cause positive and lasting change? How do we know if the seeds being planted will flourish and grow long after we are gone?
Source: 8 Ways to Measure Your Impact as an Agile Coach
Author: Len Lagestee
Tanner Wortham: Impact Over Velocity
Rob on why velocity is not a suitable metric for the success of a sprint, and why impact is a much better performance/success indicator.
Source: Impact Over Velocity
Author: Rob Wortham
Leon Tranter: Agile is dead: Isn’t SAFe a sign that Agile has jumped the shark?
Leon tries to solve the urban myth that agile is dead — a rumor which has been surfacing recently more and more often.
Source: Agile is dead: Isn’t SAFe a sign that Agile has jumped the shark?
Author: Leon Tranter
(via Happy Melly): Agility Readiness Canvas: Small Steps for Change
Happy Melly deals with the question of how to best overcome a lack of understanding to transform an organization’s environment into one more conducive to agile. The agility readiness canvas offers concrete ways to take smaller steps to let various parts of companies slowly take steps toward a more agile and thus successful future.
Source: Happy Melly: Agility Readiness Canvas: Small Steps for Change
(via Artemis Agile Consulting): The History of Waterfall
Bill DeVoe sheds some light on the origins of the waterfall methodology and its creator Dr Winston Royce.
From the Blog: Scrum Helicopter Parenting
Trying to be supportive and do good, is most of the time a honorable thing. This is particularly true in your capacity as a Scrum master. However, doing too much good can quickly have the opposite effect. It’s a known Scrum anti pattern, often referred to as the Scrum mom syndrome.
Disclaimer: Of course, this post is in no way intended to be gender-specific. To my experience, there are as many Scrum pops as Scrum moms. This post is all about Scrum helicopter parenting.
Read more in: Scrum Master Anti Patterns: Beware of Becoming a Scrum Mom.
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Product & Lean
Martin Eriksson and Scott Belsky (via Mind The Product): Grounding Product by Scott Belsky
Scott Belsky, general partner at Benchmark, on how to stay focused by grounding product decisions with simple convictions. Scott’s favourite simple convictions is that we all have the same currency at the end of the day: Time.
Source: Mind The Product: Grounding Product by Scott Belsky
Authors: Martin Eriksson and Scott Belsky
Julie Zhuo (via Medium): Building Products
Julie, Facebook’s VP of Product Design, provides a long lists with lessons learned on Facebook’s product development process, from framing the problem, via execution and measuring success, to team dynamics.
Source: Medium: Building Products
Author: Julie Zhuo
Jerry Neumann: Disruption is not a strategy
Jerry on why there are better ways than disruption to think about whether you can succeed at building a business with a new technology. In fact, there are few worse ways.
Cargo cults are fascinating because they mirror our own tendencies to confuse cause and effect, but they have real costs. They misdirect resources to ineffectual ritual from actual problem-solving.
Source: Disruption is not a strategy
Author: Jerry Neumann
Rich Mironov: 8 Mistakes You’ll Make in Your First Months as a Product Manager
Rich on how to avoid some mistakes that most product managers sooner or later will make — even after coursework, certificates, and online tutorials. The articles focuses on soft skills, product strategy, organizational savvy, and market insight.
Source: 8 Mistakes You’ll Make in Your First Months as a Product Manager
Author: Rich Mironov
Myk Pono (via Medium): How To Track Customer Acquisitions:
Myk walks you through the customer acquisition funnel of SaaS companies to help you design, analyze, and optimize your customer acquisition process. (Well applicable best practices for product managers, too.)
Source: Medium: How To Track Customer Acquisitions :
Author: Myk Pono
(via Chargify): Finding Product/Market Fit: When to Stand Firm & When to Pivot
Chargify on how to determine if your product/market fit is setting your business up for success, when you should say no to random feature requests in order to stay focused and on track, and when you need to make a significant pivot.
Source: Chargify: Finding Product/Market Fit: When to Stand Firm & When to Pivot
Dan Nessler (via Medium): How to apply a design thinking, HCD, UX or any creative process from scratch
Dan shares a comprehensive how-to article that aims at providing designers, creative thinkers or even project managers with a tool to set up, frame, organise, structure, run or manage design challenges, and projects: The Double Diamond revamped.
Source: Medium: How to apply a design thinking, HCD, UX or any creative process from scratch
Author: Dan Nessler
Essential Reads
Ina Fried (via Re/code): Mary Meeker’s 2016 internet trends report: All the slides, plus analysis
Ina analyzes the 2016 edition of Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends report. (Mary Meeker is partner at VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers.) Ina’s top three take-aways: The internet is slowing down, messaging is taking on the home screen, and voice search is big.
Source: Re/code: Mary Meeker’s 2016 internet trends report: All the slides, plus analysis
Author: Ina Fried
Tim Ferriss and Marc Andreessen: Marc Andreessen — Lessons, Predictions, and Recommendations from an Icon
Tim Ferriss is joined in this interview by Marc Andreessen, co-founder and general partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, one of the legendary figures in Silicon Valley. (Even if you will not listen to the episode, the links in the show notes are epic!)
Source: Marc Andreessen — Lessons, Predictions, and Recommendations from an Icon
Authors: Tim Ferriss and Marc Andreessen
This post first appeared on Age of Product.
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