Mar 25, 2017
Food For Thought #84
Age of Product’s Food for Thought of March 26th, 2017 — shared with 7,083 peers — provides you with proven techniques to avoid “half-arsed” agile, draws the line between Scrum Master and Agile Coach, and invites you to listen to Hollary and Scrump. Yub, make Scrum great again.
On the product side, Melissa Perri helps you to identify crappy product management jobs in advance, and Marty Cagan gives away his favorite PM interview question. Also, Ideo shares six insights that help you crack innovation.
Lastly: We enjoy a two-hour long podcast on self-organization, empowerment, and entrepreneurship with Ricardo Semler & Mr. Ferriss. (Perfect for the gym, accounting, or cooking. I tried all three of those.)
Half-Arsed Agile & Scrum
Matt Wynne: How BDD can save your agile
Matt Wynne — the lead developer of Cucumber — on why “doing” Scrum is not enough to become agile. (Via Simon Powers.)
Source: How BDD can save your agile
Authors: Simon Powers and Matt Wynne
John Yorke (via DZone): When Does Coaching End and Doing Start?
John Yorke points at the role of the Agile coach which can cause some confusion: Coaches are meant to facilitate, not do.
Source: DZone: When Does Coaching End and Doing Start?
Author: John Yorke
Christiaan Verwijs (via Agilistic): On Complexity: Why Your Software Project Needs Scrum
Christiaan Verwijs addresses complexity in projects and introduces the Stacey matrix and Dave Snowden’s Cynefin framework.
Source: Agilistic: On Complexity: Why Your Software Project Needs Scrum
Author: Christiaan Verwijs
(via ResponsiveOrg): Holacracy vs Scrum : Presidential Debate
Piero Pierucci provides a comparison of Holacracy and Scrum — in the form of a political debate –, derived from a workshop at the SARO Teal Camp 2016.
Source: ResponsiveOrg: Holacracy vs Scrum : Presidential Debate
Ben Linders: Retrospectives beyond the team level
Ben Linders suggests running retrospectives also beyond the actual team, for example, at stakeholder level.
Source: Retrospectives beyond the team level
Author: Ben Linders
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Join 327 Peers And Contribute to the Anonymous Poll ‘Scrum Master Salary Report 2017’
The purpose of this anonymous poll is to create a clear, data-backed benchmark that allows everyone in the agile community to get an understanding whether her or his compensation is adequate.
The report will cover Scrum Master as well as Agile Coaches, both employed and freelancing.
To generate an acceptable first report, we will need at least 300 answers. A larger sample would allow providing more detailed insights, though. At the moment, we already have 327 of 400 replies.
Participate in the ‘Scrum Master Salary Report 2017’ survey now…
Product & Lean
Melissa Perri (via Medium): 6 Questions to Ask Before Taking that Product Manager Job
Melissa Perri shares six questions for your PM interview. The answers to these will tell you whether or not there is an infrastructure in place for you to succeed at your job.
Source: Medium: 6 Questions to Ask Before Taking that Product Manager Job
Author: Melissa Perri
Marty Cagan: My Favorite PM Interview Question
Marty Cagan of svpg shares his favorite interview questions, thus rendering it possibly useless.
Source: My Favorite PM Interview Question
Author: Marty Cagan
(via Co.Design): Ideo Studied Innovation In 100+ Companies–Here’s What It Found
Innovation is hard to pin down, but with these six insights Ideo says it’s cracking the code.
Source: Co.Design: Ideo Studied Innovation In 100+ Companies–Here’s What It Found
Sara Critchfield (via Harvard Business Review): How to Push Your Team to Take Risks and Experiment
Sara Critchfield suggests four techniques to encourage teams to leave their comfort zone and embrace taking more risks.
Source: Harvard Business Review: How to Push Your Team to Take Risks and Experiment
Author: Sara Critchfield
The Essential Read
Tim Ferriss and Ricardo Semler: The Seven-Day Weekend and How to Break the Rules
Tim Ferriss interviews Ricardo Semler, the former CEO of Semco Partners, a Brazilian company best known perhaps for its radical form of industrial democracy and corporate re-engineering.
Source: The Seven-Day Weekend and How to Break the Rules
Authors: Tim Ferriss and Ricardo Semler
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