Food for Agile Thought #164

Stefan Wolpers
Food for Agile Thought
5 min readOct 19, 2018

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Food for Agile Thought’s issue #164 focuses on successful behavioral patterns of servant leaders, the reasons why change at an organizational level is so hard, and how to cherry-pick existing agile scaling frameworks from SAFe® to Nexus and LeSS.

We also learn from Trello’s example how to scale a product organization, what path Buffer chose to create their new minimum lovable analytics tool, and that distributed teams do not stand in the way of building excellent products.

Lastly, we follow Dave West when he outlines the five most pressing challenges of agile transformations and how to deal with them.

Have a great week!

🏆 The Essential Read: Servant Leaders

Jennifer Garvey Berger (via Farnam Street): The Mental Habits of Effective Leaders

In this interview, Jennifer Garvey Berger and Shane Parrish touch a lot of the areas servant leaders like Scrum Masters or agile coaches should be familiar with — from mental models to dealing with complexity to listening and making others feel great.

Source: Farnam Street: The Mental Habits of Effective Leaders

Author: Jennifer Garvey Berger

Agile & Scrum

Bob Galen: A Different Take on Agile Scaling

Robert Galen mined some of the most popular scaling frameworks for useful patterns to support an organization’s need to scale agility.

Source: A Different Take on Agile Scaling

Author: Robert Galen

Dave West (via InfoQ): Managing to the Next Century — The Five Big Things for Agile Transitions

Dave West analyzes why the move to agile is a much more fundamental change than the mere adoption of a new methodology or process framework.

Source: InfoQ: Managing to the Next Century — The Five Big Things for Agile Transitions

Author: Dave West

(via Corporate Rebels): The 5 Barriers To Organizational Change (According To Harvard Professor Moss Kanter)

Rosabeth Moss Kantor defines five main barriers to change: from ‘not my job’ to ‘what will be my place two years from now?’

Source: Corporate Rebels: The 5 Barriers To Organizational Change (According To Harvard Professor Moss Kanter)

Webinar #9: Sprint Review Anti-Patterns — November 6, 2018

The ninth Hands-on Agile webinar on sprint review anti-patterns addresses twelve anti-patterns of the sprint review — from death by PowerPoint to side-gigs to none of the stakeholders cares to attend.

Download your invitation now: Webinar #9: Sprint Review Anti-Patterns — November 6, 2018.

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Product & Lean

Tom Redman (via Buffer): Product Scope: The Path to a Minimum Lovable Product

Tom Redman shares the story how his team built a brand new social analytics solution — Buffer Analyze.

Source: Buffer: Product Scope: The Path to a Minimum Lovable Product

Author: Tom Redman

Tim Herbig (via Mind The Product): How do you Make Product Management Work Effectively in a Distributed Team?

Tim Herbig reflects on the challenge of distributed teams: breaking free from existing paradigms or amplifying existing weaknesses?

Source: Mind The Product: How do you Make Product Management Work Effectively in a Distributed Team?

Author: Tim Herbig

Nikita Dyer Miller (via First Round Capital): Trello’s Product Lead on the Unique Ramp to a 10-Person Product Org

Nikita Dyer Miller shares her insights into leading a product team from scrappy early-stage startup to a company with processes that can scale.

Source: First Round Capital: Trello’s Product Lead on the Unique Ramp to a 10-Person Product Org

Author: Nikita Dyer Miller

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Food for Agile Thought #164: Servant Leaders, Scaling Agile and Product Organizations, Minimum Lovable Products was first published on Age-of-Product.com.

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Food for Agile Thought
Food for Agile Thought

Published in Food for Agile Thought

Best posts from last week on agile and lean methodologies, Scrum and product management. Manually curated, no robots involved.

Stefan Wolpers
Stefan Wolpers

Written by Stefan Wolpers

I have worked for 18-plus years as a Scrum Master, Product Owner, and agile coach. Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) with Scrum.org.