Food for Agile Thought #352: Team Topologies, CEOs and Product Leaders, Why Strategies Change, Leadership Essentials

TL; DR: Team Topologies, CEOs and Product Leaders — Food for Agile Thought #352

Welcome to the 352nd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,602 peers. This week, we revisit Team Topologies, Conway’s Law, and how you might influence an organization’s structure as a lone product manager. We also explore the essence of behavioral change and apply lessons from Tim Hartford’s Cautionary Tale “The South Pole Race: David and Goliath on Ice” to your failed agile transformation. Moreover, we try to understand what ‘dream teams’ or ‘tiger teams’ supposedly are.

Then, we delve into the delicate relationship between the CEO and the product leader of an organization, stressing the importance of building candor, trust, and communicating well. Also, we listen to Casey Winters sharing career advice for aspiring product managers, from communicating upward to de-risking meetings. Finally, John Cutler continues his quest to understand product strategy; this time is all about why it changes, from recency bias to sporadic research.

Finally, we follow Jake Burghardt delving into the usefulness of research repositories as internal learning tools, including practical suggestions on how to employ them, and we enjoy a new game to ‘illustrate essential aspects for collaboration and workflow improvements.’ Lastly, HBR points to a critical element of why ‘organizational transformations are prone to failure.’

Food for Agile Thought #352: Team Topologies, CEOs and Product Leaders, Why Strategies Change, Leadership Essentials—Age-of-Product.com

Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue 351?

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🏆 The Tip of the Week: Team Topologies

Shaw Li: How teams are organized will influences your product more than you might realize

Shaw Li revisits Team Topologies, Conway’s Law, and how you might influence an organization’s structure as a lone product manager.

➿ Agile & Scrum

(via Reforge): How to Build More Effective Teams

Tom Willerer and Kevin Bechtel share lessons learned on ‘dream teams’ or ‘tiger teams.’

Shane Parrish and Marshall Goldsmith (via Farnam Street): 🎙 The Essentials Of Leadership

Shane Parrish interviews Marshall Goldsmith, one of the world’s leading executive coaches, on the essence of behavioral change.

Karl Scotland: 3 Amazing Reasons Your Agile Transformation May Go South

Karl Scotland applies lessons from Tim Hartford’s Cautionary Tale “The South Pole Race: David and Goliath on Ice” to your agile transformation.

🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — September 6-9, 2022

Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this official Scrum.org Advanced Scrum Master training class including the industry-recognized PSM II certification. The PSM II training class is designed as a live virtual class and will be offered in English.

Enjoy the benefits of an immersive class of four sessions with like-minded agile peers in the morning hours from 09:00 – 13:00 o’clock CEST.

🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — September 6-9, 2022 — Berlin Product People GmbH

Learn more: 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — September 6-9, 2022.

“Very hands-on class with lots of concrete takeaways to help in real world scenarios. Reinforced practices and highlighted things that helped in passing the PSM II exam but that was merely a bonus as the content of the class is so useful – certifications or not. Stefan Wolpers is an excellent trainer with broad practical and theoretical knowledge on the subject and his classes seem to have very good working atmosphere (this was a second class by him that I have taken).”
(Link.)

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🎯 Product

Ken Norton: CEOs and Product Leaders

Ken Norton delves into the delicate relationship between the CEO and the product leader of an organization, stressing the importance of building candor, trust, and communicating well.

Casey Winters and Lenny Rachitsky: 🎙 How to sell your ideas and rise within your company

Casey Winters shares career advice for aspiring product managers, from communicating upward to de-risking meetings.

John Cutler: Why Does Our Strategy Keep Changing?

John Cutler continues his quest to understand product strategy. Moreover, this time is all about why it changes, from recency bias to sporadic research.

📯 Stakeholder Trust — Scrum Master Survival Guide

Trust is the beginning of everything. I am hesitant to recycle an old slogan of a banking institute. However, in the context of becoming a learning organization and embracing business agility, it condenses the main challenge perfectly: How shall we convince the incumbents with vested interests in the status quo to give the new way of working the benefit of the doubt? Join me and delve into how distrust manifests and what we can do to earn stakeholder trust.

Stakeholder Trust — Scrum Master Survival Guide — Age-of-Product.com

Learn more: Stakeholder Trust.

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

Jake Burghardt (via Team ReOps): Activating insights to overcome common barriers to product impact

Jake Burghardt delves into the usefulness of research repositories as internal learning tools, including practical suggestions on how to employ them.

Paulo Caroli: The WIP Drinking Game

Paulo Caroli presents a new game to ‘illustrate essential aspects for collaboration and workflow improvements.’

✂️ Cutting Room Floor

(via Harvard Business Review): Organizational Transformation Is an Emotional Journey

Andrew White, Michael Smets, and Adam Canwell point to a critical element of why ‘organizational transformations are prone to failure.’


📅 Scrum Training & Event Schedule

You can secure your seat for Scrum training classes, workshops, and meetups directly by following the corresponding link in the table below:

Date Class and Language City Price
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 April 2-30, 2024 GUARANTEED: Product Backlog Management Cohort Class (English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €499 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 April 9, 2024 GUARANTEED: Hands-on Agile #60: A Q&A on Dynamic Reteaming with Heidi Helfand (English) Live Virtual Meetup FREE
🖥 💯 🇩🇪 April 10-11, 2024 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 April 23-24, 2024 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Master (Advanced) Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 7, 2024 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Training (PSFS; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €749 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 7, 2024 GUARANTEED: Hands-on Agile #61: Toyota Kata Coaching for Agile Teams & Transformations with Fortune Buchholtz (English) Live Virtual Meetup FREE
🖥 🇩🇪 May 14-15, 2024 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇬🇧 May 28-29, 2024 Professional Scrum Master (Advanced) Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,189 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 June 6, 2024 GUARANTEED: Hands-on Agile #62: From Backlog Manager to Product Manager: From Outputs to Outcomes w/ David Pereira (English) Live Virtual Meetup FREE
🖥 🇩🇪 June 25-26, 2024 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT

See all upcoming classes here.

Professional Scrum Trainer Stefan Wolpers

You can book your seat for the training directly by following the corresponding links to the ticket shop. If the procurement process of your organization requires a different purchasing process, please contact Berlin Product People GmbH directly.

📺 Join 4,000-plus Agile Peers on Youtube

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✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn more about Team Topologies — Join the 12,000-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Community

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Download the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide by PST Stefan Wolpers — 160 ways to improve as a Scrum Team — Age-of-Product.com

🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition

Read more: Food for Agile Thought #351: Agile and Deadlines, Why We (Often) Lack Strategy, Making Room for Discovery, Switching to Shape Up.

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