Shifting from projects/solutions to a product/outcomes mindset is hard. And the Names we use for our Epics / Features / Stories make it even harder. Too often than not, those names are a relic of the original ask, which is typically of the “build it and they will come” nature. Even as we work on …
Meet Alice. Alice is the CPO at BuzzCorp. As BuzzCorp tries to move from “Agile Theater” to product-oriented agility, Alice is trying to figure out the appropriate structure for the Product organization. Beyond the Product Managers in her group, BuzzCorp also has about three times as many Product Owners working closely with its Agile Teams, …
Picture BuzzCorp (Many of you won’t have to use too much imagination). They’ve invested significant efforts in developing software and products in an agile manner. They formed agile teams (but a deeper look shows those are the existing component/functional teams using agile methods) They manage Features/Stories in JIRA/ADO (but those are the functional slices that …
Is SAFe good? Is SAFe agile? What are SAFe’s strengths? Weaknesses? How does SAFe see the Scrum Master and Product Owner roles? What are the benefits and challenges of the PI Planning practice? Ryan Ripley and I recorded Breaking The SAFe, a series of videos dissecting SAFe. Do you want a cliff notes version? It …
If you’re a healthcare provider, what is your product? This question surfaces when these organizations try to adopt a Product Operating Model or move from project management to a product-oriented organization (and yes, there’s quite an overlap between these two ) I like to consider this from the perspective of the customer—in this case, the …
Can you dance at all parties? Be the expert at the intersection? Sounds like an oxymoron—Jack of all trades, master of none. Beyond the fact that you need to be curious, open-minded, and a lifelong learner, I have a trick for you. You don’t need to be an expert in every snowflake when you’re a …
FlowImpact Yoga, a fast-growing network of studios, continues using the Think It, Build It, Ship It, Tweak It operating system. On the last employee survey, they saw improvements in cross-company collaboration and goal clarity, which makes the mediocre results in Decision-Making an area to try to improve. In a leadership team meeting, they decided to …
Working Software. Done Increments. Two related concepts in the agile world that people trying to leverage Agile/Scrum’s empiricism outside of the software/technology space struggle with. The intent behind these practices is to achieve transparency to validate/invalidate assumptions—you might call it managing based on evidence. The key idea is to get transparency as early and often …
I encounter more and more people struggling to find a clear path in the agile space. They are dealing with a complex, scaled environment with many legacies, with some scaling patterns needed. SAFe resonates to them as an approach that fits their organization’s appetite (or lack thereof) for change/risk but they also want to make …
“PMs work on the 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁. Product leaders work on the 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗼𝗿𝗴.” – Ed Biden Let’s take it one step further. Product Leaders should work on the Product Organization using a Product Approach. Successful Product Leaders I worked with applied their Product chops to working on their Org. They Hypothesize, Experiment, Keep options open, Inspect …