“Goodhart’s Law isn’t as useful as you might think” by Cedric Chin
You’ve definitely heard of Goodhart’s Law even if you don’t know it by name. This article proposes a more actionable formulation of Goodhart’s law, and gives us a peak inside Amazon’s WBR process. A must read for fans of quantitative management methods.
Read the whole thing (about 10 minutes)
“ScrumMaster checklist” by Michael James
Next time someone tells you that you can do Scrum just fine with only a Product Owner and Developers, download this list and check with them to see which of these responsibilities are being handled by someone else, and which ones are being neglected entirely.
Read the whole thing (about 5 minutes)
“21 Product Management Frameworks” by Productfolio
A nice round up of 21 of the most useful product frameworks, tools, and techniques you will encounter in your career as a Product Manager. Sure there are thousands of lists like this online, but this is the one I keep coming back to.
Read the whole thing (about 15 minutes)
“Who Owns Your Company Roadmap?” by Build the Stage
A roadmap is just a roadmap right? Of course not. Dive into this short article if you need your first introduction to the idea that roadmaps may have different audiences, different owners, and different driving purposes. Once you know what to look for, you’ll start asking much more interesting questions.
Read the whole thing (about 5 minutes)
“Evidence-Based Management guide” by Scrum.org
A must read for anyone who loves (or wants) to use quantification and experimentation to drive their product development. Evidence-Based Management is a Scrum compatible framework that helps you measure, manage, and increase the value of your product delivery practices. It focuses on outcomes, reduces risks, and optimizes investments.
Read the whole thing (about 45 minutes)
“Why Scaling Agile Doesn’t Work” by Jez Humble
From the person who brought you Continuous Delivery, and Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps, comes this iconic 2015 talk that seeks to extend the principles of agility from a single development team to a whole organization. Spoiler: It’s not impossible to scale agile, just very hard - but it’s really cool and it’s worth the effort.
Watch the whole thing (about 51 minutes)
“Agile and the long crisis of software” by Miriam Posner
A fascinating and critical re-telling of the history of software development approaches that led to the Agile Manifesto and the subsequent adoption and rapid evolution of Agile. A valuable read for folks who may have experienced Agile approaches to work and wondered if it was really all it was cracked up to be. IMHO, there are good and bad ways to critique Agile, and this is a good one.
Read the whole thing (about 45 minutes)