Johanna Rothman

APRIL 9, 2024

I was on the Agile Uprising podcast this past Sunday, discussing my most recent book. Some of what we discussed: That managers want agility but do not care about any agile methods or frameworks. While we might think “agile” is another project organization method—or lifecycle—it's not. See (and hear!):

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Johanna Rothman

MARCH 21, 2024

I started this series by discussing why managers didn't perceive the value of agile coaches and Scrum Masters in Part 1, resulting in layoffs.) Then, in Part 2 , I asked those unemployed agilists to review their functional skills, the skills people need to do a product development job well. Especially, Agile is Not a Silver Bullet.

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Johanna Rothman

AUGUST 19, 2021

So when does it make sense to customize your agile approach to gain a strategic advantage? Example 1: Startup/Small Organization with Few Products. They offer their product in two versions: Pro and Lite. They can offer a subscription-based revenue model if they figure out how to release something useful almost every week.

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Johanna Rothman

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

Strategy and Product Feedback Loops Many of my middle-management and senior leadership clients want certainty about future work. Does that sound like an agile team to you? However, managers don't create features as agile teams do. Agile teams don't assume they make a final product the first time out.

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Johanna Rothman

JUNE 5, 2023

That's because each project offers different value over the product's lifetime. See Product Roles, Part 4: Product Orientation and the Role of Projects for images of why we want ever-increasing product value, but why we might space the projects out.) However, today, I realized there are also product risks.

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Johanna Rothman

MARCH 18, 2024

That part discusses why managers see agile coaches and Scrum Masters as staff positions, not line jobs. I assume you have some sort of functional product development expertise. If not, why are you in technical product development? This post is about your deep domain expertise, first in product, then in agility.

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Johanna Rothman

APRIL 18, 2024

Do you have an overstuffed backlog the way Jenny did in Create More Success: How to Say No to “Everything” to Say Yes to What’s Necessary Now ? How can you prevent an overstuffed backlog, roadmap, or all those great ideas from interrupting your team from finishing its work? That means you have options, not a backlog, for your products.

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Johanna Rothman

DECEMBER 2, 2022

On the ANE panel last night, an agile coach asked, “What's my path forward as an agile coach? Focus on business results, not agility per se. People who facilitate larger efforts, such as product leaders, portfolio managers, and most middle managers, feel the pressure to “deliver” or “perform.”

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Johanna Rothman

JANUARY 31, 2024

In Effective Agility Requires Cultural Changes: Part 1 , I said that real agile approaches require cultural change to focus on flow efficiency, where we focus on watching the work, not the people. But teams can change how they work—in any approach. But here's how they can work to create more agility.

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Johanna Rothman

APRIL 14, 2021

One of my clients wants to use shared services “teams” as they start their agile transformation. Their developers work on a product for months and years at a time. ” Shared service-thinking denies the reality of effective product development: A cross-functional team learns together as they develop the product. .”

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Johanna Rothman

MARCH 14, 2024

And even if you can find an agile coaching or Scrum Master job, the pay is so terrible, you don’t want to take it. That’s because these managers think agile coaching and Scrum Mastering is a staff job, not a line job. At what level do you understand the products you’ve worked on? Those are functional skills.

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Johanna Rothman

MARCH 8, 2021

As I've been speaking about the Modern Management Made Easy books, people ask these questions: We're pretty good with our agile approach. How do we reward someone based on individual work when we want teams to work together? These people tell me their career ladder doesn't work to enhance agility. What do we do?

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Johanna Rothman

DECEMBER 11, 2019

We had (and still have) too many products to keep the same teams on them for a long time. For programs, the team stayed together and moved to a different feature set/internal product until the program finished. We could move to a new product and/or a new team. My job was to smooth the way for people to deliver products.

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Johanna Rothman

JANUARY 6, 2020

In Costs of an Agile Approach for Hardware Products , I suggested that an iteration-based approach for hardware was too expensive. Agile software teams are cross-functional and interdependent. Many agile software teams have somewhere between four and seven people. This hardware team swarms on a product.

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Johanna Rothman

JANUARY 21, 2021

When I think about agile approaches to work, I think about how fast we can change and the cost of those changes. That's why an agile approach with deliverables every day or week doesn't fit with some kinds of projects, such as events. Here, I assume you want multiple releases for your product.

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Johanna Rothman

FEBRUARY 25, 2021

The managers don't believe the teams need product owners, so the teams don't have POs. Those outcomes can help teams decide which agile approach(es) to start with and adapt. Let's start with who wants the teams to use an agile approach. Who Wants the Teams to Use an Agile Approach? They're having trouble with Scrum.

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Johanna Rothman

MARCH 13, 2024

Every day, I hear more stories of agile coaches or Scrum Masters losing their jobs. Several reasons: No manager cares about “agile” even if they care about agility. So, selling “agile” into the organization doesn’t create any traction for change. You might not like these ideas.

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Johanna Rothman

JANUARY 6, 2023

” These people claim there is no need for either role in an effective team, especially an agile team because the team can manage its own deliverables. While some agile teams can manage their own deliverables, that's not the only role for a project or program manager. Clarify the Product and Team Objectives. I'm not alone.

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Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

In How Product Goals Make it Easier to Create Sprint Goals and Reduce Feature Factories, Part 1 , I started responding to Tom's interview question. Here's the question again: “The product owner and dev team cannot decide on a sprint goal, even after hours of discussion. ” All agile approaches limit WIP (Work in Progress).

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Johanna Rothman

OCTOBER 8, 2020

Back in Part 1 , I wrote about how stage-gate approaches were as agile as we could use at the time. We had one delivery, so our agility was about canceling the project if we couldn't finish it. I had to explain to my managers how the project would work. My managers were smart but didn't understand how to spiral time.

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Johanna Rothman

JULY 22, 2021

I don't know how to offer the level of predictability they want for large and unchanging work. Worse, many of these managers also want business agility. Business agility requires change. Product strategy, to define the value the products offer to the product's users/customers. Define Each Product Strategy.

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Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

Product owners have many challenges: They need to keep at least two thoughts about the product: what it needs to be in the near future, and what the organization wants it to be in the (distant) future. But the biggest problem I see is this: Effective product owners belong to at least two teams and maybe more. Strategic work.)

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Johanna Rothman

OCTOBER 20, 2020

I discussed the origins of the agile approaches in Part 5. In this post, I'll discuss how you can create an agile approach that fits your context. Why should you create your own agile approach? Because your context is unique to you, your team, project, product, and culture. What do you need? Start with the Team.

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Johanna Rothman

JUNE 6, 2022

They want a single product roadmap to serve all these purposes: Focus the team's work for this specific product for the short term. Show customers where the company thinks the product is headed. The more specific overview of when salespeople might expect new features or new products.). What management thinks they want.

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Johanna Rothman

JANUARY 2, 2024

Given our current staffing, we can afford to fund these specific projects for some amount of time before those projects release their products and services. Depending on how much innovation we require, we want to replan the portfolio after some releasing so we can learn. See Consider Product Options with Minimum Outcomes.

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Johanna Rothman

OCTOBER 20, 2020

The original signatories of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development wanted to solve these specific problems: How can we: Bring more adaptability to software development? For example (books have affiliate Amazon links): Takeuchi and Nonaka published The New New Product Development Game in HBR in 1986. Womack and Daniel T.

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Johanna Rothman

AUGUST 12, 2019

I spoke at Agile 2019 last week. Here are my thoughts and where I think the “agile” industry is headed. Problems I See with “Agile” Here's a summary of problems I saw last week: Too many people think “agile” will solve all their problems. Do You Need an Agile Approach?

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Johanna Rothman

OCTOBER 6, 2020

Are you trying to make an agile framework or approach work? Maybe you've received a mandate to “go agile.” Or, maybe you're trying to fit an agile framework into your current processes—and you've got a mess. I've seen plenty of problems when people try to adopt “agile” wholesale.

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Johanna Rothman

OCTOBER 15, 2020

Isn't every iterative and incremental approach an agile approach? We often hear agile approaches are a mindset. An agile approach requires a change in culture at the team level, at the portfolio level, and in management. Agile approaches change what we discuss, how we work together, and what we reward.

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Johanna Rothman

APRIL 14, 2020

Let me address a little about business agility and innovation. Business agility allows us to create a culture where we plan to change. Too many people think business agility is about the ability to do more of the same, faster. ” Or mine, “Explore and support effective ways of managing product development.”

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Johanna Rothman

JULY 27, 2023

In addition, a product leader might approve the feature. Finally, the team, a product leader, or the customer(!) But if you are similar to one of my long-ago clients, they could plan on too many defect escapes every time they released another version of the product. See What Lifecycle or Agile Approach Fits Your Context?

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Johanna Rothman

JULY 23, 2020

You can do this even if each of you is an expert on various areas or different products when you use flow efficiency. Here's how Clare's team worked: Every person started their own story. See Who's Playing Agile Schedule Games? ). No More Agile Death Marches. Agile approaches are all about collaboration.

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Johanna Rothman

JULY 9, 2019

Now that agile teams stay together, we can change the kickoff to more project-specific work. I wrote an article several years ago, Keys to Chartering an Agile Project. In Create Your Successful Agile Project , I suggested a reframe for the charter. The question I asked was this: How little can we do to satisfy our needs?

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Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

I started this series with many specific concerns about a particular interview question: “The product owner and dev team cannot decide on a sprint goal, even after hours of discussion. Instead, I see assumptions that reveal a divide-and-conquer, and possibly a command-and-control culture, not an agile culture. Not one person.

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Johanna Rothman

FEBRUARY 6, 2024

If you took an agile workshop sometime in the past 15 years, you probably played the “ ball game.” Especially since they've probably suffered through way too many “agile” workshops with more and more games. That's an example of how insidious resource efficiency thinking is. Why do I have to play a game?”

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Johanna Rothman

AUGUST 28, 2023

In Part 2 , I suggested the product leader/team/some combination, have a conversation to understand the context for the request. Because while I don't see how anyone can answer this question, there's often a reason behind the request. That changes how organizational leaders feel about the project. See Do You Have Feature-Itis?

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Johanna Rothman

JULY 29, 2021

Several of my clients have internal struggles about how to internally see the future of the product. The teams want to use an agile approach so they can incorporate learning. The managers might even think this is roadmap reflects an agile approach. There's nothing about this roadmap that's agile. What can you do?

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