Why Is Strategy So Hard To Define?

If you’re a reflective type and you’ve ever considered how difficult it is to truly define strategy, you’re not alone.

And I blame the abusers of the term. Those who use it with wild abandon, who insert it in pedestrian comms, repeatedly and deliberately. People who believe that activity becomes strategic, simply by labelling it so. It is those offenders that make the idea of strategy complex and nebulous.

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What to Do Before Adding Items to the Backlog - Mike Cohn

Have you seen “The Princess Bride” movie?
I love it. (And the book is even better.)
The film tells the love story of Buttercup and Westley. Westley works on Buttercup’s family’s farm and any time she asks him to do something, he responds, “As you wish.”
This is *not* how a team should respond when a product owner asks a team to do something.
Before doing what their product owner requests, team members should ask questions. This ensures they understand what’s needed, but also confirms the product owner has thought through the request sufficiently.
I’ve seen many situations in which product owners ultimately realize they never really wanted the thing they initially asked for.
I think team members should even go so far as to push back slightly if they have doubts about the benefit of something a product owner has requested.
Product owners are meant to be the authority on their products, the wise and most knowledgeable voice. But team members’ opinions should not be discounted.
Team members are valuable stakeholders who may have unique insights into how a product works. If they have concerns about a request, they deserve to be heard. And product owners owe it to users to listen.
Ideally, a product owner asks a team to achieve some goal rather than simply perform a simple task.
“Fetch that” may have worked for Buttercup telling Westley what to do. And a simple task like that may warrant an “As you wish” response.
On an agile project, however, asking questions before possibly telling the product owner, “As you wish” is the way to succeed with agile.

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Top 6 Lessons You Can Learn ONLY If You Step Outside of Your Comfort Zone

The comfort zone. What a beautiful place to be in. But have you ever stepped out of your comfort zone? Have you ever thought of venturing outside to see what lies in the great beyond? Have you ever wondered what lessons about life you can learn outside your comfort zone? One thing’s for sure: you’ll be surprised by what you find at the edge of your comfort zone.

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The Future of Agile Coaching

Agile delivery has conquered the world. Agile is everywhere. The industry dinosaurs have introduced Agile over the years. Public organizations have Scrum teams. It’s omnipresent.

Many active in the Agile space have discussed we have reached a saturation point. “Everyone” is doing it, so we should expect a decline in demand to introduce people to Agile.

That doesn’t mean Agile Coaching will become less relevant. On the contrary, introducing Agile is only one step towards effectiveness in creating value.

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5 Things I Wish I Would Have Known About Agile Sooner!!

When I started as a Scrum Master/Agile coach, I didn’t take a mentor but studied by myself, leading consecutive failures of Agile transformation in projects. It was a hard, shameful, and embarrassing experience, as I even got fired from several projects.

However, these experiences made me stronger as well. I decided to take advantage of these failures to introspect, study harder, and brush up on my Agile skills. After that, I was able to succeed in Agile implementation in many projects. Mistakes and failures were stepping stones for my Agile journey.

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Should Product Managers Write Problem Statements? - YES!

A problem statement is a concise description of an issue to be addressed or a condition to be improved upon. It identifies the gap between the current (problem) state and desired (goal) state of a process or product. The first condition of solving a problem is understanding the problem, which can be done by way of a problem statement.

A good problem statement:

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Corporate Ozempic - Is AI Shrinking Companies?

If you want to understand how AI is reshaping business, picture it as the other massive innovation of our time: GLP-1 drugs. Both shed weight by suppressing cravings; both exacerbate existing inequities (aka the rich get richer) before generating wider prosperity; and both are having a greater impact than projected as early adopters are hesitant to admit they’re using.

https://medium.com/@profgalloway/corporate-ozempic-da829480c878

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8 Things That Emotionally Intelligent People NEVER Do!

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Independence Day - 4th of July Tribute

Join V. Lee Henson as we pay tribute to Independence Day.

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Stop Doing Scrum All Wrong...

Are you finding that Scrum isn’t working for you? Do you constantly find that you’re never quite able to complete your Sprint Backlog and even when you get close it never really feels like success? You’re more of a feature factory than anything else.

Well it’s almost certainly because of this one thing. What is it? Let’s find out!

I’ve been using Scrum with teams and a variety of organisations for the past 20 years, God has it been that long! And when Scrum fatigue sets in it’s almost always because the team are not using a Sprint and Product Goal or because they’re using them in the wrong way.

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