The Daily Standup

Lessons From Barbie for When a Project Absolutely MUST Succeed - Mike Cohn
I finally watched Barbie. I enjoyed it, which doesn’t surprise me. It had to be good. Barbie was a must-succeed project. If the movie had flopped, it would probably be a decade before anyone could try again to make a Barbie movie. But a successful movie would serve as a platform for sequels. While watching Barbie (and singing along to “I’m Just Ken”) I was struck by a few important lessons that apply to any must-succeed project. The first tip for successful project management is to solicit and act on as much fast feedback as you can get on preliminary versions of your product. For Barbie, the filmmakers ran test screenings in multiple cities, analyzed feedback, and ran more test screenings. In our words, they iterated toward making a great movie. The second tip for managing projects successfully? Leave things out. Not every scene that’s filmed makes it to the final movie. During test screenings of Barbie, the filmmakers performed what product development teams call A/B testing. Different versions of the movie were shown to different audiences to see which were best received. They used this feedback to remove scenes or shots that weren’t necessary to the flow or humor of the film. Not every feature a team builds should remain in the product. The sunk cost fallacy often clouds our judgment—when we spend time building that feature, we think we might as well leave it in just in case someone wants it. But no. Unneeded and rarely used features clutter the user interface just as unneeded scenes can ruin a movie. Third, have a visionary who keeps the project focused but engage others for increased creativity. Greta Gerwig was that visionary for Barbie. She directed the movie and co-wrote the script. Her vision drove what we experience when watching the film. Agile projects have product owners who should act as visionaries for their products. They should see the future and guide others toward it. But no visionary, even an auteur filmmaker such as Gerwig, does it alone. The best welcome creativity from others on the project (including stakeholders and developers). During the production of 2001: A Space Odyssey, director Stanley Kubrick used a novel idea from his team. It was critical that HAL, the spaceship’s onboard computer, overhear that crew members Poole and Bowman were going to disconnect him. Kubrick brainstormed ideas of how HAL could overhear those private conversations but could find no good solution. The solution came from his associate producer, Victor Lyndon, whose job had mostly been filing insurance paperwork for the film. Lyndon casually suggested that HAL can read lips. The vision for the film adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's story remained very much Kubrick’s, but he knew to use great ideas without regard for their origin. Finally, if you are working on a project that absolutely must succeed, include Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie as team members. OK, their coding, design, and database skills are probably lacking, but they were perfect as Ken and Barbie. Project Success Tip 1: Solicit Feedback as Early as PossibleProject Success Tip 2: Leave Some Features OutProject Success Tip 3: Have a Visionary But Find Good Ideas AnywhereProject Success Tip 4: Have the Right Team
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What Does a Project Manager Do?

• People Management
• Requirements Management
• Expectation Management
• Task Management
• Commitment Management
• Risk Management
• Communication Management
• Change Management
• Resource Management
• Dependency Management
• Contract Management
• Supplier Management

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How Do We Do Better Capacity Planning & Forecasting? Quarterly planning always seems to creep up on us. It’s a busy time, and teams are usually scrambling to get their projects scoped. I used to feel the same pressure — like no matter how much effort I put into planning, something always slipped through the cracks. One challenge for engineering managers is planning capacity while balancing competing priorities like new projects, tech debt, and time off. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website] https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram] https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook] https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Linkedin] https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Top 4 Product Manager SuperPowers

1. 1. Execution Sense: This is all about making things happen. It’s one thing to have a plan, but bringing it to life? That’s where execution sense comes in. You ensure that not only do tasks get completed on time, but they’re done brilliantly. ⏱️✨
   2. Analytical Sense: This superpower focuses on your ability to think critically, use data to make informed decisions, and solve complex problems. 🧠📊
   3. Product Sense: Ever just ‘know’ what’s going to work? That’s product sense. Understanding what your users need and delivering products that meet these needs effectively. It’s about foreseeing what will work before it’s fully designed. It’s an almost instinctual understanding of what users want before they even ask for it. 🎯
   4.  Adaptability (New addition): The only constant is change, right? Being adaptable means staying flexible and responsive to whatever new challenges, technologies or market trends come your way. 🔄
   
   

How to connect with AgileDad: - [website] https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram] https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook] https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Linkedin] https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Just Focus on Yourself.. Nobody Really Cares What You Do.. We thought that people were watching us. I don’t want to say that we are narcissistic, because I’m not going to talk about that. I’m just saying that it is normal to feel like that. Feeling that people might be judging us or watching us. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website] https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram] https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook] https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Linkedin] https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Top 10 Principles For Effective Team Leaders

1. The role of a leader is to build the business and grow the team…at the same time.
2. Appreciation is the most valuable currency your team wants and needs.
3. Praise in public, coach in private
4. You aren’t just the team leader…you are the head talent scout and training coach.
5. As team leader, EQ and CQ are more important than IQ.
6. Teach your team to bring you solutions, not just problems.
7. Ensure your team understands and commits to the “disagree and commit” principle.
8. If you love drama, go to the theater because drama at work can ruin your business.
9. Make sure you and your team members “stay in your lane.”
10. Sometimes, a team member must find their “happy place” somewhere else.

How to connect with AgileDad: - [website] https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram] https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook] https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Linkedin] https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Simple Practices To Prevent Wasteful Meetings Before each session, we need to clarify:
1️⃣ Required participants 👨‍⚖️ 👩‍⚖️
2️⃣ Purpose 🤔
3️⃣ Desired outcome 🎯
4️⃣ How to prepare 🤔
5️⃣ Agenda 🗓 It’s super simple and offers some great advantages:
✅ If any of these parts are unclear, ask the organizer for clarification.
✅ If parts remain unclear, don’t join the session!
✅ Meetings are often scheduled way ahead of time, so it serves as a friendly reminder of the meeting.
✅ Defining all these topics up front allows everyone to provide feedback before the session to ensure it becomes even more valuable. For example, “What if we make … the purpose of the session?” or “What if we include agenda item X as well?”
✅ As a meeting organizer, you can expect all the participants to come prepared. If all parts are completed, nobody can use the excuse of not knowing how to prepare. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website] https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram] https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook] https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Linkedin] https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Celebrate Failure? Why Not? Teams are more effective when they operate in environments that allow members to take interpersonal risks, such as admitting they don’t know something, offering feedback and support, asking for help, or sharing their mistakes and failures. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website] https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram] https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook] https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Linkedin] https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

How To Be a Great Entrepreneur The other night, I had dinner with a group of 40-ish young entrepreneurs on my university’s campus. As you’d expect, I spoke with lots of enthusiastic founders and heard lots of pitches about the projects they’re working on. But one student, in particular, stood out. He was clearly passionate about entrepreneurship and the startup he was building. He shared how he had spent the summer in a corporate internship he didn’t enjoy, but, as soon as his workday ended, he would meet with his co-founders and they’d work on their startup until late into the evening. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website] https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram] https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook] https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Linkedin] https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

How to Make the Best Decision Under the Worst Circumstances When making decisions under suboptimal conditions — the situation is not in our favour, we have incomplete details, or there’s an issue that requires urgent attention — most of us tend to screw up. We overreact, hurry, and let our biases prevent us from making good decisions. We assume that, given the conditions and constraints under which we operate, this is the best we can do. However, most of the time, our best is not good enough because we blame it on our circumstances and fail to learn from our mistakes instead of taking responsibility for our actions. This creates a vicious cycle of stress and anxiety every time we are faced with a difficult situation — negative emotions from past failures, fear of not meeting expectations again and not knowing how to make a better decision, this time leading to bad choices with terrible results. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website] https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram] https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook] https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Linkedin] https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/