Best of PPM: October 2021
WHAT CAUGHT OUR ATTENTION THIS MONTH
6 make-or-break priorities for CIOs in the next 12 months. With an increasingly large number of top-level company goals unreachable without technology, CIOs need to make the leap from tech leader to business leader, and soon. (15 min read)
Successful product owners see their stakeholders as a team. Instead of treating them as a set of individuals, each with their own needs and desires, they teach them to act as a team and to collaborate to make decisions. (4 min read)
At the same time, treating all stakeholders precisely the same way is a recipe for failure. Instead, David Pereira offers a simple matrix to evaluate each of them according to power, interest and attitude, and help you build a clear picture of how you should deal with each one. (6 min read)
The question of the month: Why?
- When pitching an idea, should you focus on "Why" or "How"? A research project found that the answer depends on your audience. If you’re making a pitch to novices, focus on "why". If you’re making it to experts, focus on "how". (5 min read)
- Antonio Nieto Rodriguez (with whom we have just done a great webinar!) explains why business cases are not enough when evaluating and prioritizing projects. You also need to understand WHY you are doing them. (8 min read)
- Using Antonio's article as starting point, Kiron Bondale delves into how to keep the "Why?" top of mind for teams and other key stakeholders. (3 min read)
You don't have to use a framework to scale Agile... And actually, it's much better if you do everything you can to avoid scaling. Minimise it. And if you really have to, invest your resources in scaling the teams, not in the workflows and protocols surrounding them. (10 min read)
We shouldn't believe everything we think. Greg Satell looks at three key (but little discussed) management myths that we desperately need to unlearn because of the damage their wreck on our decision-making. (6 min read)
5 things high performing teams do differently. From picking up the phone more often to giving and receiving more appreciation, new research suggests that high performing teams use every opportunity they have for genuine, close knit relationships (or they create them), thereby lifting team performance. (6 min read)
Are your product metrics well defined? Noa Ganot offers a 4-step method to make sure that the metrics that you define for your own product are the right ones. (9 min read)
A QUOTE THAT MADE US THINK
Good process serves you so you can serve customers. But if you’re not watchful, the process can become the thing. This can happen very easily in large organizations.
— Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon
via The Silicon Valley Product Group
