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Medium

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The end of the user flow era?

Flowcharts saw a decline in popularity in the 1970s due to interactive terminals and programming languages, but continued to be used in the 21st century for computer algorithms.
User Flow transitioned from depicting user actions in product usage to a hybrid of classic flowcharts and visual interface elements.
In the 'golden age' of software, user flow was valuable for linear applications within Waterfall development methods.
With modern complexities in software design, traditional user flow struggles to meet nonlinear challenges and has limitations in representing dynamic systems.
Designing interfaces solely through screens is likened to building a car by drawing select parts without considering the whole system.
User flow can lead to an overload of documentation, creating a maze of screens and arrows that hinder rather than aid communication.
User flow becomes a burden when it hinders communication between design and development teams, leading to wasted time and resources.
In complex applications, the traditional user flow approach can complicate changes and overwhelm with excessive screen representations.
User flow, as traditionally understood, has lost its relevance and can impede rather than facilitate the design and development process.
The call to experiment with new methods to create scalable and flexible products and seek solutions to alleviate the challenges posed by traditional user flow.

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Dev

133

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Export Retrospectives to Confluence with Kollabe 📝

Retrospectives often hold valuable team insights that need to be documented in Confluence for stakeholder updates, team reference, and organizational knowledge.
Kollabe's one-click Confluence export feature automatically transforms completed retrospectives into detailed Confluence pages, saving time and ensuring essential details are preserved.
The export includes the complete retrospective summary, professional formatting for readability, highlighted action items, and preserved voting data for team consensus and priority rankings.
By integrating with Confluence, teams can maintain searchable team knowledge, track improvement themes, share outcomes easily with stakeholders, and build organizational memory that survives team changes.

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Scrum

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Building Stakeholder-Team Alignment: Tools That Actually Work

Building stakeholder-team alignment is crucial for successful product development, and using proper alignment tools can transform relationships and drive organizational outcomes.
Key strategies include building stakeholder trust, effective risk management, and maximizing value through alignment with organizational goals.
Alignment tools like the Big Product Picture help integrate vision, strategy, and execution, ensuring clarity and adaptability throughout the product lifecycle.
From vision to execution, aligning teams for success involves defining product vision, strategy, operation, and tactics to deliver customer value effectively.
Tools like the Product Strategy Canvas, Lean Canvas, GO Product Roadmap, and Opportunity Canvas help with long-term vision, problem-solution fit, goal-oriented planning, and user-centric product discovery.
Other tools such as the Now-Next-Later Product Roadmap, Product Goal Canvas, Opportunity Solution Tree, and User Story Mapping focus on flexibility, clear goal setting, continuous discovery, and user journey mapping.
Applying alignment tools fosters trust, collaboration, risk navigation, and value creation throughout the product development process, ensuring successful outcomes.

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Medium

13h

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The Best and Worst Inventions of Agile

Agile, born in 2001, has transformed software development over the past two decades, leading many companies to transition to this methodology.
Transitioning from the traditional waterfall model, which often resulted in project failures, Agile has brought about notable improvements in productivity and performance.
Research indicates that excessive overtime work can have detrimental effects on health and productivity, with Agile methodologies like XP promoting a maximum of 40 working hours per week.
Agile and its frameworks offer numerous best practices that have proven to enhance team performance and mitigate issues like burnout.

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Scrum

258

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Getting to Root Causes: Is the outcome of your meeting to schedule another one?

Meetings leading to scheduling another meeting are often a result of deeper issues within teamwork, focus, and prioritization.
Weak teamwork leads to decisions not sticking as people may not feel heard or have real consensus.
Lack of focus and avoiding prioritization during meetings can cause conversations to drift and vital decisions to be postponed.
Improving decision-making processes, facilitating meetings effectively, and enhancing organizational alignment can result in more clarity, reduced follow-ups, and tangible progress.

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Scrum

379

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Breaking the Culture of Escalation: 3 Steps to make progress without the drama [VIDEO]

Escalation in decision-making processes often stems from competing priorities, lack of empowerment, and cumbersome processes.
To address the culture of escalation, organizations can implement practical shifts like setting clear direction, empowering Product Owners, and simplifying delivery processes.
Starting with small actions within your control, such as asking better questions, initiating conversations about ownership, and simplifying processes, can gradually break the culture of escalation.
The goal is not to eliminate all escalations but to make them the exception rather than the norm, fostering an environment where work can be done efficiently.

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Scrum-Master-Toolbox

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BONUS: Martti Kuldma shares how to transform century-old organizations through product-driven agile transformation

Martti Kuldma, CEO of Omniva, discusses the agile transformation of the century-old company.
Omniva transitioned from traditional postal services to modern logistics through product-driven agile practices.
The company shifted focus to software as a revenue center, investing in innovative logistics solutions.
Martti's strategic vision involves treating physical mailing as the next IP network for adaptable delivery.
The transformation involved breaking down waterfall processes, moving towards agile product teams.
Omniva created cross-functional product teams, empowering them with accountability for business outcomes.
Martti emphasized the evolution of product managers to be directly accountable for business results.
Leadership in transformation required storytelling skills for effective communication and alignment.
Real-time feedback philosophy was endorsed for immediate and impactful professional development.
Key transformation practices included compelling narratives, distributed decision-making, and business accountability for engineers.

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Medium

347

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Agile Is a Proper Noun — Let’s Stop Arguing About It

Debates over whether 'agile' should be lowercase as a mindset or uppercase as a methodology are unproductive and outdated.
The distinction between Agile with a capital 'A' and agile with a lowercase 'a' has been ongoing for years, with little practical significance.
Customers are more concerned about the delivery of products rather than the semantic argument of big-A Agile versus little-a agile.
It's time to move past the fixation on terminology and focus on practical outcomes in product development.

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Medium

Acceptance criteria — the sentences that make or break your product.

Acceptance criteria are a list of conditions that must be met for the work to be considered complete.
Acceptance criteria should be condition statements and not instructions on how to do tasks.
They define the boundaries of a feature, specify what to build, what not to include, and what the final output should look like.
Acceptance criteria are critical as they specify the end result or outcome of a task, ensuring clarity and measurability.

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Scrum

264

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Scrum Works—If You Let People Think (Collective Intelligence part II)

Scrum emphasizes the importance of people and their intelligence over rigid rules.
The success of Scrum depends on the collective intelligence of the team members using it.
Key aspects of intelligence in Scrum include the ability to learn, understand, make judgements, and have opinions based on reason.
Creating an environment that nurtures intelligence involves encouraging learning, empowering teams to make decisions, and fostering thoughtful disagreement.

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TechBullion

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Why Earning a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) Credential Can Guarantee Success in Agile

Scrum has become popular across various industries for managing complex projects efficiently.
CSM certification equips professionals with in-depth knowledge of Scrum fundamentals and enhances their Agile thinking.
The certification program boosts leadership capabilities, enabling Scrum Masters to foster healthy team dynamics and ensure seamless collaboration.
Certified Scrum Masters are trained to handle real-world project challenges, anticipate risks, and become effective communicators and contributors.

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Medium

229

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Most PMs stall. Here’s How to Keep Getting Better at Product.

Product management involves a variety of challenges and responsibilities, often leading to a lack of focus on core product management skills.
Amidst peripheral activities, dedicating time to 'Product time' is crucial for enhancing skills and staying relevant in the field.
The author suggests practicing product management techniques through a new tool called MVPbrief, which aims to make product challenges more accessible and user-friendly.
MVPbrief is designed to generate product challenges with scenario breakdowns, offering a valuable resource for both seasoned professionals and those new to the field.

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Medium

218

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Why Burndown Charts Are a Bad Metric — And What Teams Should Track Instead

Burndown charts, once intended as visual aids, have become a problematic scorecard for team success in agile work.
The use of burndown charts as the primary metric distorts agile team qualities and can lead to negative practices.
The pressure to maintain a clean decline in the burndown chart can hinder adaptability, collaboration, and incremental delivery within teams.
Instead of obsessing over burndown charts, teams should focus on achieving sprint goals to truly reflect the spirit of agile work and prioritize outcomes over output.

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Scrum-Master-Toolbox

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BONUS: Patrick James Lynch on Entertainment That Makes Change – Lessons in Product Thinking from Believe Ltd.

Believe Limited, led by Patrick James Lynch, focuses on entertainment that creates change, inspired by his brother's hemophilia.
Lessons for product managers include human-centered design, stakeholder alignment, and emotionally viable products.
Patrick emphasizes the importance of thorough needs assessments and community understanding before product development.
Collaboration with various stakeholders like patients and healthcare professionals requires careful orchestration and prioritization of goals.
Human-centered storytelling is advocated as a core product strategy by Patrick, emphasizing real value over specifications.
Believe Ltd. adheres to core values consistently, even when rejecting opportunities that don't align with their beliefs.
Patrick emphasizes the balance between maintaining vision and incorporating community feedback for product development.
Emotional viability, creating emotional connections through compelling stories, is crucial for product engagement.
Capturing and maintaining attention is the primary challenge in current landscapes, requiring engaging products.
Patrick suggests reading 'Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need' for better storytelling about products.

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Medium

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Why I Use a Gantt Chart for Agile Projects

Kanban is commonly used in Agile development for workflow management and task visualization.
Jeff Sutherland, the author of Scrum, criticizes Gantt charts as an illusion of predictability and advocates for Kanban.
Despite starting with Kanban as a Scrum Master, the author found that stakeholders often requested Gantt charts, leading to their use as a complement.
Over time, the author realized the necessity of Gantt charts in Agile development, explaining their usage and importance in this article.

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