Allen Holub is a software development and agile consultant who wants to help you build better software and build software better. He's also not shy when it comes to telling the world what he thinks about product development via Twitter.
Here are some of Allen's spicy takes:
Making true organisational change requires C-level buy-inIt's easy to get hired by the engineering team to help them learn how to make sausages better but the better goal is to work out if you want to make sausages, and you need top-level buy in for this
There are too many people walking on eggshells on TwitterYou should be able to share your version of the truth in an open, direct way. If people don't like it, they can listen to someone else! Context is important, but it's not ivory tower thinking to try to change a system.
Empowering people to be agile doesn't mean leaving them to itRemoving organisational blockers and waterfall thinking is important, but you can't just leave them to it and not support them. They need support to become a learning organisation.
Scrum is, at best, mostly harmless, but only in good teamsYou don't need backlogs, you don't need scrum masters, you don't need Sprints. You don't need any of it. Scrum was just a way to make agile acceptable to bureaucratic micromanagers. But all frameworks fly against agile thinking.
Product managers do essential work that developers won't do if left to their own devices, but..It's important that they're part of the development team, that they're not a silo, they aren't the boss or decision maker for the team & they aren't a replacement for the customer
JIRA is actively contributing to poor development behavioursWe don't need big long complicated specs, we don't need backlogs, estimates, story points or velocity charts. We'd be better off with index cards stuck to a wall (or Miro!)
Listen to the episode for this and more!
Allen is writing a book! Check out the progress of the book here.
Go to Allen's User Story workshopIf you want to go to Allen's upcoming class on User Stories, check out the details here.
Contact AllenYou can reach out to Allen on Twitter, or book a chat with him.
Inside the Mind the Product Acquisition - Why Now & What’s Next? (with James Mayes, Evangelist @ Pendo & Co-Founder @ Mind the Product)
Developer Relations & Product Management - Friends or Foes? (with Tessa Kriesel, Head of Platform DevRel @ Snap & Wesley Faulkner, Head of Community @ SingleStore)
Using Solution Tests to Make Sure You’re Building Products Users Want (with Jim Morris, Founder @ Product Discovery Group)
Building Life-Centred Products with Collaborative Product Discovery (with Sophia Höfling, Co-founder & Head of Product @ Saiga)
Using the Power of Community to Grow Your Startup (with Anna Maste, Founder @ Boondockers Welcome & Subscribe Sense)
Pragmatic Digital Transformation in Traditional Industries (with Dan Chapman, Director, Product Line Leader @ Merck)
Understanding & Interrupting Cognitive Biases in Product Design (with David Dylan Thomas, Author ”Design for Cognitive Bias”)
Building Disruptive Products by Harnessing Power Users (with Moustapha Seck, Founder @ Fluid)
We’re All Responsible For Accessible Product Design (with Holly Schroeder, Senior UX Researcher & Accessibility Advocate)
Aligning Teams with Data & Finding Your Second Product/Market Fit (with Matt Arbesfeld, CEO & Co-Founder @ LogRocket)
Supporting Product Managers & Standing Up for the Value of Product Management (with Princess Akari, founder @ PeopleInProduct)
Adventures in Product Management (with Dan Olsen, author ”The Lean Product Playbook”)
Getting On Top Of Your User Stories & Requirements (with Richard Awe, founder @ Requstory)
Escaping the Build Trap with Product Operations and Strong CPOs (with Melissa Perri, author ”Escaping the Build Trap”)
Climbing the Product Management Career Ladder ... and Working Out if it’s For You (with Katerina Suchkova, Founder @ Ahead of Product)
Build High Growth Products by Following the Product Science Success Path (with Holly Hester-Reilly, founder @ H2R Product Science)
The Importance of Getting Your Product Launches Right (with Derek Osgood, Founder & CEO @ Ignition)
Standing Up for Diversity & Inclusion When No One Looks Like You (with Merina Khanom, Product Manager @ BBC iPlayer)
Getting Strategic to Land Your First Product Management Job (with Crystal Parker, Product Manager & Entry Level Career Coach)
Test Business Ideas Ethically by Experimenting With, Not On, Customers (with David Bland, Co-author ”Testing Business Ideas”)
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