Phillip Starke
Dealing with split heads in product teams – 6 best practices
Split heads are people that are assigned to multiple teams. A team of split heads has many negative effects but there are ways around those.
Blog
The Backlog is a biweekly newsletter about the undervalued and overlooked in modern product development. It covers product development, self organization, and productivity. I include methods, books, and write about my own experience.
Subscribe to get new posts straight to your inbox.
A comprehensive guide to stakeholder management – how to do it effectively
Stakeholder management is a core activity for anyone working in product development. It is key to building a successful product in the confines of a company. Also, it is rarely a topic of conversation.
Unfinished stories in Scrum – the easy way to handle sprint spillover
One of the most frequent questions I get from teams new to Scrum is how to deal with unfinished stories after the sprint. More often than not, my recommendation surprises the teams. It is very simple and often seems counterintuitive…
Why agile coaches should strive to be product coaches
Many believe that agile coaches can't be product coaches. I disagree. A good agile coach and product coach want the same: great products.
How to convince a skeptical team to give Scrum (or other methods) a chance
It can be difficult to get buy-in from the team members for a new approach like Scrum. The most effective way to create an open mind is showing what is in it for them. Making the daily work of the team easier and building a relationship on eye level are the key. These eight best practices are aimed at doing exactly that.
The power of quitting: a smart move for your career and happiness
A large portion of the workforce is unhappy in their job. Why do they not quit? What are the benefits of quitting a miserable job?
Brainstorming doesn’t deserve its bad reputation – how to make it work
There are ways to conduct effective brainstorming sessions. It’s just not the way they are typically done. Psychology is key.
Feature requests – Simple advice in 3 scenarios & 5 best practices
Anyone responsible for a product knows the situation. Some stakeholder comes with a feature request along the lines of “Can we please add Feature X to the product. It is important because of reasons. Please add it yesterday. Thanks.” How can you deal with these stakeholder requests?
Enhancing product clarity: the why, how, and what of User Story Mapping
A user story map visually depicts the entire backlog along the user journey while simultaneously showing the priority of user stories associated with each step. User story mapping is an excellent communication aid getting everyone on the same page and it allows for easy definition of releases. It is where you can clearly see the steps from MVP to fully fledged solution.
How to deal with an organization that has no interest in helping a new (Scrum) team succeed
5 ways to deal with the challenge of attempting to establish a Scrum team (actually any new team) within an existing organization.
Clearing the confusion: product manager vs. project manager vs. product owner vs. program manager
Product Manager, Project Manager, Product Owner, Program Manager: a lot of managers, a lot of words that start with the letters Pr. Maybe that is at the heart of why so many people seem to confuse the roles. They all…
The two keys to building a successful, empowered Scrum team
Let’s be honest, many companies do not implement the best practices of agile, lean, or other frameworks as they were intended. Organizations, human nature, and processes get in the way of the best intentions. Thus, companies often end up with…
Why you don’t need a mentor – you can create your own!
Not all of us have a "real" mentor. Formulating your issues and imagining the mentor's advice works as well! It is surprisingly easy.
Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres- what this awesome book is all about
Continuous Discovery Habits is a practical, extremely useful book. I share the main concepts and the three most important personal takeaways.
Six best practices for maximizing the value of the Opportunity Solution Tree (OST)
The opportunity solution tree is an extremely useful method. Having already covered the why, how and what of the opportunity solution tree, I will focus on the best practices that I have found to be crucial in maximizing the potential of the OST.
Opportunity Solution Tree – a simple visual for organizing opportunities
The opportunity solution tree (OST) was invented by Teresa Torres as a means to collect and visualize the opportunity space. It is a model or mental representation that clearly links product goals to user needs and to the options for solving those needs. In product discovery, it is a powerful tool for creating a clear structure of what the team wants to achieve.
Keep quiet – the rare ability to endure and withstand silence
We often feel the need to immediately fill silence with answers, comments, or questions. And I get it, being in a group where nobody speaks for some moments can be extremely uncomfortable and awkward. Being able to withstand the urge to say something in those moments of silence is not easy to do.
Leading indicators – easy to understand but hard to master in practice
The core of agile development - it should be at the heart of all product development efforts for that matter - is iteratively moving forward. We need to understand the impact of what we are doing without waiting for too long. For this reason, Product teams need to use leading indicators so that they can immediately measure the effectiveness of their product development.
OKRs – a fancy name for leading by objectives or is there more?
Although the big hype around Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) from a few years ago seems to have receded a bit, many companies still deploy OKRs to manage their organization. Many seem to consider this the “agile” way to set…
Inspired by Marty Cagan: five key points from this must-read book
Sometimes you come across a book at just the right time. The content immediately makes sense and you cannot stop reading. This happened to me when I recently read Inspired by Marty Cagan.