Phillip Starke

Category Project Leader

Product Owner, Project Leader, Scrum Master

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.

Phillip
November 24, 2023

Methods, Product Owner, Project Leader, Scrum Master

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.

Phillip
October 27, 2023

Methods, Product Owner, Project Leader, Scrum Master

How to convince a skeptical team to give Scrum (or other methods) a chance

A woman with arms raised and a skeptical expression.

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.

Phillip
October 13, 2023

Product Owner, Project Leader, Scrum Master

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.

Phillip
September 15, 2023

Product Owner, Project Leader

Feature requests – Simple advice in 3 scenarios & 5 best practices

A comic about prioritizing feature requests. First, the main character has a list of all features. Then, he scores them. Then, he is depicted to burn the list and finally, he builds what management says.

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?

Phillip
September 1, 2023

Methods, Product Owner, Project Leader, Scrum Master

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.

Phillip
August 18, 2023

Product Owner, Project Leader, Scrum Master

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.

Phillip
August 4, 2023

Product Owner, Project Leader

Clearing the confusion: product manager vs. project manager vs. product owner vs. program manager

A picture from a comic: two spidermen pointing at each other.

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…

Phillip
July 21, 2023

Product Owner, Project Leader, Scrum Master

The two keys to building a successful, empowered Scrum team

Wooden pieces with letters on them spelling out the word foundation

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…

Phillip
July 7, 2023

Methods, Product Owner, Project Leader

Leading indicators – easy to understand but hard to master in practice

A comparing product development using a lagging indicator to evaluate progress and one using a leading indicator.

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.

Phillip
April 21, 2023