The Agile Daily Standup - AgileDad

Effective Storytelling in Product Management If you’re not careful, product management can get really, really boring. Slide deck after slide deck, the details start to blur together, and the audience starts to disengage. If you’re throwing stats, facts, and bullets at your audience without constructing a narrative, your point isn’t getting across. Your audience will be quick to tune it out and, ev...

3 Ways To Improve Team Morale Team morale indicates how willing members are to push on in the face of difficulties. Teams with high morale find their work meaningful and feel motivated to work together. High morale is a buffer against inevitable setbacks and burnout, and a great indicator of the atmosphere in a team. So what can you do when team morale is low? In this blog post, we share three sho...

Just watch the video already... How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram]  https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook]  https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Linkedin]  https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Transitioning from a Product Manager to a Product Lead Ever since I started my new role as product lead a few weeks back, I felt that there was a huge difference in the work and responsibilities I perform as compared to my PM roles back in Crypto.com and Alibaba. And I am not entirely sure if this is because of the role, or perhaps the nature of the company where the startup environment requires m...

Shake Off The Winter Blues, Spring Is Here! Don't let the depression of winter shut you down! Look forward to Spring and make small changes to prepare. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram]  https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook]  https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Linkedin]  https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Start With No... Why Most People Should NOT Be Managers  Leading talented humans requires inspiring them, partnering with them in understanding the problem, designing the solution, and motivating them. Now, if you can’t influence people as their peers, that might be frustrating, but you can still usually do your job, and no harm is done. However, if you are the formal manager of the team, and you...

The 2025 Product Manager - Winning Playbook Finding Your Why The rise of The Product Specialist Strategy vs. Execution Crafting Winning Product Documents Say NO To Boring and YES To Automation Ride The Creator Economy How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram]  https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook]  https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Lin...

The 2-Minute Meeting Hack How It Works Set the stage: Inform your team about the new format beforehand. No team likes surprises. The 2-minute rule: Each team member gets exactly 2 minutes to speak. The magic formula: In those 2 minutes, they must cover: One success since the last meeting One challenge they’re facing One specific ask for help or resources Then it’s your chance as the boss to shine....

The Top 3 Weekly Meetings That Will Help You Be the Best Leader! Open Office Hour Work Status Meeting Work Productivity Meeting How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram]  https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook]  https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Linkedin]  https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Welcome Home Anthony Henson! My son is FINALLY home! Please join me in welcoming him back! How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram]  https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook]  https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Linkedin]  https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Lead an Agile Team With Context and Control You can only get so far by attempting to manage the performance of people through control. It is far better to lead or manage people by defining the context of their work. I was fortunate to learn this lesson early on when I worked in...a fast food restaurant. My manager, Jim, trained me that each burger was to be dressed with:   2 leaves of lettuce 2 to...

The Art of Strategic Decision Making - Product Manager Edition In the fast-paced and ever-changing world of product management, the role of a senior product manager stands out owing to the exceptional combination of talents, perspectives, and strategic thinking that they bring to the table. Senior product managers take a different approach to their position than their junior colleagues do, as they...

The First Principles of Product Management Some of the best PMs I know make their decisions based on first principles. A first principle is a  “basic, foundational proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption.”. An example of one that we use for our developer platform team are that  “all platform features should be like Lego blocks” , meaning that devel...

Agile is NOT Dead... It is Just in a New Era! The New Agile Principles 1) Own The Problem & The Solution Agile addresses complexity, where uncertainty reigns. There simply is no clear-cut solution to your problems. What is worse, the moment you apply a solution without understanding it, you surrender control and become a spectator. The first principle is to understand and fully accept that the...

Bring Out Your Stagnation! In the bustling village of Progressia, every Tuesday morning, the town crier—an overworked man in a tattered robe named Nigel—pushed his old wooden cart through the cobbled streets, shouting: "Bring out your stagnation! Bring out your stagnation!" It was a longstanding tradition. Villagers would shuffle out of their homes, dragging out bad ideas, outdated habits, and hal...

The Top 5 Daily Rituals of Highly Effective Leaders Start The Day With Clarity Connect With Your Team Focus on Learning Celebrate Small Wins Practice Reflection How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram]  https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook]  https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Linkedin]  https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Why a Spillover Habit Is So Harmful - Mike Cohn Welcome to the second email in the spillover series. We’re talking today about why habitual spillover—the phenomenon of unfinished work piling up and carrying forward sprint after sprint—is so harmful to teams. As a reminder,  Last week, I explained why spillover happens This week, I’ll describe why habitual spillover is a problem Next week, I’ll giv...

Did We Fail Agile? Shame On Us!! For decades, developers were trapped. They couldn’t bare the situation any longer. Following requirements that resulted in features customers didn’t use demotivated everyone, and a revolution was necessary. At the beginning of the 2000s, we finally realized that we could not predict everything upfront. A plan would fool everyone and yield pointless results. It was...

How To Prioritize Risk As a Product Manager The conventional approach to product development, the build-measure-learn cycle, has been the bedrock for many product teams. This methodology emphasizes building quickly, measuring results, and then learning from those outcomes to iterate and improve. While it encourages speed and adaptability, it also comes with significant downsides, especially when i...

Goat Yoga & Walking the Plank: A Lesson in Balance Lee... Have you lost your mind? Yes! How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  ⁠⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠⁠ - [instagram]  ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠⁠ - [facebook]  ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠⁠ - [Linkedin]  ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Do you feel like you have to hover over your team? Leading a team is sometimes a work for a herding dog. You need to gather, herd, and protect your team. On top, you need to monitor almost every detail of their work, and frequently intervene in tasks or decisions because otherwise, the needle does not move. Exhausting. When the lack of accountability creeps into your team, someone has to do it. Sa...

A key agile principle is the value of getting work done by the end of each iteration. Yet one of the biggest complaints I get from agile leaders is that teams never finish what they say they will during a sprint. Instead, teams consistently let the unfinished work spill over (AKA roll over or carry over) from sprint to sprint. Spillover is such a prevalent problem for agile teams that I want to de...

Why ‘Better’ Products Fail You built the better product. Faster, smarter, and loaded with features your competition doesn’t have. And yet — no one’s switching. Here’s why adoption isn’t rational. People don’t choose the best option. They choose the least risky, the most familiar — the one everyone else is already using. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠ - [inst...

The Power To Change Organizational Culture As An Introverted Manager A culture is nothing more than shared values, beliefs, and behaviors defining what is “normal” at work. If other managers prefer async communication, for example, then this is probably the norm in your company. On the other hand, if your CEO is more explosive, yelling might be normal. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  ⁠h...

Shine Bright Like a Diamond Your Star shines the very brightest when you are in a dark place... How to connect with AgileDad: - [website]  ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠ - [instagram]  ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠ - [facebook]  ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠ - [Linkedin]  ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/