Food for Thought’s issue #99—shared with 9,744 peers—deals with hiring scrum masters, why applying the theory of constraints improves the agile mindset, and why a passive-aggressive behavior is bad for business, and not just for your culture. We also learn how to deal with difficult stakeholders, and what the ‘mental model’ fuzz is all about.

On the product side, we understand the power of proper agile roadmaps for collaboration and communication across an organization, and how a successful lean and agile journey looks like. (Courtesy of Telia TV in Sweden.)

Finally, Sebastian Deterding, a research fellow at the Digital Creativity Labs at the University of York, challenges us to consider the moral dimensions of our work as product people in a beautifully narrated presentation from MTP Engage.

Have a great week!

🏆 Tip of the Week

Vasco Duarte and Stefan Wolpers (via Oikosofy Blog ): How to get hired as a Scrum Master and the results from the Salary Survey In this interview with Vasco, I share my thoughts on hiring scrum masters in agile times and what scrum masters need to do to get ready for that next job they want.

Agile & Hiring Scrum Masters

John Yorke : ﻿Applying the Theory of Constraints to Agile Software Delivery John Yorke believes that utilizing the theory of constraints to software delivery is an overlooked option to improve our agile mindset.

Bob Sutton and Patty McCord (via Stanford ECorner ): Patty McCord: Don't Sugar Coat Your Culture Bob Sutton and Patty McCord–former chief talent officer of Netflix–speak bluntly about how backstabbing and passive-aggressive behavior are bad for businesses.

Roman Pichler : Dealing with Difficult Stakeholders and Team Members Roman Pichler shares his recommendations for dealing with difficult people and successfully addressing conflict.

(via Farnam Street ): Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (113 Models Explained) Farnam Street lists an impressive list of mental models to be used in evaluating the infinite number of unique scenarios which show up in the real world.

Product & Lean

Ellen Gottesdiener : 7 Ways of Creating and Sustaining an Agile Product Roadmap Ellen Gottesdiener describes how your product roadmap can become a communications and collaboration tool, rallying everyone toward shared outcomes.

Michael Göthe (via Crisp ): Trading control for great products – the Telia TV team example Michael Göthe and Jens Abrahamsson describe parts of the always-ongoing journey towards a more lean and agile way of working at the Telia TV team.

Andy Cleff : The Power of a Good (User) Story Andy Cleff explores storytelling in agile software development, and how they impact continuous improvement and organizational change.

Rich Mironov : The Software Development Deli Counter Rich Mironov shares symptoms, root causes, and a few ideas how to reduce the mutual frustration when product/engineering and marketing/sales are not collaborating effectively.

Martin Zwilling (via Inc.com ): How to Design a Culture That Values Experiments, Failure, (and Winning in the Long Run) Martin Zwilling lists six key factors necessary to create the learning culture to keep your organization in the innovation game.

The Essential Video