Age of Product’s Food for Thought of February 5th, 2017—shared with 6,508 peers—focuses on team building, how to provide feedback to hardly bearable teammates, and why radical candor is good for business and your soul. Be warned, though, transparency has a dark side, too.

We also dive deep into how the best product teams evolve beyond Agile and Lean, how to utilize guerilla research to create excellent products, and what anti-patterns to avoid if you are pursuing a career in product management.

Last but not least: We discuss patterns and ethics of how today’s technology seeks to manipulate us.

Agile & Team Building

Christina Wodtke : Feedback for Teams Christina Wodtke shares from her ‘effective feedback’ class on how to deal with annoying teammates, people that are not pulling their weight, or someone with terrible communication skills.

Liane Davey (via Harvard Business Review ): If Your Team Agrees on Everything, Working Together Is Pointless Liane Davey suggests three techniques to change people’s mindset about dissent. As the saying goes: “Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.”

Andy Cleff : Dealing with Dysfunctional Behavior Styles Andy Cleff lists concrete steps how to deal with the “brilliant a**hole” on your team.

Julian Birkinshaw (via McKinsey & Company ): The dark side of transparency Julian Birkinshaw, professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the London Business School, points at that transparency is vital, but it has a dark side, and it takes real skill to get the balance right.

Kim Scott (via 33voices ): How Radical Candor Transforms Company Culture Kim, Russ, and Jenna discuss how radical candor changes organizations, strategies to cultivate a feedback driven culture, and how praise and criticism directly influence individual and company success.

Product & Lean

Marty Cagan : Beyond Lean and Agile Marty Cagan believes that the best product teams are already beyond ‘agile’ and ‘lean' – tackling risk upfront, collaboratively designing product, and solving problems not merely building features.

Monal Chokshi (via Mind The Product ): How Guerrilla Research Can Improve Your Product Monal Chokshi, Head of UX Research @Lyft, explains what guerrilla research is, and how it fits alongside your other product development practices.

Brian Swift (via Atlassian ): 5 things I learned about product (and people) management this year Brian Swift reflects on not leaving the office, solving the wrong problem, overlooking hidden costs, and other career-limiting steps for product managers.

Andrew Chen : The Bad Product Fallacy: Don't confuse "I don't like it" with "That's a bad product and it'll fail" Andrew Chen shares his observations on the common roots of the ‘bad product fallacy’.

(via User Testing Blog ): 2017 UX and User Research Industry Survey Report User Testing provides the 4th annual UX and User Research Industry Survey, based on answers from 2,238 professionals.

The Essential Read