Empowered Teams Applied

Course Producer
Marcus Castenfors, Jan Grape

Why it matters


Many business leaders worldwide have read the seminal book “Empowered – Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products” by Marty Cagan and Chris Jones. The contents have inspired companies to shift their perception of how to govern product development, from an “IT-centric” to a customer-centric and goal-oriented one. This requires a radical switch in mindset for teams to change from “doing” to being responsible for results.

The key message is to empower teams and individuals to solve problems rather than provide them with solutions to build. The primary technique is for leaders to spend way more time coaching and nurturing a culture of experimentation.

Strategic context

This program is set up to help product and technology organizations in their quest to be more Empowered. The focus of the program is on the “how”, not the “why” and the techniques and tactics that teams can use to pay more attention to “Discovery” rather than constantly being in a Delivery mode, ultimately making them accountable for results.

The fundamental aspects that the program addresses are the necessary shifts needed to transform (source):

  • Changing how you build & deploy
  • Changing how you solve problems
  • Changing how you decide which problems to solve

The program is 20% theory and 80% practice of techniques.

Participant quotes

“Very Collaborative format – loved learning from others”

“You both covered so much material and did an excellent job of using the MIRO board and breakout groups. I don’t know how you could do much better.”




Topics

Introduction

  • Introduction to Empowered Teams
  • Leading change
  • Change challenge
  • Buddy program

A path to Empowered teams

  • A path to Empowered Teams
  • Case studies
  • Architecture & dependencies
  • Team topologies

Strategy to action

  • Product vision
  • 7 powers + DHM: Delight customers in hard-to-copy, margin-enhancing ways
  • Team objectives -> backlog -> roadmap -> experiments

Product Discovery, part 1

  • Biases & traps
  • Case studies
  • Principles
  • The Holistic Product Discovery framework
  • Risk Mapping
  • Business modeling

Product Discovery, part 2

  • Connecting Discovery & Delivery
  • User Story Mapping
  • Design Studio – Collaborative brainstorming

Closing

  • Review Change Challenge & individual learning
  • Futurespective
  • Building a community of practice
  • Certificate of completion



Practice – Drive change and improvement

Setup


  • 6 half-day sessions
  • Remote or in-person
  • One-on-one individual coaching