I stopped writing on Medium. If you want to stay updated on my latest articles then register to my newsletter at mdalmijn.com. 🖖 My name is Maarten Dalmijn. I help teams beat the Feature Factory and discover better ways of delivering value together. …

The Penguin Principle for Agile transformations — I was in the fifth and final round for a Product Owner position. I remember being tired of responding to all kinds of questions, often the same I had answered before. Especially considering I already jumped through quite a few hoops— I had completed a personality test and an intelligence…

Splitting User Stories into more User Stories often means you are deceiving yourself (and your users too!) — Nussi Einhorn posted the following picture on LinkedIn: The left-hand side of the image portrays a confusing mess of User Stories. Try scanning them and getting the gist — you won’t. The right-hand side of the picture showcases a crisp and clear alternative by using descriptive titles that summarize the…

Crafting a clear and overarching Sprint Goal during Sprint Planning — Boxer Mike Tyson once said: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” — Mike Tyson In military warfare a similar saying exists: “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” — Helmuth von Moltke the Elder No matter how much time you spend planning, you can…

The biggest tragedy of the one-year feature GANTT chart, together with precise timelines, is not that we will deliver less value by operating as a Feature Factory. The true disaster is the death spiral of demotivation. Let me break down what I’ve often seen happen: • One of the first big…

These two blockbuster movies show the messy nature of complex work, though what comes out is the opposite of a mess. The two movies had opposite starting points: Movie A : They knew from the outset they were trying to do things nobody had done before. …

Famous last words at the Daily Scrum. I have heard them repeated many times over. “It is done but not yet tested” is another example. And then it still turns out it it isn’t done — “We need a bit more time”. And then it is almost done again, yet…

💡 Please let me know what topic should I address in a future session of ‘Ask a Product Owner’! 💡 On LinkedIn, all my connections and followers had the opportunity to ask any burning question they might have related to Stakeholder Management. I’ve packaged all the questions anonymously here together…

On LinkedIn, I gave my connections and followers the opportunity to ask any burning question they might have related to refinement. I’ve bundled all the questions anonymously here together with my answers. I also sometimes bundled together variations on the same question (or because my answer to them is related). What is the purpose of refinement? …