Today, in a refreshing conversation, Sander Dur, co-author of "Solving for Value: A Journey of Ambition and Stupidity," shares insights beyond typical Agile theory.
Unlike traditional management books, Sander and his co-author, Ryan Brook, wrote their book in a conversational "bar book" style. They are drawing from real-world scenarios they've encountered throughout their careers as consultants and trainers. And speaking about the drawings, Olina Glindevi is the hand behind the pictures in the book.
We cover:
00:00 Introduction to Sander Dur and His Work
04:17 The Purpose of the Book: Empathy and Experience
06:38 Sources of Knowledge: Real-World Experience
09:02 Navigating the Agile Identity Crisis
11:17 Agile Fatigue and the Need for Change
14:20 Shifting Focus: From Frameworks to Outcomes
15:39 The Importance of Validating Assumptions
18:45 Scaling Challenges and Organizational Dynamics
24:19 The Challenges of Team Integration
27:50 Cultural Impact of Layoffs
30:34 The Disconnect Between Management and Teams
34:22 Navigating Stakeholder Dynamics
40:43 Ambition and Stupidity
TL;DR The interview offers valuable insights for anyone involved in organizational transformation, product development, or Agile practices. It serves as a reminder that while frameworks and methodologies are important, the real value comes from understanding the underlying principles and being willing to make meaningful changes to how we work.
The Current State of Agile: Dead or Evolving?
Despite claims that "Agile is dead" and "Scrum is over," Sander maintains that agility—the ability to respond to change—will always be necessary. What we're seeing isn't the death of Agile but rather "Agile fatigue." People are tired of being bombarded with terminology without being empowered to implement meaningful change.
The shift from Scrum Master-focused training to Product Management courses reflects this evolution. However, we might want to avoid treating "product" as just another buzzword, emphasizing instead the importance of focusing on outcomes rather than frameworks.
As for a Scrum trainer, Sander seems very flexible and open to experimentation, even with Scrum itself - that’s very refreshing!
The Scaling Trap: Why More Isn't Always Better
One of the most compelling parts of the discussion centered on the perils of rapid scaling. Sander explains that organizations often make a critical mistake:
"If you're going to scale shit, you're just going to get a bigger pile of shit."
The decision-makers driving rapid scaling are typically removed from the actual work, leading to disconnected choices with serious consequences.
Using a vivid analogy, Sander compares sudden organizational scaling to abruptly adding millions of new residents to Barcelona—the existing infrastructure simply can't handle it. He references Brooks' Law with a memorable quote:
"Trying to deliver a baby with nine pregnant women in one month is not gonna have the desired effect."
The Discovery-Delivery-Validation Triangle
Many organizations get stuck as "feature factories," focusing solely on delivery while neglecting proper discovery and validation. Sander emphasizes that anything in development is merely an assumption until it's in the users' hands. The book introduces a value creation diagram highlighting these three crucial aspects:
Discovery: Understanding user needs
Delivery: Building solutions
Validation: Verifying assumptions
The Organizational Chaos Monkey
One of the most provocative suggestions Sander offers is for product owners and Scrum Masters to become "organizational chaos monkeys," inspired by Netflix's infrastructure testing tool.
The idea is simple but powerful: remove features or backlog items and see who complains. If nobody notices, perhaps that feature wasn't valuable in the first place.
Talking about putting things bluntly…
Trust and Leadership Disconnect
The conversation touched on a recent Miro survey highlighting the disconnect between management and practitioners. While 70-80% of managers believe they trust their teams, the teams often feel differently. This trust gap becomes especially evident during big changes. The results of the big transformations are lived by the practitioners, not the management.
The Silver Bullet Fallacy
When asked about his biggest nightmare scenario, Sander pointed to organizations' endless search for silver bullets—solutions that promise transformation without requiring real change.
He illustrates this with a simple question: "What are you going to eat two weeks from now?" Most people can't answer this basic question about their own lives, yet organizations expect teams to predict complex project outcomes months in advance.
Looking Forward
Despite the challenges, Dur remains optimistic about the future of organizational agility. His focus on discovery, validation, and stakeholder management courses suggests a shift toward more practical, outcome-focused approaches to organizational improvement.
The conversation concludes with an explanation of the book's subtitle, "A Journey of Ambition and Stupidity." The "stupidity" refers to organizations repeatedly making the same mistakes while expecting different results—a pattern that we see all over the place.
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