Culture eats strategy for breakfast was a quote from the legendary management consultant and author Peter Drucker. If that’s true, then what does it mean when there are competing views on culture? What type of culture gets to eat strategy for breakfast? Who gets to decide and why do we have to choose? In this podcast, Mike and Dave sit down to discuss how your personality type influences the way you see and value culture, and the implications that can have on your business. Together they explore different types of personalities, how they manifest in the Agile community, and some ways the Agile community can find some common ground to achieve what we’re all chasing—greater Business Agility. Contacting Mike Cottmeyer If you’d like to contact Mike, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer LinkedIn: <a

Most developers aren’t waking up in the morning and wondering how they’re going to mess up the sprint today. There’s usually a reason why they can’t get their work done on time. Still, if one developer isn’t meeting their commitment, then the whole team isn’t meeting their commitment. So, something’s got to give. In this episode of SoundNotes, Vic Bonacci and Dave Prior draw on their vast experience as CSTs and dish out some tips on what you can do when you have one developer slowing you down. Contacting Vic Bonacci If you’d like to contact Vic you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/victor-bonacci LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vbonacci/ Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave Prior If you’d like to contact Dave, you can reach him at:

During the height of the pandemic, many teams learned how to work from home. As people start heading back to the office, many teams are in this weird in-between space where things aren’t always what they need to be to get the most out of your team. In this short podcast, Dave and Vic explore how hybrid teams are impacting your ability to do Scrum successfully, and discuss some tips and tricks to get the most out of your Scrum team while ensuring you’re also getting what you need to do your best work. Contacting Vic Bonacci If you’d like to contact Vic you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/victor-bonacci LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vbonacci/ Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave Prior If you’d like to contact Dave, you can reach him a

Sometimes you have a product owner that’s wearing too many hats, traveling, or spread across too many teams. This can leave the rest of the people on your team feeling lost, or it can cause the ScrumMaster to take on more than maybe what should be required of them. In this podcast, Vic and Dave explore some ways to manage expectations and divide the work so that no one is overwhelmed and ensure the delivery teams are getting what they need. Contacting Vic Bonacci If you’d like to contact Vic you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/victor-bonacci LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vbonacci/ Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave Prior If you’d like to contact Dave, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: <a href='https://gate.sc/?url=https%3

In this short podcast, two CST's, Dave Prior and Vic Bonacci, sit down to discuss specialized roles in Scrum. They dig into why that's a problem, how it impedes Agile, and explore some ways to get your team more cross-functional. Additionally, as a bonus, they discuss what to do when there's a lack of QA on the team. Contacting Vic Bonacci If you’d like to contact Vic you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/victor-bonacci LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vbonacci/ Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave Prior If you’d like to contact Dave, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/

In 2020, the Scrum Guide introduced the idea of the Product Goal, but left out anything about Vision. Was this move better or worse for Scrum teams?In this short podcast, Vic Bonacci and Dave Prior, our two resident CSTs, sit down to discuss the difference between product goals and vision and the impact this change is making on Scrum Teams. Contacting Vic Bonacci If you’d like to contact Vic you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/victor-bonacci LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vbonacci/ Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave Prior If you’d like to contact Dave, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: www.leadingagil

In this episode of SoundNotes, our two in-house CSTs get together to talk about the importance of sprint goals. They dive into everything from what they are, why they’re important, and how to go about creating them—even in the absence of an explicit business goal. Contacting Vic Bonacci If you’d like to contact Vic you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/victor-bonacci LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vbonacci/ Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave Prior If you’d like to contact Dave, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ LinkedIn: <a href='https://gate.sc/?url=https%3A

Why are so many Agile coaches and ScrumMasters getting laid off? Is it because Agile is disappearing? Or is it because they’ve gotten so dogmatic about the rules and ceremonies surrounding Agile that they’re more of a burden then they are valuable? In our latest episode of SoundNotes, Mike Cottmeyer and Dave Prior explore the how to balance the competing priorities of the Agilists and the leaders they’re trying to help so that everyone can get back succeeding with Agile. Contacting Mike Cottmeyer If you’d like to contact Mike, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/ Twitter: <a href='https://gate.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fmcottmeyer&am

Join us for today’s podcast where we dive into the world of Kanban and Agile methodologies to unravel the thought process behind large organizations who want embrace Kanban. If you’re considering Kanban, or you’re currently grappling with workflow challenges, this video will equip you with some Kanban strategies to help you seamlessly implement and optimize Kanban in a dynamic enterprise environment. Contacting Tom Furland If you’d like to contact Mike, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/tom-furland/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tfurland/ Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave Prior If you’d like to contact Dave, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: <a href='https://gate.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.leadingagile.com%2Fguide

Mike and Dave sit down to have another debate with ChatGPT about dealing with dependencies in Agile. Mike asserts that dependencies kill Agility and that they’re meant to be broken. ChatGPT says that it’s all about managing dependencies and that while dependencies may limit Agility, they can also foster collaboration and synergy. The debate quickly rolls into a conversation about dealing with legacy technical debt and business capability modeling and how we need to focus on minimizing dependencies in all aspects of the business, not just at the team level. Dave even gets Mike to start talking about his latest thinking on composable enterprises and what executives need to know about software architecture. Contacting Mike Cottmeyer If you’d like to contact Mike, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer L

Mike Cottmeyer debates ChatGPT and sits down with Dave to discuss what it really means to scale Agile. Over the course of the podcast, Mike and Dave explore the difference between Agile principles and practices, cloud migration, and what the Agile industry can learn from the US Air Force’s concept of Agile, Open, and Digital. Contacting Mike Cottmeyer If you’d like to contact Mike, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/ Twitter: twitter.com/mcottmeyer Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave Prior I

Our guest, Troy Magennis, has been described as a national resource in the Agile community. He’s a published author and frequent speaker on forecasting and modeling Agile projects. Today, Troy joins us to discuss how many of the metrics the Agile industry uses actually prevent companies from achieving the change they so desperately desire. Together, we’ll explore some ways the industry gets metrics and forecasting right and where it tends to go wrong. And Troy offers a ton of insight on how you can begin thinking about the work differently to release more value more rapidly more often. Contacting Troy Magennis If you'd like to contact Troy, you can reach him at: Focused Objective: https://www.focusedobjective.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/troymagennis/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/t_magennis Contac

When organizations set out to adopt Agile, they always have a business reason. It’s never just because they really love Scrum, or SAFe, or LeSS. But when the teams start doing all the Agile things, and they’re met with resistance from the organization around them, it’s hard to point to success because not much changed. So, we start defining success as “do the roles and ceremonies exist and are we following all the Agile dogma.” That’s a poor definition of success, and we have to get better at changing the organization around the teams. But that’s a different problem altogether. To do that, we’ll have to deconstruct what people, especially leaders inside organizations, believe about Agile and get them to see it through an all-new lens. Mike and Dave sit down to begin deconstructing some of the current beliefs about Agile, and talk about what success actually looks like in this week’s episode of SoundNotes. Contacting Mike Cottmeyer If you’d like to contact Mike, you

Today, the market for Transformation is a transition period. We see some companies looking for the next big thing, and others going back to what they know. Is this a sign that Agile is waning? Is it evolving? Or is Agile so deeply engrained in the way business gets done, people have just started calling it something else to deny the fact they just aren’t very good at it? Mike Cottmeyer and Dave Prior sit down to discuss this interesting moment in time for our industry and more in this episode of SoundNotes.   Contacting Mike Cottmeyer If you’d like to contact Mike, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/ Twitter: <a href='https://gate.sc/?ur

Agile practices don’t automatically lead to Business Agility. In the presence of dependencies and organizational impediments that the teams have no ability to change, going through the motions of Scrum or SAFe isn’t going to lead to greater Business Agility either. So, you can train the teams all you want, but if it doesn’t lead to greater Agility, who cares? Listen as Mike Cottmeyer and Dave Prior discuss some common misconceptions about Agile Transformation, how training often leaves businesses wanting more, and some things to consider if you’re thinking about starting an Agile Journey of your own. Also, stick around for the end, where Mike reveals who his favorite fictional Project Manager is.   Contacting Mike Cottmeyer If you’d like to contact Mike, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer LinkedIn: <a href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/cott

People have debated whether or not SAFe is Agile for as long as it’s been around. LeadingAgile CEO, Mike Cottmeyer, joins Dave on this episode of SoundNotes to explore the roots of small team Agile and to discuss how SAFe stacks up against the ideals of the Agile Manifesto. Contacting Mike Cottmeyer If you’d like to contact Mike, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mcottmeyer Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave Prior If you’d like to contact Dave, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ LinkedIn:

There’s a layer to communication that is most important for understanding: intention. It’s the most often overlooked aspect because it’s hard to decipher if people are saying what they mean or if you actually understand what they’re saying. By hunting for a shared understanding of intention, you can more deeply understand what people are saying and why. If you aren’t aligning on intent, you could be missing the mark, which can be detrimental, especially in a business environment. In this episode of SoundNotes, Dave and Mike explore how improving communication can translate into an Agile work environment, personal relationships, and the benefits that better communication provides to individuals and groups of people. Contacting Mike Cottmeyer If you’d like to contact Mike you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer LinkedIn: <a href='https://www.link

During Transformation, we need a way to measure its performance and improvements to the organization so that leaders continue to support the initiative. Metrics need to be used to help teams get better over time and drive the right kinds of outcomes that leadership is looking for. In this episode, Mike Cottmeyer shares his insights into different Agile metrics and what are the right ones that give leaders what they need to make the necessary changes to the system and improve overall performance. Contacting Mike Cottmeyer If you’d like to contact Mike you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mcottmeyer Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave Prior If you’d lik

In this episode of SoundNotes, Len Greski joins Dave to discuss leadership and emotional systems. Len is a Principal Consultant at LeadingAgile and he has a background in sociology. As Len explains, “The most difficult challenge in delivering great products is getting people to work together." During the interview, we explore emotional systems theory and how that can be applied within our organizations and teams to create sustainable change and deliver great products. The Bowen Family Systems Theory was developed by Dr. Murray Bowen. It is rooted in taking a systems view in studying families and the relationship patterns that develop between family members. Bowen’s theory and the eight concepts that came out of it can also be applied to the workplace and the emotional systems we create and participate in day to day. The better you are able to understand these systems, the more able you will be to foster systems that lead to a positive outcome for your team, your organization,

This week’s podcast was created as a response to a question we were recently asked by some of our CSM/CSPO course students. This one is for all the team members and Scrum Masters, the people on the ground who see why Agile could make a huge difference in their entire organization but just don’t have the title or agency to sign the contracts to make it happen. What they wanted to know is: How does someone who isn’t at contract-signing level create a conversation where they can get the leaders above them to be open to Agile Transformation?  Dave and Mike will unpack the answer, including discussion on how to hone in on what executives care about and value, and some important questions to ask yourself about the organization and its goals before you start the conversation. They’ll share tips on how to craft the right kind of conversation to get leaders to understand why Agile Transformation is worth doing. Contacting Mike Cottmeyer If you’d like to contact Mi

So an Executive walks into a Daily Scrum and demands Team Member X who must immediately begin work on something that is not part of the Scrum Team’s commitment for the Sprint. If you are a Scrum Master, this has either happened to you, or it is going to… soon. What do you do?  You know this is not ok. The Executive, who may have the power to fired you on the spot. should know better too, but apparently, they are “extra-agile”. Your job is to protect the team from interruptions just like this. But your job is also not to get fired. In the heat of this moment, you may not have time to work on developing and evaluating different theories. What do you do? In this episode of SoundNotes, Vic Bonacci joins me to talk through some of the options a Scrum Master has in this situation. We explore different choices available to the SM and the potential impact of each option. And, Vic and I both came at this challenge from different angles, so it gave us

This week in SoundNotes, Chris Barton joins me to talk through a problem that shows up one way or another in every single CSM class I teach… How do I get my team to want to do Agile when they don’t want to do Agile? During the interview, Chris and I talk through different lenses you can employ to get a better understanding of what is driving the resistance and strategies for overcoming it. We also spend some time near the end of the conversation on how to influence when you have no sway. This one came from someone on a team who is earlier in their career and is paired with an older Tech Lead that seems to view her primary role as Team Meeting Scheduler. Whether you are the one trying to influence, or you are the recipient of someone’s efforts to influence, there is a lot here that you’ll find valuable.

In this week’s episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Senior Consultant, Matthew Oatts joins me to talk about what to do when you are placed in a leadership role, but not given a lot of clarity on what you are specifically supposed to do or how you are supposed to do it. How do you lead people when you don’t have clear boundaries or you don’t have clarity on what your leadership is looking for. Oftentimes, this guidance is lacking because the people you report to don’t actually know and are just waiting for you to figure it out. How can you be successful in your role when success is not clearly defined for you? If you’ve ever found yourself in that situation, Matthew Oatts and I talk through different ways to respond when you find yourself in this situation. Matthew's 3 albums to listen to while working Brahms:  Hungarian Dances Nos. 1-21 <a href='https://ope

Agile Transformation is more than just installing Agile processes or Agile principles. It’s more than simply training your team on Agile methodology. But if that’s the case, then what is the actual path to becoming an Agile organization?  You must create the conditions where Agile processes can be deployed and exploited for better outcomes than you had before—so you can get more value, better ROI, more predictability, and more. But to create this foundation, you need a way to move the organization incrementally and iteratively through Transformation that operates with certain characteristics. LeadingAgile has found a way to do this with what we call a Systems-first approach to Agile Transformation.  In this podcast, LeadingAgile CEO Mike Cottmeyer and host Dave Prior candidly explore and discuss the details of the LeadingAgile Systems-first approach, including how it started, why it has become a proven and tested way to successfully enable any organization to Transform

Finding, supporting, and retaining people with skills and talent is never easy. Over the past few years, between the pandemic and the great resignation, it has become even more challenging. What attracts the next generation of talented change agents? How can you help them grow into the skilled transformation ninjas you need them to be? If you are part of one of the older generations, how can you become more aware of your blind spots and take steps to improve the way you engage with the people who will lead us into the future? This week in SoundNotes, Dave is joined by Lien Nguyen and Regan Jenkins who both work as staff consultants at LeadingAgile. During the interview, they discuss what LeadingAgile was able to offer that they could not find elsewhere, the different ways they are supported by the folks they work with, and they also offer Dave some tips on how he can show up for in a helpful and supportive way for those who are in the earlier stages of their careers.

What is PSTIR? PSTIR is an acronym for a change management model we use at LeadingAgile to explain our approach to creating lasting change. It stands for Prepare, Socialize, Tailor, Implement, Reinforce and it is a series of collaboration and implementation activities that enable our clients to be part of the change while leveraging the LeadingAgile reference architecture. In this episode of SoundNotes, Dave is joined by LeadingAgile Principal Consultant, Melissa Oberg and Dennis Stevens, our Chief Methodologist to discuss what PSTIR is, why it exists and why it is such a crucial part of how we introduce and manage change in an organization.

In this episode of SoundNotes, Dave is joined by LeadingAgile Chief Marketing Officer Tim Zack. Tim offers his unique perspective on how to communicate within an organization during an Agile Transformation to influence lasting change. The biggest part of an Agile Transformation is asking people to work differently at a job they might have been doing for years. People are naturally resistant to change, especially when their livelihood is on the line. Tim discusses the strategies that organizations can use to communicate where they want to go. It's about influencing people over a period of time, not going in and trying to change the culture first. This is why we lead with a systems first approach because they adapt to change faster than people. Making lasting change in an organization is a slow, repetitive process as people become ready to hear it, understand it and apply it.

This week on SoundNotes our Founder and CEO, Mike Cottmeyer, joins Dave to discuss why simply showing up and having the answer for the customer is not enough. During this conversation, Mike explains the process he follows when engaging with clients to ensure he is truly hearing them and understanding the way they see the problem, and how that begins a series of steps that enables him to work with the client to find the best solution for them. If you are involved with introducing change in an organization, especially from a consulting standpoint, this interview is a must.

This week LeadingAgile Senior Consultant Matthew Oatts joins Dave for a different kind of interview. This is the first of two interviews we will be posting with Matthew and they both focus on what it is like to work here at LeadingAgile and how to make the most of your early days with the company. Because LeadingAgile has a unique point of view and approach to organizational change and Agile transformation when people join the company we take extra care to make sure they are up to speed on the LeadingAgile Why and How. As the company has matured over the years our on-boarding process has gone through a number of iterations and has evolved into a very comprehensive robust program. But, Matt joined LeadingAgile during the 2nd half of December of 2021. In consulting, the last few weeks of December are pretty slow and this meant Matt was going to need to wait for an on-boarding class to start. This gave Matt some time to dig around on his own and discover his own path while he wa

At LeadingAgile our approach to helping organizations transform the way they work is deeply rooted in First Principles. These are core beliefs we all have in common that shape the way we work. People who work here come from different backgrounds and have different experiences, but First Principles are things we all believe to be true. In our interactions with clients, these core beliefs are an essential ingredient in our ability to deliver on the promises we make and to fulfill the Trust-Influence loop. In this episode of SoundNotes, Mike Cottmeyer joins Dave to discuss First Principles, what they are, why they are so important, how they work, and how they become more important as we grow.

Lance Kind, Daryl Kulak, and George Walters join for this podcast episode about software. Daryl and George describe how they help companies answer the question: Is your software getting better or worse? LeadingAgile Studios team mission is to help companies going through an Agile Transformation resolve the problem of where the software is the leading impediment to a company's success. LeadingAgile Studios team starts with a software assessment that uses an in-house tool to analyze a codebase by collecting data on how it changes over time. With this information, LeadingAgile Studios helps clients make a plan to remediate the discovered problems. With this plan, the client will have the option to fix the problem independently, do it with assistance from the Studios team, or have the Studios team take complete control. Listen to this episode to learn more about how the LeadingAgile Studios team can answer the question: Is your software getting better or worse? Cont

Spike solutions are one of the ways extreme programming teams "figure out answers to tough technical or design problems". Their use has evolved over the years and as they've been adopted by Scrum Teams. There are also many teams out there who may be using spikes in a way that creates more work without solving problems. In this episode of SoundNotes, Stephen Cavaliere joins Dave to talk all about Spikes. In order to make things as simple as possible the podcast has been broken up into three parts:

This is the fourth episode in our series of podcasts about Fixed vs. Growth Mindset. Using the book Mindset by Carol Dweck as a jumping-off point, Mary Kaufmann and Dave Prior dig into the topic of criticism. The conversation focuses on the way Fixed vs. Growth Mindset people approach giving and receiving criticism. Along the way, Mary and Dave both share examples of how they've struggled in the past with giving and receiving feedback. They also share things they've each learned while trying to take a more growth-minded approach to criticism.

This podcast is our third in a series of conversations focused on Fixed vs. Growth Mindset. Leveraging the work in Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset, Mary Kaufman and Dave Prior explore the differences between having a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Each episode of this series focuses on how our mindset impacts the way we perceive and respond to different types of stimulus/events. This episode is focused on effort and the differences between how a fixed mindset and a growth mindset perceive the value we receive from applying ourselves at work. Do we see the effort spent as a waste of time, or a step towards achieving some level of mastery that can be a reward all by itself? Other Episodes in our Growth Mindset Series Episode 1: Embracing Challenges Episode 2 : Obstacles<

Working with the Product folks at LeadingAgile is different than a lot of other Product Management gigs. In this interview, LeadingAgile’s Andrew Young joins Dave to talk about what it’s like working with the product group at LeadingAgile, why we focus so heavily on the product side of things, the difference between working “in” product and working “on” product, and why he’s made the choice to work at LeadingAgile. Contacting Andrew Young LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/andrew-young/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/atyoung/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/exclamation101 Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave Prior If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at: Leading

In this week’s SoundNotes podcast, Dave is joined by Vic Bonacci, CST who recently joined the LeadingAgile team. As Certified Scrum Trainers, both Dave and Vic bring their numerous years of experience and unique perspectives to the table to chat candidly about the issues and challenges surrounding being a more advanced Scrum Master, and how to continue learning and growing in the role.

Being strategic is about planning to reach our goals and deciding what to do with our limited capacity to achieve those aspirations and vision. But to do this, we have to first identify what’s valuable to the organization and prioritize the things that will release the most value into it.  LeadingAgile Chief Methodologist, Dennis Stevens joins Dave prior this week to discuss why we should be prioritizing value and the importance of value density. Contacting Dennis Stevens Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dennis-stevens/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/dennisstevens Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave Prior If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadinga

LeadingAgile Senior Consultant Derek Stanley joins Dave Prior to discuss GQM (Goal Question Metrics). During the interview Derek and Dave explore what GQM is by talking through real-world examples that showcase why people use them, and how they can provide clarity on performance towards desired business outcomes. Whether you are focused on the team level, the program level, or the organization as a whole; GQM can help you clarify what you are trying to achieve, the questions that need to be answered to know if you’ve achieved it, and what metrics allow you to measure your success.

In this episode of SoundNotes Yusuf Hakim joins Dave to field questions submitted by an attendee of one of LeadingAgile’s Monthly CSM/CSPO Student Lean Coffee meetings, The questions center around issues that cropped up from a non-standard SAFe implementation, the issues that came about as a result fo that implementation, and the steps being taken to it address those issues and move towards an approach that is more focused on “just in time”.

In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile CTO, Matt Van Vleet and Principal Engineer, Daryl Kulak join Dave to talk about how LeadingAgile’s Studios takes on the technical work of Agile Transformation. One of the challenges many organizations face when trying to adopt Agile is how to address technical debt they must overcome in order to be able to create an environment that can support an Agile way of working.

A Scrum Master wears many hats. They act as a servant leader to the team and the organization. They are also expected to develop a level of skill with having the ability to take on different coaching stances when they are working with individuals, teams, and organizations. In LeadingAgile’s Certified Scrum Master classes we devote time to exploring servant leadership and four of the coaching stances a Scrum Master needs to be able to take: Teaching, Facilitating, Coaching, and Mentoring. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile’s Learning and Development Coordinator, Luther Harris joins Dave to share his take on what being a servant leader entails and how these four stances must be developed in succession because they build on one another. Luther has a background in education that plays heavily into his take on these topics. Whether you are working as a Scrum Master or higher up in the org chart, if you are leading people, this podcast is going to give you food for thought.

Dave Prior and Lance Kind discuss a new item from the Scrum Guide: Product Goal. Listen in while Dave teaches Lance what the product goal is, ideates on how to implement, and debates as to the value product goal provides. As a bonus, Dave and Lance: discuss how “real options” relate to product backlogs, that there will be a struggle about where to put backlog items that don’t fit the product goal, and how computers have become like the Tardis.

This episode of SoundNotes is an interview with LeadingAgile CEO, Mike Cottmeyer who takes on 3 separate topics during the interview: 1. Locus of Blame (01:38) 2. Elevate Agile (27:38) 3. Speaking with Authority  (41:39) Locus of Blame Things happen. They don’t always happen the way we want them to. You get a flat tire on the way to a job interview, your supplier is late resulting in a massive delay in your delivery of a project, there’s a pandemic and that messes up pretty much everything you had planned. The questions you ask yourself in response to these kinds of setbacks are very important. Learning how to learn from these challenges may not come naturally to you but it is a critical skill. Elevate Agile  This September, LeadingAgile will be holding an event to celebrate its 11 year anniversary (b

This podcast is the second in a series of conversations focused on Fixed vs. Growth Mindset. Leveraging the work in Carol Dwek’s book, Mindset, Mary Kaufman and Dave Prior are exploring the differences between having a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Each episode of this series will focus on how our mindset impacts the way we perceive and respond to different types of stimulus / events. This episode is focused on obstacles and the differences between how a fixed mindset and a growth mindset meet and respond to the things that get in our way.

This week in SoundNotes our focus is Design Thinking. If you are a Product Owner and Design Thinking is not part of your toolbox you need to listen to this podcast. This is the first in what will be a series of interviews centered around Design Thinking, how it works and why it is a critical element of the work of anyone serving in a Product Owner or Product Management role.

As vaccination rates rise and the number of people infected with Covid-19 drops our world is slowly moving on to some new form of normal. Many of us have returned, or soon will be returning, to the office. After a year working from home, that shift back to the thing that was once part of our every day work lives, is going to present unique challenges for each of us. Some have been champing at the bit, waiting to get back to a busy social IRL work atmosphere. Others discovered that working from home actually provided greater productivity and comfort. No matter how you reacted to the pandemic lock-down, returning to the office is gonna be a little weird. In this episode of the podcast, LeadingAgile Executive Coach/Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Kelly Lingerfeldt joins Dave to talk about returning to the office, the challenges that will present for each of us, and different strategies we can use to cope with getting out from behind the Zoom camera, swapping our sweat pants for actua

Earlier this year LeadingAgile was contacted by GC Uttam who expressed an interest in taking Certified Scrum Master training. Uttam wanted to learn how he could use Agile practices within his organization to provide better support for the Nepalese orphans and widows they serve. LeadingAgile believes strongly in giving back. And whenever we can we provide open seats in our classes to those whose work is to serve others. We offered Uttam a seat and agreed to check back a few months after class to see how he’d been able to put what he learned to use. During the interview, Uttam and Dave talk about how he has introduced some of the key principles and values from Agile back to his teams and the people they serve. You’ll also hear about how they’ve begun using Scrum to run marketing experiments in their ministry work.

This is the first in a series of podcasts we’ll be doing on Growth Mindset. In this episode Mary Kaufman and Dave Prior discuss what a growth mindset is, why it is vital it is to the work we do at LeadingAgile, and how embracing challenges fits into a growth mindset approach. During the conversation, Mary and Dave provide examples of common challenges we all face both at work, in our day-to-day lives, and in introducing large-scale organizational change. As they walk through the examples, Mary and Dave share tips on how to embrace the challenges you face and keep yourself firmly grounded in a growth mindset.

This week in SoundNotes Lance Kind joins Dave to talk about Scaled Agile Tech Coaching. In this episode, Lance and Dave explore how technical coaching can be used to supplement the process coaching that is typically offered during an agile transformation. He also shares his approach to introduce technical coaching in a way that can scale across the enterprise. Lance is an experienced Senior level software developer as well as an Agile coach. He’s also an author and produces podcasts in both English and Mandarin Chinese. He’ll be joining Dave in hosting our podcasts going forward so that we can offer more podcasts and also ones that focus on deeper technical topics. Contacting Lance: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/lance-kind/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lancer-kind/ Twitter: <a href='https://twitter.com/

One of the things you need for Agile practices to deliver on their promise is a fully dedicated team of people working together to deliver value in a predictable manner. What we want is a high-performing, learning team that can consistently make and meet commitments. But what if that isn’t an option? What if you work in an organization that still believes in the power of multi-tasking, or you work in an agency whose whole business model is built around the idea that everyone is 100% utilized across however many teams/projects are needed to hit that number? In this episode of SoundNotes, Jeff Howey and Dave Prior take on the question of what to do if you don’t have dedicated teams. They explore the various forms this commonly takes, how it is likely to impact your ability to deliver value and they share some coping mechanisms as well as ideas on how to approach the conversation with the appropriate people when the time comes. Contacting Jeff Howey Email: <a

Many organizations of all sizes have been publicly experimenting with Dojos—immersive learning environments adopted from ancient martial arts practices—that focus on upskilling teams and producing products. In this week's podcast, our guest Joel Norman shares his thoughts and experiences related to Dojos, including what makes them successful, common challenges uncovered when running Dojos, and why they may not be the ticket to Transformation many organizations hope they'll be. 

You can have different levels of Agility in an organization—and those are all necessary and great. But it takes more to achieve Business Agility, which is entirely different from team-level Agility, or enterprise-level, and so forth. In this podcast, Dave Prior and LeadingAgile CEO Mike Cottmeyer think through and explore the nuances of Business Agility and what it takes to achieve it.

Simply sending your people off to training, or bringing someone in to train isn’t going to automatically get you the value you want out of it.  In this quick podcast, Dave Prior and LeadingAgile’s Jeff Howey dig into five things you can do to ensure you get the most value out of Agile training in your organization.

This week’s SoundNotes features a question submitted by a student during a recent Certified Scrum Master class. The question was posted in the topic parking lot and we did not have time to address it during class, so I followed up with the student after class and we discussed it via phone. I also offered to do a podcast on it and Jeff Howey joins me this week to dig into the topic. Because I spoke to the student after class, I was able to add some more detail for Jeff which you will hear during the conversation, but the question posted by the student was: I would like to know how long should milestones typically be and how many sprints should we break it down to? We have a goal of what we want to achieve and a rough timeline but we don’t log too many feature tickets ahead of time thinking that the task might become stale or pollute the board with an everlasting list of things to do and most of the time we were just closing the tickets. As a result, I feel we become short-sig

What is DevOps? How does it tie into the LeadingAgile model? How do we deal with the complications it presents when we apply it at scale? In this week’s podcast, LeadingAgile Chief Transformation Officer Matt Van Vleet joins Dave to answer all of these questions along with a general primer on DevOps in Agile Transformation.

In this episode of SoundNotes, our guest Jeff Howey will help uncover the opportunities this challenging scenario can present—and offer ideas on how to change its foundational causes to prevent it from happening in the first place.

In this episode of SoundNotes, Matt Craig joins Dave for a discussion that centers around comparing the way biological systems and businesses function and respond to change. In a biological system, enzymes bring elements together that catalyze reactions and keep iterating until they find an effective response.

Dave Prior sits down for a conversation with LeadingAgile CEO Mike Cottmeyer and they explore Mike's Agile approach to personal development and dig into the details of how and why his approach to growth and development has evolved over time. If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo Email: [email protected] If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to [email protected] And if you’re interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified ScrumMaster or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

In this week's episode of SoundNotes, Ross Beurmann is back to talk about how to create a funding mechanism that's as adaptable as the governance model. Or, to put it more simply, how to allocate funds and pay for things when we're continually tuning the way we work, and what we're working on. As your organization moves further down the path toward Agility, you may experience some dissonance when more traditional methods of funding work meet with the need to inspect and adapt. And we're not just talking about inspecting and adapting through the lens of product development,  we're also talking about how the organizational governance can inspect and adapt and how that supports Business Agility. Links On ProjectManagement.com, you can find another one of Dave and Ross' recent podcasts entitled: "Business Planning for Agile AND Traditional Time Horizons". <a href='https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post/66413/Business-Planning-for-Agile-AND-Traditional-Time-Hori

You have to deeply understand how what you’re doing at all levels of the organization is going to drive quality. In this week’s podcast, LeadingAgile CEO Mike Cottmeyer joins us to dig into why increased quality should matter to you, and some actionable steps to take to enable more of it across your organization. If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo Email: [email protected] If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to [email protected] And if you’re interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified ScrumMaster or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at <a href='https://www.leadingagil

When large organizations set out to take on Agile Transformation, it's never for Agile's sake. They're usually after one or more of these 6 things, Predictability, Quality, Cost Savings, Early ROI, Product Fit, or Innovation. In this week's episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, Dave Prior talks with Mike Cottmeyer to discuss the steps you can take to get more predictable and make and meet your commitments. If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo Email: [email protected] If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to [email protected] And if you're interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified ScrumMaster or Cert

This week in LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, Justin Polk is here to discuss the role that capitalization plays in helping an organization adopt an Agile approach to work. When the conversation turns to Agile Transformation, it often focuses on what changes you need to introduce, where, and when. But sometimes we get so caught up in those conversations that we neglect to include one very important aspect… the money and how it is tracked. In this episode of the podcast, you’ll learn what CapEx (Capital Expenditure) is, why it matters, and why it is a fundamental concern in Agile Transformation. Contacting Justin Polk LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/justin-polk/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-polk/ Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave Prior If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo Twitter: https://twi

At the beginning of the pandemic, LeadingAgile published a white paper called Maintaining Momentum in a Remote Agile World. This episode of SoundNotes is a follow up to that whitepaper. In this interview, Jeff Howey and Dave Prior reflect on what they've learned about successful remote interaction since the whitepaper was released, how those lessons can impact a system of Transformation and remote collaboration at scale. During the interview, Jeff also explains PSTIR, which stands for Prepare, Socialize, Tailor, Implement, and Reinforce; and how PSTIR has become a critical part of the LeadingAgile approach. Download the White Paper Maintaining Momentum in a Remote Agile World Contacting Jeff Howey Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: <a href='https:/

This week in SoundNotes, Yaton Bowens joins Dave to talk about the role that trust plays in Agile Transformation. Building on Mike Cottmeyers’ Trust vs. Trustworthiness webinar, Yaton and Dave dig into some of the trust gaps that management and the Development Teams have to cross for an Agile Transformation to take root in an organization. Without a track record to demonstrate trustworthiness, how can management trust that the team will deliver? And how can the team trust that management will allow them to get the work done? To make things even more complicated, many organizations have not been designed with systems that support trust and trustworthiness. We'll delve into the answers to these questions and more this week. Links from the Podcast Mike Cottmeyer's Trust vs. Trustworthiness Webinar Contacting Yaton Bowens Web: <a href='https://www.lead

This week is all about Earned Value and Justin Polk is back, spending time with Dave discussing how Earned Value tools can be applied in an Agile Transformation. They explore what types of work you might want to consider using it for, how it can help, and what types of people might find the path to Agile just a little more possible when you show them how Earned Value metrics can be applied on an Agile Team. Links If you are new to Earned Value, here are a few links to help you get started: Agile and Earned Value Management: A Program Manager's Desk Guide Agile and Earned Value (APM) Measuring Integrated Progress on Agile Software Development Projects <a href='https://www.pmi.org/learning/libr

Once you reach the point where you're ready to pursue a job in Agile, the next hurdle you'll often face is, “How?” Convincing someone to give you a job as a ScrumMaster or a Product Owner can be tough if you have no experience. And even if you do have experience, that doesn’t necessarily make it easier. The Pandemic has put a lot of people back into the applicant pool, and the competition is fierce. In this week’s SoundNotes, LeadingAgile’s Director of Talent Acquisition Priya Sethuraman spends time with Dave talking about what to do if you are looking for a job in Agile. Priya and Dave discuss different approaches you can take, ways to prepare yourself to succeed in the interview, and how to begin working on getting experience and building your network even if you are completely new to the space. Contacting Priya Sethuraman Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/priya-sethuraman/ Email

Many organizations begin their journey toward becoming Agile by selecting a few initial teams or projects that are set up to test out how Agile will impact the organization and its ability to deliver work. LeadingAgile Senior Consultant Justin Polk joins Dave this week to discuss how to select and run an Agile pilot. In this episode, you’ll learn about some of the risks and challenges that come with pilots, why LeadingAgile takes a more holistic approach to piloting by selecting an entire vertical slice of the organization to work with, and how to begin having conversations about selecting the right part of your organization to serve as a pilot in your company’s Agile Transformation. Contacting Justin Polk LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/justin-polk/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-polk/ Email: <a hr

This week in LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, we’re focusing on Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).  Andrew Young joins Dave to talk about this history of OKRs, why they have become such an important part of how we track and measure performance, why they matter to Executives, and why teaching Executives about OKRs requires a very specific approach. Want more on OKRs? Agile Unplugged - Episode 02 with Mike Cottmeyer and Dennis Stevens An Introduction to OKRs: Objectives and Key Results Tracking and Reporting: What Should the PMO Be Tracking? w/ Derek Huether  Contacting Andrew Young LeadingAgile: <a href='https://

Getting a few teams up and running using Scrum, Kanban, or some other form of Agile is great. But that doesn’t necessarily mean your organization has become Agile. This week in SoundNotes, Dragos Dumitriu joins Dave for a conversation about the difference between spinning up a few teams and truly achieving business Agility. During the conversation Dragos shares details on some of the common patterns, he sees when organizations begin moving towards an Agile approach, things to watch out for, and some of the conversations you need to be having internally if business agility is something your organization has set its sights on. Contacting Dragos Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dragos-dumitriu/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dragosd/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thewaitlifter

Training is a vital piece of today’s business climate. It’s typically at the forefront of conversations around development or growth, but what is the correlation or connection between training and actual business transformation? The assumption has been that if my employees only had the knowledge, they would produce different outcomes. While training is an undoubtedly valuable piece of creating large, organizational change, the outcomes that our organizations produce are highly intertwined with a number of factors on which training has very little impact. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Training Consultant, Nathan Hummel joins Dave to discuss the role training plays in organizational change, how it impacts Agile transformation, and, what else, beyond training, an organization will need to see true lasting change. Contacting Nathan Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/nathan-hummel/<

In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Managing Consultant, Greg DePasquale explains what Outcome-Based Planning is, how it works, why it's so critical for enabling successful delivery, and how it works at different levels of the organization. In outcome-based planning, we focus on “a results-driven plan rather than plan-driven results." There is a focus on the Why as opposed to the How. We center around the business outcome we are looking to achieve, rather than making sure we are doing “all the things." If you work in a project-based organization and status is tracked by things done (or percent of a thing done), you are probably more output focused. If you are planning for the results you want to achieve, and you and employ a strategy where we can continue inspecting and adapting towards that desired result, regardless of how many things you can check the done box on along the way, then you are outcome-focused. Contacting Greg DePasquale: Web: <a href='https://w

When we are trying to figure out what products to build, we have to develop a deep understanding of the problem we are solving. To do that, we have to understand who we are solving problems for, what is important to them, and what offering would be most appealing to them or most likely to cause a change in behavior. Looking at the problem from different perspectives can enable it to be solved more easily, with each vantage point offering different insights that can complement each other. When we can discover things that are true across the board, we can be even more confident that we're headed in the right direction LeadingAgile SVP, Executive Consultant, Scott Sehlhorst approaches this work from an engineering perspective. LeadingAgile Managing Consultant, Will Evans approaches the work from a Design perspective. While each vantage point is important, the true value comes from combining them. In this episode of SoundNotes, Scott and Will join Dave to offer insight int

Over the past few years, there has been an increasing push within organizations to move from a project-oriented mindset to a more product-focused approach. Creating that change in an organization can take considerable work and part of that is how you address funding the work being done. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile’s Chief Methodologist, Dennis Stevens spends time with Dave talking about why this change is necessary, the impact it can have on an organization, some things to watch out for as you make the switch and tips that will help you succeed in bringing this change to your company. Contacting Dennis Stevens Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dennis-stevens/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/dennisstevens Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave Prior <p

In many organizations, the group responsible for procurement, and the processes they follow, were established under a traditional (waterfall) approach. The way in which goods and services are requested, contracted, approved and acquired can be an odd fit with an Agile approach. In the public sector, this can prove even more challenging due to oversight, bureaucracy, and a variety of other factors. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile's, Nathan Hummel, joins Dave to talk about some of the issues that crop up when an organization in the public sector begins working on how to handle procurement as they move towards a more Agile approach to work. During the interview they dig into what makes Agile procurement different in the public sector, what kind of challenges you can expect to face and what steps you can take to begin resolving them. Contacting Nathan Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guid

In this episode of SoundNotes, Ross Beurmann joins Dave to talk about the difference between Leadership and Management. Although many confuse the two and believe they are the same, they are actually very different things—and this can become extremely apparent during the transition to an Agile approach. During the interview, Ross explains why it is so important that we gain clarity on the difference between the two, why we want to manage systems, and why it is so important that we inspire teams to manage themselves. Books Mentioned In This Podcast Turn the Ship Around - L. David Marquet https://amzn.to/2QXOGWD Leadership is Language - L. David Marquet https://amzn.to/2w2mRFj Getting Naked - Patrick Lencioni https://amzn.to/3avNX6A Dare to Lead - Brene Brown https://amzn.to/2JptZ1D</

In this episode of SoundNotes Will Evans is back to discuss why behavior trumps empathy and the secret to building the right thing. During the interview, we explore the difference between traditional Personas and Behavioral Impact Personas. We also talk through how Impact Mapping can be used to move beyond Empathy Maps to deepen our understanding of what motivates people, what their needs are, what things to build, how well they have to perform to be considered valuable, and how to make sure we are solving the right problems for the right people at the right time. In this podcast, you will learn how Impact Mapping can draw a clear connection between the things we are going to build, the problems we need to overcome, and how to create a change in behavior by specific people that allows us to move toward an outcome that achieves our desired goal. Will has created a few graphics that we refer to in the interview and you’ll want to download them in order to get the

One of the most critical, and unfortunately, neglected elements of ensuring your teams can deliver the most value possible, is making sure they can see a direct connection between the work they are being asked to execute on and that strategy that work is in service of. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Principal Consultant, Marty Bradley spends time with Dave discussing why we need to connect strategy to execution and what happens when we don't. During the interview, Marty provides examples which demonstrate why we need to break the work down into small increments of value, how to track their performance at both the strategic and tactical level, how frequently you want to be checking in on whether or not the work is delivering the desired value,, and who needs to be involved in these discussions. Links from the Podcast Check out a video of Marty's presentation - <a href='https://www.leadingagile.com/2020/02/develop-a-strategy-to-embrace-change-w-m

Ross Beurmann is back! And this week in SoundNotes Ross and Dave discuss ATOs and PMOs. If you aren't familiar with what an Agile Transformation Office is, how it works, why you need it and how it is different from a Project Management Office, this podcast is for you. During the interview, Ross and Dave also discuss what happens to the role of the project manager when you go through Agile Transformation and how the PMO can remain relevant and continue to add value in an organization that is moving through their Transformation to Agile. Link to the Technology Case Study http://info.leadingagile.com/techcasestudy Contacting Ross Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/ross-beurmann/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rossbeurmannzcea/ Email: Ross.Beurmann@

This week in SoundNotes we’re focusing on a question asked by a student in a recent class: Can you use Agile for Mergers and Acquisitions? To address the topic, LeadingAgile Principal Consultant Rick McMichael joins Dave to discuss Mergers and Acquisitions (or M&A). Rick has years of experience working in Agile and he's been a part of many M&A efforts over the years. During the podcast we discuss the various steps involved in bringing two different organizations together to form a new one, and how Agile practices can be applied to help this work go smoother and deliver more value for the companies involved, the people who work at them, and the customer. Link to the Latest LeadingAgile Case Study http://info.leadingagile.com/techcasestudy Contacting Rick Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/rick-mcmichael/ Email: <a href='mailto:r

This week in LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, Tina Wang spends some time with Dave talking about Lean Portfolio Management. During the conversation, Tina and Dave cover exactly what Lean Portfolio Management is and how it differs from a more traditional approach to Portfolio Management. A good part of the discussion is spent on the topic of how to create alignment from strategic goals at the organizational level down to delivery team execution and the role that funding plays in this. If you have questions about Lean Portfolio Management or you're curious about how to apply Lean practices and systems thinking to traditional portfolio management to consistently deliver value at a sustainable pace, this podcast is a great place to get started. For additional content on the LeadingAgile site about Lean Portfolio Management, click here. Contacting Tina Email: <a href='mailto:Tina.Wang@l

Despite the fact that in many organizations the Enterprise Architect and the Enterprise Solutions Architect are often conflated, they are very distinct roles that require different skill sets and areas of expertise. The Enterprise Solutions Architect is a role that focuses on designing solutions to problems that tend to be IT-centric, while an Enterprise Architect focuses more on designing or documenting the relationship between all the systems across the Enterprise and how they interact to deliver value. In this episode of LeadingAgile's SoundNotes, Ross Beurmann is back to bring some clarity to the difference between the two roles, the nature of the work, and the differences in the skill sets required for each role. Zachman Framework During the interview, Ross references the Zachman Framework, which was developed by John Zachman in the 1980's. The framework "provides a formal and structured way of viewing and defining an enterprise" (see Wikipedia link

In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Managing Consultant, Matt Smith, joins Dave for a conversation about why we need to make sure that the investment made in portfolio tiers of the organization ties directly back to Agile delivery, and how we can make sure that is happening. If you are an executive who has responsibility for making decisions about where and how the organization makes strategic investments across the portfolio, this interview may expose some areas of focus that you may want to give more attention. Many organizations introduce Agile, and begin funding Transformation, at the team level, but they fail to ensure that they’ve created an environment and organizational system that can support those teams, and/or teams who are working on things without understanding why because they don’t have visibility into how they link back to company strategy. This makes it difficult for them to make the best possible choices when developing a product. Throughout the podc

This week in SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Founder and CEO Mike Cottmeyer joins Dave to explore the ways in which Executive Leadership plays the role of Product Owner in an organization. During the conversation, Mike reflects back on how his understanding of what it means to be an organizational product owner has evolved as LeadingAgile has grown over the last ten years. Mike shares some of the ways he copes with the challenges of being the Product Owner of an organization that continues to evolve, how he responds to the successes and failures along the way, and his take on one of the most critical things a leader must do in order to be ready for what comes next. Contacting Mike Cottmeyer If you’d like to contact Mike you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cottm

If you're confused about the difference between Epics, Features, and Stories—you're not alone. Most of us use these terms to describe different types of items we’d put into a Product Backlog. The challenge is that each organization defines them differently and uses them to mean different things. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile SVP and Senior Consultant Scott Sehlhorst joins Dave Prior to talk about the difference between Epics, Features, and Stories, how the three of them are related, and the value that each brings to the table. If you have questions about the purpose each serves, how they complement each other, and why people often get them confused, you’ll find answers in this podcast. Contacting Scott Sehlhorst LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/scott-sehlhorst/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/sehlhorst

It can be easy to get swept up in discussions centered around making sure that the work being done by development teams is in sync with what the stakeholders identified as the highest priority. While this is definitely an important factor to consider, it is also critical to make sure that we have identified and prioritized the issues and problems we need to solve to achieve the organization’s strategic goals. Impact Mapping is a tool that can be used to create a conversation between stakeholders and teams to understanding which problems need to be addressed first to ensure we are having the greatest possible impact on delivering different outcomes for our customers and for the business. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Managing Consultant, Will Evans spends time with Dave Prior discussing Impact Mapping. During the podcast you will learn: What Impact Mapping Is Why it works How it can help your organization make informed decisio

HAPPY NEW YEAR! In this episode, LeadingAgile Senior Consultant, Ross Buermann shares an approach that involves bifurcating the work of creating the documentation so that we can create and deliver in smaller increments. Those smaller pieces can be modified and maintained in a more efficient manner than they would be in a traditional approach. In the same way that we want to break development work down into small increments, we can also break down the documentation. Ross and Dave also discuss an approach to storing the documentation which allows for an easier approach to change control and maintenance. Ross has a background in highly regulated environments where the documentation is often treated as being more valuable than the product itself. During the interview, Ross explains how, and why, this approach is so valuable to teams and organizations adopting an Agile approach. The Iliad If you’d like to check out The Iliad, Ross recommends the translation by

Safety is a popular topic in the Agile space that comes up when we have conversations about what it takes to create an environment where Agile can take root and thrive. When we talk about transforming organizations, we talk about things like creating a safe environment where people feel that they have the agency and support to run experiments in order to get better at working together and delivering value for the customer. This conversation often centers around teams and the individual team members, but rarely do we take the time to consider what safety looks like for leadership. Aren’t they at risk as well? There may be leaders in your organization who are supporting or sponsoring the transformation effort, but what if it doesn’t take? What impact will it have on them? When it comes to organizational change, we know leadership has to adjust their approach as well, but this conversation often focuses on how the things they learned to do under a traditional model will g

When large enterprises make the decision to invest in Agile Transformation they often do so with the expectation that it will have some positive impact on their ability to deliver. In theory, if we can deliver more of the right things in shorter time frames at a higher quality level, that should provide some kind of quantifiable return on investment. When the conversation turns to the question of “How is the transformation going?” it is common to focus on metrics that center around how many teams or groups within the organization have begun adopting Agile practices, where they are in the journey towards Agile, how individual teams are performing, etc. But what is often harder to understand is what is the benefit, or return on the investment it is making in Agile Transformation. To put it simply, we’re spending money, we’re doing the things… but what kind of financial (or other) impact is that money having on the organization and on our system of delivery? In thi

Lee Wiesehuegel is a Managing Consultant at LeadingAgile where he helps organizations incorporate an Agile approach by transforming how they work. One of Lee’s primary areas of focus is working with leaders to help them understand how critical their support is at the team level. In this episode of SoundNotes, Lee and Dave discuss some of the things that leadership can do to enable Coaches and ScrumMasters to create and sustain high performing, learning teams that can consistently deliver value. At the start of the interview, Lee also shares his advice for those who are interested in transitioning to a coaching role and some of the key things he looks for when he interviews potential coaches. Links Mentioned In the Podcast Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transitio

At Elevate Agile 2019, LeadingAgile Chief Methodologist, Dennis Stevens gave a presentation called "What Every Agile Organization Has In Common" (link below). In this episode of SoundNotes, Dennis and Dave go deeper on some key themes from the presentation. The interview focuses on how Senior Leadership can create an organizational system that supports Business Agility. This work goes beyond simply adopting Agile practices at a team level, and looks at how the whole organization needs to have a structure and governance model in place that can sustain its ability to respond to rapidly changing market conditions. iTunes Feedback - We Need Your Help We need your help in getting the word out about this podcast and would be grateful for any feedback you are willing to leave us in an iTunes Review. Links Mentioned In the Podcast <li class="title style-scope ytd-video-pri

At ElevateAgile, LeadingAgile Principal Consultant, Marty Bradley, led a session called "The Business Value of Agility." The talk focused on the question of how organizations measure and understand the business benefits of adopting an Agile approach. All too often, organizations make a decision to "go agile" without defining the outcome they hope/want/expect from changing their approach to work. Without a solid understanding of the impact you are seeking, deciding whether your approach to creating things, or the things themselves, are delivering desired business value. In this episode of SoundNotes, Marty and Dave explore some of the key takeaways from Marty's session at ElevateAgile and ways an organization can understand the value Agile provides. Marty's presentation from ElevateAgile The Business Value of Agility Links from the Podcast <a href='https://www.amazon.com/Slack-Getting-Burnout-Busywork-Efficiency/dp/07679

When it comes to Agile Transformation, every organization struggles with managing risks and dealing with dependencies. Identifying the most critical dependencies and finding a way to break them can be challenging. But, depending on your organization’s goals for transformation, there may also be dependencies that just aren’t worth decoupling.  In this episode of SoundNotes LeadingAgile Senior Consultant, Tom Furland, talks with Dave about how to handle Risks and Dependencies during Agile Transformation. We explore how to understand where decoupling is possible and why orchestration is so critical to creating flow within the organization, regardless of which dependencies remain. Contacting Tom Furland If you’d like to contact Tom you can reach him at: Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/tom-furland/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in

The dilemma of what to do if you don’t have a Product Owner is one of the more commonly recurring questions that I get in the CSM and CSPO classes. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile’s Sara McClintock and Jeff Streitmatter join me to talk through the challenges of not having anyone acting as a dedicated PO. During the discussion, we explore why the role is so critical, how not having one impact’s the team’s ability to deliver valuable work that is in sync with company strategy and we offer some tips on how to cope with not having someone to fill this critical role. Contacting Sara McClintock If you’d like to contact Sara you can reach her at: Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/sara-mcclintock/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saramcclintock/ Email: sara.m

On October 7th, 2019 LeadingAgile will hold its first-ever conference—Elevate Agile. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile CEO and Founder, Mike Cottmeyer explains why Elevate Agile exists and how we hope it will shape the conversation around business and organizational Agility moving forward. The event is sold out, but you can check out the live stream from the conference on Elevate Agile's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/elevateagile/ Also, be sure to follow Elevate Agile on social to find out details for next year's event as they become available. Elevate Agile on Social  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/19229690/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/elevateagile Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elevateagile/<

Feedback is tricky. We all want it, we all need it, but sometimes getting it can be kinda tough. Giving feedback is challenging as well because it can be hard to tell when were are offering it from a place that is truly centered on helping the recipient grow, rather than just helping them be what we want them to be. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Staff Consultant, Sarah Smith, joins Dave Prior to dig into the idea of "Feedback Is A Gift."  During the podcast, they unpack different ways to receive feedback, tips for giving it as well as how to figure out what to do with it once you get it, and what to do with the feedback that feels like a regifted Fruitcake. And also how to make sure you aren't the one doing the re-gifting.   Agile 2019 Video Podcasts We're posted a TON of video podcast interviews we shot in the LeadingAgile booth during Agile 2019 and we'd love to get some http://bit.ly/2k88ucu Contact

In this live keynote episode of SoundNotes live, we talk with Portia Tung about her thoughts on making transformational change fun by embedding play science into your work.

In this SoundNotes live, we talk with Andy Cleff about the process of prioritizing and learning backlog and his thoughts on how to deliver the learnings optimally.

In this SoundNotes live with Natalie Solomon, we discuss the steps Natalie takes and key focus areas she considers when building successful teams that are created to enable a truly Agile workplace.

In this episode of SoundNotes live with Olaf Lewitz, we talk about the importance of self-reflection, self-awareness—and magic. When magic happens on a team, how do we unlock that process and replicate it so it can happen on cue? And how can self-reflection enhance how we lead and function at work?

In this SoundNotes live with Heidi Musser of LeadingAgile, we cover the key highlights of her Agile Alliance Board panel on diversity and inclusion in the Agile world, including the current state of diversity and inclusion in the tech community, and why diversity in this community is a particularly important topic.

In this SoundNotes live with Lynne Cazaly, we’ll discuss the war of perfectionism and how it’s affecting us. We’ll dig into why it's important to reframe our mindsets and work toward an end goal rather than toward an artificial concept of perfection.

In this SoundNotes live with Diana Larsen, co-founder of The Agile Fluency Project. We’ll chat about The Agile Fluency Project’s mission to help organizations measure how or if their Agile teams are achieving the outcomes they need, and how they can get insight on additional ways to invest to get the benefits they want.

In this SoundNotes live, we chat with Christopher Avery of The Responsibility Company about his work on how our psychology can keep us stuck—or propel us forward. He shares how we can change our usual programming to make better choices and be better leaders.

In this SoundNotes live with Christina Hartikainen, Chair of Agile 2019, we’ll chat about the conference, what’s new this year, and how you can get involved next year

In this SoundNotes live we’ll chat with Shannon Ewan and Ahmed Sidky of ICAgile. They’ll share some exciting new Business Agility training initiatives they’re working on for non-technical sectors—and how ICAgile is helping non-technical sectors, like HR and marketing, understand and apply Agile.

In this SoundNotes live with Mark Kilby, we talk about social tokens. What’s a social token? We’ll define them and expand on how they can be a shared way to create trust and create connections in distributed teams.

In this SoundNotes live with Melissa Boggs, Chief Scrum Master, and Howard Sublett, Chief Product Owner, both of the Scrum Alliance, we chat about their new roles, and what they’ve learned from co-leading the organization together.

In this SoundNotes live with Bas Vodde, we’ll chat about the LeSS (Large Scale Scrum) community. We’ll also delve into the role of the product owner in LeSS, and how it compares to their role in Scrum.

In this SoundNotes live talk, we discuss technical debt with Arlo Belshee and Marian Willeke. We’ll specifically delve into why technical debt is a very common problem, why it's often not solved, and how it can be.

In this SoundNotes live talk with Jessie Shternshus, we discuss what Jessie believes is the missing step in Transformations; unlearning the old way and moving to the new. We delve into how unlearning can get in the way of change, and how you can get through it successfully.

In this SoundNotes live talk with Lyssa Adkins, we discuss TENWOMENSTRONG, an organization dedicated to helping women reconnect with their authentic voices as leaders. Lyssa also discusses her recent projects to increase the presence of women in Agile and as leaders.

In this SoundNotes live talk with Lyssa Adkins and Maria Matarelli who are collaborating on a project called Personal Agility, which takes the principles of Agility and applies them to personal life. They’ll discuss what Personal Agility is and share examples of how you can apply the system to your life both personally and professionally.    

In this live SoundNotes talk with Lisa Cooney, we talk about cognitive bias, why it’s important to be aware of your cognitive biases, and how to devise strategies to overcome them.

In this live talk with Ellen Gottesdiener and Andy Repton, we discuss the process of making large scale product development truly work, and reveal the 3 things you need to make product development work optimally at scale.

Last week, the biggest conference in the Agile industry took place in Washington DC at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. We were proud to be a sponsor of this event and we were even more excited about catching up with friends—both old and new. For those of you who couldn't make it to the conference, we wanted to give you a little taste of what it's all about, so we decided to live-stream our podcast out of our booth in the Prince George Exhibitor Hall. We had a chance to talk to a lot of really smart and interesting people while we were there; some who were speaking at the conference, others who were simply attending, and even a few who were involved in turning this event into a reality. Here are some of the highlights from day two. In this live talk with Eric Rapin, Coach and Certified Scrum master, about the value and importance of retrospectives—and how to design and facilitate them effectively so you learn the most you can.

Last week, the biggest conference in the Agile industry took place in Washington DC at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. We were proud to be a sponsor of this event and we were even more excited about catching up with friends—both old and new. For those of you who couldn't make it to the conference, we wanted to give you a little taste of what it's all about, so we decided to live-stream our podcast out of our booth in the Prince George Exhibitor Hall. We had a chance to talk to a lot of really smart and interesting people while we were there; some who were speaking at the conference, others who were simply attending, and even a few who were involved in turning this event into a reality. Here are some of the highlights from day two. In this live talk with Carlos Oliveira of adaptiveX, we discuss the topic of his Agile 2019 session: The Power of Design Sprints. Carlos shares how Design Sprints help teams solve big problems and test ideas

Last week, the biggest conference in the Agile industry took place in Washington DC at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. We were proud to be a sponsor of this event and we were even more excited about catching up with friends—both old and new. For those of you who couldn't make it to the conference, we wanted to give you a little taste of what it's all about, so we decided to live-stream our podcast out of our booth in the Prince George Exhibitor Hall. We had a chance to talk to a lot of really smart and interesting people while we were there; some who were speaking at the conference, others who were simply attending, and even a few who were involved in turning this event into a reality. Here are some of the highlights from day two. In this live talk, Ronica Roth and Eric Willeke of Elevate.to discuss their unique approach to Agile Transformation.  

Last week, the biggest conference in the Agile industry took place in Washington DC at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. We were proud to be a sponsor of this event and we were even more excited about catching up with friends—both old and new. For those of you who couldn't make it to the conference, we wanted to give you a little taste of what it's all about, so we decided to live-stream our podcast out of our booth in the Prince George Exhibitor Hall. We had a chance to talk to a lot of really smart and interesting people while we were there; some who were speaking at the conference, others who were simply attending, and even a few who were involved in turning this event into a reality. Here are some of the highlights from day two. In this live talk with Richard Cheng, we’ll discuss how to apply Agile principles, values, and mindset in government agencies as well as the challenges that can get in the way.

Last week, the biggest conference in the Agile industry took place in Washington DC at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. We were proud to be a sponsor of this event and we were even more excited about catching up with friends—both old and new. For those of you who couldn't make it to the conference, we wanted to give you a little taste of what it's all about, so we decided to live-stream our podcast out of our booth in the Prince George Exhibitor Hall. We had a chance to talk to a lot of really smart and interesting people while we were there; some who were speaking at the conference, others who were simply attending, and even a few who were involved in turning this event into a reality. Here are some of the highlights from day two. In this live talk, we’re chatting with Woody Zuill about Mob programming. We’ll discuss the problems it solves, who can do it, and how it works.

Last week, the biggest conference in the Agile industry took place in Washington DC at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. We were proud to be a sponsor of this event and we were even more excited about catching up with friends—both old and new. For those of you who couldn't make it to the conference, we wanted to give you a little taste of what it's all about, so we decided to live-stream our podcast out of our booth in the Prince George Exhibitor Hall. We had a chance to talk to a lot of really smart and interesting people while we were there; some who were speaking at the conference, others who were simply attending, and even a few who were involved in turning this event into a reality. Here are some of the highlights from day two. In this live talk with LeadingAgile’s Marty Bradley, we’ll dig into the topic of Enterprise Transformation and discuss how it’s different from a traditional Agile PMO.

Last week, the biggest conference in the Agile industry took place in Washington DC at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. We were proud to be a sponsor of this event and we were even more excited about catching up with friends—both old and new. For those of you who couldn't make it to the conference, we wanted to give you a little taste of what it's all about, so we decided to live-stream our podcast out of our booth in the Prince George Exhibitor Hall. We had a chance to talk to a lot of really smart and interesting people while we were there; some who were speaking at the conference, others who were simply attending, and even a few who were involved in turning this event into a reality. Here are some of the highlights from day two. In this live talk with Dean Leffingwell, creator of SAFe, we discuss his Agile 2019 talk focus: increasing people’s understanding of what Business Agility really encompasses, and the evolution of its tenets.

Last week, the biggest conference in the Agile industry took place in Washington DC at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. We were proud to be a sponsor of this event and we were even more excited about catching up with friends—both old and new. For those of you who couldn't make it to the conference, we wanted to give you a little taste of what it's all about, so we decided to live-stream our podcast out of our booth in the Prince George Exhibitor Hall. We had a chance to talk to a lot of really smart and interesting people while we were there; some who were speaking at the conference, others who were simply attending, and even a few who were involved in turning this event into a reality. Here are some of the highlights from day two. In this live talk with Linda Rising, we discuss learnings from the book Thinking Fast and Slow, and how to use Daniel Kahneman’s research-supported approach to do a better job of thinking as an individual as

We're just days away from the start of the biggest Agile event of the year. Agile 2019 begins in Washington D.C. on August 5th and LeadingAgile will be there in full force. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Executive Talent Lead Priya Sethuraman joins Dave Prior to share some tips and advice for those attending the conference who want to make the most out of their time. The Agile Conference is an intense week filled with hundreds of sessions and events focused on helping attendees level up their Agile game. Whether you're attending for the first time, or you're a seasoned conference pro,  this podcast will offer valuable recommendations to help you maximize the value you get from the time you spend in D.C.—and survive the conference intact. If you're attending, LeadingAgile has two sessions you won't want to miss: Mike Cottmeyer - Organizat

And now for something completely different… Kaely Hall has been working in the capacity of ScrumMaster and Product Owner for the last 16 months. She recently took LeadingAgile’s Certified Scrum Product Owner training and in this episode of SoundNotes, Kaely shares how her work as a Product Strategist for Big Nerd Ranch requires her to play the role of ScrumMaster for some clients, Project Manager for some clients, and Product Owner for others. During the interview, Kaely also offers advice and tips or those just stepping into a client-facing an SM or PO role, and how important it is to raise your EQ and develop a rapport with your client as quickly as possible. Blog Post Kaely’s blog post is here: https://bit.ly/2JKVNOW Contacting Kaely Hall Email: kaelyhall33@gmail.com LinkedIn: <a href='https://www.linkedin.com/i

This episode of SoundNotes features 2 questions recently submitted by students from our CSM and CSPO classes. LeadingAgile’s Sarah Smith and I respond to the questions, sharing our thoughts, recommended practices, and things to watch out for. The two questions are: 1. Is it okay for the ScrumMaster to take on additional (non-ScrumMaster) work during the Sprint? 2. When you have unfinished work at the end of a Sprint, does it automatically carry over into the next Sprint, and should you re-estimate it before you begin working on it again? In responding to the first question we discuss the potential impact of planning for the SM to take on non-SM work during the Sprint, how that can impact the team’s ability to deliver and, if the SM takes on additional work, what should that work be? The second question focuses on the situation where you get to the end of the Sprint, you have partially completed work and many teams will automatically push that into the ne

In this episode of SoundNotes, we tackle the question of whether or not it's a good idea for the Development Team to limit the size of work brought into a Sprint. Many teams consider this to be a valuable practice during Sprint Planning or when creating a Definition of Ready. The goal is to make sure that the Development Team is not committing work into a Sprint that they cannot complete during the course of a Sprint. This often shows up as something like “Nothing bigger than an 8” (for teams using Fibonacci to estimate User Story Points). While this practice can be valuable for the Development Team, it also has an impact on the Product Owner and how they prepare work for Sprint Planning. During the podcast, LeadingAgile SVP and Executive Consultant, Scott Sehlhorst and Senior Consultant Andrew Young talk with Dave about whether or not this practice actually helps and how it can become an impediment for the Product Owner who is trying to plan out work for the Release.

Julianne Jones is a Principal Consultant with LeadingAgile. Her work includes interfacing with the leaders of high profile organizations and pairing with them in order to help Transform their organization to achieve true Business Agility. She's also someone who believes in giving back to the Agile community. Recently, Julianne spent a week serving as the ScrumMaster for the volunteers that helped put on the 2019 North American Global Scrum Gathering. In this episode of SoundNotes, Julianne shares some details about her experience volunteering for the Scrum Alliance. She talks about the work she did in Austin acting as a servant leader for the many people who gave their time in order to make the North American Global Scrum Gathering one of the most valuable Agile events to take place each year. During the interview, Dave and Julianne discuss why volunteering for professional organizations is so important, the benefits you receive as a reward for your time, and what it’s like t

In this week’s episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Senior Consultant Sara McClintock and Dave take on two topics submitted by students from our CSM and CSPO classes: 1. What can I do in an organization to grow and promote our Sprint Reviews? 2. Stakeholder demand for timelines or deadlines being an impediment for the team. Sara and Dave discuss different approaches to helping leadership understand the importance of Sprint Reviews and why their participation is so necessary for delivering a successful product. They also explore different techniques for responding to requests/demands that include unrealistic timelines and ways to begin coaching leadership into prioritizing the work, so that if a date commitment is established, the team can maximize the value they can deliver by the deadline. Contacting Sara McClintock If you’d like to contact Sara you can reach her at: Web: https://w

At LeadingAgile we believe that the ability to realize the benefits of an Agile approach begins with there core things: stable teams, a well-formed backlog, and the ability to consistently deliver working tested software. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Managing Consultant, Jeff Howey, spends time talking with Dave about what a “well-formed backlog” actually is. Jeff and Dave discuss characteristics of a well-formed backlog, how you know if you’ve got one and why that's so important. Along the way, they also explore the differences between Epics, Features, Themes, and Stories and how those terms might be used to break down all the work that led up to Marvel’s new film “Avengers: End Game”. Note: Jeff recommends listening to the podcast at 1.5 normal speed. This will allow you to get through the podcast quicker, but the pace should still be okay for most listeners. Contacting Jeff Howey If you’d like to contact Jeff you can reach him at: Email:

When we develop products, we're responsible for maximizing the value we deliver to the customer. In order to do this, we have to understand who we're actually building the products for. We need to know who the customer is, what problem(s) we're trying to solve for them,  and any additional information we can gather that will give us more insight into their needs and how we can address them. We also need to have an awareness of where our assumptions about the customer may be introducing risk. Unfortunately, we often get so focused on creating and delivering that this area of focus doesn't receive the level of attention that's needed to ensure that we're solving the right problem(s) in the best way possible. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile SVP and Executive Consultant, Scott Sehlhorst makes the case for why this work is so important and why empathy maps are such a critical (and often ignored) aspect of this work. Scott and Dave talk through a step-by-step approach y

When it comes to Agile Transformation, every organization has to deal with things in the system that are blocking them from developing an Agile System of Delivery. Impediments to Transformation exist at many levels: organizations, architectural, cultural, etc. Many of these impediments are common across companies and can be known and planned for ahead of time. In LeadingAgile's approach, there are 3 Things that are necessary for an organization to be capable of an Agile approach. Those 3 Things are stable teams, a well-formed backlog, and the ability to deliver a working tested increment of product on a regular basis. Anything that gets in the way of these 3 Things must be addressed as part of the Transformation. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Founder and CEO, Mike Cottmeyer, and Dave Prior discuss what a System of Transformation, some of the more common impediments to Agile Transformation, and ways to cope with those impediments. This episode is a follow

Metrics are important. Tracking work is important.  “What gets measured gets done." But, if you don’t understand why you're measuring things, or what the problem you're trying to solve when you begin measuring things—no amount of metrics is going to help. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Senior Consultant, Jessica Wolfe and Dave Prior talk about metrics and how important it is to understand what problem you're trying to solve when you begin using metrics to understand performance and improvement.  This interview is a follow up to a presentation Jessica gave recently at Agile Tampa called "Achieving Success with any Agile Planning Tool". During the podcast, Jessica and Dave discuss some of the more common things organizations initially track when they're moving away from a traditional approach, what to be careful about when you begin using these metrics, how the metrics that you're focused

This week, on LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, Staff Consultant Sarah Smith shares some tips to survive the role of ScrumMaster. During the interview, Sarah and Dave discuss how to create a stakeholder map that a ScrumMaster can use to understand the best approach to take when interacting with different stakeholders in the organization. They also talk about how to develop greater empathy for stakeholders and how important it is to understand the different motivators driving their behavior, as well as how to use that information to get better at managing your relationship with the stakeholders in your organization. Further Reading Here are some of the books that Sarah and Dave recommend for learning more about navigating the tricker parts of interacting with stakeholders in your organization: Getting to Yes Getting Past No Drive <a

Organizations embracing an Agile approach to their work value their ability to inspect and adapt. They value the ability to continually learn and deepen their understanding of what problems they are trying to solve so that they can inspect and adapt toward a better solution. The challenge is that just because we're Agile and we want to inspect and adapt our way to a better solution doesn't mean that we can ignore the constraints of scope, cost, and time. Those constraints matter and we need to find the best solution possible within those constraints. Figuring out how to do that is no small thing. In this week's podcast, LeadingAgile's Founder and CEO, Mike Cottmeyer spends some time talking with Dave Prior about how to maximize the value we're able to deliver in the presence of constraints. Mike's presentation from TriAgile http://bit.ly/2HICyon Contacting Mike Cottmeyer If you’d like to contact Mike you can reach him at:

In this week's SoundNotes we're focusing on one of the fundamental elements in Scrum: The Sprint Planning Meeting. During the podcast, Dave Prior reviews the key aspects of Sprint Planning: its purpose, how it works, who attends, what it produces, and tips to help you make sure yours are achieving the desired result. If you want to help protect your team from over (or under) committing during Sprint Planning, each team member is going to need to have a solid understanding of their capacity for work during the Sprint. If you'd like to check out the Individual Capacity Calculator that Dave mentioned in the podcast, you can find that here: Individual Capacity Calculator And if you'd like to check out the official explanation of Sprint Planning and how it fits into a Sprint, check out the Sprint Planning section of

When people talk about Agile, they often talk about the approach they are taking: Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming, SAFe, LeSS, DAD, Nexus, etc. These and the other frameworks and methodologies that could be considered to fall under the Agile umbrella are Systems of Delivery because they are techniques for delivering. There's often an assumption that if we adopt the System of Delivery, our organization will Transform to Agile. Sometimes this happens, but often, organizations need more than a System of Delivery. They need a way to go about helping their organization evolve into a state where it's capable of realizing the benefits of the various Systems of Delivery. This journey from your current state, into a state that's capable of fully leveraging the System of Delivery, may actually require a System of Transformation. In this episode of SoundNotes, our CEO & Founder, Mike Cottmeyer spends some time with Dave digging into what a System of Transformation is, why this

This week, on SoundNotes, we're featuring another question from a student in one of our Certified Scrum classes. The question came from someone who's working in an organization that doesn't see value in the role of Product Owner and isn't convinced that it's needed as part of the Scrum Team. The question: What is the worth of a good P.O.? LeadingAgile Senior Consultant, Tim Wise spent some time with Dave talking through various aspects of the question. Together, Dave and Tim will explore the role of the P.O., the value a P.O. can add in an organization, and some contexts in which different aspects of the P.O. role might be solved through other means. Lastly, Dave and Tim will discuss how an organization that's focused on maximizing the value delivered to the customer might go about measuring the value of a Product Owner. Contacting Tim Email: [email protected] LeadingAgile: ht

In one of my recent Certified Scrum Master classes, I had a number of students who were working on projects involving migrating from a legacy data warehouse to new data warehouses. Figuring out how to apply Scrum to the work they were doing presented a number of challenges and left some open questions. Here are two examples of the data related topics that showed up in the Parking Lot: How do I apply Scrum to data factory? As a Data Architect, I want to learn how Scrum applies to data factory so I can be part of a successful Dev. Team In talking with the students about the work they were doing, I was left with a question: Is Scrum really the best option for this type of work? While I'm able to understand the challenges they face—both with the work and applying Scum in this situation—my background does not include the necessary work experience to speak to this topic with any level of authority. Fortunately, at LeadingAgile I ha

This week, on SoundNotes, we've got Part 3 of a trio of interviews with LeadingAgile Chief Methodologist and Co-Founder Dennis Stevens. The series focuses on how to build an organization that can embrace change. In the final episode of the series, Dennis and Dave cover how to prioritize work being done to maximize return. During the interview, they discuss how prioritization at all levels of the organization can support the ability to inspect and adapt and how some lingering traditional approaches to work, compensation, and prioritization can have a negative impact on your organization's ability to embrace change. Links If you'd like to check out the first two parts of this interview: Building an Organizational System That Can Embrace Change  Designing a Feedback-Driven Strategic Execution Model Here are links to the two other podcasts mentioned during the interv

In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Senior Consultant AJ Sanford joins Dave to answer a student question that's frequently asked in Dave's CSM and CSPO classes. How do you use Scrum when you have to coordinate work between teams that are using both Waterfall and Agile all within one organization? During the interview, AJ and Dave touch on the following topics: What to expect from an Agile pilot project The types of challenges you can expect when you begin working on Agile Transformation Why you need to align on quality standards as well as schedule The importance of focusing on communication when coordinating work across multiple teams How risk management practices and Cost of Delay can help when coordinating work across teams in a mixed environment Tracking dependencies across teams Why a culture of shared learning and empathy is such a vital part of working with teams in a mixed environment</li

Mikkel Ladegaard is a Senior VP and Executive Consultant with LeadingAgile. This week, on SoundNotes, Mikkel and Dave Prior discuss Mikkel's focus on designing product-centric organizations in which the company's strategic prioritization of work is implicit and decision-making can be localized at the team level. During the conversation, they unpack a range of issues related to this topic, including how favor-based economies work, what the value is in designing organizations where there is a separation between those who identify the problem and those who solve the problem, and what the benefits are in making sure your organization is managing value rather than resources. Contacting Mikkel Ladegaard If you’d like to contact Mikkel, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mikkel-ladegaard/ LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2GU3Fg7</

In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile's own Brandon Dudley—Senior Consultant—shares his experience making the shift from a Waterfall mindset to a more Agile way of thinking and working. Brandon got his start in traditional, PMI-centric, project management working in the auto industry in Detroit. His introduction to Agile didn't involve the hard break that many of us experience. For him, this was just another set of tools to help him get work done. During the podcast, Dave and Brandon talk through his experience of transforming his way of thinking about people and work and his advice for those on a similar journey. Outside of work, one of Brandon’s biggest interests is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Mixed Martial Arts. The work he does there, both study and practice, have a significant impact on his view of work, how he interacts with people, and how he deals with challenging situations. This is a topic that Brandon and Dave dig into during the podcast as well. Contacting B

When we try to explain Agile, many of us begin by trying to describe some of the characteristics of how we approach work. We often talk about things like: Limiting work in process Delivering smaller increments of work Reducing team size and empowering the teams to become cross-functional and self-organizing These are all things that, from an Agile point of view, are good because they help us to focus on the most important things, optimize flow, localize decision making, and deliver the most important thing at a higher level of quality.   But, for those who are not familiar with our approach, what they may hear is I can't have all the things I want The things I do get will be smaller I no longer have control of the people and how they work A lot of this comes down to the words we use to convey the message.   This week's episode of SoundNotes is a discussion centered around the Language of Loss and the Language o

This episode of SoundNotes features, LeadingAgile Technical Consultant, Rich Dammkoehler in a conversation about why it is so important to make sure your organization is focused on improving their technical practices. If you're struggling with helping your organization understand why introducing technical practices like collective code ownership, refactoring, pair programming, and test-driven development is such a crucial part of attaining business Agility; this podcast will help you build the case. Rich is a deeply experienced developer who got his start doing development using Waterfall and then found his way to Agile. In the Agile Transformation work that Rich does now, he focuses on helping organizations understand why and how the techniques and tools that came from Extreme Programming make them more effective at solving business problems and bring greater business success to the organization. Towards the end of the interview, Rich also explains what it is that kee

If your company is working on Agile Transformation, understanding how you can track the organization’s response to change and the impact it's having on business outcomes can be a bit daunting. It’s not so tough to track whether or not people have been trained and what practices they are using, but when it comes to understanding what people see, feel, believe, and desire, that can be harder to understand. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Managing Consultant, Jeff Howey and Dave Prior talk through some of the things you need to consider when trying to understand how change is taking root, how it's impacting what people think, how they work, and what they see, feel, believe, and desire. Contacting Jeff Howey If you’d like to contact Jeff you can reach him at: Email: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffhowey/ Contacting Dave Prior If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at: Leadin

Estimating work in Agile is something many people struggle to understand. It's not that it's an especially complicated thing, but there is often confusion about things like why many people prefer to use story points instead of hours, why some people feel compelled to try and convert story points to hours (and why some of us find that so frightening), how t-shirt sizing works, and the eternal question of how do I get my teams to estimate accurately. Hint: They're called estimates, not exactimates for a reason. There's even a whole camp dedicated to the idea of notestimating work. So, if this is something you're struggling with, you're not alone. This episode of SoundNotes is a brief tutorial on Agile Estimation and some of the ways you and your team could estimate work. The podcast offers some tips in general about Agile estimation, things to watch out for, how to estimate work using Story Points and Poker Planning, how to estimate work using T-shirt sizi

Iteration 2019 has begun and we’re starting off the year with an episode of SoundNotes where, LeadingAgile CEO and Founder, Mike Cottmeyer shares what's on his mind as we begin the new year. During the interview Mike talks about some of the trends he’s been paying attention to in and around the Agile space, the changes he sees coming down the pike, and how that's influencing his focus and expectations for the next 12 months. Oh.. and… Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Links Whitepaper - https://www.leadingagile.com/whitepaper/ WakeUp Warrior.com http://wakeupwarriormovie.com Contacting Mike Cottmeyer If you’d like to contact Mike you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer/ LinkedIn: https://ww

A few weeks ago, Dennis Stevens and I recorded a podcast called Building an Organizational System That Can Embrace Change. The podcast introduced three critical concepts which we are exploring at a deeper level in additional interviews. In this episode of SoundNotes, Dennis Stevens, LeadingAgile’s co-founder and Chief Methodologist, and Dave Prior, dig into one of those key concepts: How to design an execution model that can provide feedback which can then be incorporated back into the strategic planning. If you're involved in making strategic decisions and planning at the program and portfolio level, there is a lot of valuable information here about how to reduce risk and create greater optionality for your organization. Contacting Dennis Stevens Web: https://www.

While many organizations would like to adopt an Agile approach, there are certain types that—due to the nature of their work and their relationship with the client—are not an easy fit with a process like Scrum. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Senior Consultants AJ Sanford and Andrew Fuqua explore how Process Maps and Value Stream Maps can help you gain greater clarity on where there are practices that need tuning and how Agile might be able to help. During the conversation, AJ, Andrew, and Dave also discuss the difference between Value Stream Maps and Process Maps and when one may be more helpful than another. If you'd like check out this sample Process Map.  Links Mentioned in the Podcast <a href='https://www.amazon.com/Learning-See-Stream-Mapping-Eliminate/dp/0966784308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542042124&sr=8-1&keywords=learning+to+see+value+stream+mapping+to+

LeadingAgile has grown significantly over the past few years. Along the way, we’ve found that one of the most critical elements of growing successfully is how we introduce new folks to the company and how we approach helping organizations Transform. In this episode of SoundNotes, Dave is joined by Betsy Layman and Matt Smith—two of the latest additions to the LeadingAgile family. Both Betsy and Matt started their on-boarding process a few weeks ago as Expedition Lead and Transformation Lead, respectively. Together, they discuss the difference between these roles, what it's like to go through LeadingAgile’s on-boarding process, and how it helps to position our new team members for success. To learn more about joining LeadingAgile - Click Here Contacting Betsy Layman Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/betsy-layman/ LinkedIn:  <a h

This episode of SoundNotes features LeadingAgile’s Chief Methodologist and Co-Founder, Dennis Stevens, and focuses on how to build an organization that can embrace change.  The interview provides an overview of some of the key capabilities an Agile organization needs to accelerate learning, increase optionality, and improve their decision making including: How to incorporate market sensing capabilities into strategic planning How to design an execution model that can provide feedback which can then be incorporated back into the strategic planning How to prioritize the work being done to maximize return The interview digs into some of the steps an organization will need to take to develop these abilities and the challenges that come along with it. We also explore the impact on organizations that can’t remove all their internal dependencies, prioritizing risk to support learning, and the need for an organizational information broker that ca

One of the most important things you can do for your team is to make sure you have a clearly defined, and well-documented, Definition of Done. If you’ve ever seen footage of the flight control center when NASA launches a rocket you’ve seen a great example of a Definition of Done. Imagine what it would be like if NASA didn’t have all those stations that had to report in with “Go for launch” or “No Go for launch”. Imagine how that would work if we assumed we all had the same understanding of what "Ready for Launch" actually meant? In this episode of SoundNotes, Dave Prior is giving a tutorial on how to create a Definition of Done for your team. If you're following Scrum as it's defined, then “done” and potentially shippable are intended to be the same thing. Unfortunately, for many organizations, this isn't something that holds true. For example, your team may require additional integration testing that is done by a separate team and happens outside the Sprint. Yes, it’s

Earlier this month, Dave sat down for another Q&A with our CEO, Mike Cottmeyer. Prior to recording, we asked the audience to submit their questions via a sign up sheet, and Dave collected some questions from the students in his certified Scrum training classes. However, when people get to asking questions about Agile, Mike has found that the questions are often the wrong question. In order to get the right answer from a wrong question, you have to go back what Mike calls "first principles." Learn more about first principles, and Mike's latest thoughts on Agile Transformation in this episode of SoundNotes Live. Contacting Mike Cottmeyer If you’d like to contact Mike you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/ Twitter: <a href='https://twit

Once again, Mike and Dave sat down to discuss some of Mike's latest thoughts on Agile Transformation and answer questions that we received from the audience. Some of the topics discussed were: Agile PMO, velocity, and governance just to name a few. These live Q&A sessions will be recurring, so make sure you're on the lookout for the next installment. For more of Mike's latest thoughts on Agile Transformation, you can check out his latest white paper, here: www.leadingagile.com/whitepaper Contacting Mike If you’d like to contact Mike you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/ Twitter: <a href='https://exit.sc/?url

In this week’s episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, we’ve got an interview/case study of sorts. Marty Bradley, Greg King, and Jessica Wolfe share the story of how they were able to leverage tooling and reporting in support of the transformation effort at one of LeadingAgile’s clients. In telling the story, they explain what was in place when they began the transformation, the data elements they used to help create awareness and transparency at the beginning of the project, and how the reporting evolved over time. They also discuss how some of the more popular metrics, like velocity, cannot tell a story alone. Understanding what is actually happening may require that you examine  multiple data points at the same time. If you’d like to get in touch with Marty, Greg, Jessica or Dave, here is how to reach them... Contacting Marty Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/marty-bradley/ Twitter: <a href

Back in September, Mike and Dave got together for our first ever live Q&A. The conversation was streamed on Facebook, so they were able to answer some viewer questions, as well as questions Dave had been collecting, beforehand, in his CSM and CSPO classes. We're planning on making the live Q&A a recurring event, so make sure you're on the lookout for the next one. We want to answer all of your burning, Agile related questions. Contacting Mike If you’d like to contact Mike you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mcottmeyer Email: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ LinkedI

his Spring at Agile Australia 2018, Martin Fowler, Chief Scientist at Thoughtworks and Agile Manifesto co-author gave a Keynote titled "The State of Agile Software in 2018". He recently published the text of his talk here. (If you refer video, you can find it on InfoQ.) His Keynote centered around 3 specific concerns with the current state of Agile, the first of which was The Agile Industrial Complex and imposing process on teams. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile CEO, Mike Cottmeyer shares his thoughts on the Agile Industrial Complex and some of the problems it can create. During the interview we dig into why the challenges come into play and what we can do to try and resolve them.   Contacting Mike

Cara presented two sessions at Agile 2018: Shifting Diversity Through to Inclusion What Part Does My Priviledge Play (with Steve Holyer) Codex Story: Challenging the Metrics that limit Diversity in the Software Industry Contact Info: http://projectcodex.co https://twitter.com/Cara_Faye

Esther's Sessions at Agile 2018 were: Creating an Environment for Successful Agile Teams Clarity, Conditions, and Constraints: An Alternative to Top Down Control  Contact Info: http://www.estherderby.com/ https://twitter.com/estherderby

Contact Info: https://www.agileclassrooms.com/ https://www.agileineducation.org/ https://twitter.com/agileschools  

Laura's sessions at Agile 2018: Never Would I Ever: Examining Your Agile Non-Negotiables w/ Jenny Tarwater Say “Yes" to “No" - The Power of “No" in Agile Contact Info: https://www.radtac.com/ https://twitter.com/laurapowers

Natalie led two sessions at Agile 2018: MVR: Minimally Viable Relationships (with Jenny Tarwater) The Customer is Not Always Right... and Neither are You For more on the Women In Agile Initiative: Click Here.  Contact Info: http://nataliewarnert.com https://twitter.com

We had the chance to sit down with Olaf to discuss the workshop he led at Agile 2018. The workshop was called: Rekindle the Magic of Agile Click below to learn more about "Clean Language": http://bit.ly/cleanagile2018

Scott is one of the thought leaders behind Disciplined Agile. He stopped by the booth to talk about not only Disciplined Agile, but also his Agile 2018 session entitled: Agile Architecture: Mindset, Skills, ad Practices. Contact Info: @scottambler

Agile Alliance Board Member Becky Hartman stopped by to talk about her work with the Alliance, the power of volunteering, and what it was like to move from a Purple Shirt to a Board Member. Contact Info: https://twitter.com/BecksPM

Bernie and Dave sat down to talk about team collaboration and Bernie's talk on swarming as a team: Harness the Hive: Bottom Line Impacts of Team Collaboration. Contact Info: https://about.me/berniemaloney https://twitter.com/berniemaloney

Dean and Dave sat down, at Agile 2018, to talk about how you can use SAFe to drive enterprise-scale innovation. Dean's also led a session at the conference called: Driving Enterprise-Scale Innovation with Scaled Agile Framework For more on the 2018 SAFe Summit (October 1-2, 2018): http://safesummit.com Contact Info: https://www.scaledagileframework.com/ https://twitter.com/Deanleffingwell  

Our very own Chief Methodologist popped in to sit down with Dave and talk shop. Contact Info:  https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dennis-stevens/ https://twitter.com/dennisstevens

Dhaval's session at Agile 2018 was entitled: Worm Holes to Product Innovation: Fold your Edges Contact Info: https://evolveagility.com https://twitter.com/dhavalpanchal  

John sat down to give us a sneak preview of what his Agile 2018 session: Agile Metrics - A GQM Approach. Contact Info:  https://twitter.com/tannerjs  

Larry led a session at Agile 2018 called: Agile Quantified: Measuring the Impact of Agility Contact Info: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larrymaccherone/ https://twitter.com/LMaccherone

Peter stopped by the set of SoundNotes to tell us a little bit about his history as a professional pass trumpet player, and how that relates to Agile. In addition to a few lightning talks, Peter also led two sessions: The Surprising Links Between Agile and Jazz and Overcoming Immunity to Change Contact Info: https://twitter.com/tptman https://agileforall.com

Keynote speaker Troy Magennis stopped by the booth to talk about his Agile 2018 Session: What is the Story with Agile Data? Contact Info: http://focusedobjective.com/ https://twitter.com/t_magennis

Cass led a session at Agile 2018 entitled: The Flying and the Thud: Mental Health Issues on Agile Teams Contact Info: kroll.com/ Twitter

David stopped by the booth to tell us all about his talk: Lean Experiments with Agile Teams, which is about his thoughts on Lean Startup and Design Thinking and how to blend those things with Agile. Contact Info: David Bland on Twitter

Keynote speaker, Dominic Price came by the set to talk about his keynote speech:The Future of Work and Healthy Teams (that might ot be Agile). He also shares some stories about his adventures in scaling Atlassian Contact Info:  Dominic on Twitter

Jeff Patton led an Ask Me Almost Anything session at Agile 2018. And, Jeff has also authored a book called User Story Mapping Contact Info jpattonassociates.com/ Twitter

Joe was at Agile 2018 facilitating a workshop on Business Agility with Innovation Accounting Contact Info:  Twitter  

At Agile 2018, Lyssa and Dave sat down to  talk about Lyssa's Inspire Me Deck, Integral Life Practice, and the concept of "shadow work." Contact Info agilecoachinginstitute.com https://twitter.com/CoachAgileTeams Lyssa on Twitter  

Our two favorite purple shirts, stopped by the booth to talk about what volunteering to be an Agile 2018 event coordinator looks like and how you can get involved in next year's conference. Contact Info:  Sarah Klarich on Twitter Pam Corbin on Twitter 

Erika and Michele's session at Agile 2018: Verbal Agility - Facilitation Tips and Techniques Contact Info Erika  Lenz: erikalenz.com/ Twitter Michele Sliger sligerconsulting.com/ Twitter

LeadingAgile's very own CEO, Mike Cottmeyer, stopped by the booth to talk about his Agile 2018 speaker session entitled: Agile Transformation Explained. To download the white paper that corresponds to Mike's talk click the link below: Download the White Paper Contact Info Mike:leadingagile.com/ Twitter 

Our very own CFO, Paul Argiry led a session at Agile 2018 entitled: Addressing Your CFO’s Concerns to an Enterprise-Wide Agile Transformation Contact Info Paul:  leadingagile.com/ LinkedIn

Ron and Chet's Agile 2018 Session:Ask Us Almost Anything - Ron and Chet Experience Agileis taking place in Lisbon, Portugal on October 1-2 Contact Info: Ron Jeffries: RonJeffries.com/ Twitter Chet Hendrickson: hendricksonxp.com/ Twitter

Bob led a session at Agile 2018 entitled: Agile Road Trip: Lessons from a Coach at Toyota Contact Info Bob: zen-pm.blogspot.com/Twitter  

Diana's Sessions Ask me Almost Anything Going Beyond "Are we Doomed: to Sticky, Tricky and Icky?" Shining a Light on Sexism at Work w/ Sharon Buckmaster Diana's Books Liftoff: Launching Agile Projects and Teams with Ainsley Nies Agile Retrospectives with Esther Derby Contact Info Diana: agilefluency.org/ Twitter  

Linda's Agile 2018 Sessions Ask Me Almost Anything Thinking Fast and Slow - So What Can We Do About It Linda's books include The Pattern Almanac 2000 Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas More Fearless Change  Contact Info Linda: lindarising.org/ Twitter

Mark and Johanna Co-Presented a talk at Agile 2018 entitled: You have to Say More There: Effective Communication in a Distributed Agile Team Their book is called From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teamsit can be purchased on LeanPub Johanna led another session at Agile 2018: Agile and Lean Roadmapping Mark also led an additional session at Agile 2018: Agile Distributed Teams—Oxymoron or Option? Contact Info Johanna: jrothman.com/Twitter Mark: markkilby.com /Twitter

Agile 2018 is almost here! Whether you’re attending for the very first time, or you’re a seasoned veteran, getting the most out of this Agile experience…all comes down to how you show up. In this episode of SoundNotes, Dave has recruited Rachel Howard and Tim Zack—our Chief Cultural Officer and Chief Marketing Officer, respectively. Together, these three will help you prepare for—and maximize your time in—San Diego. Whether you’re coming to find a new gig, learn new techniques you can bring back to work, or you just want to network. There are tips in this podcast that can help. And just in case you aren't able to attend the conference, keep an eye on LeadingAgile's Facebook Pageand our YouTube feed. We'll be streaming and posting interviews with speakers and thought leaders all week long at Agile 2018. Contacting Rachel If you’d lik

LeadingAgile's CFO, Paul Argiry, will be at Agile 2018 to lead a session on Addressing Your CFO's Concerns To An Enterprise-Wide Agile Transformation. In this episode of LeadingAgile's SoundNotes, Paul offers a preview of the session he'll be leading in San Diego. During the interview, Paul and Dave discuss why it's so important to understand what your CFO's concerns are when it comes to making the case for—or tracking progress towards—Agile Transformation. They also touch on the level of financial literacy that we should be expecting Agile coaches to have.   Agile 2018 LeadingAgile Presentations Mike Cottmeyer - Agile Transformation Explained- Tuesday, August 7 • 15:45 - 17:00 John Tanner  - Agile Metrics - The GQM Approach- Wednesday, August 8 • 10:45 - 12:00 Paul Argiry  - Addressing Your CFO's Concerns

John Tanner is going to be at Agile 2018 delivering his talk entitled: Agile Metrics - The GQM Approach. The session will take place on Wednesday, August 8 at 10:45 AM. If you're new to GQM, it stands for Goal - Question - Metrics—which has been John's key area of focus for quite some time. If you're working towards gaining clarity around what data to collect at the different levels of your organization—and what to do with the information those metrics provide—John's session is one you won't want to miss. In this episode of SoundNotes, John provides a quick preview of some of the topics he'll be covering during his session in San Diego and some of the new elements he's included based on using these techniques in the field. Agile 2018 LeadingAgile Presentations Mike Cottmeyer - Agile Transformation Explained- Tuesday, August 7 • 15:45 - 17:00 John Tanner  - <a href='http://sched.co/EUCr'

Creating a Definition of Ready is one of the best ways to help your Team(s) make sure they're only committing to work they can actually get done. It's also one of the best ways for a Product Owner to make sure they're not going to waste valuable time in Sprint Planning by asking the Team to work on things that aren't in an actionable state. In this episode of SoundNotes, Rick Austin and Dave Prior discuss how to go about creating a Definition of Ready and why it's so critical to your Team's ability to deliver. They also cover some examples of the types of things you might want to include in your Definition of Ready. BACKGROUND INFO If you'd like some background on this topic before listening, check out the following: Why You Need A Definition of Ready w/ Dave Nicolette(podcast) D

In this episode of SoundNotes, Mike Cottmeyer and Dave Prior discuss how organizational Transformation continues to evolve. The conversation offers a brief preview of some of the things Mike will be covering at his Agile 2018session: “Agile Transformation Explained”http://sched.co/EUF1 During the interview, Mike and Dave discuss how the skill sets needed to lead and shepherd those Transformations have grown to include much more than what we would have expected from an Agile coach several years ago. They also explore how we continue to refine our understanding of what happens during organizational Transformation and how we can better prepare our clients for the changes they will experience.   LeadingAgile at Agile 2018 Mike Cottmeyer’s session “Agile Transformation Explained”will take place on Tuesday, August 7 at 3:45 PM.  You can learn more about it here: http://sched.co/EUF1 Paul Argi

This episode of SoundNotes focuses on Definition of Ready. A few weeks ago, Dave Nicolette created a post in Field Notes that was the result of a current debate in the Agile community about whether having a Definition of Ready helps, or harms our ability to deliver value for the customer. The episode begins with Dave Nicolette explaining Definition of Ready within the context of the LeadingAgile model. After that, he and Dave Prior discuss/debate the the pros and cons of DoR from their respective backgrounds (Developer vs. PM). Links From The Podcast The LeadingAgile Compass www.leadingagile.com/our-compass/ Dave Nicolette's Field Notes Post "Should Agile Teams Have a Definition of Ready? www.leadingagile.com/2018/05/should…tion-of-ready/</a

If you are working at an organization that is applying Agile practices across the enterprise, chances are,  somewhere early on in the transformation a tool was selected to help the teams manage their work and hopefully provide management with some kind of visibility into the work being done. One of the unfortunate truths about the tools is that while they are capable of doing a lot of things, most companies do not invest the time in setting the tool up to work for them. This often leads to teams struggling with having to adjust their practices to meet the tool and management not getting the visibility it needs into how the work is going. It doesn’t have to be this way. The tools can add a lot of value, but you have to get them set up right for that to happen. In this episode of SoundNotes, Jessica Wolfe shares a story about how she was able to help one organization adjust the tool to provide the business with the information the CEO needed to understand how work

In this episode of SoundNotes, Dean Stevens and Dave Prior dig into Capability Mapping, how it works and why it is such an important part of the transforming your organization. Capability Mapping is a technique that can be used to quickly gain greater awareness of how an organization does what it does, what processes it uses to do what it does, and where there are opportunities to remove waste and optimize flow. During the interview you’ll hear Dean walk through the steps of identifying the processes an organization has in place, understanding the value each process provides, and finding ways to optimize these processes for better performance. This approach will also help identify gaps your organization may need to resolve in order to achieve its’ goals. Links from the Podcast For some background on capability mapping, check out this Harvard Business Review Article: https://hbr.org/2008/06/th

For any organization moving to Agile, the question of how to handle tracking and reporting is going to present challenges. If you are moving from a traditional environment, there may be an expectation (dependency) on traditional forms of reporting. If you are starting out with an electronic tool, there may be a wide range of reporting options. Just because you an create a report, does not mean you should. If your audience doesn't know how to digest the information, you may create cognitive dissonance and (cue inner Yoda voice) dissonance leads to confusion leads to fear, fear leads to "help". #thatwassarcasm Derek Huether recently put up two blog entries that dig into come of the challenges that come with determining what to track and how to report on it.   In this episode of SoundNotes, Derek and Dave pick up the conversation but come at it from a different angle.  If your PMO is stuck the middle of some quasi-agile/waterfall environment and trying to figure out how t

One of the most important things you can do to help your team be successful is to ensure they have a Definition of Done. Once you have it, you need to revisit in in each Retrospective meeting to make any updates and you need to explain it to the Stakeholders in every Sprint Review. A Definition of Done is more than just Acceptance Criteria. These are the conditions that must be met for your organization to safely release work into the wild. This is especially critical if you are working in an environment where there is a difference between "done" and "shippable". In this episode of SoundNotes, Tim Wise and Dave Prior talk through why a Definition of Done is so critical to your team successfully delivering work, what level of detail you should include in your DoD, and how to create one. Links from the Podcast Why You Need A Vision Statement Contacting Tim E

For Development Teams transitioning to Agile one common challenge is breaking the work down into small vertical slices that can go from a Post-It Note to shippable product in 2-3 days. Most of the time, (there are always exceptions) the issue is not that the work cannot be broken down, but that the Development Team is accustomed to looking at the work in a more traditional way and they are not able to see how they could break it down into smaller actionable elements that can be developed independently and provide value and the opportunity to learn. If you're working with a team that is struggling with this, and you do not come from a technical background, the issue may be even more daunting. Without the in-depth knowledge of how the work might be executed, many people will feel ill-at-ease challenging the Dev Team's assertion that the work is just that big and can't be broken down. In this podcast, Tim Wise and Dave Prior take on the topic of what to do when the Develo

One of the common misconceptions about Agile is that there's no documentation. This simply isn't true. The second line of the Agile Manifesto reads: “Working software over comprehensive documentation” This doesn’t mean that we don’t have documentation. It just means that the folks who created the manifesto did not see the value in delivering the documentation at the expense of delivering working, tested software. In a recent Certified ScrumMaster class in NYC, one student raised an issue she was experiencing with her Development Team who is deeply committed to the “no documentation” camp. In this podcast, Dave Prior is joined by Anil Jaising (who helped to facilitate the New York class) to discuss the myth of no documentation, the truth about documentation in Agile, and how that can play out in a highly regulated/audited environment. Events Mentioned in the Podcast Big Apple Scrum Day: https://www.bigapplescrumda

This week, at the 2018 North American Global Scrum Gathering, the Scrum Alliance and Scrum co-founder, Dr. Jeff Sutherland, announced the creation of a new joint venture to train, coach, and promote Scrum@Scale. Scrum@Scale is an extension of the Scrum Framework that is designed to deliver business Agility across an entire organization. Dave Prior had a chance to sit down with Jeff during the Scrum Gathering and ask some questions about his partnership with the Scrum Alliance, Scrum@Scale, and how it can help organizations achieve greater business Agility. Links from the Podcast If you’d like to read the press release on the joint venture, you can find it here: https://tinyurl.com/yc5z4w3p Here is a link to the Scrum@Scale Guide Here is a link to Jeff's latest book, <a href='https://www.amazon.com/Scrum-Doing-Twice-Work-Half/dp/038534645

A few weeks ago Dave Nicolette put up a blog post in FieldNotes called "Putting the Journey Into Journeyman" (https://tinyurl.com/ybehorv7). I really enjoyed the post and wanted to ask Dave some additional questions about the idea of a Journeyman, how to reach that state, and what happens once you get there. In this episode of SoundNotes, Dave and I discuss what a Journeyman is, and what a Journeyman isn't. We discuss the skills LeadingAgile expects from a software Journeyman, how to know if you've reached this state, and what you should expect to happen after you get there and each one of the states that comes after Journeyman. (Oh Look!  A Squirell!) This podcast is also a great resource if you have been interviewing with LeadingAgile and you'd like to get a handle on the mindset of the folks who work here and what we expect of one another. If you'd like to check out Dave's original blog post, you can find it here: "P

In almost every CSM or CSPO class that Dave teaches he gets asked to explain the difference between Scrum and Kanban. So, in this episode of SoundNotes, Jessica Wolfe, Derek Huether, and  Dave take turns responding to the question and detailing some of the main differences between two of the most popular approaches to Agile. If you'd like to reach out to Jessica, Derek or Dave for more—here's their contact info: Contacting Jessica If you’d like to contact Jessica you can reach her at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/jessica-wolfe/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-wolfe-ab025a36/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thejessicawolfe Email: [email protected]

“Culture is just the boogeyman people use when they don't know how to articulate an organizational change management strategy that executives will buy into.” ~ Mike Cottmeyer In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile CEO, Mike Cottmeyer shares his thoughts on why we need to stop blaming culture when organizations are unable to adopt Agile. During the interview, Mike and Dave dig into the reasons why many of the organizations that struggle with Agile are dealing with deeply rooted mechanisms that extend far beyond culture. Unfortunately, one of the most common refrains in the Agile community is that the culture is the primary thing that must be addressed, and once that is solved, the rest will take care of itself. For many organizations that buy into the promise of Agile without having clarity on the organizational impediments they must overcome for Agile to be able to exist, maybe culture isn't the best place to start. If you'd like to read Mike's blog post on the

This episode of SoundNotes features a question submitted by a student in one of Dave's recent CSPO classes. Maheesh’s question centers on how to apply Scrum on a project that involves BI reporting and ETL. Since Jessica Wolfe and Derek Huether both have far more experience in that type of work than Dave does, he asked them to help him respond to the question. Here's the question we got from Maheesh: “As a Product Owner for a BI reporting platform I typically get requests for new reports and this might entail bringing the data from a CRM platform or any other platform into the data warehouse so that that requires building ETL for that and developing the report on top of that. Which typically cannot be done within a two week Sprint. So how would I go about taking this requirement from the customer and converting into shippable user stories that can be delivered through a Scrum methodology?” If you'd like to reach out to Jessica, Derek or Dave for more, here is the

After co-teaching a CSM class in Atlanta earlier this week, Tim Wise and Dave Prior sat down to talk about  Empathy in Agile. During their conversation, they dug into why empathy is such an important factor in developing an Agile mindset, working with teams, building trust, and helping your organization adopt an Agile approach to work. Tim and Dave also offer some advice on: How you can go about trying to develop empathy towards those up and down the org chart How that plays out in your communication with others How to deal with groups of people you may find especially difficult to have empathy towards Links from the Podcast The Responsibility Process by Christopher Avery Contacting Tim Email: [email protected]

This episode of SoundNotes is all about Vision Statements. Dave Prior offers his thoughts on why they're so critical to the success of your team and how to go about putting one together. One of the most important things a Product Owner can do to help the Development Team deliver value for the customer is to make sure they have clarity on the context of the problem they are trying to solve. If the Dev Team is just being given User Stories, and there's no understanding of the problem-space in which the story lives, it's going to be much harder for the Dev Team to make the choices that will maximize value for the customer. Also, Vision Statements are one of the best ways a Product Owner can make sure that all the stakeholders are in agreement about what problem is being solved, who it's helping, and why it matters. If the Vision Statement is documented and agreed upon by all the stakeholders, it is going to be a lot easier to keep them in sync with one another. Lis

In this episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, Derek Huether and Dave Prior take on the topic of Leading and Lagging Indicators. During the podcast they discuss how Key Performance indicators can help guide you towards an understanding of what to track with the expectation that it will create a certain result in the future (leading indicators), and what to measure in order to confirm if that result has in fact occurred (lagging indicators). One example they touch on in the podcast is:  if you are trying to lose weight, tracking things like how much you exercise and how many calories you are consuming each day are leading indicators because it is reasonable to expect that if you are exercising regularly and limiting your caloric intake, that these actions could result in you losing weight. This is a way of tracking the actions you are taking to in order to bring about a desired change. But, we still need a way to confirm if the desired result has actually occurred. The only way

In this week's episode of SoundNotes, Derek Huether and Dave Prior respond to a question from a student who works in a long-standing supply chain organization that wants to move to Agile, but has questions about how to get started. Here's the question: I took your scrum master class and your product owner class a couple weeks ago and I got a lot out of it. Thanks so much for everything you did for everyone in the class.  After taking the class I was thinking about how I could apply what I’ve learned to my organization and to all of our customers who are thinking about implementing Scrum Teams in their supply chain organizations.  So, what my question is for you Dave is, what do you think is needed for an organization to transform to develop an Agile mindset across the organization and develop successful scrum teams?  I’d imagine that new organizations have the benefit of not having a status quo to compare it to so you don’t have to deal with change

This week Jessica Wolfe and Dave Prior respond to a question about how to be an effective ScrumMaster when you are not in the same location as your team. To complicate matters even more, try stepping into the ScrumMaster role in place of an SM who was colocated with part of the team.  If that doesn’t seem challenging enough—try two Product Qwners working with the team. Here is the question: My Scrum team consists of 4 devs in San Diego and 3 devs and 2 POs remotely (I know, breaking a rule right there having 2 POs and multiple projects assigned to one team) The previous scrum master for our team was located in San Diego and was able to have actual facetime with the portion of the team 2 times a week on average. Tuesday for Daily Scrum and Wednesdays for Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective and Sprint Planning (and then off week's Daily Scrum and Backlog Refinement). While we do everything virtually (Sprint backlog, Product Backlog, screenshare ceremonies encouraging vid

As organizations continue to grow and evolve in their practice of Agile, what they expect from Agile transformation coaches continues to evolve as well. Ten years ago, an Agile coach was someone who had enough experience working with Agile to help others pick up the basic habits and avoid some common mistakes. Today, we need a lot more. In this episode of SoundNotes, Mike Cottmeyer talks with Dave Prior about how the needs and expectations of coaching have changed over the last 10 years. During the interview, Mike explains how LeadingAgile has evolved its understanding of the specific areas of skill and expertise the company needs to focus on when talking with transformation coaches during the interview process. Dave and Mike also discuss how coaches can address some of these gaps, and why it is so important to understand what type of coaching you are passionate about and how to leverage that. Contacting Mike If you’d like to contact Mike you can reach him at:

We frequently get questions from clients who are transitioning to Agile when they begin working through the challenge of determining which roles are the best fit for individuals in their organization. Since many of our clients begin their Agile journey by taking on Scrum, the question usually shows up as: Who should I make a Product Owner and who should I make a ScrumMaster? While there is no locked down definition of who should transition into what role, there are some standard patterns that appear across organizations. A lot of it though depends on how an organization views the individuals in those positions and what level of responsibility they are given by the company. In this short video, Dave Prior, LeadingAgile’s resident Certified Scrum Trainer, offers some advice and guidance with respect to sorting out which individuals in your organization should move into a Product Owner role and who is a better fit for ScrumMaster.

Jessica and Dave take a look at the Sprint Report template Dave uses in his CSM and CSPO classes. Using the report as a starting point, Jessica and Dave talk through the most valuable data points for new Scrum Teams as well as additional variables which are an important part of tracking the information that matters as your team learns to work together and gets better at delivering value for their customer.  Contacting Jessica If you’d like to contact Jessica you can reach her at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/jessica-wolfe/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-wolfe-ab025a36/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thejessicawolfe Email: [email protected] C

In this episode of LeadingAgile's SoundNotes, Derek Heuther and Dave Prior take on a question Derek received from a student in one of his recent classes: What do you do, as a developer if the planned task cannot be resolved, or can not result in a potentially shippable product by the end of the Sprint? For an audio only version of the podcast click here. Contacting Derek If you’d like to contact Derek you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekhuether/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/derekhuether Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: <a href

Many of us start out the new year by making resolutions that we hope will help us become the better version of ourselves. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile’s Jessica Wolfe and Dave Prior talk through some ideas you can use with your team to help them renew their focus on delivering value not just for the customer, but for the individual team members themselves. If you or your team are struggling to get the value you crave out of the work you are doing, this discussion will give you some ideas and tips to start getting more out of 2018! Contacting Jessica If you’d like to contact Jessica you can reach her at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/jessica-wolfe/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-wolfe-ab025a36/ Twitter: https://twitte

In this week’s podcast, LeadingAgile’s Jim Hayden and Tim Wise join Dave to respond to questions submitted by students from our CSM and CSPO classes: Question 1: How PBIs Get Into The Product Backlog "Quick question. I was wondering if you had any ideas around a process for getting items into a backlog? I currently just stepped into a role and one of the first things I'm wanting to tackle is a process for placing items into our backlog. Currently things are all over the place because the developers are kind of doing their own thing . In order to create some consistency among PBI's do you think it's a good idea for one individual (ME) to create all PBI's? It's a fairly small team with 6 developers so I don't anticipate any bottle neck. If you don't think having one individual is a good idea then what recommendations do you have for putting a process in place for my team?" (Begins at 02:37) Question 2: Moving to Waterfall From Agile "The only thing we didn't have time to

In this week's SoundNotes,  LeadingAgile’s Tom Churchwell and Matt Fischer join Dave to respond to two questions submitted by students of our Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Product Owner classes. STUDENT QUESTIONS Question 1: "How do you see the way companies, after long years of waterfall, trying to move to Agile in few weeks?" Question 2: "How does a ScrumMaster correct a development team member?" CONTACTING TOM CHURCHWELL LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/tom-churchwell/ Email: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/tchurchwell LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomchurchwell/ CONTACTING DAVE PRIOR LeadingAgile:<a href='http

The Scrum Alliance’s Certified Scrum Professional (CSP) designation is changing on Jan 1, 2018. If you meet the qualifications for the current version of CSP, applying before it expires on December 31, 2017 may provide you with a much easier path to the practitioner level of certification offered by the Scrum Alliance. You’ll find details on the current version of CSP here: https://www.scrumalliance.org/certifications/practitioners/csp-certification In order to qualify for CSP there are a number of requirements that must be met including earning 70 Scrum Education Units (SEUs). With the pending change, I have been recommending to all my CSM and CSPO students that they apply for CSP as soon as possible in order to beat the deadline. Many of them have come back with questions about how to earn the SEUs required for the CSP designation. In this podcast, Scrum Al

In October, LeadingAgile SVP, Scott Sehlhorst spent some time talking with Dave about the importance of Personas and Proto-Personas and how to use them. In this episode of SoundNotes, Scott is back to talk about Empathy Maps, how they work, why they are so valuable and how to create one. During the conversation, Scott and Dave talk through each step of creating an Empathy Map. The podcast is one of our longer ones, but if you are seeking a better understanding of how to put one together, you’ll find a lot of valuable information in this interview. You’ll probably want to download a copy of David Gray’s Empathy Map to have on hand while you listen to this episode. You can find that here: http://gamestorming.com/empathy-mapping/   SHOW NOTES 00:08 Interview Begins 00:50 Some background on Scott 02:30 Intro to the topic of Empathy Maps and how they relate to Proto-Personas and Pers

For this episode of SoundNotes, we’re back with more of the questions submitted by recent  CSM and CSPO students. In this week’s podcast, Jessica Wolfe and Dave Prior respond to the following questions: Question 1: What is the desired relationship interaction between the Scrum Master and Development Managers with regard to developers who are participating on a scrum team, and how does that impact performance management from an HR standpoint? In other words, if there are performance issues with a Developer, where does the responsibility fall for addressing & resolving those performance issues? Question 2: I work at a fairly large company on a product that has direct eyesight from the CEO, who constantly says things like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if our app did X?” with the expectation being that it doesn’t matter how cool X actually is, we can expect to be implementing it right frickin’ now. How, for the love of SCRUM can I deal with this within my fram

One of the best parts of working at LeadingAgile is the continual focus on helping the brilliant people who work here amplify their ability to deliver value for customers. We have a weekly call where we focus on different aspects of the work we do and how we can get better at delivering on the LeadingAgile approach so that our customers can achieve their goals. In a recent call Mike Cottmeyer walked through the Trust Influence Loop, which explains the way we interact with our clients in order to develop the safety and trust we need to be able to help them achieve the outcomes they are looking for. The model had a huge impact on me and I asked Mike if he’d be willing to do an interview on it so that we could share it with others.  While this podcast is a little on the long side, the whole conversation is incredibly valuable. SHOW NOTES 00:08 Interview Begins 00:30 How LeadingAgile syncs up in the morning 02:47 The Tuesday Night Calls 04:17 The T

For this episode of SoundNotes, we reached out to some of the students who have taken CSM and CSPO classes over the last few months. We got a lot of great questions and will be responding to them over the next few weeks. This week, Derek Huether and Dave Prior respond to these two questions: Question 1: My team seems to have a problem with estimating and understanding the estimating concepts.  The team members are accustomed to traditional waterfall projects and estimating everything in units of time.  How can I help them understand estimating, but continue to complete the sprints with no pbis rolling over to the next sprint? Question 2: I have a team lead who is skeptical of scrum, especially metrics related to the process. He doesn’t think carryover matters from sprint to sprint as long as we’re “creating value” and getting the program priorities completed. Any advice on how to convince him that metrics can be a tool for good, and that the sanctity of the sprint comm

If you have ever considered moving into consulting, this podcast is for you.In this podcast, In this interview, Rick Austin, John Tanner and Dave Prior talk about what it is like working as a traveling consultant for LeadingAgile. They discuss how it changes the focus of your work, what it takes to be good at it, how it impacts your personal life and some of the things you have to do to maintain your sanity when you spend most of your life on the road. SHOW NOTES 1:13 Podcast Begins - Overview of Topic 2:35 What consulting did to Rick’s world when he started at LeadingAgile 3:08 How John got started with consulting and then got back into it 3:31 How being a traveling consultant impacts your personal and professional life 4:52 Shaping your life around how you work 5:23 Being intentional about your life when you are back home 6:10 How long each of us can spend on the road before having to take a break 7:11 Buil

This is a explaination of the new tool I introduced at the 2017 Digital PM Summit. The session I led was called Hacking Agile for Digital Agencies and the canvas tool I built for the session is intended to help Digital Agencies understand more about why they want to use Agile practices in the first place, how they are expected to help and what they are willing to risk in order to achieve some level of agility.   If you'd like to check out the slides from the actual presentation, you can find them here. If you'd like to download a PDF of the DPM Agility Canvas you can find that here. And if you have any feedback or questions, please email me at <a href='mailto:dave.prior@leadingagi

Scott Sehlhorst, SVP and Executive Consultant at Leading Agile, goes deep on Personas in this episode of SoundNotes. During the interview Scott and Dave discuss the difference between Proto-Personas and actual Personas, the importance of empathy maps and how to help management understand that making the investment in developing personas is a great way to reduce risk. This is the first of several podcasts we are going to be posting on Personas, how to create them and why they are so valuable. Show Notes 00:08 Podcast begins 00:56 Scott’s background 03:00 Why Scott is so focused on understanding the customer 07:10 Scott explains what a proto-persona is 10:51 Why we need to understand the customer’s problem at a deeper level than they do 13:00 The difference between a proto-persona and an actual persona 19:08 Making the case for taking the time to do personas 20:20 Why

When you think of the annual Agile conference, you usually think about speakers and content. However, Paul Hammond wants to augment the content at the conference with the answers to your questions and one-on-one time with experts from around the industry. That’s why, this year, the conference includes Agile Therapy. Learn more in this video with Paul and Chris Li.

Tricia is the Agile2017 conference Chair and in this video, she discusses how the conference has grown and changed over the years. Also, she speaks about how the speakers are chosen and how the organizers try to provide a variety of things to do for attendees to self-care and stay fresh. Midway through the podcast, Tricia switches gears and talks about her personal ascension to the role of an Agile leader and how she tries to pay it forward to the Agile community.

In this – all LeadingAgile – edition of SoundNotes, Rick Austin and Paul Argiry discuss each of their talks. The talks focus on portfolio management and capitalizing software in an Agile world. In the video the guys discuss the new definition of portfolio management, road mapping, and capacity management as well as how to avoid common accounting pitfalls when trying to fund your Agile initiative.

In this short video, Jesse Fewell and Kim Brainard discuss their talk that they delivered at Agile2017: The PMO Paradox. The talk centers around what to do with the PMO when your organization is in the middle of an Agile initiative. Often, the answer is fire them but Jesse and Kim have a different suggestion. What if you could collaborate with the PMO in an Agile environment to ensure that they are an asset?

We received a question from someone who has been working as a Scrum Master for awhile and is considering moving into coaching. They just weren’t sure how to tel if it was the correct next step and had a lot of questions about what the job involved, what skills were needed, etc. In this week’s podcast, Tim Wise and Dave Prior discuss the role of an Agile Coach, what it involves, the day to day work, what skills are needed and, if you are in that role, some important things to watch out for. Show Notes 0:08 Interview Begins 00:25 How Tim ended up working in Agile Coaching 03:32 What skills do you need to be an Agile Coach 06:12 What is the job of a coach - at the team and enterprise level? 09:08 What you need to move from being a ScrumMaster (coaching one team) to being a coach of multiple teams 12:33 Is it better to work as a consultant, moving from team to team and seeing lots of ways of making Agile work (and not) or is it better to stick with one team and get them to

Mike Vizdos is a busy guy. He’s someone whose passion for helping agile change lives extends well beyond coaching traditional organizations and teaching classes. At Agile 2017, Mike stopped by to provide an update on Agile In Education and the work he and others are doing to bring agile to schools and transform the way we learn. This work is taking place e at every level of education - from grade school up through university. It is an inspiring and impressive thing. Mike also talks about the work he’s been doing with Ron Jeffries to create an online community that provides mentoring and support for Agile practitioners and coaches. Here are some of the links mentioned in the interview: AgileMentoring.com http://www.agilementoring.com/ Agile in Education: http://www.agileineducation.org Scrum In School

During a recent LeadingAgile offsite Jeff Vogelsang and Tom Churchwell sat down with Dave Prior to break down the TIES approach of Agile planning that they have bee using with clients. This approach been used to help organizations who need a way to manage long term strategy planning that creates visibility all the way down to the execution level. TIES addresses planning at 4 levels: Themes – Strategic long term goals broken down into time boxes of 1 to 3 quarters. Initiatives – Themes are broken down into elements that collectively address the theme. These are broken down into time boxes of 1 to 3 months. Epics – Initiatives are broken down into Epics which would take between 1 to 3 sprints to deliver. Stories – Epics are broken down into User Stories that are small enough to be completed by a Team within a Sprint, ideally within 1 to 3 days. In this interview Jeff and Tom explain the different level of planning TIES, how they wo

In this Agile 2017 interview Johanna Rothman talks with Dave about her new book “Create Your Successful Agile Project Collaborate, Measure, Estimate and Deliver” and how teams that are struggling to make Scrum work may want to adopt an approach that focuses on continuous flow in order to deliver value for their customers with greater frequency. The interview includes a conversation about working with User Stories that are sized to only take the team a single day to complete, how this can help teams that are struggling with estimation, and how Johanna’s approach to writing (she averages about 1 book a year in addition to posting to her blog every few days) involves writing for just 15 minutes a day. For more on Johanna: Web: https://www.jrothman.com Books: https://www.jrothman.com/books/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/johannarothman?lang=en LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannarothman/

Radtac Co-CEO Laura Powers took some time out of her busy schedule at Agile 2017 to talk with Dave Prior about the benefits an organization can gain from introducing play into the workplace. In this interview she explains how it can help unlock creativity within the team. Laura led an additional session at Agile 2017 called “It’s Not Just About Culture: Co-creating an Awesome Agile Climate in an Imperfect World”. During their conversation Laura explains how to create a working climate that supports safety for knowledge workers. If you work in an environment that does not have a supportive climate, there are tips in her for how to cope with that as well. If you’d like to get in touch with Laura: Radtac: https://www.radtac.com/about-us/page/3/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurapowers LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurampowers/ Laura’s session descriptions from Agile 2017 It’s Not Just About Culture: Co-creating an Awesome Agile Climate in an Imperfect W

At Agile 2017 Diana Larsen sat down with Dave Prior to talk about the Agile Fluency model. In this interview she explains what it is (a way of thinking about what benefits an organization needs to get from it’s teams) and how she and James Shore co-founded the Agile Fluency Project with the hope of moving past the question of whether or not a given team, practice, etc. was Agile or not. They wanted to shift the focus to a more positive approach that would help teams develop routine, skillful ease as they move further down the path of adopting agile practices with the ultimate goal of providing enough benefit to the organization so that they, in turn, receive the organizational support for continuous improvement. If you’d like to learn more about Agile Fluency, please check out the following: Your Path through Agile Fluency https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/agileFluency.html The Agile Fluency Project <a h

This podcast features LeadingAgile SVP and Executive Consultant John Tanner who joins Dave Prior foo discuss how to take on a “Goal-Question-Metric” (GQM) approach to gaining clarity on how well Agile is being employed across the organization. Last Spring at Agile Day Atlanta, John led a session called  “The GQM Approach to Agile Metrics”. The session was very well received and when we posted the video of John’s presentation and the slide deck he used, there was a great response and we thought it was worth digging a little deeper on.   SHOW NOTES 01:08 Interview Begins  02:18 Three distinct ways of looking at metrics 05:22 What is GQM and how does it work? 06:14 How does an organization know if they are asking the right questions?  08:33 How to know if your questions are well formed 10:00 How do we collect the data? 12:37 Interpreting the data 13:29 Metrics are not the answer. They are just data points that need t

In this interview with David Bland, he and Dave Prior discuss definitions of lean startup and design thinking as well as his passion for building businesses that matter. David goes into detail about how he works with existing companies to create new lines of businesses using internal venture capital, as well as how the scientific method applies to business.

LeadingAgile CEO and Founder, Mike Cottmeyer led two sessions at Agile 2017: Agile Transformations Explained and Faster Food and a Better Place to Sleep: Applying Agile Outside of Software. In this interview Mike and Dave discuss how an organization can get better at setting appropriate constraints, making iterative and incremental decisions that inform execution and creating feedback loops that will help drive a more successful adoption of agile across the organization. If you’d like to learn more about Mike’s sessions at Agile 2017: Agile Transformations Explained: sched.co/ATZ5 Faster Food and a Better Place to Sleep: Applying Agile Outside of Software: sched.co/ATa2 And if you would like to contact Mike, here is how you can reach him: Web: leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer/ Twitter: <a href='https://twitter.c

Adam Weisbart led a session at Agile 2017 called “Surviving Backdraft (or How to Not Die in a Hellish Explosion of Dysfunction)”. During his session, Adam shared some personal experiences with backdraft and introduced tools to help agile coaches and practitioners cope with the pushback that often accompanies organizational change and the dysfunction that impedes that change.    In this interview Adam and Dave discuss his session and some mindful self-compassion techniques that will help you manage your internal and external response to the resistance that shows up when coaching an organization through transformation.    If you’d like to contact Adam, here is where you can reach him:   Web: https://weisbart.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/weisbart LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weisbart/   Adam’s session at Agile 2017: h

Yi Lv became the first Certified Scrum Trainer in China in 2008, and is currently an Agile coach at Odd-e. Yi is also an expert in Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) and in this interview, he talks about the session he led at Agile 2017, “LeSS without Scrum”. Yi’s presentation focused on explaining how you can implement the principles of Large Scale Scrum in an environment that does not have a proper Scrum implementation at the team level. If you’d like to check out Yi’s experience report on the subject you can find it here: https://www.agilealliance.org/resources/experience-reports/less-without-scrum/ If you’d like to contact Yi here is how you can reach him Email: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/yi_lv

Dr. Harry Koehnemann is the Director of Technology at 321 Gang and a SAFe Fellow. Harry led a session at Agile 2017 conference entitled: When Worlds Collide: Regulatory Compliance Meets Lean Agile Development. During his talk, he discussed some common mistakes companies make when trying to scale Agile in the face of regulatory compliance. In this interview Harry and Dave discuss his talk at the conference and some of the ways in which compliance requirements can be incorporated into development using Scaled Agile Framework.   Click here for an audio only version of this podcast If you’d like to learn more about Harry, you can find him at Twitter: https://twitter.com/harrykoehnemann Web: http://321gang.com LinkedIn: <a href='https://www.linkedi

Christopher Avery kicked off this year’s leadership track at Agile2017 with his talk the on the Four Characteristics of Good Goals; an idea that stemmed from his book The Responsibility Process, which outlines a model that will help people overcome patterns that are hardwired in our brains from the day we’re born. Find Christopher Avery Online Twitter: twitter.com/christopheraver LinkedIn: linkedin.com/christopheravery Facebook: facebook.com/christophervery2 Web: christopheravery.com Web: the.leadershipgift.com

Michael J. Tardiff is a conference veteran with a lot to say about most things. Watch as Dave and Michael talk about topics such as: networking while at the conference, some of the latest mergers in the industry, the legitimacy of norms, and even the Mexican government. The topics are varied, but the message is consistent. The Agile world is changing but is that change for the better.   Contacting Michael • Twitter: https://twitter.com/mjt • Web: https://feelingagile.wordpress.com • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeljtardiff/   For more Agile2017 LeadingAgile SoundNotes interviews check out  http://www.periscope.tv/leadingagile

At Agile 2017, Dr. Sallyann Freudenberg led a session called “Why the tech industry needs all kinds of minds and how to support them”. Along with her work coaching Agile organizations and teams, Sal is a champion of neuro-diversity in the workplace. In this video Sal chats with Dave about how neuro-diversity became a concern for her, why neuro-diversity is so important to Agile, her session at Agile 2017, and her book “Inclusive Collaboration Experiments”.  For more on Sallyann Web: SallyannFreudenberg.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/salfreudenberg Sallyann's Book “Inclusive Collaboration Experiments” https://leanpub.com/th

Agile Uprising is one of the fastest growing networks in the Agile community, and Mike helped to create it and is an active board member. He’s also helped organize the Heart of Agile conference for the last two years and is one of the developers of the Lean Agile Intelligence tool which is a self-assessment model that Mike is helping to grow. In this short video, Dave and Mike discuss the what Agile Uprising is all about and the development of Lean Agile Intelligence.   Agile Uprising: Web: http://www.agileuprising.com Twitter:  https://twitter.com/agileuprising?lang=en   Lean Agile Intelligence Web: https://www.leanagileintelligence.com The video of Troy Lightfoot giving Dave a walkthrough of LeanAgile Intelligence: https://vimeo.com/218

SAFe Fellow Em Campbell-Pretty led a session at Agile 2017 called “The ART of avoiding a Train Wreck”, which offered guidance on how to better plan Agile Release Trains in Scaled Agile Framework. She stopped by to chat with Dave about her session, and her new book “Tribal Unity: Getting from Teams to Tribes by Creating a One Team Culture”. Em’s book focuses on one of her main areas of passion — creating awesome Agile tribes. During the interview she also offers advice about how to handle cross team dependencies in Agile.

Esther Derby led two sessions at Agile 2017 - Creating an Environment for Successful Agile Teams and Change Artist Super Powers: Leading Change in an Agile Manner. In this interview Esther and Dave discuss her sessions at the conference, some of the abilities you can work to develop if you are trying to lead change in your organization, and how to manage teams without top down control. Esther also responds to a question from Dave on how to lead retrospectives with distributed teams. And, of course… they talk about kale.

Lyssa Adkins stopped by after her Stalwarts session to throw down the gauntlet! During this live interview at Agile 2017 Lyssa talks about her recent trip to Peru where she and her daughter did volunteer jungle conservation work. Her experiences there, and a powerful question she was asked in her session at Agile 2017 led her to a new challenge she is taking on - bringing Agile practices to the people who are working to help solve global problems like saving the rainforests. Lyssa also provides an update the Agile Coaching Institute and the work she is doing to help Agile Coaches strengthen their ability to have a deep, meaningful impact in the organizations they are working with. If you’d like to learn more about Lyssa check out http://agilecoachinginstitute.com/

Agile 2017 opened with a Keynote from David Marquet. David is a former Navy Submarine Commander and the author of the book "Turn the Ship Around A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders" (http://amzn.to/2v4yc1T). David gave a presentation at Agile 2017 about how his experiences in the Navy influenced his style of leadership. Being the loudest and clearest voice in the room and using swear words doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a great leader, neither does pretending you know all the answers. Sometimes the best way to lead is to learn to trust and empower the people on your teams. In this interview David talks about his experiences, the challenges of learning to trust, and his first hand experiences of seeing the powerful impact of intent-based leadership. If you'd like to learn more about David Marquet and his approach to Intent-Based Leadership, please visit http://www.davidmarquet.com

Troy Magennis led two different sessions at Agile 2017. “Getting started with Agile Data Science” focused on helping Agile practitioners deepen their understanding of how valuable data can be to Agile teams who want to improve their performance. In his second session, “Prioritization – 10 Different Techniques for Optimizing What to Start Next”, Troy explored a variety of approaches intended to help a team make smarter decisions about what is the next most important thing. If you’d like to learn more about Troy, check out http://focusedobjective.com. If you’d like to try out some of the many tools he makes available (for free) to teams that are trying to learn more about their performance through data science, check out http://bit.ly/SimResources

Dean Leffingwell stopped by to chat with Dave Prior about some of the changes introduced to Scaled Agile Framework with the SAFe 4.5 update, including the reasons for including the Implementation Roadmap, DevOps and Lean Startup. For more information about Dean or Scaled Agile Framework, please visit: http://www.scaledagileframework.com For information on the SAFe Summit, please visit: http://www.safesummit.com

This file is audio only. The video version can be found here: https://vimeo.com/229799105 At Agile 2017, Johanna Rothman and Mike Griffiths sat down with Dave to talk about the work they've been doing on the PMI Agile Practice Guide. Their work was part of a joint effort between the Agile Alliance and PMI and is intended to offer guidance for traditional PMs on how to begin applying Agile in their work. The PMI Agile Practice Guide will be released in September 2017.

In this week's SoundNotes, Tim Wise joins Dave Prior for a short conversation about Stretch Goals. Even is this is a topic you have a strong opinion about, this podcast has valuable information for you. Before the end the discussion, Tim offers up a version of stretch goals that is positive and healthy for a team. SHOW NOTES 02:35 Podcast Begins 02:44 Topic Intro: Stretch Goals 03:20 Tim’s initial thoughts on Stretch Goals at Team and Portfolio Level 06:08 Technical Debt 06:39 The difference between stretch goals and having a well groomed backlog full of “sprint ready” items 08:40 The lazy queue 09:13 Dave’s thoughts on Stretch Goals 10:31 A story of stretch goals gone wrong 11:30 The Stretch Goal Paradox explained 12:40 The negative Scrum team is not a knife you want to sharpen 13:12 Slack Resources and planning for personal slack which will be used for personal growth 17:38 Planning Healthy Stretch Goals to invest in giving the team more flexibility. 18:22 It’s not always about po

LeadingAgile's Chief Cultural Officer, Rachel Howard, joined Dave for this pre-Agile 2017 podcast to focus on providing tips for folks who are heading to Agile 2017 in search of work. It's the biggest Agile event of the year. If you are looking for a new gig, this may be the best place to find it. SHOW NOTES (this is a pretty brief podcast, so no timed show notes this week) During the interview Rachel and Dave discuss: - Prep work to do before you leave for Orlando - Some do's and don'ts for job hunting while you are at Agile 2017 - Setting realistic expectations and goals - The importance of follow up At the end of the interview Rachel offers some tips for first time attendees at Agile 2017. LEADINGAGILE AT AGILE 2017 Mike Cottmeyer's Sessions - Agile Transformations Explained
Tuesday, August 8 3:45 PM - Faster Food and a Better Place to Sleep: Applying Agile Outside Software
Wednesday, August 9, 10:45 AM Paul Argiry's Session - Avoiding the Pitfalls of Capitalizing Software in an

At Agile 2017, LeadingAgile Principal Consultant, Rick Austin, will lead a session that focuses on how organizations can transform their Portfolio Management from an approach that is more closely aligned with waterfall to an approach that is better able to support Agile. In this podcast Rick outlines some of the key concepts he will be digging in to during the session and then he and Dave discuss some of the challenges that come along with this aspect of transformation, like governance, prioritization and how work flows through the organization. SHOWNOTES This is a fairly short podcast (10:42) so no ShowNotes this week. RICK AUSTIN at AGILE 2017 Portfolio Management in an Agile World Tuesday, August 8, 10:45 AM CONTACTING RICK LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/rick-austin/ Email: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/rickaustin CONTACTING DAVE LeadingAgile: http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ Email: [email protected] Twitter: http

In this week’s podcast, LeadingAgile Founder and CEO Mike Cottmeyer shares his thoughts on how Agile Transformation has been evolving, common patterns of transformation, what steps an organization needs to take to become fit for transformation, and to develop the optionality needed to fulfill the promise of Agile. SHOW NOTES The list of show notes was too long to fit into the SoundCloud listing. To view the ShowNotes for this podcast, please visit https://www.leadingagile.com/podcast/mike-cottmeyer-e…e-transformation/ Links from the Podcast: Switch - Chip and Dan Heath http://amzn.to/2tenVOE LeadingAgile on YouTube http://bit.ly/2uRq1X2 LeadingAgile on Periscope http://bit.ly/2sQt4xb Agile 2017 LeadingAgile Sessions Mike Cottmeyer Sessions Agile Transformations Explained http://bit.ly/2sPQNO4 Tuesday, August 8 3:45 PM Faster Food and a Better Place to Sleep: Applying Agile Outside Software http://bit.ly/2uiLoDt Wednesday, August 9, 10:45 AM Paul Argiry Session Avoiding the Pitfalls

This week Devin Hedge joins Dave Prior for another student question. This time about architecture and if the complexity of it would be better served by a waterfall approach: The Question: "How to plan for the Architecture effectively. With waterfall, we try to figure out all aspects of the business and the technical solution in advance before we start development. In Agile, we discover as we go. It's very likely that when we come to a certain, we'll find either the current business logic or the current technical framework cannot adapt our upcoming demands. There's a high opportunity that we'll need to destroy all the work that we've done. Talking in this perspective, isn't waterfall better than Agile?" Show Notes 00:08 Interview Begins 00:51 This week’s question 02:00 What do we mean by architecture 02:29 The design principles and standards you need in place to support your work 03:35 If it isn’t loosely coupled, neither waterfall or agile can really help 04:17 Challenging the assu

One of the challenges many organizations face with Agile is how to handle long term strategic planning in a way that creates visibility all the way through to the execution level. TIES is an approach to Agile planning that can help the business engage in long term planning, understand their organization’s capacity to actually execute on the work, and then see how that work can be broken down into pieces that are sized to allow the individual teams to execute on them. In this episode of SoundNotes, Tom Churchwell explains how TIES can help with Agile Planning. Using this approach the work is sized into: - Themes - Strategic long term goals broken down into time boxes of 1 to 3 quarters. - Initiatives - Themes are broken down into elements that collectively address the theme. These are broken down into time boxes of 1 to 3 months. - Epics - Initiatives are broken down into Epics which would take between 1 to 3 sprints to deliver. - Stories - Epics are broken down into User Stories

Successfully completing a CSM or CSPO class doesn't impact everyone the same way. For some, it is like a lightbulb went off and everything about Agile just makes sense. For others (like me), some of the ideas and values from waterfall persist for a time. Questioning agile and trying to reconcile this new way of thinking with the old way is part of the personal journey of moving from a traditional approach to an agile way of working. I tend to think of it as a hangover that occurred from drinking a little too much waterfall. In this week's podcast, I address 3 questions that were submitted by a student following a recent class. These were the same kinds of questions I was asking when I took my CSM training and was getting my head around agile. In the podcast I address not only the questions that were asked, but the bigger ones that may be more subtext - around, why do we need to work this way? The questions: 1. What are the factors that lead us to the decision to go Agile or Waterfal

This week Dave received a request for advice from a student in one of LeadingAgile’s Certified Scrum Product Owner classes: How to effectively work with a distributed scrum team (both time and distance). We have an IT Software project in which PO is in the US, Development is in Ukraine and Testing is in Vietnam. ShowNotes A summary of the suggestions Dave and Derek offer during the podcast: - Reorganize the team - Have additional POs or BAs in each location - Set up a US based team of rockstar POs who organize themselves specifically to support this distributed effort - Spend more time in backlog refinement and try to eliminate risk by taking as much are as possible to make sure the PBI’s area clearly defined enough for the teams to work on them (largely) without needing additional questions answered - Bring the entire team together for a time to establish patterns of communication and personal relationship, with the idea being that they are together for a time to shorten

Note: This is an audio only version of a video podcast that can be found here: http://bit.ly/2qiC2C5 Dave Prior and Derek Huether respond to a student question: What is wrong with management wanting to normalize points across teams and use them as time. Tools mentioned in the video Focused Objective - Troy Magennis has a wide variety of tools he makes available for free that will help you understand team performance (among other things). You can find them at http://focusedobjective.com/free-tools-resources/ or watch a video where Troy walks through how to use two of those tools... https://vimeo.com/190973081 LeanAgile Intelligence is another great tool that is worth checking out. It is an assessment tool that will help you understand team performance across the organization. You can learn more about it (and sign up for the free beta) at https://www.leanagileintelligence.com. You can also watch a video walkthrough that the tool's co-creator, Troy Lightfoot, gave to Dave recently in r

Note: This is the audio only version of the video podcast which can be found here -> https://vimeo.com/217951635 This is a short version of the HOA + Personal Agility Canvas session led by Dave Prior at the 2017 Heart of Agile Conference in Pittsburgh. During this video Dave provides a walk through of the Personal Agility Canvas with a focus on the expanded Heart of Agile. If you are new to this tool, it is a great way to conduct a self-assessment on your own Personal Agile Transformation. It will also help you establish personal goals for your desired state of personal agility and help you define actions you can take immediately to amp up your adoption of Agile. THE PERSONAL AGILITY CANVAS If you'd like to download a PDF of the canvas to complete on your own while you are viewing the video, you can find it here: http://bit.ly/2pVW7Ol CONTACTING DAVE You can reach Dave on the LeadingAgile site at https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ On Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo

As the 2017 Scrum Gathering in San Diego would down to a close a few weeks ago, Dave Prior and Chris Li began a debate: Is it okay for a Scrum Team to leave the Sprint Planning Meeting with individual work assignments? This is a question that often comes up for both Dave and Chris when they are teaching CSM and CSPO classes. In this podcast you’ll hear them each explain how they respond to this question based their experiences working with teams. You’ll also get to hear what happened when they decided to check in with some experts at the Gathering. SHOW NOTES 00:08 - Podcast Begins 00:26 - How Chris and Dave got into a heated debate about Sprint Planning and went to check with experts 01:50 - Debate setup: During Sprint Planning, is it okay for Team Members to self-assign tasks they will work on during the Sprint? 02:41 - Chris explains his position supporting Team members selection tasks during Sprint Planning 05:30 - Dave explains the reasons why he does not want Team members to l

In our third podcast focusing on Cost of Delay, LeadingAgile’s Dean Steven explains how he has used Cost of Delay with management working on defining priority for items at the portfolio level. Dean also explains why the problem Cost of Delay helps you solve is not a math problem, but a collaboration problem. SHOW NOTES 00:08 Interview Begins 00:56 Some background on the work Dean does day to day for LeadingAgile 01:43 Does Senior Mgmt. normally have a specific technique for prioritizing work across the portfolio? 02:40 Clarifying teams at the project, program and portfolio management 03:33 How does a team work at the portfolio level 04:27 What is a Business Architect 05:20 Why do we need Cost of Delay and what question does it help us solve? 06:35 It’s not a math problem, it’s a collaboration problem 07:12 How Cost of Delay will help you develop an understanding of relative business value 09:00 How to calculate Cost of Delay = (User Business Value + Time Criticality + Opportunity Ena

This is an audio only version of a video podcast that can be found here: https://www.leadingagile.com/podcast/can-product-vision-without-company-mission-derek-huether/ In this podcast, Derek Huether and Dave Prior take on a question asked by a student in one of Dave’s classes. Can you have a Product Vision Statement if you do not have a Company Mission Statement? Contacting Derek You can reach Derek on the LeadingAgile site at https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ Email: [email protected] On Twitter at https://twitter.com/derekhuether Or on his personal site at: http://www.derekhuether.com Contacting Dave You can reach Dave on the LeadingAgile site at http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ On Twitter at http://twitter.com/mrsungo Or on his personal site at: http://drunkenpm.net Feedback/Questions If you have comments on the podcast, or have questions for the LeadingAgile coaches that you’d like to have addressed in a future episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNo

Last week at the 2017 Scrum Gathering in San Diego, Dave Prior had a chance to sit down with Maria Matarelli and Alistair Cockburn to discuss the 2017 Heart of Agile Conference in Pittsburgh on April 27-28, Guest Leadership, the importance of dancing at conferences, Maria’s budding career as a DJ, her upcoming humanitarian work in New Zealand as well as her Agile Lifestyles event that will be live streamed from a stadium in New Zealand on May 3 (US time)… and of course… the Tango. If you’d like to learn more about the 2017 Heart of Agile Conference being held in Pittsburgh on April 27-28, follow this link: http://heartofagile.com/heart-of-agile-conferences/heart-of-agile-pittsburgh-2017/ Here are some additional links from the podcast: The Scrum Alliance has posted the presentations from the 2017 Scrum Gathering in San Diego on their site. You can find them here: https://scrumalliance.org/why-scrum/scrum-resources/gathering-presentations For more information Guest Leadership please

The original video version of this file can be found here: https://vimeo.com/213030252 The Heart of Agile 2017 is being held on April 27-28 in Pittsburgh. It is the 2nd annual HOA conference and it will also be the first Agile Conference held in Pittsburgh. Derek Huether and Dave Prior will both be speaking at the event. In this short video Derek and Dave each provide an overview of the sessions they will be leading at the event celebrating Alistair Cockburn’s approach to getting back to the basics of what makes Agile work. If you’d like to check out Derek’s session: How to Find Early Indications That Your Delivery System Will Fail April 27, 2017 1:30pm  -  2:15pm Empress Deck 1 http://heartofagile.com/Session/how-to-find-early-indications-that-your-delivery-system-will-fail/ And if you’d like to see Dave’s session: Heart of Agile + Personal Agility Canvas April 28, 2017 3:30pm  -  4:15pm Empress Deck 1 http://heartofagile.com/Session/heart-of-agile-personal-agility-canvas/ And if y

In this episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes we focus on a question submitted by a student from one of our recent classes. Jennifer, the student, asked about what to do when the Chief Product Owner is defining the Release Plan without input from the Product Owner or the Stakeholders. During the podcast, LeadingAgile’s Jim Hayden and Dave Prior dig into reasons why that might be happening, and how to respond. Show Notes 08:00 Interview Begins 00:46 An update on Jim and his recent motorcycle accident 03:15 Topic Introduction - What to do when you have a Chief Product Owner who is defining the release without inout from the Product Owner or stakeholders. 03:29 Explanation of the Chief Product Owner role 04:04 Jennifer’s question 04:18 Jim explains of the PO’s role with regard to the release and the role the Chief Product Owner plays 05:09 The release plan is never set 05:44 How the Product Roadmap impacts the Release Plan 08:16 What happens when you create a release plan 10:35 Wisdom f

The 2017 Heart of Agile Conference will be held in Pittsburgh on April 27 and 28. This is the second annual conference dedicated to helping Agile practitioners let go of some of the dogma and ornamentation that has been glommed on to Agile and get back to the core principles and the Heart of Agility. In this interview, Rob Lingle, one of the conference organizers took some time to speak with Dave about the conference, why it is happening in Pittsburgh, why you should attend and what you can expect once you are there. In the latter half of of the podcast, (beginning at 08:12) Rob and Dave discuss the work Rob does volunteering for several different organizations, why he considers it to be so important and how being of service to others helps him in his work as an Agile coach. Leading Agile is proud to be a sponsor of the 2017 Heart of Agile Conference! Both Derek Huether and Dave Prior will be presenting at the conference. Show Notes 00:08 Podcast Begins 00:33 Some background on Rob

In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile’s Derek Huether and Dave Prior tackle a student question about how Scrum works with Marketing. In a recent class, a student names Cherie explained that in the work her Marketing Team does, it isn’t possible to achieve “potentially shippable” at the end of a Sprint. The Team may finish the work and the Product Owner may accept it, but nothing can actually be “shippable” until after the client has had a chance to review a work item and provide feedback or approval Show Notes 00:08 Interview Begins 00:26 An update on Derek’s upcoming events 01:30 Topic Introduction 01:59 Cherie’s Question about how Definition of Done works when you are using Scrum in Marketing if nothing can ship until after you have client approval 02:26 Derek and Dave respond 03:03 We’re going to have an argument here… 04:33 The difference between a more pure Definition of Done and potentially shippable vs. what often happens in the real world 05:23 Derek shares a story o

In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile’s Chief Cultural Office, Rachel Howard, joins Dave Prior to answer some of the “getting a job” related questions that are frequently asked during the CSM and CSPO classes Dave teaches for LeadingAgile. The topics covered in the interview include: How to get a job if you have little (or no) experience in Scrum, How to make the move from being a team member to being an Agile Coach, as well as some general tips about interviewing at Agile Consulting Companies. Show Notes 00:08 Interview Starts 00:30 Rachel’s role at Leading Agile 02:33 The surprising thing about trying to establish culture in a virtual organization like LeadingAgile 05:56 Mike’s question - If you are new to Scrum, how to you get over the “minimum experience in Scrum hurdle” 09:46 Finding ways to apply Agile outside of work to get some experience with using the practices 10:48 Why “They won’t let me do Agile here” is not an excuse for not doing it at your current job 11:54 The

This is the second interview in a series we are doing on Cost of Delay. The first interview, where Jim Hayden provided an overview of Cost of Delay can be found here: http://bit.ly/2lUDWFR In Part 2 of the series, Marty Bradley explains how Cost of Delay actually works. During the interview we discuss things like Weighted Shorted Job First (WSJF), how to determine relative Business Value of different features or projects and how to evaluate that value against different factors like risk. During the interview Marty refers to two different graphics that help explain Cost of Delay. Here are links to the two graphic files*: The Formula for Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF)https://www.dropbox.com/s/slfrifz9pqqqgex/WSJF%20Formula.jpg?dl=0 The Cost of Delay Table https://www.dropbox.com/s/9lwrd0tjs5wcmqy/WSJF%20Table.jpg?dl=0" * These graphics are based on examples Marty was referencing in the interview. The originals can be found at http://www.scaledagileframework.com/wsjf/. Show Notes 0

This episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes offers a case study of how the technology teams at NewSpring church have been using Agile practices to develop innovative products that will enable their members to stay engaged with NewSpring throughout the whole week. Jon Horton is the Web Director at NewSpring. A few weeks ago he and several members of his team attended a LeadingAgile CSM class. In the interview Jon explains how he introduced Scrum to the organization, how it is being adopted by the technology teams, how it impacts their ability to deliver value for NewSpring members and some of the challenges that they’ve faced along the way. This podcast offers a great case study of how Agile practices are extending beyond traditional software development teams and are being used to innovate and deliver value to all types of “customers”. Show Notes 00:08 Podcast Begins 00:55 Some background on Jon and his role at NewSpring Church 02:20 How technology help NewSpring Church meet people

This podcast is the first in a series we intend to do on Cost of Delay. This podcast features LeadingAgile Enterprise Transformation Consultant, Jim Hayden, and Dave Prior discussing the ideas behind Cost of Delay at a fairly high level. If you are new to the subject, or are struggling with understanding it, this may help provide clarity on what Cost of Delay is and how it works. In a future podcast on this subject we will look at Cost of Delay from a more Reinertsen-centric viewpoint. We also plan to do at least one podcast that offers a case study on how Cost of Delay has been put into practice within an Agile organization. We will look at how they are using it to understand and prioritize work at the project, program and portfolio level. Show Notes 00:09 Podcast Begins 1:12 Why (and how) we are talking about Cost of Delay 2:52 Some background on Jim Hayden 3:16 What is Cost of Delay 3:37 Example 1: Laptop Manufacturer with a set window of sales opportunity 4:22 Example 2: Selecti

In Andrew Fuqua’s blog post “Slack and the Agile Manager’s Role: Be the Slack” https://www.leadingagile.com/2017/01/slack-agile-managers-role/ he shared his thoughts on the need for management to make space and time for teams and individuals to be creative and innovative. In this podcast Andrew and Dave Prior dig deeper on the topic, how and why organizations resist it, and how managers can get started with introducing time to allow teams to be innovative. Show Notes 00:15 Podcast Begins 00:48 Some background on Andrew’s work as an Enterprise Consultant 01:47 Introducing the topic of Slack 02:05 How the PMBOK defines slack 03:00 How Andrew defines slack and what he focuses on when he’s looking at it 04:12 Why wringing all the slack out of a team is not necessarily a good idea 05:00 Finding the slack you need to keep 05:44 Flow Trumps Waste and Value Trumps Flow 06:56 When you see downtime, what do you lose when you feel compelled to fill it up? 07:44 Whose job is it to create an env

This episode of SoundNotes features two questions that were submitted recently by students. 2:11 Question 1 - Design and Cross Functional Teams Submitted by Sergey via Email : “Every time I hear you speak about cross-functional team I am not sure who these teams comprise of exactly. In my world the confusion here is most often related to design inputs. Any digital product will have a visual UI and thus its development will require design inputs. Do most of Leading Agile clients consider this a separate process that contributes to the readiness of stories for a technical Scrum team? Or do you normally assume designers are a part of a Scrum team? In my view, the former creates waterfall-like dependencies and the latter gets in the way of confident estimations. So, even if both models are feasible, none of them seems ideal, because it leaves an are that has to be tightly managed.” 8:20 Question 2 - How do you deal with a manager who thinks you should be ScrumMaster for multiple teams

The Project Management Office (PMO) has traditionally been responsible for providing governance over projects, programs and portfolios; ensuring projects are managed according the standards set forth by the PMO; and to provide reporting on progress to leadership. When Agile is introduced into an organization, along with new ways of tracking work, self-organizing teams and new ways of understanding priority, the value the PMO provides comes into question. In a recent blog post, LeadingAgile SVP and Executive Consultant Marty Bradley addressed the question “Should the PMO Go Away?” In this episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, Marty and Dave dig deeper on this topic and explore what PMO’s (and PMO Leaders) need to do in order to remain relevant to an organization transitioning to Agile. Show Notes 00:08 Podcast Begins 00:35 What does a LeadingAgile Executive Coach actually do 01:40 When the Executives say “Stop saying Agile.”, it’s actually a good thing. 3:05 Should the PMO go away? W

2017 is here and Mike Cottmeyer is ready. In this episode of SoundNotes, the CEO of LeadingAgile shares his thoughts on the primary issues facing organizations as they continue working to transform. There are many who claim culture is the main issue, but is that really the impediment to Organizational Agility? ShowNotes 00:08 Interview Starts 00:47 How do you lead change in large organizations? 02:17 Is the biggest impediment to Agile really culture change? How do you do that at scale? 03:00 What is getting in the way of culture? 04:16 I can change my attitude and value system, but will the organization support that changed attitude and belief? 04:51 The mindset shift is just the starting point 07:15 How do you get 1,000 people to simultaneously have a mindset shift and then know what to go do 07:42 Is the industry still stuck? How do we get past wanting Agile to being able to do Agile? 08:12 A positive Agile culture has to be reinforced 10:07 The difference between culture and the b

A Retrospective on Vacations If you love your work and are very driven, the idea of “vacation” can be a daunting thing. In this episode of SoundNotes, Derek Huether and Dave Prior hold a retrospective on how they each coped with the challenge of taking time-off from work over the holiday. If you count yourself among the vacation challenged, this conversation may provide insight into why you need to take the time, why you need to protect the time BUT why your version of taking a break to restore yourself doesn’t have to fit the standard definition of “vacation”. Show Notes 00:08 Podcast Begins 00:17 Topic Intro - a Retrospective on taking vacation 00:52 Derek explains why he took his first vacation in almost 2 years 02:07 Pre-vacation anxiety 03:12 If you get grumpy when you don’t have too much work to do “YOU NEED TO GET AWAY” 03:52 When your sustainable pace is an unsustainable pace 04:10 Some of us are wired a little weird and there is no “balance” 05:11 Sometimes having too much

LeadingAgile’s Derek Huether and Dave Prior take on two questions from someone who attended a workshop Dave ran on Redefining Your PMO for Agile: Should I change Sprint length to account reduced capacity during the holidays? Is it okay to performance at the individual team member level? During the podcast Derek and Dave respond to both questions and offer different ways of coping with reduced capacity as well as things to consider if you are inclined to try and track individual team member performance. This podcast is a fairly short one, so show notes have been omitted this week. Contacting Derek and Dave If you have follow up questions for Derek, here is his contact info: Email: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/derekhuether LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ Dave can be reached at: Email: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ Submitting Questions

MLB Advanced Media has been growing very rapidly over the past few years and even if you aren’t a fan of baseball, you’ve probably been the beneficiary of their work. Michael Daly and Matt Volpe have been managing teams and providing internal Agile coaching at MLB every step of the way. For anyone working at an organization that is struggling to get it’s legs with Agile, these guys have a story full of hope and some valuable lessons they’ve learned along the way. And while there are places where they have made conscious choices to adopt practices which may seem non-standard for an Agile organization, one of the things you will learn from the interview is how they reached those decisions through an empirical approach as they ran experiments on how to help Agile work best within their organization. Show Notes 00:08 Podcast Intro 00:30 What Matt and Michael do at MLB Advanced Media 01:56 What does MLB Advanced Media do 03:29 Some background on the MLB Advanced Media Agile Transformatio

In this episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, Devin Hedge makes the case for focusing on Agile IT Operations in order to increase speed within your organization. If you’ve been considering working with (or have already adopted) DevOps, the information Devin shares in this interview may help you discover how your organizations Operations function is limiting your ability to increase flow. Show Notes 01:08 Podcast Begins - Introductions 01:36 Background on Devin 02:14 Topic Introduction: Agile IT Operations 02:49 The relationship between Agile IT Operations and DevOps 03:48 Why DevOps is picking up again 04:34 Our new problems are our old problems 05:29 It’s about awareness and maturity 06:37 An indicator that IT Ops is where you need to focus your attention in order to increase your speed 07:02 Speed creates dependencies 08:52 Why IT Operations is the bottleneck 10:18 Agile is not going to fix your lack of solid disaster recovery planning, but it may force you to acknowledge that you

Student Q&A: Estimating Work for Contracts when your Agile Consultancy is Bidding Against Waterfall Competitors In this podcast, LeadingAgile Enterprise Transformation Consultant, Devin Hedge joins Dave Prior to discuss a question from one of our recent CSM/CSPO students who wanted to know how to estimate work for contracts if the Agile consulting he works for is bidding against a waterfall organization that may be providing a more detailed bid. If you’d like to get in touch with Devin with follow up questions you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/devin-hedge/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/agiledevin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinhedge Here are links to the resources Devin recommends for further information: Defense Acquisition University http://dau.dodlive.mil/tag/agile/ Agile Contracts: Creating and Managing Successful Projects with Scrum http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118630947.html If you’d like to attend one of

This podcast features a question from one of the students in a recent LeadingAgile CSM class. Cheri (the student) asked for advice on how to use Jira with Scrum and her organization's SDLC. In the podcast LeadingAgile Principle Consultant, Derek Huether, offers advice on how to go about using/customizing Jira to work with Scrum and an existing SDLC. If you'd like to reach Derek with follow up questions you can find him: the LeadingAgile site (https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/), via Twitter (https://twitter.com/derekhuether), on his personal website (http://www.derekhuether.com) or via email at [email protected].

Derek Huether has been working on new blog post that outlines 3 things you need to do to establish better productivity practices. The blog post will be live in a few days on the LeadingAgile Field Notes site (https://www.leadingagile.com/blog/). In the meantime, check out this podcast where Dave Prior and Derek discuss the triangle of productivity, how to understand what enables you to get more done and the importance of learning to hack yourself for greater productivity. 00:09 Podcast Begins 00:23 Topic Introduction - Patterns on what makes people productive or kills their productivity 01:13 The patterns of success - system, ritual and habit 01:32 Where the data comes from 02:36 Getting clarity the process of productivity 03:10 An example: Scrum 04:14 Personal Kanban as an example 05:25 Holding yourself accountable vs. Making a commitment 06:37 Testing out different personal productivity systems 09:09 The myth of productivity guru’s and developing habits out of rituals 10:54 Learni

In this episode of LeadingAgile's SoundNotes, Tim Wise joins Dave Prior to answer some questions from CSM and CSPO students about how Business Analysts, Systems Analysts and Product Managers can work with Scrum Teams. If you are interested in learning more about LeadingAgile's Certified ScrumMaster and Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, please visit http://www.leadingagile.com/training/ If you would like to reach Tim, you can find him here: LeadingAgile http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/tim-wise/ WiseAgile http://www.wiseagile.com Tim on Twitter https://twitter.com/timswise Tim on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/timwise

LeadingAgile' Tim Wise spent some time talking with Dave Prior about how important stable teams are to making Agile work. Tim and Dave also discuss the impact of not having them and what you can do about it. Show Notes 00:08 Interview Start and Tim introduction 00:53 - Topic Introduction - Why you need stable teams to make Agile work 02:03 - Tim explains what stable teams are and why they are important 04:51 - Dave presents a common argument against stable teams 05:30 - An example of an organization being successful without stable teams 07:12 - How Digital Agencies struggle with Agile due to a lack of stable teams 07:35 - Why are we advocating for stable teams? What’s the reason behind it? 08:08 - Why you need stable teams to be predictable 08:30 - Research about teams and making them work 10:08 - Shouldn’t really skilled professionals just be able to work together? ( Studio Musicians vs. Professional Athletes) 12:33 - Packing your team with all “A” players does not make a great tea

Ric Merrifield has spend the last 25 years helping organizations develop products that enhance their relationship with the customer. In this podcast Ric shares his approach to Capability Mapping, what makes it different from process mapping, how it can help an organization serve their customer better and why it is so important to Agile Transformation. Show Notes 00:09 Interview start 00:30 Ric’s background 03:19 Capability Mapping vs. Capacity Modeling 03:42 Dave fails at mansplaining Capability Mapping 03:58 Ric sets him straight on what it is and how it works 06:47 Walking through an example - Capability Mapping for an airline 10:15 Using the same scenario to understand the difference between Capability Mapping and Process Mapping 11:33 Helping to remove the blinders… or crack their heads open and the getting a more durable lens 13:45 How Capability Mapping will help you find the gaps in the organization, but process mapping will help you see the gaps in the workflow 15:00 How oft

In this podcast Dave Prior explains how to use the Personal Agility Canvas to identify strengths and areas for improvements in your approach to Agile. Dave takes you step by step thru the tool so that you can use it to set goals and amplify your personal approach to working with Agile. You can download a PDF of the Personal Agility Canvas here: http://bit.ly/2elPaAF

Since entering the workforce, Millennials have gotten a bad rap. There is a long list of complaints levied against them… mostly by the crowd that falls into GenX and older. In this interview, Dave Prior and John Tanner from LeadingAgile are joined by Jenny Madorsky, a Millennial who is a Project Manager at Huge. Dave is GenX and harbors a secret fear the internet will break and go away forever. John is in between the two (and would like you to get off his lawn) but self-identifies as being more on the Millennial side. During this podcast they explore the way Millennials approach working and collaboration. They dig into some of the stereotypes that crop up when people complain about Millennials and GenX, as well as how a Millennial’s view differs from the older crowd’s. In the final portion of the interview, the discussion turns towards what GenXers can do to be better prepared for working with Millennials in order to better support them. 0:08 Interview Begins 00:42 Introductions 01:

One of the most important things an organization can do in order to help teams deliver working, test software is to manage organizational dependencies. In this SoundNotes interview, LeadingAgile Enterprise Transformation Consultant, Andrew Fuqua shares his thoughts on how organizations can manage and remove dependencies in order to better their teams to deliver. 00:08 Interview Starts 00:45 Some background on Andrew 01:25 How the topic of Managing Dependencies Across the Value Stream (until we can break them) came up on LeadingAgile’s internal Slack channel 03:20 The difference between breaking dependencies and managing them across the value stream 04:55 Figuring out where the dependencies exist within your organization 06:35 Dependencies and user stories vs. dependencies created by the organizational structure 08:07 How cross functional do your teams need to be before you can fully address dependencies within your organization? 09:31 Making responsible choices when it comes to sett

Whether you are separated by one floor in the same building or thousands of miles, working with distributed teams is never an easy. But for most of us, it’s the reality of how we work now. In this podcast, LeadingAgile’s Jann Thomas and Adam Asch share tips for how to get better results from your distributed teams and remote team members. 08:00 Introductions 01:21 Topic Intro 02:22 What are the common issue you see with Distributed Teams 02:37 Making people aware of your schedule the you are remote 05:51 Understanding your own best way of working and dealing with it when it is not in sync with your team 08:11 Working with people in different time zones 10:06 The time zone problem 11:14 - Sending team members to a physical location to build rapport and knowledge transfer 12:17 Helping remote team members see themselves as part of a team instead of adversaries 13:25 Cultural Training 14:05 When you’re in the same building but on different floors 15:08 Meeting up in the middle 16:22 Th

This episode of Sound Notes is all about UX and Agile. Marcy Jacobs, Digital Service Expert for U.S. Digital Service and LeadingAgile's John Tanner join Dave Prior to explore the topic of UX and Agile. If you'd like to learn more about the specific questions address during the conversation, check out the show notes below. Show Notes John and Marcy Interview begins 00:08 Introductions to Marcy and John 00:42 The difference between UX, UI and Visual Design 02:27 An example of Visual Design, UI and UX 04:11 Focus Groups… BAD! 07:27 Where to get the info about your user/customer 08:46 What is User Centered Design 11:03 How do you help clients develop greater mindfulness about design 14:30 When the stakeholders “know” what the user needs19:25 Features and solution should be driven by understanding the problem 21:48 Changing the Portfolio Mindset 23:36 When they don’t know that they don’t understand the problem 25:40 Moving past the “just get it launched, we’ll fix it later” mindset 27:52

This podcast features Derek Huether and Dave Prior having a discussion around the idea of getting back to the basics of Agile, understanding why we do things, seeing the value they bring and creating safe spaces for learning while your organization is coping with the challenges of Agile Transformation. Show Notes Interview Start 00:08 Topic Introduction: Back to Basics and the importance of asking Why 00:09 An Example: Reporting and figuring out what is needed in terms of reporting 01:41 Give them the information, not the reporting they got used to under waterfall 2:45 If time is currency, how much does the Daily Standup cost? 04:08 Risk mitigation and making a time investment 05:20 When the Daily Scrum isn’t working, is it wasteful? 05:50 Figuring out why things aren’t working 07:19 It’s not what did you do yesterday, it’s what did you finish yesterday 7:55 Going through the motions until you see the impact and understand why 8:44 Taking your hands off the wheel and learning to tru

Recently, I was contacted by a friend/former co-worker who I met when we were both starting out during the .com boom. A few months ago he brought his team to take my CSM class. After he and his team took my class they went back to their organization and began practicing Scrum. At some point shortly after that, a different section of the organization attended a CSM class taught by JJ Sutherland. What my friend reached out about was the fact that there was an area where what I taught and what JJ taught seemed to be at odds and this was causing them some extra stress in trying to get Agile to take root in the organization. The issue revolved around how much work a team should plan to do, and accomplish in a Sprint. While I had a feeling JJ and I were probably closer than not on the topic, I thought it would be a great thing to discuss/debate in a podcast. So in this episode of SoundNotes JJ and I break down the topic to see where we agree, where we don't and why. If you are not familia

Agile 2016 Personal Accountability Retrospective At Agile 2016, Adam Asch, Katrina Coker, Jim Hayden, Derek Huether, and Dave Prior planned to meet for a Daily Standup each day where they would share their personal plans and goals for each day of the conference. This is something that worked very well for Derek and Dave at Agile 2015 and the hope was to continue that practice and to have the team members serve as personal accountability partners for one another during the week in Atlanta. And it worked… for a day… sorta. In this podcast they hold a 2 part retrospective reviewing their goals, how they were met (or not) and why. It’s all about outcomes… Part 1 - Dave, Derek and Jim Part 1 Intro 0:09 Dave’s failure to meet his self care goals, observations and outcomes 1:57 Derek’s Networking Goals and how he met them 4:50 Derek’s Conferencing Persona 8:18 Recharging during the conference (or not) 11:22 The importance of conference buddies 12:35 Jim’s goals for building stronger relati

Adam Asch and Dave Prior discuss how to build and refine a well formed product backlog. Adam also shares some techniques for determining which elements of the Product Backlog need to be prioritized to the top of the list and how much of those top priority items need to be worked on up front. Show Notes Podcast Intro 00:08 Topic Intro 01:00 Advice on getting started with building your backlog 1:36 Focusing on Epics and Themes 02:18 Where do User Stories fit in with Epics, Themes and Feature Sets? 03:54 What about things we need that don’t fit into the User Story Format? (non-functional stories) 05:19 I’ve got the list of stuff I want… what now? 7:58 Story mapping 9:10 Focusing on Strategy10:16 Define your desired outcome first, not what you want to build 11:48 Mapping and Prioritizing Features and Functionality for Impact 13:05 Capability Mapping 15:20 Understanding customer wants and mapping it back to strategy16:00 Product Owner means Customer Representative 17:50 Getting a deeper

For the last several months 30%-40% the folks attending LeadingAgile’s CSM and CSPO courses have come from Digital Agencies. Nearly all the attendees have questions about how to implement Agile practices in a Digital Agency Model. In this episode of Sound Notes, Brett Harned, who runs the Digital PM Summit, and Rachel Gertz from LouderThanTen, took some time to share what they’ve seen work, and not work, with Agencies who are trying to apply Agile. Show Notes: Interview Start and introductions 1:48 What makes Digital Project Management a complicated fit with Agile 3:44 What is a Digital Agency 6:17 How the historical relationship between Client’s and Agencies complicates integrating Agile in Digital 7:56 The importance of building strong relationships with your client 11:22 What practices from Agile have you seen implemented that work? 13:12 Do typical contracts between Agencies and Clients allow for backlog grooming throughout the project… is that possible ? 14:24 Adapting Digital

In this episode of SoundNotes, Liana Dore, the Agile Governance Lead for eVestment explains why eVestment chose to establish a group focused on Agile Governance instead of a traditional PMO. Liana explains how Agile Governance works at eVestment, what she does day to day and the positive impact it has had on the Agile teams. Show Notes: Intro and background on eVestment 1:48 What is an Agile Governance Lead 3:30 Making the choice to establish Agile Governance instead of a traditional PMO 3:56 What does an Agile Governance Lead do all day 5:02 How Agile Governance works differently than a traditional PMO 7:40 The benefits of training the team all at once 13:30 Understanding Team Health in an Agile organization 16:05 Creating a space for the teams to thrive 18:44 Establishing an entrepreneurial culture that can scale 20:43 Agile Governance is not about control. It has to be light touch 23:32 How to get in touch with Liana 24:35 If you’d like to get in touch with Liana, you can reach h

In this iteration of SoundNotes, Devin Hedge and Dave Prior talk about how to get prepare for Agile 2016. If you’ll be heading to the conference for the first time, the Agile Conference is a big, awesome, exhausting week. You need to prepare, you need to pace yourself and you need to know what you want to get out of the conference. In this podcast you’ll get some tips from seasoned conference veterans on how to make the best of your week in Atlanta. The podcast is only 18 minutes long, so we’re not providing show notes this week. Instead, here is a list of the LeadingAgile events taking place at Agile 2016. Mike Cottmeyer "The Executives Step-by-Step Guide to Leading Large-Scale Agile Transformation" Monday at 10:45 Jann Thomas "2020: The State of Agility" Tuesday at 10:45 AM Jeff Howey "Practicing Agility in Human Resources" Wednesday at 11:30 Collective Soul June 27 at 7 PM. To learn more, please visit: http://collectivesoul.leadingagile.com If you'd like to contact Devin on Twitt

“If you compare yourself with your surroundings and you only see that you are the best you gotta leave this place because you want to develop and be better” A few weeks ago we posted an interview with Katrina Coker on having an accountability partner and how transformative that can be. The post got a great response and so in this episode of SoundNotes Katrina’s actual accountability partner, Olga Kraynova shares her thoughts on accountability partnerships, how they work, and why they are valuable. In the interview Olga shares how she coped with the challenges she faced in moving to Moscow, becoming a PM and then moving to Dallas and how she makes sure she is always surrounded by people she is motivated by and able to learn from. If you’d like to get in touch with Olga to learn more about her story and her approach to being an accountability partner, you can reach her via LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kraynova/en And if you’d like to check out the initial interview with Ka

In this SoundNotes interview, LeadingAgile’s Tom Churchwell explains what it’s like to stick with an Agile transformation all the way through, the Agile and Beyond conference, and the fundamental questions that lead to craftsmanship of the self. Tom Churchwell Notes Interview Begins 1:48 Background on Tom 2:14 Tom’s path to Agile 3:23 The long haul of transformation 4:20 I lost my cube, but I got this shirt 5:05 The long haul 6:05 I trust you implicitly from right out of the gate 7:16 Creating a safe space to make it work 8:00 Change is slow 8:30 Agile Beyond 9:55 Reorienting around excellence 10:45 Ae we still pushing the boundaries? 13:35 Creating the Safe Space 14:15 Increased focus on the human side of Agile 16:00 What do you do when excellence fails? 17:45 I don’t believe that there are dark places 18:38 If your team is in the doldrums, it is the fault of leadership 19:24 Enroll and Inspire, nor command and control 19:40 Craftsmanship and art are a part of what high technology

In this podcast, Dr. Dan Greening is back to follow up in the earlier podcast interview about Agile Base Patterns. This time, Dan and Dave Prior discuss leading indicators you can study to assess Agile Portfolio Health. During the podcast, they dig in to metrics that can be used to assess Lead Time, Abandoned Work and Fitness Functions.

An Accountability Partnership can be a powerful thing. At a very basic level, this is a relationship you establish with another person who agrees to keep watch and support you in defining and realizing your goals. The goals may be of a professional nature, though they may extend beyond this into other areas of your life. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Engagement Analyst, Katrina Coker and Dave Prior discuss the role that an Accountability Partnership can play in providing support in your professional, and personal life. Dave and Katrina talk about how to find an Accountability Partner that is right for you, how to establish working agreements and how to prepare yourself for having someone play that role in your life. Katrina Coker - Personal Accountability Podcast Show Notes Interview Start 1:48 Katrina’s role at LeadingAgile 2:12 Katrina and the Personal Agility Canvas 5:22 Dave’s story on having an Accountability Partner 5:58 Katrina’s background 7:02 How Katrina ende

In this version of our podcast, IHG Product Owner, Rebecca Williamson and LeadingAgile Consultant, Russ Pena discuss how the role of Product Owner has played out on the hotel room redesign project at IHG. From there, Rebecca and Russ share how applying agile outside of technology has led to some interesting process modifications.

LeadingAgile is working with InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) to apply Agile in a project that is completely outside of technology. In this interview, LeadingAgile’s Enterprise Transformation Consultant, Russ Pena and IHG Project Manager, Daniella Huang discuss how they’ve been using Agile in a project to redesign guest rooms for the Holiday Inn brand. This is the first of four podcast interviews we will be posting on how IHG is using Agile outside of IT to deliver value for their customers.

In this edition of our Sound Notes podcast, we sat down with Enterprise Transformation Consultant, Devin Hedge and CST, Dave Prior to share our experiences introducing innovation into an organization through the program and portfolio levels.

In this edition of our Sound Notes podcast, we sat down with LeadingAgile CEO, Mike Cottmeyer to talk about the big splash our company plans to make during the World's Largest Agile Conference in Atlanta.

In this version of Sound Notes, we sat down with Jann Thomas and Tim Wise of our consulting team to answer questions from attendees of our Certified Scrum Training courses. This podcast tackles questions on how UX fits into Agile and recommendations to help Design and UX work with Agile.

We sat down with Enterprise Transformation Consultant, Tim Wise to discuss how people going through IT transformation can develop empathy for change.

Interview Start 1:48 A little about Dan 2:28 Five Characteristics of Sustainable Agility 4:04 Pattern 1 - Measuring Economic Progress (Leading Indicators) 5:04 Pattern 2 - Proactively Experiment for Improvement 8:45 Pattern 3 - Limit Work in Process 10:31 Clarification on Limiting Work in Process for the Five Characteristics of Sustainable Agility 11:30 Pattern 4 - Collective Responsibility 24:31 Pattern 5 - Solve Systemic Problems 28:49 Want more: Dan’s profile on LeadingAgile: http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dan-greening/ Dan’s blog on SenexRex http://senexrex.com/blog Dan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greening Dan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/greening Dan’s email: [email protected]

In this episode, we are joined by Enterprise Transformation Consultant, Russ Pena to talk about how to understand value at the portfolio level, and how an organization can establish a decisioning stack to help them make cut, kill, continue decisions. From there, we discuss how to use capability mapping to move past making “gut” based decisions and prioritize projects using a more scientific method. We closed our show sharing the need for organizations to develop an understanding of how much change they can have in process at once. If you’d like to reach Russ, you can contact him at [email protected] or via twitter at @russpena Show Notes: Welcome 2:00 Background on Russ and his work helping organizations build our product and portfolio teams 2:40 How an organization determines what value is, and how they make choices that align it with strategic goals 3:25 Determining Cut, Kill, Continue at the Portfolio Level 5:40 Leveraging Test Driven Development with Creating New Produc

In this version of our Sound Notes podcast, we sat down with LeadingAgile CEO, Mike Cottmeyer to talk about the focus of Agile in 2016. We discuss why organizations are still struggling to successfully adopt agile, how the systems of many large organizations are still broken, and how the popular scaling methods are only a part of the solution to successful enterprise agile adoption. From there, Mike and Dave Prior use a couple of metaphors to describe the past, present and future of agile along with the difficult change management aspects of agile transformation.

In this version of Sound Notes, we sat down with Enterprise Agile Coach, Jann Thomas and asked here the question: Is the ScrumMaster role a full-time position?