Hacking Agile for Digital Agencies at Scrum Gathering 2018

Thanks to everyone who attended my Hacking Agile for Digital Agencies yesterday at the 2018 Global Scrum Gathering in Minneapolis.

If you'd like to check out the slides or the Digital Agility Canvas, they can both be found here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/68ecmqh69zz75ds/AADosSXv2XwFpmlB58PFnKaBa?dl=0

Scrum Gathering 2018 Keynote Speaker: Dr. Rick Brinkman

During the 2018 Scrum Gathering in Minneapolis, Dr. Rick Brinkman will be giving a keynote presentation called "Conscious Communication to Bring out the Best in People and Others". The presentation will introduce the crowd to Dr. Brinkman’s techniques for developing greater awareness of how to interpret the messages others are sending us and how we are bringing noise to the signal of the messages we are trying to transmit to others.

I had the chance to interview Dr. Rick about his work helping people develop stronger communication skills. In this interview we discuss ways to become more aware of how we each jam up the messages we are trying to send by letting buried emotions effect our tone, how to slow down and communicate with sincerity and what folks will learn by attending the closing keynote at the 2018 Scrum Gathering. Dr. Rick also offered some tips from his latest book "Dealing with Meetings You Can't Stand: Meet Less and Do More". (https://tinyurl.com/y9phwzeg)

Dr. Rick Brinkman has presented over 4,000 programs in 18 countries and is the author of a number of books including the international best seller “Dealing with People You Can't Stand: How to Bring Out the Best in People at Their Worst” (https://tinyurl.com/yb5wgkmp) which has been translated to 25 different languages.

The Scrum Gathering 2018 Closing Keynote: Conscious Communication to Bring out the Best in People and Others will take place on Wednesday, April 18 at 3:45 PM in the main auditorium at the conference center. You can learn more about the conference here: https://www.scrumalliance.org/courses-events/events/global-scrum-gathering/2018/minneapolis-2018/home

For More Information on Rick Brinkman:
Web: https://www.drrickbrinkman.com
Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/y9t2uc98

Agile in Supply Chain w/ Michael Tibbert and Dhaval Panchal

This podcast features Michael Tibbert and Dhaval Panchal helping me out with a question submitted by a student that focused on implementing Agile in a traditional supply chain organization. We also address the question of whether or not it is easier to implement Agile in a band new organization than it is in an existing one. 

Oh - and um … The Parable of the Watermelon

CONTACT INFO

If you’d like to reach Michael Tibbert, you can find him here:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mftibbert

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeltibbert/

If you’d like to reach out to Dhaval Panchal, he’s here:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dhavalpanchal

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhavalpanchal/

And if you want to read more about the Parable of the Watermelon

(And in 2 weeks, when he gets his website sorted, that will be added here as well.)

If you have any questions about Agile or Scrum that you’d like addressed in a podcast, just send them to drunkenpm@Gmail.com or DM them to @drunkenpm

Scott Ambler - Disciplined Agile Framework

For large scale organizations that need to scale Agile, one of the biggest challenges is selecting the option that will fit best. In this interview Scott Ambler, co-creator of the Disciplined Agile framework offers explains the origin of DisciplinedAgile, what makes it different than the other scaling options  and how to handle some of the more common issues facing traditional orgs that are trying to adopt Agile and handle governance.

SHOW NOTES

00:07 Interview Begins

00:35 Background on the Disciplined Agile Framework

01:34 The Origin of Disciplined Agile and what it was designed to help with

05:01 What drives organizations to want one common way to practice Agile 

06:13 How Disciplined Agile responds to the desire for one process to rule them all

08:36 If you support multiple approaches to development, how do you bring it all together from a governance perspective and how do you communicate with management about process and progress?

11:10 If you are going to govern, what should you actually be governing?

12:30 Do we really want the PMO to be in charge of governing all aspects of the work?

13:20 How Disciplined Agile looks at the bigger picture with respect to governance

15:55 Making room for someone who can watch how things are being measured and keeping track of performance

16:39 We do not want to inflict the same process on 50 different teams. We need to up our game and look at the full enterprise picture

17:24 Everything in the complex adaptive system impact everything else in the system

17:56 The difference between Disciplined Agile and the other options for scaling Agile

20:55 There is no such thing as a best practice… EVER

21:08 If you want to be effective, pick and choose the techniques that work for you

22:50 Teaching them how to make decisions on their own, rather than just prescribing a solution

23:15 Getting qualified, experienced coaches to help you adopt Disciplined Agile

25:19 How Disciplined Agile makes sure the people teaching it are experienced it and know what they are doing

26:42 The first step is not to park your brain at the door. Hire someone who has experience and knows what they are doing.

27:25 The legions of Agile coaches … a 4 day class does not make you an experienced expert

28:55 Avoiding the trap of hiring “experts” who have merely completed few days of training

30:20 Making the case to senior leadership for taking a more mindful approach, despite the additional risk and effort

31:36 If it took your organization decades to get into the state they are in now, it is not going to go away overnight

32:50 The investment is more than just dollars

34:44 No matter how good we are, there is always something more we can tweak to get better

35:12 Organizations need to wake up, observe and have an honest discussion - make the bigger picture obvious

36:47 If you want to get in touch with Scott

37:44 Scott’s upcoming speaking events

38:22 Interview Ends

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON SCOTT AMBLER AND DISCIPLINED AGILE

http://scottambler.com

http://www.disciplinedagiledelivery.com

https://disciplinedagileconsortium.org

How to Stop Treating People as Resources w/ Mika Trottier

If you'd prefer an audio version of the podcast, you can find it here.

In this interview, Mika Trottier and I talk through a subtle but significant shift that has to occur in the mindset of a traditional PM who is trying to adopt an Agile mindset. How do you flip that switch in your brain that thinks of the people who do work as resources and make them start thinking of them as people?

During the conversation, Mika and I also dig into some of the challenges facing introverts who become project managers and some of the coping mechanisms that have aided each of us.

If you’d like to get in touch with Mika, you can reach her via LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mika-trottier-848a7525/

Becoming a Certified Scrum Trainer w/ Anderson Hummel

Last fall Anderson Diniz Hummel became a Certified Scrum Trainer. This means that he has been approved by the Scrum Alliance to teach Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Product Owner classes. The journey to becoming a CST is never easy and never as quick as anyone would like and for Anderson, it was over three years from the time he first started working on it. (And this is after already having taught at the University level for a number of years.)

During the recent holidays Anderson and I had a conversation about what his journey to CST was like. We recorded this in hopes of helping offer some encouragement, advice and support for others who are headed down the path.



To help provide some background about the CST designation, according to the Scrum Alliance’s 2018 State of Scrum Report, there are over 500,000 certified practitioners of Scrum worldwide. Within that community, only 234 people are certified by the Scrum Alliance as being allowed to teach Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Product Owner classes. So, it is a rare certification to have and many people who begin heading down the path do not have a great understanding of what to expect. Hopefully this interview will help with that.

SHOW NOTES

• 00:09 Podcast Begins - What’s up with Anderson
• 01:56 Anderson’s background as a teacher and how that led to him applying for Certified Scrum Trainer
• 03:10 How is teaching Certified Scrum classes different than teaching at the University level
• 04:39 Anderson’s 3 year journey to become a Certified Scrum Trainer
• 10:17 Being a CST is a lot more than just teaching Scrum correctly
• 11:36 How Anderson went from failing art exams in school to excelling at creating art in his classes
• 15:45 How big a role does experience working on Scrum teams play into teaching CSM and CSPO classes
• 19:25 Anderson’s advice for coaches who want to become Certified Scrum Trainers
• 25:20 Understanding how teaching all day impacts you as a human and planning recovery time
• 27:32 A word of caution for new CSTs who try to book too many back to back classes
• 29:32 Parting words of encouragement and advice for CST candidates
• 32:25 Getting in touch with Anderson
• 32:27 Interview Ends

ANDERSON's ARTWORK

CST CERTIFICATION

https://www.scrumalliance.org/certifications/trainers/cst-certification

CONTACTING ANDERSON

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersonhummel/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/anderson_hummel

Challenging the Sprint - An Interview with John Cutler

John Cutler describes himself as a Product Development Nut. He’s deeply focused on Product Development with a Lean /Agile approach and finding ways to improve how we work. He posts his thoughts in Medium, and although he says he is not a professional blogger, he generates new content about twice a week. I really enjoy reading his posts because they always challenge me and push me into seeing things through a different perspective. 

A few weeks ago John posted an article called “Flow, Decoupling Cadences and Fixed Sprint Lengths” in which he challenged the idea of Sprint time boxes.  (There is a video version if you’d rather watch that). The article was thought provoking and left me with a number of questions. So I reached out to John and he was kind enough to let me pester him with my questions in a podcast.

Show Notes

• 00:08 Interview Begins
• 00:50 Some background on John
• 04:31 Lessons John learned as a touring musician that help him work with teams and build new products
• 07:46 Intentionally disrupting your flow in order to grow and learn
• 08:47 Introduction of the main topic - Flow, Decoupling Cadences and Fixed Length Sprints
• 11:48 Understand they why behind the practices you are applying and figuring out how to make them work for you
• 13:30 What job do we hire the Sprint for? If you don’t know why you are using these time boxes, they may not be helping
• 19:47 If you are failing Sprints, is it about the length of the Sprint or the size of the work? Get ridiculously uncomfortable.
• 22:09 When you can’t get through it, go slower and do less. Blazing away at tempo is not going to help anyone
• 23:29 Why brand new teams should start by going slower and doing less
• 25:17 Is it that Scrum doesn’t work, or that people aren’t doing it right?
• 30:02 Be intentional and understand why you are employing practices, and then figure out how you’ll know if they work
• 32:27 What is your company hiring Agile to do?
• 33:42 Know your audience
• 38:00 Filling your Product Backlog with goals instead of features
• 41:18 Visualizing dependencies in your backlog - WITH STRING!
• 51:55 How to reach John
• 52:36 John’s upcoming events and deliverables
• 54:31 John’s writing process
• 55:40 Podcast Ends

Links from the Podcast

• John's post "Flow, Decoupling Cadences and Fixed Length Sprints"
• LeanAgile US (February 26-28) http://leanagileus.com
• FlowState (application) http://hailoverman.com/flowstate

Contacting John

• Twitter https://twitter.com/johncutlefish
• Medium https://medium.com/@johnpcutler

Giora Morein - The State of Agile and Post-SAFeism

This episode of DrunkenPM Radio features a conversation with ThinkLouder’s Giora Morein. During this discussion Giora offers his take on how things have evolved within the Agile space over the past few years and some of the challenges we currently face. For example, if you are trying to use Scrum to build twice the work in half the time, how do you make sure that all the extra stuff you are building is the right stuff? And what if you run out of valuable things to build? Giora and I cover a lot of ground during the interview, which culminates in Giora breaking down life in the world of Post-SAFe-ism.

SHOW NOTES

00:08 Podcast Begins

00:50 An update on ThinkLouder

02:15 Taking greater ownership of your organization’s Agile Transformation

03:20 Pivoting from the “You want more agile, you need more coach” mindset

03:45 Why an experienced Agilist and an agile coach are not the same thing

08:48 Have we moved on to the “cleaning up after the party” stage of agile? Have the thought leaders moved on?

12:27 Have we moved on to a less dynamic stage of the agile conversation? What new ideas in agile is Giora paying the most attention to.

16:14 If you can do twice the work in half the time, how do you make sure the additional work you are doing is the right work?

17:27 The new thing…. the language of innovation

18:10 It’s easier to sell increased velocity/speed to IT than it is to sell transformation of an entire business

19:57  It has to start with “What’s the business driver?”

20:45 The only way Giora and I are going to end up with flying cars

22:32 Use Agile to figure out how to best meet the organization’s business drivers (getting deep in Oklahoma)

23:34 Building the wrong thing really fast is not helping anyone

24:13 Micro-maturation in Scaling

24:34 Post-SAFe-ism

25:45 How to reach Giora

26:29 Podcast Ends

CONTACTING

If you’d like to contact Giora directly, here are some ways to reach him:

Web: https://ThinkLouder.com

Email: gmorein@thinklouder.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/gmorein

Why Digital Transformation is More Important than Agile Transformation w/ Devin Hedge

In this interview Devin Hedge and I dig into some of the research he has been doing around the impact of Digital Transformation, how it impacts consumers and the role that things like Agile and Design Thinking play in helping companies move from an analog way of managing their work to a completely digital way of managing their work.

SHOW NOTES

• 00:08 Interview Begins
• 00:47 Introduction to the topic of Digital Transformation
• 01:58 Defining Digital Transformation
• 04:19 Is there conflict between digital transformation and the goal of having greater empathy for other humans
• 05:38 Using the Apple Store as a way to dig into the digital vs. deep empathy connection
• 08:03 Our addiction to the dopamine hit we get from our devices and our need to increase the hit
• 09:48 Are we letting our desire for the “hit” drive decisions which lead to inefficient business practices? 
• 10:39 How the articles in management magazines drive the pursuit of increasing the frequency and depth of the hit
• 12:55 Hopper in the tunnels = Stickiness
• 14:02 How are Design Thinking and Agile actually helping?
• 18:45 Can developing a level of comfort with constant change also become an addictive hit?
• 20:17 The constant influx of information can be valuable in some respects and have a deeply negative impact in others.
• 24:45 Agile can provide a set of tools to hope us cope with change
• 27:43 What are the challenges of creating a culture where change is the only constant?
• 30:54 Devin wanders into Dangerous Territory!
• 35:56 The tools and techniques we use are not destinations. They are ways to deliver more value faster. 
• 37:25 Why we need a User Centric approach
• 40:10 Summarizing the conversation 
• 41:42 How to get in touch with Devin
• 42:16 Podcast Ends

CONTACTING DEVIN

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinhedge/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/devinhedge
• Web: http://devinhedge.com

Certified Scrum Professional (CSP) Deadline 12/31/17 - HOW TO EARN SEUs FAST!

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 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 quality 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 Alliance Director of Global Leaning and Assessment, Erika Massie and Scrum Alliance Learning Coordinator, Cody Wanberg break down the changes to the CSP certification, the timeline for the change AND we talk though different ways to attain the required SEU’s before the deadline.

It’s a short podcast, so no actual  show notes for this one. Just a few things to keep in mind…

• In order to qualify for CSP before the change you must have your completed application submitted to the Scrum Alliance before it becomes 2018 in Denver.
• Once you submit, the turnaround time you should expect is 8 weeks.

Here are a few of the ways you can earn SEUs…

• Watch the CST facilitated webinars on the Scrum Alliance website. There are 19 of these and they are an hour each. If you watch  them all, you’ll earn 19 SEUs.
• Watch the Scrum Foundations e-learning series to earn 1 SEU.
• If you took a CSM or CSPO, each class is worth 16 SEUs. If you’ve taken both, that is 32. AND, if you’ve taken CSM or CSPO more than once, you get the 16 for each time you take the class.
• During the interview, Cody and Erika explain that listening to something like the Agile Uprising’s Manifesto Author Review podcast series could be submitted under Category E - Independent Learning. You get 1 SEU for each hour of time spent listening. It is a great series and I highly recommend it. You an find it here.
• There are a number of additional ways to earn SEUs and you can find that detailed on the Scrum Alliance site. https://www.scrumalliance.org/certifications/practitioners/csp-certification/ways-to-earn-seus

Additional Questions

If you have questions for the Scrum Alliance about the changes to CSP or SEU’s, send an email to support@scrumalliance.org with the subject line CSP Application Question