Managing Work, Life, AND Your Band Using Personal Kanban with Mark Hodgdon

Mark Hodgdon is surrounded by Kanban boards. He uses Personal Kanban to manage his work, his life AND his band. This interview offers a kind of case study is how Mark uses Personal Kanban to keep everything sorted AND he's also started tracking his performance using generating reports to assess how he is doing. 

You can check out the interview here.

Planning Sprints and Releases

My colleague, Jeff Howey and I respond to a question I got from a student in one of my classes:

"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-sighted and optimize for the current sprint but not for the milestone."

You can find out response here.

Untapped Agility with Jesse Fewell

In this very special video episode of the podcast, I’m joined by Jesse Fewell, whose new book Untapped Agility is full of insights, tips, and tactics that you can use to help gain support for your adoption of Agile. Jesse and I go way back. We worked together a lot during the initial phases of getting The Project Management Institute and the Scrum Alliance to talk back in 2009-2010. It was great to catch up with him and I highly recommend his new book. 

Click here to watch the interview on ProjectManagement.com

You Can't Blame Everything on Culture w/ Dhaval Panchal

 If your attempt to introduce organizational change (or agile transformation) isn't going the way you wanted, culture may be part of the problem, but chances are it isn't the only problem. There may be many other factors to consider.

In this podcast Dhaval Panchal and I explore the idea of culture as the thing keeping change from happening and what other factors might be sitting down to eat strategy and other things for breakfast. 

The podcast is here.

Multiple Product Owners with Competing Priorities w/ Jeff Howey

In this LeadingAgile podcast, Jeff Howey and I take on a question from a student about what to do when you have multiple POs working on one product, shared resources, and all the PO's have competing priorities. 

You can find the podcast here.

Business Agility with Richard Cheng and Karim Harbott

Business Agility is something people have been talking about for several years but it is one of those terms that can mean different things to different people. In this episode of the podcast I am joined by my friends Richard Cheng and Karim Harbott to clarify what Business Agility is, why nailing down a definition can be so tough, why it is so important and how you can get started with helping your organization take steps in enabling it. 

You can find the interview here.

Scrum Guide 2020: Scrum Artifacts w Chris Li

Certified Scrum Trainer, Founder of SparkPlug Agility, and good friend of mine, Chris Li, joins me to dig into the changes to Scrum Artifacts introduced in the 2020 Scrum Guide, what they are, how they'll impact you and the how they leave us both hopeful and worried. 

You can find the podcast here: https://bit.ly/3b404uF

You can check out the 2020 Scrum Guide here: https://scrumguides.org/

Jim Benson on Systems Thinking and Modus Institute's new Certification and Accreditation programs

Modus Institute recently introduced its new Certification and Accreditation Programs in Lean-Agile Visual Management (LA-VM). This is something they have been working on developing for 12 years. In this episode of the podcast, Jim Benson joins me to discuss Modus’s new offerings. During the interview we discuss Systems Thinking and how it figures into the LA-VM program.

You can find the interview here: https://bit.ly/2Lkm0XE

You can learn more about Modus Institute here: https://www.modusinstitute.com

The Art of Coaching with Christine Converse and Ross Beurmann

Two of my colleagues from LeadingAgile, Christine Converse and Ross Beurmann join me for a conversation on the Art of Coaching. During the interview we discuss how paired coaching strengthens their ability to foster organizational change and help companies move towards business agility. We also explore the differences between coaching executives and coaching team members, how paired coaching works, and why it has become such a powerful approach for them. Along the way, they both offer lots of tips and techniques you can employ whether you are working as an Agile Coach or serving on a team trying to help them, and your organization raise its game with Agile. 

You can find the podcast here. 

ALSO, this podcast features a brand new theme song for the podcast that was created by Chris DeMakes. If the music or Chris’s voice sounds familiar, that’s because Chris is in the band Less Than Jake. He also has a podcast of his own where he interviews songwriters and producers about the art of creating great music. The podcast is called Chris DeMakes a Podcast and it is definitely worth checking out. 

Improving Your Facilitation Skills w/ Tricia Broderick

How do you make the leap from being someone who can deliver a presentation to being someone who can meet a crowd, entertain them and take them someplace where they happen to learn something valuable along the way? I know lots of people who can stand up in front of a room (or share a screen) and get through a topic without saying anything wrong. I know far fewer people who can take a room, offer valuable information wrapped in stories, and stagecraft in a way that appears effortless. 

Tricia Broderick is an accomplished, well-known thought leader in the Agile community and a fellow Certified Scrum Trainer. She is currently offering a class in Impactful Training and Speaking and I reached out to her in hopes that she might be able to share some thoughts and tips on how a presenter/teacher can amp up their ability at delivering a compelling, valuable fun experience for the people attending their session or class.

You can find the interview here.