Finding the Right Problem to Solve w/ Braden Cundiff

Braden Cundiff is back to discuss finding the right problem to solve in Part 2 of our series on using his FLIP method to change behavior. 

In this interview, we explore how to find the problem, why you need to name that problem and create a definition around the scope of it, and then how to assess whether or not it is a problem you can, and should take on.

You can find the podcast here: https://bit.ly/3s1cKLs

You can pick up Braden's book here: https://t.co/aQl3a5FY1z

Common Sense Scrum with Eric Tucker

Sustained Agility’s Eric Tucker, CST, joins me to talk about missteps people and organizations make while transitioning to Scrum that could be easily avoided if they would just use common sense. Eric has put together a talk highlighting some of these mistakes and during the interview, he and I explore why they occur in the first place, and how two avoid them.

You can find the interview here.

Assumptions Mapping with David Bland

Assumptions are often the Achilles heel of any development effort. These are the things we’ve unintentionally decided are true and unfortunately, far too often, our assumptions are wrong. If you’ve based the success of the work you are doing on incorrect assumptions… VERYBADTHINGS.

In this episode Founder David Bland has joined me to talk about why we need to pay attention to assumptions and how to use Assumptions Mapping to determine which of our assumptions present the biggest threat and need to be addressed first. During the interview, we review how to use the Assumptions Mapping approach that is included in Testing Business Ideas, the book David co-wrote with Alexander Osterwalder.

You can find the interview here: https://bit.ly/3DhlVcR

When Your Team Members Also Report to Other Teams w Dan Eberle

In this episode of the podcast, Agile Coach Dan Eberle is back to help me respond to a student question that is complicated, confusing, and more common than it should be…

Ivan (not the person’s real name) explained the situation like this… 

Six Product Owners/Developers oversee 20 reports within the org. Each of the reports has a specialized role. They are broken up into teams that range in size from 1-5 people, and the team size tends to fluctuate. Some of the Product Owners/Developers oversee teams and are also the people managers of the individuals on the team. Some of the team members report to people managers who are Product Owner/Developers of other teams, team members of other teams, or people completely outside the grouping of 6 + 20. There is competition for the attention/efforts of team members who are allocated to more than one project and/or reporting to a people manager who has different priorities than the PO/Dev they are assigned to work with. 

You can find the interview here.

What it Takes to Enable Business Agility with Karim Harbott

Karim Harbott joins me to discuss his new book, The 6 Enablers of Business Agility: How to Thrive in an Uncertain World, and the challenges faced by organizations who try to adopt practices that could lead to Business Agility but are thwarted by a continued commitment to a command and control mindset. 

The podcast can be found here: https://bit.ly/3GwO2rg

The book, which I highly recommend, can be found here: https://amzn.to/2Zn4aLh

What Do We Do With The QA Manager? w/ Joel Norman

Joel Norman is joining me for this episode to respond to a question I got in class recently about what happens to the role of QA Manager once all the QA folks have joined teams. Do we still need someone to manage QA if everyone in QA is part of a cross-functional, self-organizing team? If the answer is yes, what do they do day-to-day? If the answer is no, who is going to advocate for things like continuous integration across all the development teams?

You can find the podcast here.

Does Your Team Really Understand What Is Valuable? w Adam Weisbart

In this episode of the podcast Adam Weisbart and I take on the topic of how you can get clarity on value, how can you make sure your backlog reflects that understanding of value and how can you ensure the team has awareness of what “value” means to the organization.

You can find the interview here.

Adam also shares some details about his upcoming Agile Virtual Summit (Bite Size) which is taking place on October 14, 2021. The event is free and there are going to be some great speakers, including people like Jim Benson, Richard Cheng, and Melissa Boggs who have all been guests on the podcast. You can learn more about the Agile Virtual Summit (Bite-Size!) here.

Can Teams Actually Achieve Predictability? w/ Troy Magennis

Before the pandemic hit, one of my favorite parts of the summer was going to the Agile Conference and doing podcast interviews with the speakers and thought leaders who were there. Each year, one of the very best moments of each Agile Conference was when I would get to sit down and talk with Troy Magennis. 

It’s been two summers. 

I miss talking to Troy.

So I reached out and he was kind enough to spare some time for an interview. 

During the conversation, we cover a number of topics, including:

• Is it actually possible for a team to become predictable? 
• What gets in the way of predictability? 
• What is BlockedApp and why did he create it?
• Which constraints are the most important ones to start with? 
• Who is responsible for acting as the scientist of flow? 
• Why are we still so focused on utilization and output instead of results?
• Why do we all need to know CPR?

Click here to check out the interview

Do We Actually Need A Scrum Master?

In a class recently, a student asked a question that caught me by surprise. He asked if Scrum Master was a necessary role. If the team was fully engaged in approaching the work with an Agile mindset, inspecting, and adapting from one Sprint to the next both with respect to the deliverable AND the way they work together, AND they were self-organizing, then why would they need a Scrum Master? And, if management was imposing a Scrum Master on a team that was functioning this way, wouldn’t that indicate a lack to trust in the team?

These are good questions, and while we discussed the topic during class, I found myself returning to it over and over. What I love about this question is that even though I have an answer to it in my head, the asking the question challenged that. 

In this episode of the podcast, I’m joined by the person who asked the question, Kyle Macey, who works as a Senior Backend Engineer at Chow Now. And, because I wanted to do my best to keep my bias in check during the conversation, I asked a friend, Bjorn Jensen, if he’d be willing to lead the discussion. Bjorn and I volunteer for the Scrum Alliance TAC together. He’s not only a CST with a background in development, Bjorn has a level of openness and calmness that I only wish I could achieve.

drunkenpmradio · Do We Really Need A Scrum Master?

Contacting Kyle Macey

• Twitter:  https://twitter.com/itskylemacey
• Web: https://kylemacey.com/

Contacting Bjorn Jensen

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mirouhh
• Web: https://jensen-und-komplizen.de/
• Email: mail@jensen.coach

Responsibility Immersion with Christoper Avery, Henning Wolf, and Patricia Sappenfield

The Responsibility Process is a system that provides you with tools that enable you to develop leadership skills by leading yourself first. Christopher Avery is now offering a 20-week Responsibility Immersion program where a small group of individuals will work together to learn, and deepen their understanding and practice of The Responsibility Process.

This interview features the creator of The Responsibility Process, Christopher Avery, Henning Wolf who is an Accredited Responsibility Mentor and a Certified Responsibility Workshop Leader who leads Responsibility Immersions in Germany, and Patricia Sappenfield, who has recently been through Responsibility Immersion. During the conversation, we discuss what the Responsibility Process is, how Immersion works and how you can learn more about it in advance of the workshop to make sure it is right for you. 

This interview is being posted in advance of the September 2021 Responsibility Immersion which begins on September 8. For more information please go to: https://responsibility.com/immersion

An audio-only version can be found here: https://soundcloud.com/drunkenpmradio/responsibility-immersion-august-2021

Contact Info:

• Christopher Avery: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopheravery/
• Henning Wolf: https://www.selbstfuehren.de
• Patricia Sappenfield: patricia_sappenfield@baylor.edu
• Dave Prior: https://drunkenpm.blogspot.com/

Tips For Engaging Big Consulting to Help You Prepare For Transformation w/ George Schlitz

When preparing to introduce a massive organizational change like Agile, many organizations take the approach of bringing in an outside company to figure out "how" to do it, and then a separate company to introduce the actual change. 

George Schlitz has spent a lot of time leading those implementation efforts. In this interview, he shares some of the lessons he’s learned about what a company can do to set itself up for success when they engage with the third party figuring out the “how” and also what a company can do to set itself up for the opposite of success.

Click here for the podcast

ProKanban with Colleen Johnson

 

My interview with ProKanban CEO, Colleen Johnson on creating ProKanban.org, the ProKanban Guide, and why ProKanban Certification is something you need to seriously consider as you deepen your skills in working with Agile. 

You can find the interview here.

And if you want to check out the Kanban Guide, you can find that here.

Knowing How to Measure Progress in Agile Transformation w/ Ross Beurmann

Ross Beurmann and I explore how to make sure you measure the right things to gain insights into how to improve your Agile Transformation. (And the impact measuring the wrong things can have on your agility to create lasting organizational change and deliver value for the company and your customer.)

The interview can be found here.

New Disciplined Agile Certifications from PMI with Scott Ambler

My interview with Disciplined Agile co-founder, Scott Ambler, on the new Agile Certifications being offered by the Project Management Institute.  We also discussed how things with Agile have evolved at PMI since it acquired Disciplined Agile and Alan Shalloway's FLEX in 2019.

You can find the interview here.

Flipping Options to Change Behavior w Braden Cundiff

Changing behavior is difficult. It doesn't matter if you are talking about change at an organizational or a personal level. Getting people to do things differently is a tall order.

In this episode of the podcast, Braden Cundiff joins me to talk about his new whitepaper  Flip: Archetonics of Project to Products and his model for creating lasting behavioral change.

You can find the interview here: https://bit.ly/3xbeMrV

Driving Change When You Don't Have Agency w/ Sinakka Waugh

Sinakka Waugh, the Founder of Your Clear Next Step and host of the Even Better Podcast joins my colleague Jeff Howey and me to talk through different tactics you can employ when trying to create change in an organization when you may not be empowered to do so. 

You can find the interview here

Understanding the Product Goal with Don McGreal

In my continuing quest to get sorted on the Product Goal I reached out to Don McGreal. Don is the VP of Learning Solutions at Improving, the co-Author of The Professional Product Owner book, the co-founder of TastyCupcakes.org, and a Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer. 

The was one of the most impactful conversations I have had about Product Goal and it left me with not only a much deeper understanding of why it exists and how it can help, but how it is going to reshape the way I think about, and work with, the Product Backlog.

You can find the interview here.

The Value Management Office with Sanjiv Augustine

Sanjiv Augustine took a break from putting the finishing touches on his new book From PMO to VMO: Managing for Value Delivery to join me for an interview about Value Management Offices. During the interview, Sanjiv explains what a VMO is, how it is formed, how it works,  and why any organization working towards business agility needs one. 

He also offers a message of hope for the project managers who tend to look at Agile like the thing bringing an early end to their career.

You can find the interview here: https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post/69143/The-Value-Management-Office-with-Sanjiv-Augustine

The Product Goal with Dave West

This interview with Scrum.org CEO, Dave West, is one in a series of podcasts I am going to post on the topic. Dave not only helped me get a better understanding of the concept, but he challenged me with something towards the end of the interview that helped me shake off my dogmatic blues and re-embrace the idea of Scrum being a framework that is meant to be adapted. 

I've raised my concerns about the Product Goal in a few other interviews recently, but I got to a point where I knew I needed help getting my head around it. So I reached out and I am deeply indebted to the folks from Scrum.org who were kind enough to share their time and wisdom with me.

You can find the podcast here.

Catching up with Melissa Boggs

Melissa Boggs spent two years as the Chief ScrumMaster at the Scrum Alliance. In January she took on a new role as the Vice President of Business Agility at Sauce Labs. In this interview, we talk about what she learned in her time as Chief SM and what advice she has for others heading down that path, and why you should "just jump". 

You can find the interview here.

Coaching Stances with Dan Eberle

This episode features an interview with Dan Eberle. Dan is an Agile Coach, working at the New York Times and leading a few Agile-centric communities of practice. During the conversation, we discuss different coaching stances, how to develop your skill with employing them, how to measure your success as an Agile Coach, how being an internal coach differs from coaching at a consulting company, some tips for those moving towards a coaching role, and things to watch out for as you head down that path.

You can find the interview here:
https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post/68980/Coaching-Stances-with-Dan-Eberle

Agile Coaching Ethics with Shane Hastie

If you’ve been working as a coach or a consultant for any length of time you have run into situations where you have to make a decision about what the “right” thing to do actually is. Sometimes, it is pretty obvious, sometimes, not so much. Some professional organizations have established standards that credentialed professionals promise to adhere to. The International Coaching Federation has the ICF Code of Ethics and the Project Management Institute has a Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. In January of 2020 the Agile Alliance launched the Agile Coaching Ethics Initiative. In January of 2021, they launched a draft of their Code of Ethical Conduct for Agile Coaching along with a set of scenarios to help clarify what is, and is not an appropriate response in a variety of complicated situations.

You can find the interview and more on this topic here: https://bit.ly/2Q1zWbI

The Metrics Cookbook with Derek Huether

Derek Huether is out with a new book - Metrics Cookbook. If you are trying to figure out which metrics to pay attention to and why this book (and this podcast) are what you need. During the interview, Derek and I talk about why he wrote the book, what problems it addresses, and then we dig into a specific example of how taking a fresh look at metrics was just what a company needed to realize they were trying to take on way too many projects at once and take corrective action so some of the projects actually reached completion. 

You can pick up the book here: https://amzn.to/3uE8fo9

Video version of the interview: https://bit.ly/3osfv3c

Audio version of the interview: https://bit.ly/325dpx2

The Agile Virtual Summit - Adam Weisbart Takes Over

This is a completely unique version of the podcast. For the first time since 2008, I’m giving up control of the show and in this episode, Adam Weisbart interviews me about the session I’ll be leading at the Agile Virtual Summit, some of the changes in the new Scrum Guide, and iocane powder.

You can check out the podcast here

The Agile Virtual Summit [Bite-Size!] takes place on March 31st. The event is Bite Size! because it is only 3 hours long (12 PM - 3 PM Eastern). I will be giving a presentation along with Tricia Broderick, Richard Lawrence, Nicole Spence-Goon, Dr. Dave Cornelius, and Heather Dunning. And the Keynote is being given by Lyssa Adkins, who you definitely do not want to miss. 

Also, it’s free!

You can register for the event here: https://AgileVirtualSummit.com/Dave

The Product Goal with Ryan Ripley

Agile for Human co-host and Fixing Your Scrum co-author, Ryan Ripley joins me to try and sort out the Product Goal and how it fits in with the other ways we talk about the Product Backlog. 

You can find the interview here.

Resistance to Change with Christine Converse and Ross Beurmann

Christine Converse and Ross Beurmann are back and this time the conversation centers around the problems we face when trying to create change within a team or organization. More specifically, we talk about how you can influence others to change when you have no authority, the people you are trying to help may have no desire to be helped. Whether you are working in an agile environment, a traditional organization, or something that is careening back and forth between the two, this interview is going to give you a lot to think about.

You can find the podcast here.

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