The Art of War with Gary Gagliardi

In the classes I teach and the podcasts I record I talk frequently about how deeply Sun Tzu’s The Art of War has impacted the way I understand the opportunities that show up in my life. Once you get past the title, you can begin to understand how it is really a book about collaboration. I have MANY translations of the Art of War in my apartment but none of them have reshaped my brain as profoundly as the ones by Gary Gagliardi. His book The Amazing Secrets of Sun Tzu's The Art of War: The Mysteries of History's Most Powerful Strategy helped me to understand the work on a completely different level and was the basis for my Five Measures Canvas tool.

And, he is the guest on this episode of the podcast!!!!

You can listen to the interview here.

How can a Product Owner Develop Skill Negotiating with Exec Leadership? w/ Steve Martin

This is a frequent question in the CSPO classes I teach. Many organizations want the benefits of Agile. Sometimes they assign people to the role of Product Owner, and then continue with business as usual. For the role of PO to work effective, you need an individual filling the Product Owner role who is will and able to make decisions, even without all the information they would want to make the decisions. AND they need to be working in an organization that trust them to make those decisions.

If you don't have that, if you are in a PO role, but management is handing you products with deadlines and ever changing scope (cause it's agile #sarcasm), then you're in trouble.  So, how do you get started developing the skill and experience negotiating with stakeholders who may not view you as someone who has the gravitas to negotiate with them.

In this episode of drunkenPM radio, Steve Martin joins me to share his strategies and thoughts on how to cope with your need to develop negotiation skills.

Steve is the founder of Cottage Street Consulting and you can also find him on LinkedIn.