2019 Retrospective - 10 Years as PMPs Working in Agile with Jesse Fewell

It has been ten years since Jesse Fewell and I became Certified Scrum Trainers. During that time a lot has changed in the space occupied by PMPs who work in Agile. To close out 2019, Jesse and I did a retrospective on how things have changed, how the work we do has changed, and what kinds of things PMPs who are interested in Agile need to prepare for as we head into 2020 and beyond.

You can find the interview here.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

What to do when no one is talking in your Retrospectives... w/ Adam Weisbart

I class a few weeks ago a student asked a question about what to do when you can't get anyone to share during a Retrospective. In this episode of the podcast, Adam Weisbart joins me to talk through different tips and techniques that might help you get your team to be more open in your Sprint Retrospectives.

The podcast also includes a link you can use to download a free copy of Adam's Agile Adlibs. 

You can find the podcast here.
https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post/58381/What-to-do-when-your-team-wont-to-talk-In-Retrospectives-w--Adam-Weisbart

Patrice Embry - Finessing Retrospective - 2018 Digital PM Summit

Patrice Embry gave a lightning talk called “Finessing a Retrospective to Get Results” at the 2018 Digital PM Summit. After her talk Patrice and I had a chance to sit down and talk through some of the ideas she shared that you can use to hep you get more value out of the moments where you and your team stop to inspect and adapt how things are working on your project. The tips Patrice shares in the interview (and in her talk) will work for you whether you are holding a more traditional review (like a Post-Mortem or a Project Review), or if you are working with Agile and holding a Retrospective Meeting. (Including how to hold these meetings if you are working remotely.)

If you’d like to get in touch with Patrice with follow up questions, here is how you can reach her via her website: http://www.patrice-embry.com.

The Value of Not Productive Time - a Retrospective on Vacations w/ Derek Huether

Derek meets the ocean.

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 non-productivity time 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 to do can be a positive
• 06:03 The dopamine rush of getting something done… how much sleep do you really need
• 07:33 Debating the argument for getting “enough” sleep
• 09:14 Derek’s Kanban board for vacation activities
• 11:06 What Derek reads on the beach for relaxation (feel free to roll your eyes)
• 12:00 How “the damn ocean and seagulls” prevented Derek from relaxing with his DevOps books on the beach and how the Beastie Boys saved the day
• 13:20 If you are reading work related books on the beach, aren’t you still at work?
• 14:10 When you take time off from work and your hobbies are work related
• 15:48 Finding your own way to satisfy the need to unplug, take a break and get refreshed
• 16:38 The restorative joy that comes from watching seagulls attack people
• 17:08 Pomodoro Timer
• 17:22 The weight of vacation guilt - for doing work, or for not really taking “vacation”
• 18:20 Why would you want to go on vacation and be remorseful when it is supposed to be a reward
• 19:14 Derek’s trick of reserving play time as a planned activity
• 20:15 Having intentionality and discipline to carve out time for creative fun stuff
• 20:48 Super not productive time may be recovery time and that is part of being productive
• 21:30 Giving yourself permission to be not productive and then protecting that time
• 21:55 What happens when YOU don’t respect your not productive time
• 22:20 “I have to respect it” and take the time without carrying the guilt
• 23:04 Dave’s resolution to get less done in 2017 and trying to create a small vacation every day
• 23:45 Derek’s quiet time (with coffee)
• 25:10 Meditation … it’s not about emptying your mind - it’s about not dancing with the thoughts that arise
• 26:20 Derek’s version of meditation - post-its and coffee
• 26:50 It’s a way of looking at your though and saying “yeah, but not right now”
• 27:02 Wrap up thoughts, it’s okay to suck at vacation, it’s okay to not do stuff, protect the time with discipline, acknowledge that you derive and need the time, and don’t let other people tell you how much time you should take
• 27:56 Podcast End

Links from the Podcast

Visible Ops Handbook http://amzn.to/2jzVqKM DevOps Handbook http://amzn.to/2iTX8FM Ariana Huffington "The Sleep Revolution" http://amzn.to/2k2ySik

Contacting Derek

You can reach Derek on the LeadingAgile site at https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ 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 https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ On Twitter at https://twitter.com/mrsungo Or on his personal site at: http://drunkenpm.net

Submitting Questions for Upcoming Coaching Q&A Podcasts

If you have Agile related questions you’d like us to discuss in an upcoming podcast, please send your question to Dave at dave.prior@leadingagile.com. You can send the question in the body of an email, or you can send an mp3 of wav of you asking the question and will include the recording in a podcast on your topic.

LeadingAgile CSM and CSPO Classes

For information on LeadingAgile’s upcoming public CSM and CSPO classes, please go to: www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

The Agilistocrats 2016 Retrospective

The Agilistocrats hold their 2016 Retrospective!

Maria Matarelli, Richard Cheng, Dhaval Panchal, and Dave Prior reflect on the year by and sharing their answers to a few questions about 2016:

1. What is the most valuable thing you learned this year?
2. What area of Agile are you most curious about or hopeful for in 2017?
3. What are you going to do differently in 2017?
4. What advice do you have for others as we head towards the new year?



Here are some links from the podcast

Growing Agile… Not Scaling - the article that Dhaval and Andrea Tomasini co-authored for InfoQ www.infoq.com/articles/growing-agile
Greek Hoplites en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoplite
Agile Certified Leadership Training in Chicago agileleadershipchicago.com
Lyft https://www.lyft.com/
Uber www.uber.com

If you’d like to get in touch with any of the Agilistocrats, you can find them with the information below

Richard Cheng
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/richardcheng
Twitter: twitter.com/richardkcheng
Work: Excella www.excella.com

Maria Matarelli
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mariamatarelli
Twitter: twitter.com/mariamatarelli
Work: Formula Ink www.formulaink.com

Dhaval Panchal
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dhavalpanchal
Twitter: twitter.com/dhavalpanchal
Work: Agile42 www.agile42.com

Dave Prior
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
Blog: drunkenpm.blogspot.com
Twitter: twitter.com/mrsungo
Work: LeadingAgile www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior


Have an amazing New Year!!

Tips for New ScrumMasters with Richard Cheng

You’ve taken CSM Training and passed the Exam. Now what?
In this podcast Certified Scrum Trainers Richard Cheng and Dave Prior share their thoughts on most important things that Certified Scrum Master students can do to be successful Scrum Masters once they have completed the training and passed the CSM Assessment Exam. The podcast includes an exploration of why each of the recommendations is critical to making Scrum work and both Richard and Dave share examples from their experiences in the field working with teams who did, and did not have these practices in play.


Links Mentioned in the Podcast
Geoffrey Moore Vision Statement https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/05/09/product-vision/
Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore http://amzn.to/2h3ruRS
Roman Pichler’s website (where you can find the tools we mentioned) http://www.romanpichler.com
Roman Pichler’s books https://www.amazon.com/Roman-Pichler/e/B00359XCV2/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1482305119&sr=8-1

Contact Info
Richard Cheng
Works for Excella Consulting https://www.excella.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RichardKCheng
Email: richard.cheng@excella.com


Dave Prior
Works for LeadingAgile http://www.leadingagile.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/mrsungo
Email: mrsungo@gmail.com
Blog: http://drunkenpm.blogspot.com

Music
The music featured in the podcast was downloaded from The Free Music Archive http://freemusicarchive.org
Intro Song
Cash Rules by Ari de Niro. For more info: http://www.needledrop.co/wp/artists/ari-de-niro/ or http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ari_de_Niro/
Outro Song
Cherry Skies  - The New Mystical Troubadours. Find them here: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_New_Mystikal_Troubadours/