Being a Product Owner with No Direction From Above with Richard Cheng

What do you do when you're a Product Owner who gets no direction or support from above? You and the other POs are each told your product is the top priority for the organization but there are not enough developers to do the work. You don't have clarity on company strategy or what the stakeholders want. 

In this episode, Richard Cheng is back for a discussion about how a PO can survive given the challenges listed above.

The intro to this podcast includes details of some new things I'm working on - The Agile Network, my new Art of War for Collaboration course, and the Guided Personal Kanban courses I'm doing for Modus Institute; as well as the podcasting I did at Agile 2024, so.. here are links for that stuff. 

You can find the podcast here.

Links from Dave's Intro

• The Agile Network* https://theagilenetwork.com/

*If you’d like a discount on an annual membership or want to try a month for free, send an email to dave@theageilnetwork.com and let me know.

• Agile 2024 Interviews: https://drunkenpm.blogspot.com/2024/07/agile-2024-all-interviews.html
• The Art of War for Collaboration Course https://modusinstitute.com/course/art-of-war-collaboration
• Guided Personal Kanban (September 2024) https://modusinstitute.com/course/guided-pk-sep-usa
• Public Scrum Training CSM/CSPO/A-CSPO https://www.scrumalliance.org/courses-events/search?tr=14153&cnty=US

Getting Your First Scrum Master Job with Richard Cheng

So you’ve made the decision that you want to get a job as a Scrum Master. Maybe you’re working on an agile team and want to switch roles, or maybe you’re moving from a field where agile has no presence. If you don’t already have experience working in an environment that has adopted Scrum, then the big question is… how do you land the gig.

In this episode of the podcast my good friend Richard Cheng joins me to talk about how to get started working as a Scrum Master - even when you don't have any experience working in Agile.

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.

The Perfect Product Owner w/ Richard Cheng

My interview with Richard Cheng on his presentation "The Perfect Product Owner". Richard gave his presentation earlier this week at the 2019 North American Global Scrum Gathering.


https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post/53427/The-Perfect-Product-Owner-w--Richard-Cheng

LeSS 2018 Conference - Karim Harbott, Dhaval Panchal, Richard Cheng

Karim Harbott led a session at the 2018 Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) Conference on Agility and Company Culture. In this episode, Karim shares some highlights from his session and then Dhaval Panchal, Richard Cheng and I talk through some of the challenges with trying to transform different aspects of company culture and the company value system in order to foster an environment that can support business agility.



Contacting Karim
https://www.agilecentre.com/
https://twitter.com/KarimHarbott

Contacting Dhaval
https://evolveagility.com/https://evolveagility.com/
https://twitter.com/dhavalpanchal

Contacting Richard
https://www.excella.com/
https://twitter.com/RichardKCheng


Large Scale Scrum, LeSS, LeSS 2018, Culture, Agile, Scrum Agile Transformation, Karim Harbott, Dhaval Panchal, Richard Cheng, Dave Prior, DrunkenPM

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/

Agilistocrats! - Saving Christmas with Scrum

Christmas is just around the corner and that means that Kim Brainard is VERY busy. In addition to her day job, her volunteer work as the co-chair of the upcoming 2017 Scrum Gathering, Kim is the founder of an organization that brings Christmas to seniors who might otherwise not have any way of participating in the holidays. Santa Pays it Forward is a non-profit Kim founded to provide seasonal cards, meals, holiday parties and other ways of celebrating the Christmas season to senior citizens who are living in group residences that do not have the financial support needed to provide it on their own. AND she’s using Scrum to make it all happen.



Normally, there would be show notes… but this is one you should just listen to all the way though. It’s an important story about how Agile practices are bringing about social change.
If you’d like to get involved with Santa Pays it Forward, they are looking for volunteers, they’d be happy to accept donations and the NEED someone to help build them a website. You can find more information on the org on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/Santa-Pays-It-Forward-733748293320814/
Or you can email Santa directly at:
santapaysitforward@gmail.com

And if you’d like to get in touch with Kim, Richard or Dave, their contact info is...

Kim Brainard
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-brainard-73a33479
Twitter: https://twitter.com/agilebrain1

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

Dave Prior
Blog: https://drunkenpm.blogspot.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
Work: http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/

2016 Scrum Gathering Munich - The Agilistocrats!

An update from the 2016 Scrum Gathering in Munich featuring Maria Matarelli, Richard Cheng and Karim Harbott (with special guest Howard Sublett).

 

The Agilistocrats on Agile 2016

The Agilistocrats on Agile 2016! If you are attending for the first time or aren't sure what sessions to attend, we've got you covered. Maria Matarelli, Richard Cheng, Dhaval Panchal and Dave Prior share their pics for which sessions to check out and how to survive the week in Atlanta at Agile 2016.

Agilistocrats Episode 4 Giant Mistakes New ScrumMaster's Take

Episode 4 of The Agilistocrats!

Click here to go straight to the podcast

Richard, Dhaval and Dave discuss the biggest mistakes they each made when starting out as a Scrum Masters and what they learned from those mistakes.

Agilistocrats Episode 3 - How Do I Become A Really Good ScrumMaster

Click here to go straight to the podcast

How Do I Become A Really Good Scrum Master?

In Episode 3 of The Agilistocrats, Dhaval Panchal, Richard Cheng and Dave Prior discuss how you can go from being a good Scrum Master to a great Scrum Master.

Agilistocrats Episode 002

Click here to go straight to the podcast

In this episode of The Agilistocrats, Richard Cheng from Excella Consulting, Dhaval Panchal from Agile 42 and I (Dave Prior from BigVisible) discuss some of the common misconceptions people coming from a traditional (waterfall) background have when they come into Agile Training classes.
Knowledge workers coming from a waterfall backgound, especially those of us who have put in the time and effort to get a certification like PMP, face very specific challenges in learning how to let go of how we were taught to work. We may not believe that the traditional model works, (according to The Standish Group, IT Projects only succeed between 30%-40% of the time) but that does not necessarily mean we are ready to embrace an intrnalize an Agile way of looking at work. During the podcast we spend time sharing the different things each of us does in class to try and help folks let go of the concrete liferaft.

If you have suggestions for topics, or questions, please send them agilistocrats@gmail.com
Click here to listen to the podcast

The Agilistocrats 001

Click here to go straight to the podcast

Richard Cheng from Excella Consulting, Dhaval Panchal from Agile 42 and I (Dave Prior from BigVisible Solutions) have started a new series of podcasts focusing on new topics and current trends in Agile. In this podcast we got together to talk about some of the key topics from the Agile 2014 Conference and the current push for Agile in the Enterprise.

This is our first recording and we're looking for feedback (and a better name). Give a listen and let us know what you think.

We'd also like some ideas for new topics to focus on in our next recording. So if you have ideas or questions, please send 'em to agilistocrats@gmail.com.