When people say they want to start increasing their agility or do more Agile software development, they almost automatically start with Scrum. But the problem is that they're not asking whether Scrum is actually the right framework to use for their specific scenario. In this episode, host Phil Ledgerwood goes over the indicators that tell you if Scrum can be helpful for your team, or if it's time to experiment with some other Agile frameworks that might be a better fit.
Dec 04, 2023•23 min•Ep. 63
We all know keeping our WIP limited is a good thing—Scrum does it with a Goal and timebox, and Kanban does it with a stated limit. But are you paying attention to your arrival rate and departure rate? In other words, are you starting new items at the same frequency that you’re finishing them? In this episode learn why you should care about and control how often we start new things—because it has a whole lot to do with how often you finish things.
Nov 27, 2023•18 min•Ep. 62
Everyone says they have a software development team, but do you really? Or is it just a group of individuals who kind of work together? Software development is a team sport. We want to be operating as a team—not a group of many silos. And as more and more software teams are no longer co-locating, having intentional and real team dynamics is even more important now than ever. In this episode, Host Phil Ledgerwood shares indicators that you do or do not have a true team dynamic in your software de...
Nov 20, 2023•18 min•Ep. 61
There are a lot of different metrics out there for keeping track of your team's workflow. But in this episode, we're sharing the three metrics that we find valuable to keep an eye on and some ideas on how to use them for your own team—not just for planning purposes but also for good discussion on how your team can improve.
Nov 06, 2023•20 min•Ep. 60
What outcome are you expecting from Agility? This is the most important question for organizations and teams to be asked when it comes to using Agile methods, but it's also commonly overlooked. And, of course, that leads to missed expectations—like a team increasing their responsiveness when all they really wanted to do was go faster. To know you're using the right method, you have to make sure you're addressing the right problem—and sometimes the typical understanding of “Agility” isn't the sol...
Oct 30, 2023•22 min•Ep. 59
Everyone has had their own path that introduced them to agility, and that path shapes the way we see and interact with the concept in our roles today. In this episode, Host Phil Ledgerwood takes a brief walk down memory lane and shares how his path led him to his mindset on agile. His biggest takeaway? Whatever you’re sold on today, be ready to leave it for something better—that's what agility is all about.
Oct 23, 2023•22 min•Ep. 58
Story points—some teams find them useful for having discussions to align their understanding of what a story entails. But the points are not actual quantities of anything. So why are so many teams still using story point velocity to forecast how much they can get done within a sprint? And why are so many people on LinkedIn so adamant about it? We're still trying to figure that out. But in this episode, for once and for all, host Phil Ledgerwood is breaking down why story points are, at best, com...
Oct 16, 2023•23 min•Ep. 57
While test-driven development (TDD) might seem like a technical topic, it has a profound impact on the agility of software development. This episode explores how TDD integrates testing throughout the development process, minimizes rework, lowers risk, and fosters a shared understanding of project goals among team members—ultimately creating better software for the user. Whether you're a technical role or not, this episode will give you the tools you need to understand the basics of TDD and its t...
Oct 09, 2023•25 min•Ep. 56
Conway's Law says that any organization's system design reflects its communication structure. But is it really a law, or is it more of an observation? Conway's Law is often misused by consultants attempting to create a mechanistic relationship between organizational and software structures (i.e. if one side changes, the other side will change too). But even though Conway's Law has “law” in the name, that's not quite how it works. But that doesn't mean it's not important to know about. Whether yo...
Oct 02, 2023•21 min•Ep. 55
There are a lot of people claiming to be authorities and thought leaders in the agile community sharing their take on agile practices. So what is their value and how much should we be listening to them? Agile thought leaders have their place. But in this episode, we hope you know the value of your knowledge of your own unique set of circumstances and feel empowered to experiment and find what works for your team.
Sep 25, 2023•16 min•Ep. 54
If you do Scrum, you know that the sprint is the heartbeat of your process. They're what many aspects of a Scrum team are based around. But Scrum often gets criticized for seemingly arbitrary time boxes around getting work done. While we usually do love an opportunity to criticize Scrum, we don't think it's exactly fair to criticize it from a flow-based methodology perspective. Scrum and its time-boxed Sprint method are great tools…when used in the right scenario. In this episode, Host Phil Ledg...
Sep 18, 2023•19 min•Ep. 53
There’s a prevalent idea that Scrum is a good way to introduce a team to agility. But at the same time, a lot of teams are really struggling with Scrum. So is Scrum really a great place to start for a team new to agility? In this episode, hear from host Phil Ledgerwood why Scrum was created in the first place, what type of teams it was intended for, and why it's most likely not the right place for a team to start.
Sep 11, 2023•21 min•Ep. 52
Oftentimes in organizations shifting to be more agile and focusing on team-oriented operations and production, the question inevitably arises, “How do we deal with individual performance?” Performance happens at various levels of an organization. To only focus on individual performance (and not the performance of the systems those individuals are working in) only tells part of the story - the least important part, really. In this episode, host Phil Ledgerwood shares ways of measuring performance...
Sep 04, 2023•22 min•Ep. 51
The title to this episode may seem like a question with an obvious answer. But we think it's important to discuss why it's a question at all, and why somebody might even think differently about it (because there are some good reasons). The more you understand the issues associated with this question, the better off you're going to be strategically when you try to move your own organization to greater agility. So tune in as we unpack this loaded question and look at how speed impacts agility. ➡️ ...
Aug 28, 2023•16 min•Ep. 50
How often does your software team do releases? And when you do, how traumatic is it? Many software teams may be agile in their workflow but still be very slow or inflexible when it comes to the actual delivery of value. But what if we told you that your release cycles are -key- to how agile your team can actually be? In this episode, Host Phil Ledgerwood shares why the big batch and infrequent nature of releases might be canceling out the value you're getting out of an agile workflow and what yo...
Aug 21, 2023•21 min•Ep. 49
So you've identified the constraint. You've optimized your constraint. You've learned to subordinate to your constraint. Assuming you haven't skipped any of these important steps (if you have, go back and listen to those episodes!), now it's time to elevate your constraint. In this episode, host Phil Ledgerwood discusses ways to get the most efficiency out of your constraint and increase its capacity to keep work moving forward. ➡️ Connect with Agile Bites Host Phil Ledgerwood on LinkedIn ➡️ Vis...
Aug 14, 2023•21 min•Ep. 48
When you're starting to build an application, at what point should the database be designed? (To our non-developer listeners, hang in there—this is relevant to you!) There are a lot of opinions on this topic in the software community, and many say the database should come first. But if you're building an application in an agile manner, why would you start with a piece of the project that the user can't interact with and give feedback on? In this episode, host Phil Ledgerwood discusses why he thi...
Aug 07, 2023•18 min•Ep. 47
We all know that having lots of work in process causes problems when it comes to your delivery rate. If you're on a Scrum team, this can look like items getting carried over from sprint to sprint, nothing being ready until the very end of the sprint, no capacity to respond to emergency fixes, or every new user story taking longer and longer to complete. These can all be indicators that your Scrum team has too much WIP. But before you start thinking you need to incorporate other techniques and fr...
Jul 31, 2023•15 min•Ep. 46
Can you be a good scrum master or agile coach without experience in the domain you work on? There are several schools of thought when it comes to this controversial question. Some say yes, some say no, and some say that technical knowledge can actually make you worse at your job. What should actually be the standard? Who's to say? But in this episode, we're going over the different perspectives we've come across and sharing our viewpoint on the matter. Connect with Agile Bites Host Phil Ledgerwo...
Jul 17, 2023•23 min•Ep. 45
The title of this episode may sound counterintuitive, but it's actually the key to optimizing your team's agility. When we say “working less,” we're not talking about slacking off—we're talking about balancing your workflow by subordinating your work stages to your constraint. Having every team member produce the most amount of work at all times seems like the fastest way complete projects, but it's not. And it'll actually work against you. In this episode, learn how you can start thinking about...
Jul 10, 2023•19 min•Ep. 44
Every Scrum master's nightmare is their team wanting to switch to Kanban. It's easy to look at a shiny new framework and think that it's going to solve all your problems. And while we do think that Scrum is not the best fit for most software teams, there are both good and bad reasons to consider before jumping into another framework. In this episode, get ready to think about some hard truths (like, is the problem your framework, or is it something going on in your team?). And also hear about som...
Jul 03, 2023•20 min•Ep. 43
True or false: For Kanban, Monte Carlo, and Little's Law to work, your work items have to be a similar size. When we think about forecasting work, it's easy to think that the best way is to add up the total amount of time it takes to complete something and use that to predict the future. But that's actually not the case. In this episode, learn how you can let go of worrying about making all your cards the same size in order to get accurate forecasting.
Jun 26, 2023•17 min•Ep. 42
Regardless of what Agile strategy or framework a team is using, at the end of the day, one of the biggest questions teams are trying to answer is, “What can we get done in a certain timeframe?” And some choose to address this by using velocity: adding up the number of story points delivered in a sprint and using that to determine how much can get done in a future sprint. But does that really make sense with how story points work? And more importantly, is it even accurate at predicting future wor...
Jun 19, 2023•20 min•Ep. 41
So you've found your constraint—what now? (or maybe you haven't found your constraint yet. In that case, scroll back a few episodes and listen to “Finding the Constraint” first!) Your constraint is basically what's controlling the pace of your whole system. So now that you've found it, you need to optimize it so it's working continuously and effectively (notice that we didn't say to get rid of the constraint!) In this episode, we're giving you practical tips to optimize your constraint so that y...
Jun 12, 2023•17 min•Ep. 40
Just because the “Q” in “QA” stands for “Quality” doesn't mean that this role should be the only one who's responsible for making sure features are up to standards. Unfortunately, too many QAs spend their limited time just making sure that features WORK, let alone finding edge cases and addressing actual bugs. And then they have to pull the developer back in to fix the feature after the developer has already moved on to the next one. Talk about a bottleneck! Quality can't only be QA's job—it nee...
Jun 05, 2023•19 min•Ep. 39
When Daniel was learning Karate in The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi had him start by doing tasks over and over without explanation so he could master the basics before actually using the martial art on his own. And this method of mastering a skill is something we see across many disciplines outside martial arts—sometimes it's even applied to learning agility. But is following and mastering “the rules” before venturing off and making your own improvements the best way to start to increase your agility?...
May 29, 2023•22 min•Ep. 38
Hopefully, you know by now that limiting your work in progress is the solution to a lot of delivery problems. Both Scrum and Kanban have their own ways of limiting WIP, but there's another way you might not have heard of: Drum-Buffer-Rope scheduling. In this episode, learn what Drum-Buffer-Rope scheduling is and how it can align the activities of your team and reduce bottlenecks in your flow.
May 22, 2023•19 min•Ep. 37
One of the benefits we can get out of Agile and Lean processes is the ability to forecast work based on a team’s metrics. But if you’ve just started tracking your cycle time and running Monte Carlo simulations, and your results are all over the map, this podcast is for you. We’re sharing with you what things need to be in place so that when you do run forecasts or look at your cycle time scatterplots, you’ll see results that are meaningful, useful, and actionable.
May 15, 2023•15 min•Ep. 36
Every system, no matter how optimized, has a constraint—the point in the system that has the lowest throughput. But do you know where yours is? And what are you doing about it? Knowing your constraint means knowing where you can make meaningful improvements to your system. Because if you make improvements to the wrong part of the system, you could actually make your flow worse (*cough, cough* hiring more developers when they're not the actual source of the bottleneck). In this episode, learn why...
May 08, 2023•20 min•Ep. 35
The whole concept behind using the word “flow” in “workflow” is that work keeps moving forward. Sounds nice, right? But we all know it's a little ambiguous in practice. What about those times when cards seem to need to move backward on the board? Like when QA finds a bug—should the card move back to Dev? To answer that question, we first have to remember why the columns on the Kanban board exist in the first place: to be stages of transformation—not roles or specific activities, per se. And with...
May 01, 2023•15 min•Ep. 34
