For this episode of SoundNotes, we reached out to some of the students who have taken CSM and CSPO classes over the last few months. We got a lot of great questions and will be responding to them over the next few weeks. This week, Derek Huether and Dave Prior respond to these two questions: Question 1: My team seems to have a problem with estimating and understanding the estimating concepts. The team members are accustomed to traditional waterfall projects and estimating everything in units of ...
Nov 03, 2017•20 min•Ep. 205
If you have ever considered moving into consulting, this podcast is for you.In this podcast, In this interview, Rick Austin, John Tanner and Dave Prior talk about what it is like working as a traveling consultant for LeadingAgile. They discuss how it changes the focus of your work, what it takes to be good at it, how it impacts your personal life and some of the things you have to do to maintain your sanity when you spend most of your life on the road. SHOW NOTES 1:13 Podcast Begins - Overview o...
Oct 26, 2017•40 min•Ep. 204
This is a explaination of the new tool I introduced at the 2017 Digital PM Summit . The session I led was called Hacking Agile for Digital Agencies and the canvas tool I built for the session is intended to help Digital Agencies understand more about why they want to use Agile practices in the first place, how they are expected to help and what they are willing to risk in order to achieve some level of agility. If you'd like to check out the slides from the actual presentation, you can find them...
Oct 19, 2017•8 min•Ep. 203
Scott Sehlhorst, SVP and Executive Consultant at Leading Agile, goes deep on Personas in this episode of SoundNotes. During the interview Scott and Dave discuss the difference between Proto-Personas and actual Personas, the importance of empathy maps and how to help management understand that making the investment in developing personas is a great way to reduce risk. This is the first of several podcasts we are going to be posting on Personas, how to create them and why they are so valuable. Sho...
Oct 12, 2017•55 min•Ep. 202
When you think of the annual Agile conference, you usually think about speakers and content. However, Paul Hammond wants to augment the content at the conference with the answers to your questions and one-on-one time with experts from around the industry. That’s why, this year, the conference includes Agile Therapy. Learn more in this video with Paul and Chris Li.
Oct 11, 2017•16 min•Ep. 201
Tricia is the Agile2017 conference Chair and in this video, she discusses how the conference has grown and changed over the years. Also, she speaks about how the speakers are chosen and how the organizers try to provide a variety of things to do for attendees to self-care and stay fresh. Midway through the podcast, Tricia switches gears and talks about her personal ascension to the role of an Agile leader and how she tries to pay it forward to the Agile community.
Oct 04, 2017•17 min•Ep. 200
In this – all LeadingAgile – edition of SoundNotes, Rick Austin and Paul Argiry discuss each of their talks. The talks focus on portfolio management and capitalizing software in an Agile world. In the video the guys discuss the new definition of portfolio management, road mapping, and capacity management as well as how to avoid common accounting pitfalls when trying to fund your Agile initiative.
Oct 02, 2017•13 min•Ep. 199
In this short video, Jesse Fewell and Kim Brainard discuss their talk that they delivered at Agile2017: The PMO Paradox. The talk centers around what to do with the PMO when your organization is in the middle of an Agile initiative. Often, the answer is fire them but Jesse and Kim have a different suggestion. What if you could collaborate with the PMO in an Agile environment to ensure that they are an asset?
Sep 29, 2017•16 min•Ep. 198
We received a question from someone who has been working as a Scrum Master for awhile and is considering moving into coaching. They just weren’t sure how to tel if it was the correct next step and had a lot of questions about what the job involved, what skills were needed, etc. In this week’s podcast, Tim Wise and Dave Prior discuss the role of an Agile Coach, what it involves, the day to day work, what skills are needed and, if you are in that role, some important things to watch out for. Show ...
Sep 28, 2017•59 min•Ep. 197
Mike Vizdos is a busy guy. He’s someone whose passion for helping agile change lives extends well beyond coaching traditional organizations and teaching classes. At Agile 2017, Mike stopped by to provide an update on Agile In Education and the work he and others are doing to bring agile to schools and transform the way we learn. This work is taking place e at every level of education - from grade school up through university. It is an inspiring and impressive thing. Mike also talks about the wor...
Sep 26, 2017•12 min•Ep. 196
During a recent LeadingAgile offsite Jeff Vogelsang and Tom Churchwell sat down with Dave Prior to break down the TIES approach of Agile planning that they have bee using with clients. This approach been used to help organizations who need a way to manage long term strategy planning that creates visibility all the way down to the execution level. TIES addresses planning at 4 levels: Themes – Strategic long term goals broken down into time boxes of 1 to 3 quarters. Initiatives – Themes are broken...
Sep 21, 2017•28 min•Ep. 195
In this Agile 2017 interview Johanna Rothman talks with Dave about her new book “Create Your Successful Agile Project Collaborate, Measure, Estimate and Deliver” and how teams that are struggling to make Scrum work may want to adopt an approach that focuses on continuous flow in order to deliver value for their customers with greater frequency. The interview includes a conversation about working with User Stories that are sized to only take the team a single day to complete, how this can help te...
Sep 20, 2017•18 min•Ep. 194
Radtac Co-CEO Laura Powers took some time out of her busy schedule at Agile 2017 to talk with Dave Prior about the benefits an organization can gain from introducing play into the workplace. In this interview she explains how it can help unlock creativity within the team. Laura led an additional session at Agile 2017 called “It’s Not Just About Culture: Co-creating an Awesome Agile Climate in an Imperfect World”. During their conversation Laura explains how to create a working climate that suppo...
Sep 19, 2017•26 min•Ep. 193
At Agile 2017 Diana Larsen sat down with Dave Prior to talk about the Agile Fluency model. In this interview she explains what it is (a way of thinking about what benefits an organization needs to get from it’s teams) and how she and James Shore co-founded the Agile Fluency Project with the hope of moving past the question of whether or not a given team, practice, etc. was Agile or not. They wanted to shift the focus to a more positive approach that would help teams develop routine, skillful eas...
Sep 18, 2017•21 min•Ep. 192
This podcast features LeadingAgile SVP and Executive Consultant John Tanner who joins Dave Prior foo discuss how to take on a “Goal-Question-Metric” (GQM) approach to gaining clarity on how well Agile is being employed across the organization. Last Spring at Agile Day Atlanta, John led a session called “The GQM Approach to Agile Metrics”. The session was very well received and when we posted the video of John’s presentation and the slide deck he used, there was a great response and we thought it...
Sep 15, 2017•24 min•Ep. 191
In this interview with David Bland, he and Dave Prior discuss definitions of lean startup and design thinking as well as his passion for building businesses that matter. David goes into detail about how he works with existing companies to create new lines of businesses using internal venture capital, as well as how the scientific method applies to business.
Sep 11, 2017•27 min•Ep. 190
LeadingAgile CEO and Founder, Mike Cottmeyer led two sessions at Agile 2017: Agile Transformations Explained and Faster Food and a Better Place to Sleep: Applying Agile Outside of Software. In this interview Mike and Dave discuss how an organization can get better at setting appropriate constraints, making iterative and incremental decisions that inform execution and creating feedback loops that will help drive a more successful adoption of agile across the organization. If you’d like to learn m...
Sep 08, 2017•6 min•Ep. 189
Adam Weisbart led a session at Agile 2017 called “Surviving Backdraft (or How to Not Die in a Hellish Explosion of Dysfunction)”. During his session, Adam shared some personal experiences with backdraft and introduced tools to help agile coaches and practitioners cope with the pushback that often accompanies organizational change and the dysfunction that impedes that change. In this interview Adam and Dave discuss his session and some mindful self-compassion techniques that will help you manage ...
Sep 07, 2017•26 min•Ep. 188
Yi Lv became the first Certified Scrum Trainer in China in 2008, and is currently an Agile coach at Odd-e. Yi is also an expert in Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) and in this interview, he talks about the session he led at Agile 2017, “LeSS without Scrum”. Yi’s presentation focused on explaining how you can implement the principles of Large Scale Scrum in an environment that does not have a proper Scrum implementation at the team level. If you’d like to check out Yi’s experience report on the subject y...
Sep 06, 2017•17 min•Ep. 187
Dr. Harry Koehnemann is the Director of Technology at 321 Gang and a SAFe Fellow. Harry led a session at Agile 2017 conference entitled: When Worlds Collide: Regulatory Compliance Meets Lean Agile Development . During his talk, he discussed some common mistakes companies make when trying to scale Agile in the face of regulatory compliance. In this interview Harry and Dave discuss his talk at the conference and some of the ways in which compliance requirements can be incorporated into development...
Sep 05, 2017•8 min•Ep. 186
Christopher Avery kicked off this year’s leadership track at Agile2017 with his talk the on the Four Characteristics of Good Goals; an idea that stemmed from his book The Responsibility Process, which outlines a model that will help people overcome patterns that are hardwired in our brains from the day we’re born. Find Christopher Avery Online Twitter: twitter.com/christopheraver LinkedIn: linkedin.com/christopheravery Facebook: facebook.com/christophervery2 Web: christopheravery.com Web: the.le...
Sep 05, 2017•43 min•Ep. 185
Michael J. Tardiff is a conference veteran with a lot to say about most things. Watch as Dave and Michael talk about topics such as: networking while at the conference, some of the latest mergers in the industry, the legitimacy of norms, and even the Mexican government. The topics are varied, but the message is consistent. The Agile world is changing but is that change for the better. Contacting Michael • Twitter: https://twitter.com/mjt • Web: https://feelingagile.wordpress.com • LinkedIn: http...
Aug 31, 2017•21 min•Ep. 184
At Agile 2017, Dr. Sallyann Freudenberg led a session called “Why the tech industry needs all kinds of minds and how to support them” . Along with her work coaching Agile organizations and teams, Sal is a champion of neuro-diversity in the workplace. In this video Sal chats with Dave about how neuro-diversity became a concern for her, why neuro-diversity is so important to Agile, her session at Agile 2017, and her book “Inclusive Collaboration Experiments”. For more on Sallyann Web: SallyannFreu...
Aug 29, 2017•24 min•Ep. 183
Agile Uprising is one of the fastest growing networks in the Agile community, and Mike helped to create it and is an active board member. He’s also helped organize the Heart of Agile conference for the last two years and is one of the developers of the Lean Agile Intelligence tool which is a self-assessment model that Mike is helping to grow. In this short video, Dave and Mike discuss the what Agile Uprising is all about and the development of Lean Agile Intelligence. Agile Uprising: Web: http:/...
Aug 28, 2017•9 min•Ep. 182
SAFe Fellow Em Campbell-Pretty led a session at Agile 2017 called “ The ART of avoiding a Train Wreck ”, which offered guidance on how to better plan Agile Release Trains in Scaled Agile Framework. She stopped by to chat with Dave about her session, and her new book “ Tribal Unity: Getting from Teams to Tribes by Creating a One Team Culture ”. Em’s book focuses on one of her main areas of passion — creating awesome Agile tribes. During the interview she also offers advice about how to handle cro...
Aug 25, 2017•23 min•Ep. 181
Esther Derby led two sessions at Agile 2017 - Creating an Environment for Successful Agile Teams and Change Artist Super Powers: Leading Change in an Agile Manner. In this interview Esther and Dave discuss her sessions at the conference, some of the abilities you can work to develop if you are trying to lead change in your organization, and how to manage teams without top down control. Esther also responds to a question from Dave on how to lead retrospectives with distributed teams. And, of cour...
Aug 24, 2017•17 min•Ep. 180
Lyssa Adkins stopped by after her Stalwarts session to throw down the gauntlet! During this live interview at Agile 2017 Lyssa talks about her recent trip to Peru where she and her daughter did volunteer jungle conservation work. Her experiences there, and a powerful question she was asked in her session at Agile 2017 led her to a new challenge she is taking on - bringing Agile practices to the people who are working to help solve global problems like saving the rainforests. Lyssa also provides ...
Aug 21, 2017•13 min•Ep. 92
Agile 2017 opened with a Keynote from David Marquet. David is a former Navy Submarine Commander and the author of the book "Turn the Ship Around A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders" (http://amzn.to/2v4yc1T). David gave a presentation at Agile 2017 about how his experiences in the Navy influenced his style of leadership. Being the loudest and clearest voice in the room and using swear words doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a great leader, neither does pretending you know all the answers...
Aug 21, 2017•13 min•Ep. 93
Troy Magennis led two different sessions at Agile 2017. “Getting started with Agile Data Science” focused on helping Agile practitioners deepen their understanding of how valuable data can be to Agile teams who want to improve their performance. In his second session, “Prioritization – 10 Different Techniques for Optimizing What to Start Next”, Troy explored a variety of approaches intended to help a team make smarter decisions about what is the next most important thing. If you’d like to learn ...
Aug 18, 2017•9 min•Ep. 94
Dean Leffingwell stopped by to chat with Dave Prior about some of the changes introduced to Scaled Agile Framework with the SAFe 4.5 update, including the reasons for including the Implementation Roadmap, DevOps and Lean Startup. For more information about Dean or Scaled Agile Framework, please visit: http://www.scaledagileframework.com For information on the SAFe Summit, please visit: http://www.safesummit.com
Aug 18, 2017•32 min•Ep. 95
