Creating a Definition of Ready is one of the best ways to help your Team(s) make sure they're only committing to work they can actually get done. It's also one of the best ways for a Product Owner to make sure they're not going to waste valuable time in Sprint Planning by asking the Team to work on things that aren't in an actionable state. In this episode of SoundNotes, Rick Austin and Dave Prior discuss how to go about creating a Definition of Ready and why it's so critical to your Team's abil...
Jun 28, 2018•14 min•Ep. 235
In this episode of SoundNotes, Mike Cottmeyer and Dave Prior discuss how organizational Transformation continues to evolve. The conversation offers a brief preview of some of the things Mike will be covering at his Agile 2018session: “Agile Transformation Explained” http://sched.co/EUF1 During the interview, Mike and Dave discuss how the skill sets needed to lead and shepherd those Transformations have grown to include much more than what we would have expected from an Agile coach several years ...
Jun 21, 2018•45 min•Ep. 234
This episode of SoundNotes focuses on Definition of Ready. A few weeks ago, Dave Nicolette created a post in Field Notes that was the result of a current debate in the Agile community about whether having a Definition of Ready helps, or harms our ability to deliver value for the customer. The episode begins with Dave Nicolette explaining Definition of Ready within the context of the LeadingAgile model. After that, he and Dave Prior discuss/debate the the pros and cons of DoR from their respectiv...
Jun 14, 2018•26 min•Ep. 233
If you are working at an organization that is applying Agile practices across the enterprise, chances are, somewhere early on in the transformation a tool was selected to help the teams manage their work and hopefully provide management with some kind of visibility into the work being done. One of the unfortunate truths about the tools is that while they are capable of doing a lot of things, most companies do not invest the time in setting the tool up to work for them. This often leads to teams ...
Jun 07, 2018•40 min•Ep. 232
In this episode of SoundNotes, Dean Stevens and Dave Prior dig into Capability Mapping, how it works and why it is such an important part of the transforming your organization. Capability Mapping is a technique that can be used to quickly gain greater awareness of how an organization does what it does, what processes it uses to do what it does, and where there are opportunities to remove waste and optimize flow. During the interview you’ll hear Dean walk through the steps of identifying the proc...
May 31, 2018•29 min•Ep. 231
For any organization moving to Agile, the question of how to handle tracking and reporting is going to present challenges. If you are moving from a traditional environment, there may be an expectation (dependency) on traditional forms of reporting. If you are starting out with an electronic tool, there may be a wide range of reporting options. Just because you an create a report, does not mean you should. If your audience doesn't know how to digest the information, you may create cognitive disso...
May 25, 2018•27 min•Ep. 230
One of the most important things you can do to help your team be successful is to ensure they have a Definition of Done. Once you have it, you need to revisit in in each Retrospective meeting to make any updates and you need to explain it to the Stakeholders in every Sprint Review. A Definition of Done is more than just Acceptance Criteria. These are the conditions that must be met for your organization to safely release work into the wild. This is especially critical if you are working in an en...
May 10, 2018•19 min•Ep. 229
For Development Teams transitioning to Agile one common challenge is breaking the work down into small vertical slices that can go from a Post-It Note to shippable product in 2-3 days. Most of the time, (there are always exceptions) the issue is not that the work cannot be broken down, but that the Development Team is accustomed to looking at the work in a more traditional way and they are not able to see how they could break it down into smaller actionable elements that can be developed indepen...
May 03, 2018•18 min•Ep. 228
One of the common misconceptions about Agile is that there's no documentation. This simply isn't true. The second line of the Agile Manifesto reads: “Working software over comprehensive documentation” This doesn’t mean that we don’t have documentation. It just means that the folks who created the manifesto did not see the value in delivering the documentation at the expense of delivering working, tested software. In a recent Certified ScrumMaster class in NYC, one student raised an issue she was...
Apr 26, 2018•12 min•Ep. 227
This week, at the 2018 North American Global Scrum Gathering, the Scrum Alliance and Scrum co-founder, Dr. Jeff Sutherland, announced the creation of a new joint venture to train, coach, and promote Scrum@Scale. Scrum@Scale is an extension of the Scrum Framework that is designed to deliver business Agility across an entire organization. Dave Prior had a chance to sit down with Jeff during the Scrum Gathering and ask some questions about his partnership with the Scrum Alliance, Scrum@Scale, and h...
Apr 19, 2018•18 min•Ep. 226
A few weeks ago Dave Nicolette put up a blog post in FieldNotes called "Putting the Journey Into Journeyman" ( https://tinyurl.com/ybehorv7 ). I really enjoyed the post and wanted to ask Dave some additional questions about the idea of a Journeyman, how to reach that state, and what happens once you get there. In this episode of SoundNotes, Dave and I discuss what a Journeyman is, and what a Journeyman isn't. We discuss the skills LeadingAgile expects from a software Journeyman, how to know if y...
Apr 12, 2018•26 min•Ep. 225
In almost every CSM or CSPO class that Dave teaches he gets asked to explain the difference between Scrum and Kanban. So, in this episode of SoundNotes, Jessica Wolfe, Derek Huether, and Dave take turns responding to the question and detailing some of the main differences between two of the most popular approaches to Agile. If you'd like to reach out to Jessica, Derek or Dave for more—here's their contact info: Contacting Jessica If you’d like to contact Jessica you can reach her at: LeadingAgil...
Apr 05, 2018•12 min•Ep. 224
“Culture is just the boogeyman people use when they don't know how to articulate an organizational change management strategy that executives will buy into.” ~ Mike Cottmeyer In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile CEO, Mike Cottmeyer shares his thoughts on why we need to stop blaming culture when organizations are unable to adopt Agile. During the interview, Mike and Dave dig into the reasons why many of the organizations that struggle with Agile are dealing with deeply rooted mechanisms th...
Mar 29, 2018•43 min•Ep. 223
This episode of SoundNotes features a question submitted by a student in one of Dave's recent CSPO classes. Maheesh’s question centers on how to apply Scrum on a project that involves BI reporting and ETL. Since Jessica Wolfe and Derek Huether both have far more experience in that type of work than Dave does, he asked them to help him respond to the question. Here's the question we got from Maheesh: “As a Product Owner for a BI reporting platform I typically get requests for new reports and this...
Mar 22, 2018•22 min•Ep. 222
After co-teaching a CSM class in Atlanta earlier this week, Tim Wise and Dave Prior sat down to talk about Empathy in Agile. During their conversation, they dug into why empathy is such an important factor in developing an Agile mindset, working with teams, building trust, and helping your organization adopt an Agile approach to work. Tim and Dave also offer some advice on: How you can go about trying to develop empathy towards those up and down the org chart How that plays out in your communica...
Mar 08, 2018•15 min•Ep. 221
This episode of SoundNotes is all about Vision Statements. Dave Prior offers his thoughts on why they're so critical to the success of your team and how to go about putting one together. One of the most important things a Product Owner can do to help the Development Team deliver value for the customer is to make sure they have clarity on the context of the problem they are trying to solve. If the Dev Team is just being given User Stories, and there's no understanding of the problem-space in whic...
Mar 01, 2018•3 min•Ep. 220
In this episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, Derek Huether and Dave Prior take on the topic of Leading and Lagging Indicators. During the podcast they discuss how Key Performance indicators can help guide you towards an understanding of what to track with the expectation that it will create a certain result in the future (leading indicators), and what to measure in order to confirm if that result has in fact occurred (lagging indicators). One example they touch on in the podcast is: if you are ...
Feb 22, 2018•36 min•Ep. 219
In this week's episode of SoundNotes, Derek Huether and Dave Prior respond to a question from a student who works in a long-standing supply chain organization that wants to move to Agile, but has questions about how to get started. Here's the question: I took your scrum master class and your product owner class a couple weeks ago and I got a lot out of it. Thanks so much for everything you did for everyone in the class. After taking the class I was thinking about how I could apply what I’ve lear...
Feb 21, 2018•28 min•Ep. 217
This week Jessica Wolfe and Dave Prior respond to a question about how to be an effective ScrumMaster when you are not in the same location as your team. To complicate matters even more, try stepping into the ScrumMaster role in place of an SM who was colocated with part of the team. If that doesn’t seem challenging enough—try two Product Qwners working with the team. Here is the question: My Scrum team consists of 4 devs in San Diego and 3 devs and 2 POs remotely (I know, breaking a rule right ...
Feb 16, 2018•25 min•Ep. 216
As organizations continue to grow and evolve in their practice of Agile, what they expect from Agile transformation coaches continues to evolve as well. Ten years ago, an Agile coach was someone who had enough experience working with Agile to help others pick up the basic habits and avoid some common mistakes. Today, we need a lot more. In this episode of SoundNotes, Mike Cottmeyer talks with Dave Prior about how the needs and expectations of coaching have changed over the last 10 years. During ...
Feb 08, 2018•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 215
We frequently get questions from clients who are transitioning to Agile when they begin working through the challenge of determining which roles are the best fit for individuals in their organization. Since many of our clients begin their Agile journey by taking on Scrum, the question usually shows up as: Who should I make a Product Owner and who should I make a ScrumMaster? While there is no locked down definition of who should transition into what role, there are some standard patterns that ap...
Feb 02, 2018•6 min•Ep. 214
Jessica and Dave take a look at the Sprint Report template Dave uses in his CSM and CSPO classes. Using the report as a starting point, Jessica and Dave talk through the most valuable data points for new Scrum Teams as well as additional variables which are an important part of tracking the information that matters as your team learns to work together and gets better at delivering value for their customer. Contacting Jessica If you’d like to contact Jessica you can reach her at: LeadingAgile: ht...
Jan 18, 2018•19 min•Ep. 213
In this episode of LeadingAgile's SoundNotes, Derek Heuther and Dave Prior take on a question Derek received from a student in one of his recent classes: What do you do, as a developer if the planned task cannot be resolved, or can not result in a potentially shippable product by the end of the Sprint? For an audio only version of the podcast click here. Contacting Derek If you’d like to contact Derek you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ LinkedIn...
Jan 10, 2018•14 min•Ep. 212
Many of us start out the new year by making resolutions that we hope will help us become the better version of ourselves. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile’s Jessica Wolfe and Dave Prior talk through some ideas you can use with your team to help them renew their focus on delivering value not just for the customer, but for the individual team members themselves. If you or your team are struggling to get the value you crave out of the work you are doing, this discussion will give you som...
Jan 04, 2018•22 min•Ep. 218
In this week’s podcast, LeadingAgile’s Jim Hayden and Tim Wise join Dave to respond to questions submitted by students from our CSM and CSPO classes: Question 1: How PBIs Get Into The Product Backlog "Quick question. I was wondering if you had any ideas around a process for getting items into a backlog? I currently just stepped into a role and one of the first things I'm wanting to tackle is a process for placing items into our backlog. Currently things are all over the place because the develop...
Dec 21, 2017•33 min•Ep. 211
In this week's SoundNotes, LeadingAgile’s Tom Churchwell and Matt Fischer join Dave to respond to two questions submitted by students of our Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Product Owner classes. STUDENT QUESTIONS Question 1: "How do you see the way companies, after long years of waterfall, trying to move to Agile in few weeks?" Question 2: "How does a ScrumMaster correct a development team member?" CONTACTING TOM CHURCHWELL LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/tom-church...
Dec 14, 2017•27 min•Ep. 210
The Scrum Alliance’s Certified Scrum Professional (CSP) designation is changing on Jan 1, 2018. If you meet the qualifications for the current version of CSP, applying before it expires on December 31, 2017 may provide you with a much easier path to the practitioner level of certification offered by the Scrum Alliance. You’ll find details on the current version of CSP here: https://www.scrumalliance.org/certifications/practitioners/csp-certification In order to qualify for CSP there are a number...
Dec 13, 2017•17 min•Ep. 209
In October, LeadingAgile SVP, Scott Sehlhorst spent some time talking with Dave about the importance of Personas and Proto-Personas and how to use them. In this episode of SoundNotes, Scott is back to talk about Empathy Maps, how they work, why they are so valuable and how to create one. During the conversation, Scott and Dave talk through each step of creating an Empathy Map. The podcast is one of our longer ones, but if you are seeking a better understanding of how to put one together, you’ll ...
Dec 07, 2017•52 min•Ep. 208
For this episode of SoundNotes, we’re back with more of the questions submitted by recent CSM and CSPO students. In this week’s podcast, Jessica Wolfe and Dave Prior respond to the following questions: Question 1: What is the desired relationship interaction between the Scrum Master and Development Managers with regard to developers who are participating on a scrum team, and how does that impact performance management from an HR standpoint? In other words, if there are performance issues with a ...
Nov 30, 2017•27 min•Ep. 207
One of the best parts of working at LeadingAgile is the continual focus on helping the brilliant people who work here amplify their ability to deliver value for customers. We have a weekly call where we focus on different aspects of the work we do and how we can get better at delivering on the LeadingAgile approach so that our customers can achieve their goals. In a recent call Mike Cottmeyer walked through the Trust Influence Loop, which explains the way we interact with our clients in order to...
Nov 16, 2017•52 min•Ep. 206
