Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Alidad Hamidi about Systems Thinking. Systems Thinking is about understanding that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It is the interactions between things that drive the outcome. For example, cutting costs locally often increases costs globally. One person's solution is often another person's problem. To solve the real problem, we need to bring people together to agree on the issue, the goal and the scope of the system. T...
Mar 17, 2022•48 min•Ep. 30
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Steve Tendon about Tameflow and the theory of constraints. If you can find the constraint preventing the organisation from achieving its goal and address it, you can make extraordinary improvements in performance. But sadly most improvement efforts fail because they don't address the constraint in the system. We talk about how to understand and address the constraint using the story of Herbie and the scout troop going for a hike. And w...
Mar 10, 2022•47 min•Ep. 29
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Daniel Mezick about open leadership. What motivates people and how to get great results in a group. Organizations are social games with goals, rules and players with different resources and decision rights. Most organizations are totalitarian dictatorships with a heavy management tax. Open organizations are much more effective at harnessing the talents of their people and resources. Harness peoples talents by giving them an attractive ...
Mar 03, 2022•59 min•Ep. 28
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Scott Middleton about his article Agile is dead. McKinsey killed it. The Agile PMO. Agile as a cost out tool. Slathering the Agile word onto everything to sell services. Do big consulting companies really understand Agile? What about people and interactions over processes and tools. What about delivering value to customers early and often? Real agile still has a lot of value. Tailoring your agile approach and getting close to customers...
Feb 24, 2022•41 min•Ep. 27
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Tobias Mayer about self organization and servant leadership. Everyone can be a leader. Take responsibility. Be generous and humble. Stop demotivating people. Create an environment for people to be brilliant. Create a vision, define boundaries and get out of the way. Be a servant leader. Empowerment and anarchism. Servant leadership and Christianity. There's nothing better than having a good relationship with another human being. Help p...
Feb 18, 2022•46 min•Ep. 26
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Maarten Dalmjin on Product Owners vs Product Managers. What are they, what's the difference between them and why does it matter? Why do we need a product manager if we have a product owner? Overwhelmed vs Absentee product owner. Supporting the Product Owner. Product discovery. The sprint bubble. The rift between product management and scrum. Rapid feedback loops. Getting close to the customer. Building the right thing. Dual track vs in...
Feb 10, 2022•50 min•Ep. 25
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Alex Stokes on Agile Transformation. Why do organisations do agile transformations? If agile transformations are working why is the state of agile so poor in large organisations? Is a waterfall transformation process incompatible with agile? Measuring the benefits of a transformation. Transformations are a way to get leadership support for major change. Imposing vs empowering. Coaching vs telling. Patterns vs frameworks. Continuous cha...
Feb 03, 2022•33 min•Ep. 24
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Al Shalloway about the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and scaling. We explore the benefits and shortcomings of SAFE, focusing on value streams, batch and flow systems, lean principles, and the importance of short feedback cycles. We critique the traditional command-and-control approach and emphasize customer value, lean methodologies, adaptive implementations, and system thinking. Al Shalloway shares his experiences and insights, advoca...
Jan 28, 2022•38 min•Ep. 23
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Fredrick Carleson, who has successfully managed a 1500 person SAFe program in a Swedish government department. We explore the challenges of Safe and it's alignment with Agile values so you can decide if SAFe is right for you. In this discussion, Frederick emphasises the importance of agile leadership, autonomous customer focused teams and the need to address root cause problems within your system asas you scale. Join us for a fascinati...
Jan 21, 2022•38 min•Ep. 22
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a discussion of the Three Amigos pattern, where a product person, a developer, and a tester work ahead of the team to define features before estimation. We explore the benefits, challenges, and anti-patterns of the three Amigos approach, emphasising the importance of early preparation, collaboration and testable requirements. Listen to the podcast on your favourite podcast app: | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio | PlayerFM | Amazo...
Jan 13, 2022•24 min•Ep. 21
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Scott Ambler about the Disciplined Agile Toolkit. In this episode we discuss toolkits vs frameworks. Tailoring your ways of working for your situation vs prescriptive methods. Method prisons and framework jails. The problem with two day mastery certifications and the over commercialisation of Scrum and SAFe. The PMI and Agile and Products vs Projects. Listen to the podcast on your favourite podcast app: | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Goo...
Jan 06, 2022•28 min•Ep. 20
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Jared Spool about user experience design. We discuss the importance of research in understanding users' problems so that you can develop solutions that provide a great user experience. We talk about the need to do some lightweight research and planning upfront to build a shared vision and the value of doing most of your research and design continuously with the whole team so that you can learn what users really need. This conversation ...
Dec 22, 2021•29 min•Ep. 19
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Joshua Kerievsky about his new book “Joy of Agility”. In this podcast we talk about the poor state of agile today. Commodification, fake agile, dark scrum and water-scrum-fall. Real agility should be a joy to work in. Agility doesn't mean process frameworks, it means moving with quick, easy grace and being quick, resourceful, and adaptable. Use mantras and stories to get the message across. Be quick but don't hurry. Be poised to adapt....
Dec 08, 2021•25 min•Ep. 18
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Mirco Hering where we dive into the world of DevOps. Join us as Mirco shares his insights on the essence of DevOps and its implementation challenges, from redefining DevOps beyond tools to the importance of feedback loops. Mirko sheds light on the goals and misconceptions surrounding DevOps. Discover how DevOps aligns with agile principles and explore the role of professional services firms in driving agile and DevOps transformations. ...
Dec 03, 2021•31 min•Ep. 17
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Sam McAfee about leading digital product development. Building a great product team. Working remotely. Real agile vs fake agile. Factory model vs product model. Empowering teams. Building influence and trust. Bringing marketing, design and engineering into one cross functional product team. From functional silos to capability building. Product managers vs Product owners. What a great product manager does. Holistic product leaders. Lean...
Nov 23, 2021•35 min•Ep. 16
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with former Royal Marine Commando Ben Ford about how agile practices mirror modern military practices in the field. We discuss John Boyd's OODA loop and the value of an accurate model of one's environment for good decision making. And we discuss mission command and the value of leadership training to develop an effective approach for orders, planning, delegation, and review. We hope this episode provides food for thought on how you can util...
Nov 16, 2021•37 min•Ep. 15
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation about Agile product development. discuss what a product is and what a product manager does. We talk about the value of customer feedback and the need to test your hypotheses. We define minimum viable products and discuss technical debt, scaling and co-designing products with customers. And we talk about how you can move from a project to a product mentality and the value of applying an iterative approach to your marketing and sales. All thi...
Nov 11, 2021•36 min•Ep. 14
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Mark Jørgensen Chaudhry about visualising your work so you can identify bottlenecks and remove them. We emphasize the need to work together to map out your process and identify delays and waste. We discuss work in progress, touch time, wait time and process efficiency. And we identify the root cause of waste and inefficiency in large organisations. Join us for lots of examples, challenges and recommended resources for improving your wo...
Nov 02, 2021•25 min•Ep. 13
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation on the "Spotify Model" for scaling agile teams. We cover the role of leadership team structures. Tribe dynamics and the importance of coaching and support during organisational change. We share our experience with implementing this model in organisations and some of the anti-patterns. Join us to learn how to use the Spotify model to scale your agile organisation successfully. Listen to the podcast on your favourite podcast app: | Spotify | ...
Oct 26, 2021•23 min•Ep. 12
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation about the psychology of change in lean agile transformation with Matt Turner. We discuss how to implement agile and Kanban practices in IT operations, the challenges faced by managers, and the importance of visualising work and understanding flow. We also touch upon the misconceptions and misapplications of agile in the industry. Join us to learn how to be a much more effective change agent. Listen to the podcast on your favourite podcast a...
Oct 19, 2021•27 min•Ep. 11
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they discuss why quality as a whole team's responsibility. We discuss why it's critical to integrate QA processes from the beginning, the importance of clear acceptance criteria, how to handle technical debt and the continuous improvement process. Tune in for an engaging and informative discussion on quality in your agile projects. Listen to the podcast on your favourite podcast app: | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio | PlayerFM |...
Oct 12, 2021•37 min•Ep. 10
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Michael Delemaza about agile coaching. We discuss invitational coaching, the differences between coaching and mentoring and the challenges faced in transforming traditional organizations into agile ones. We also talk about the importance of clear communication and alignment at the executive level, as well as dealing with politics and resistance within organizations. Listen to the podcast on your favourite podcast app: | Spotify | Apple...
Oct 05, 2021•47 min•Ep. 9
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a no-nonsense Agile discussion. In this episode, we talk about leadership support for agile ways of working. Why leadership support is critical for change. Why some leaders support agility and others secretly undermine it. How agile is being sold as a miracle cure by big consulting companies. And why agile is rolled back by authoritarian leaders with a factory mindset. How executives can learn what agile really means by working with agile coaches. Why ser...
Sep 29, 2021•30 min•Ep. 8
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a no-nonsense Agile discussion. In this podcast, Murray and Shane talk about why projects with fixed price, fixed scope contracts often go way over time and budget. We talk about uncertainty, sales incentives and underestimating. How fixed scope contracts lead to big design up front, siloed delivery, authoritarian management and conflict with suppliers. We discuss how to use an agile approach to solve these problems. We talk about testing suppliers by sta...
Sep 21, 2021•40 min•Ep. 7
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a no-nonsense agile discussion. In this podcast, Murray and Shane discuss how to scale agile. We discuss the problems with a big bang top-down agile transformation and the benefits of starting small and experimenting to find a scaling approach that works for you. We talk about the factory model of organisation vs autonomous product teams. And we contrast agile change management with waterfall change management. Listen to the podcast on your favourite podc...
Sep 07, 2021•40 min•Ep. 6
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a no-nonsense agile discussion. In this episode Murray and Shane have a robust discussion about about projects and project managers. Are agile and project management fundamentally incompatible. Are projects waterfall and hierarchical by definition or can they be done in an Agile way. Are project managers unhelpful authoritarians controllers by definition or can project managers be agile servant leaders. If a project is Agile is it a project anymore? Tune ...
Aug 24, 2021•33 min•Ep. 5
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a no-nonsense agile discussion. In this podcast, we talk about evolutionary design and the problem with a narrow focus, planning at different time horizons, big blocks and small blocks and the importance of having flexible roadmaps that change as we learn. We also talk about centralised teams vs experts in teams, how the role of the coach is to build the team’s capability and how a coach should be a sports coach, not a therapist. Listen to the podcast on ...
Aug 18, 2021•34 min•Ep. 3
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a no-nonsense agile discussion. In this podcast, we discuss Ron Jeffries' recent article “Can scrum be fixed?” We talk about Ron’s concerns with the Scrum Industrial complex and Developers issues with Scrum. We talk about what we like and don't like about Scrum and how the gaps we've experienced can be overcome. Listen to the podcast on your favourite podcast app: | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio | PlayerFM | Amazon Music | List...
Aug 10, 2021•30 min•Ep. 4
In this episode, we talk about planning initiatives. How do you do just enough planning, just in time? We'll discuss the team you need to plan your features, user experience and technical architecture. And we talk about how to develop a release plan and estimate time and cost in a two to four week time box. Listen to the podcast on your favourite podcast app: | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio | PlayerFM | Amazon Music | Listen Notes | TuneIn | Audible | Podchaser | Deez...
Aug 04, 2021•39 min•Ep. 2
Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as we introduce ourselves and discuss our backgrounds in leading the development of valuable software products and services. We emphasize the podcast's focus on leadership, product and service development and modern ways of working. We discuss the value of continuous discovery, delivery and improvement to develop products and services that are viable, desirable, and feasible. We critique traditional authoritarian, bureaucratic management and highlight the ne...
Jul 15, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 1
