Agile Amped Podcast - Inspiring Conversations

Latest Episodes:

What's the Story with Agile Data? Aug 30, 2018

Show notes

Troy Magennis is a consultant to major companies on Agile implementation and portfolio planning, and a seasoned conference speaker. He was a keynote speaker at Agile2018 on the topic of data, which for the first time was approved as a track by the Agile Alliance this year.

Magennis says part of being a good Agile coach is understanding data, although data can be inconvenient because it doesn't always show what we want it to show. He walks us through the metrics that you really need to capture and why.

"If it doesn't help you with a decision, or it doesn't help you observe that something's going off the rails earlier, it's a vanity metric."

Howard Sublett hosts at Agile2018 in San Diego.

Reach our guest:Twitter: @t_magennis twitter.com/t_magennis Email: troy.magennis@gmail.com

The Agile Amped podcast is the shared voice of the Agile community, driven by compelling stories, passionate people, and innovative ideas. Together, we are advancing the impact of business agility.

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com

Connect with us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFacebook: www.facebook.com/agileampedInstagram: www.instagram.com/agileamped/

"Personal Kanban" Author Jim Benson on the Agile Manifesto Aug 23, 2018

Show notes

Jim Benson is the author of the global bestseller "Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life" and self-identified "Agile heretic." A strong proponent for the values and principles, collaboration, and teamwork, Benson nonetheless is vocal on social media about ways Agile can approve. An example is when Agile teams don't do any documentation, pointing at the Agile Manifesto: "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools."

Benson contends that people mistakenly turn this into a false dichotomy where the former is good and the latter is bad. But, he says, "You can't have interactions between individuals without process, and our process is facilitated by tools... The process is our social contract about how we are going to interact." He agrees that the Manifesto is good but it was written by "a bunch of guys going skiing" and a few relatively minor tweaks could make it more impactful.

Accenture | SolutionsIQ's Howard Sublett hosts at Agile2018 in San Diego.

The Agile Amped podcast is the shared voice of the Agile community, driven by compelling stories, passionate people, and innovative ideas. Together, we are advancing the impact of business agility.

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com

Connect with us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFacebook: www.facebook.com/agileampedInstagram: www.instagram.com/agileamped/

Compassion in Tech and Business | Women in Agile Aug 16, 2018

Show notes

San Diego based April Wensel is the founder of Compassionate Coding. After a decade in software, she noticed that there was a lot of suffering in the industry. Rather than just assuming that that can't be changed, Wensel decided compassion was the answer. In this podcast, Wensel shares her experiences helping businesses to be more compassionate in not just business matters but also in their own interpersonal conduct. She also gives a useful definition of what compassion is (recognizing suffering and acting to end it) and is not (pity, or just faking niceness). And because all businesses are made up of people, anyone can get started being more compassionate. Individuals can get in touch with their core values and businesses can take a cultural retrospective.

Accenture | SolutionsIQ's Leslie Morse hosts at Agile2018 in San Diego.

Reach our guest:Twitter @aprilwensel compassionatecoding.com/

The Agile Amped podcast is the shared voice of the Agile community, driven by compelling stories, passionate people, and innovative ideas. Together, we are advancing the impact of business agility.

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com

Connect with us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFacebook: www.facebook.com/agileampedInstagram: www.instagram.com/agileamped/

UX in Space Aug 09, 2018

Show notes

Krys Blackwood is a Senior Lead UX Designer at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. With her design team, she is creating a cultural change in an 80-year-old organization that's used to shipping things in a very waterfall way, "which makes sense when you're working with a billion dollar space craft."

Blackwood has even gone so far as to travel to places like Spain and Australia to physically sit and work with the engineers who control space craft far out in space, to get a better understanding of their UX. "We are inserting a user-centered approach into robotic exploration of the solar system," she says.

In her presentation at Agile2018, she shares case studies of work ranging from using AR/VR to drive rovers on Mars to making operations of the upcoming Europa Clipper mission simpler, faster and more pleasant for the human beings who have to do them.

Accenture | SolutionsIQ's Howard Sublett hosts at Agile2018 in San Diego.

To reach our guest and learn more:Twitter @NASAJPL and @shodoshan hi.jpl.nasa.gov/

The Agile Amped podcast is the shared voice of the Agile community, driven by compelling stories, passionate people, and innovative ideas. Together, we are advancing the impact of business agility.

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com

Connect with us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFacebook: www.facebook.com/agileampedInstagram: www.instagram.com/agileamped/

Organizational Change in an Agile Context Aug 02, 2018

Show notes

Jason Little is an international speaker, Agile management consultant, and the author of Lean Change Management. He spoke with us about approaching organizational change based on Agile principles; how to sense and respond to change rather than to think of "transformation" as a linear path with an end date; and how to think outside the prescriptive box of frameworks.

"Today we have everything from Agile digital strategy development to Agile marketing to Agile testing ...and it's completely missing the point. We're not trying to make each individual function more Agile, we're trying to get rid of the individual functions and focus on the whole organization."

Accenture | SolutionsIQ's Howard Sublett hosts.

To reach our guest visitwww.leanchange.org

The Agile Amped podcast is the shared voice of the Agile community, driven by compelling stories, passionate people, and innovative ideas. Together, we are advancing the impact of business agility.

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com

Connect with us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFacebook: www.facebook.com/agileampedInstagram: www.instagram.com/agileamped/

Alexa and Google Home: Agile for Voice Technology Jul 26, 2018

Show notes

Nowadays you can't go anywhere without hearing about or interacting with voice recognition technology. Kari Ostevik of the Toronto-based Tribal Scale knows: she helped with the voice technology powering both Amazon Echo (i.e., "Alexa") and Google Home. She provides 5 lessons for working in emerging technology:

Humility – nobody knows yet so everybody needs to be curious and patient.
Power of the Pair – Pair programming makes knowledge dissemination fast and seamless.
Ruthless Prioritization – Tech is changing all the time, so you have to be clear about priorities.
Test Late – In additional to testing early, with emerging tech, it's important to have enough of a product to get good feedback.
Submit Early – Start time-consuming (legal/bureaucratic) processes earlier on.

Accenture | SolutionsIQ's Howard Sublett hosts at Mile High Agile in Denver, Colorado.

Reach our guest:

Twitter: @kariostevik

Email: kostevik@tribalscale.com

The Agile Amped podcast is the shared voice of the Agile community, driven by compelling stories, passionate people, and innovative ideas. Together, we are advancing the impact of business agility.

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com

Connect with us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFacebook: www.facebook.com/agileampedInstagram: www.instagram.com/agileamped/

Behind the Scenes of an Acquisition: SolutionsIQ at Accenture Jul 19, 2018

Show notes

One year ago, Accenture acquired SolutionsIQ, the leading pure-play Agile consultancy in North America. We invited two key players from each side of the acquisition – SolutionsIQ's CEO John Rudd and Accenture Technology's practice lead Jeff Emerson – to give a rare behind-the-scenes peek into the process of an acquisition while using Agile practices and embodying an Agile mindset and culture.

"How does a little company that is based on Agile values move into a very large organization, in a way that doesn't destroy the little company and the same time allows the acquiring company to get the value and the promises out of that acquisition?… And yet that's exactly what happened." – John Rudd

"We didn't make an acquisition to have SolutionsIQ come and do more of what Accenture does. We did it to bring that special sauce, that special consulting and transformation expertise that SolutionsIQ has led in the market with. We want to help get that with our clients and with ourselves." – Jeff Emerson

Accenture | SolutionsIQ's Howard Sublett hosts.

To reach our guests:john.rudd@accenture.comjeffrey.p.emerson@accenture.com

To find out more about Accenture | SolutionsIQ, visit: www.accenture.com/agile

To join our team, visit: https://www.solutionsiq.com/careers/

The Agile Amped podcast is the shared voice of the Agile community, driven by compelling stories, passionate people, and innovative ideas. Together, we are advancing the impact of business agility.

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com

Connect with us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFacebook: www.facebook.com/agileampedInstagram: www.instagram.com/agileamped/

Empathy and Emotional Intelligence in Organizational Transformation Jul 12, 2018

Show notes

Alicia McLain is an Organizational Transformation | Executive Coach with a keen eye for organizational systems. Her session at Keep Austin Agile 2018, called "Confidence vs. Ego – The Role Empathy Plays in Organizational Transformation," highlights the differences between acting "in confidence" and acting "in ego."

Confidence is about responding rather than reacting, being outward-focused and being comfortable in your own skin, whereas ego tends to be self-focused, self-centered. McLain pairs a Confidence-Ego Map with the Empathy Map to help people understand where others are coming from, why they behave the way they do, and what motivates that behavior. This is especially important today as emotional intelligence (EQ) is seen as perhaps even more valuable in organizational transformation than IQ.

Accenture|SolutionsIQ's Howard Sublett hosts at Keep Austin Agile in Austin, Texas.

To reach our guest:

Twitter: @AgileLeaderSD and @TheLDRSHIPCOACH

LInkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciarmclain/

The Agile Amped podcast is the shared voice of the Agile community, driven by compelling stories, passionate people, and innovative ideas. Together, we are advancing the impact of business agility.

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com

Connect with us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFacebook: www.facebook.com/agileampedInstagram: www.instagram.com/agileamped/

The Agile Amped podcast is the shared voice of the Agile community, driven by compelling stories, passionate people, and innovative ideas. Together, we are advancing the impact of business agility.

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com

Connect with us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFacebook: www.facebook.com/agileampedInstagram: www.instagram.com/agileamped/

Agile Leadership: What You Don't Know Might Hurt You Jul 05, 2018

Show notes

Pete Behrens is a Leadership Agility Coach, Certified Enterprise Coach, and a CST. He sat down with us to shed light on the Certified Agile Leadership Program by the Scrum Alliance which, according to Behrens, was the number one requested education that wasn't being provided by the community."The purpose of this program is not to make leaders experts at Scrum, but to help them adapt an Agile mindset. Being a Certified Agile Leader is not the point coming out of a two-day class, but to introduce them to a mindset they should be aware of."

Accenture | SolutionsIQ's Howard Sublett hosts at the Scrum Gathering in Minneapolis, MN.

Reach our guest:trailridgeconsulting.com/pete@trailridgeconsulting.com

To learn more about the Certified Agile Leadership (CAL) program by the Scrum Alliance, visit www.scrumalliance.org/get-certified/…-certification

The Agile Amped podcast is the shared voice of the Agile community, driven by compelling stories, passionate people, and innovative ideas. Together, we are advancing the impact of business agility.

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com

Connect with us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFacebook: www.facebook.com/agileampedInstagram: www.instagram.com/agileamped/

The Agile Mindset | Gil Broza Jun 28, 2018

Show notes

Mindset is the gray matter between why we do our work and how we get it done. Gil Broza, a much sought-after speaker, Agile coach, and author of The Human Side of Agile and The Agile Mind-Set, sat down with us for a deep dive into the Agile mindset.

According to Broza, the Agile mindset is made up for 3 things:• Values: What we care about.• Beliefs: What we assume or hold to be true.• Principles: The standards that guide how we act.

He goes on to explain why Agile transformations fail when we focus on behaviors without changing our mindset. Accenture | SolutionsIQ's Howard Sublett hosts.

To reach our guestVisit: 3pvantage.com/ Email: gil@3pvantage.com

The Agile Amped podcast is the shared voice of the Agile community, driven by compelling stories, passionate people, and innovative ideas. Together, we are advancing the impact of business agility.

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com

Connect with us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFacebook: www.facebook.com/agileampedInstagram: www.instagram.com/agileamped/