Agile Amped Podcast - Inspiring Conversations

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4 Steps toward Agility at Ableton | Business Agility Series Apr 26, 2018

Show notes

Agile coach Ashok Mohan and IT Product Owner Burkhard Lustig sit down with Agile Amped to share their stories working at Ableton, a business focused on making software and hardware for music makers. In particular, the duo discuss an pivotal learning experience with a difficult trade-in program. Although Product teams had already been leveraging Agile development and practices for 10 years, this was not the case for the Business. When the trade-in program revealed gaps in organizational capability, they decided to make changes, specifically taking four major steps:

1. They introduced team planning.2. To make work visible, they organized "expos" - demos more suited to their laid-back culture.3. Because WIP was too high and not enough was getting to done, middle management was brought together to own the work and the process, with coaching from Ashok and Brendan (another Ableton coach).4. After too much WIP, the second top impediment was lack of alignment, so they focused on establishing a shared purpose.

Mohan echoed Marsha Shenk's sentiment (in this podcast - Agileamped – Limitations-opportunities-of-neurophysiology) that "as humans, every one of us wants to contribute... They don't know how to contribute in a system... [but] it's almost always about 'how can you get to people to contribute in a way that's meaningful for them?'"

Leslie Morse hosts in NYC at Business Agility 2018.

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Limitations & Opportunities of Neurophysiology | Business Agility Series Apr 19, 2018

Show notes

Marsha Shenk, coach, consultant and founder of The BestWork People, takes us on a whirlwind tour of how the brain affects everyday interactions. Shenk believes that people fundamentally want to contribute - to be part of meaningful interactions, which is what life - including business - is made up of.

Our favorite quote: "Business agility is not for the faint hearted."

More nuggets of wisdom Shenk offers:- "People get dumbed down by having imperatives imposed on them."- "Fear shuts down the prefrontal cortex, which is where our executive function is... so nothing new happens"- "Business is a social activity. Some people now think that itʻs happening between computers - no. Thereʻs somebody out there making a decision and that person has a beating heart."- "I recommend respecting the limitations of technology and ... physiology."- "In order to keep learning after puberty, you have to develop the skill of building new neural pathways."

Hosted by Leslie Morse in NYC at Business Agility 2018.

Transforming GE into a Lean Startup | Business Agility Series Apr 12, 2018

Show notes

Lars Bruns and Sudhir Nelvagal started working together in GE Healthcare 13 years ago. In this episode, they share their experience helping GE with their Agile transformation. GE, being a long-standing business giant with its fingerprints in virtually every infrastructure domain and every industry, is still traditional in many ways, but it is transforming itself to become a lean startup. Bruns and Nelvagal share their experiences applying innovative Agile and Lean techniques across GE's traditional hardware and physical engineering-oriented business units. Other topics touched on include failing fast and leadership buy-in.

Hosted by Brent Barton in NYC at Business Agility 2018.

Driving Social Change in Agile & Business | Business Agility Series Apr 05, 2018

Show notes

Natalie Warnert is an independent consultant and the founder of Women in Agile, which started five years ago and has spread far and wide. Since then, Warnert has written her theses about why women are less involved in the Agile community. In her research, she has uncovered interesting biases that men and women have about themselves and each other. She briefly touches on current social movements that show how views on equality, inclusivity and diversity are converging. She's also excited about the grassroots pop-up chapters of Women in Agile that people are starting: "It's been so great to see people taking initiative to do these things... I can't do it alone and I don't want to." Other topics include globalization, UX, and AI.

Hosted by Leslie Morse in NYC at Business Agility 2018. Morse mentions this podcast: Agileamped – Limitations-opportunities-of-neurophysiology

Beyond Budgeting 101 | Business Agility Series Mar 29, 2018

Show notes

"Everybody knows going into the budget process that people make up the numbers because they know they're going to get cut, they're going to get manipulated, they're negotiating for their bonuses, so it's already a bad document to begin with," says Nevine White. White and Mike De Luca from Beyond Budgeting Round Table of North America sat down with us for a deep dive into Beyond Budgeting, including a definition of what it is and some history. They also walk us through two real-world examples of implementing it.

De Luca says Beyond Budgeting requires a different philosophy around leadership: it needs to be very decentralized and is intended to drive decision making to the lowest appropriate level. He points out that the process of implementing Beyond Budgeting doesn't really end since learning organizations must continue to refine and adapt. However, a lot of the heavy lifting can take anywhere from 6-18 months. Listen to find out what that entails, how to get started, how to measure and successfully transform financial planning in your organization.

Leslie Morse hosts in NYC at Business Agility 2018.

This episode of Agile Amped is part of a series in partnership with the Business Agility Institute. businessagility.institute/

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com

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Modernizing Business Analysis with AI & Experiments | Business Agility Series Mar 22, 2018

Show notes

Angela Wick is the founder of BA-Squared and in this episode she talks about how business analysis is shifting drastically and how leaders are championing the charge. Wick discusses how important it is for business analysts to collaborate with Product Owners to focus on building the right products: "Agile can't happen without analysis... If you're building the wrong thing, it doesn't matter how fast you are." But what is really exciting to Wick is how much the world and her field is changing as a result of AI and machine learning. What might take a BA weeks to produce, an algorithms today can do at a fraction of the cost and time. But the complexity in the world means that you have to pair vision with rapid experiments - and a dash of curiosity - to make sure your business is on the right path.

Leslie Morse hosts in NYC at Business Agility 2018.

Agile Contracting and Procurement in the Federal Government | Business Agility Series Mar 15, 2018

Show notes

Joshua Seckel is an Agile coach and also Sevatec's Chief Solution Architect for Agile and DevOps. Joshua drives the the adoption of business, technical, and management agility both internally and at client sites. His presentation at Business Agility Conference 2018 is called "Agile Contracting in the Federal Government" and in this podcast he shares his experience helping USCIS not only contract Agile teams but also to evolve the procurement process to be more Agile. With a focus on enabling experimentation and cross-department collaboration, Seckel helped stand up 20 Agile development teams who are able today to deliver to production 4-5 times a week - in a federal environment!

Some recommendations that Seckel wants to share are:1. Many changes are risk-driven, which is directly related to the corporate culture. By adapting the business to allow a little more risk, you can unlock a lot more learning and success.2. Learn fast. Succeed either in learning (e.g., from failure) or in execution.3. Meet people where they are.

Hosted by Leslie Morse in New York City at the Business Agility 2018 conference.

Agile HR: Bringing Humanity into Human Resources Mar 08, 2018

Show notes

Allison Flaten is an HR practitioner (and one of our favorite people) with over a decade of experience in working with and leading HR departments in variety of industries, five of which she has spent in an Agile organization. She walks us through the differences between traditional HR departments where the focus tends to be on risk mitigation, compliance, and policy-driven communication, and Agile HR that focuses on how to make the organization the best place for its employees.

Flaten's advice includes: - Ensure HR can adapt and shift with the needs of the business, as well as with the employees. - Share your HR backlog - Get feedback from employees and leadership to get buy-in before releasing policies - Provide fast performance feedback which can result in immediate adjustment, rather than waiting for an annual performance review

Howard Sublett hosts. Find him on Twitter: @howardsublett

Get in touch with our guest: allison.flaten@accenture.com

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Job Interview Techniques for Agile Teams | Business Agility Series Mar 01, 2018

Show notes

Why should a job interview for a role on an Agile team follow the traditional interview format with high anxiety and low level of psychological safety? How do you find people who are natural collaborators? Jason Tice, VP of business innovation at Worldwide Technology, spoke with Agile Amped about using collaborative activities, or games, during job interviews to gather feedback and assess necessary skills. Tice says creating a safe space where candidates are willing to be vulnerable is a game changer for finding the right candidates for high-performing teams.

Hosted by Howard Sublett.

This episode of Agile Amped is part of a series in partnership with the Business Agility Institute. Register for the Business Agility Conference in New York March 14-15, 2018 and use code solutionsiq-founding-member to save 25% off registration: businessagilityconf.com/

Find Jason Tice on Twitter: @TheAgileFactor And find our podcast host: @howardsublett

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com

Connect with us on social media: Twitter: twitter.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/agileamped Instagram: www.instagram.com/agileamped/

Foundational Engineering Practices for Agile Feb 22, 2018

Show notes

We chat with SolutionsIQ's Dave Wylie, a seasoned consultant, manager and developer with 35 years of experience. Wylie wants to make sure that, while Agile has expanded beyond IT, people especially in IT remember that good engineering practices are foundational for a successful Agile transformation. Agile software development approaches, techniques and mindsets are drivers for business value and make it possible for Product Owners to ship when they're ready to ship.

Dave argues that foundational development practices - writing tests as well as reviewing, integrating and continuously improving code - are important for everybody. Unfortunately, according to Wylie, "There's lots and lots of people in the software development world that [have] had zero formal training or informal training or mentorship on these practices."

Howard Sublett hosts. Get in touch with our guest: david.wylie@accenture.comAnd find our podcast host on Twitter: @howardsublett

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com

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

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