Agile Amped Podcast - Inspiring Conversations

Latest Episodes:

Ghosts of Company Past and Future | Business Agility Series Feb 15, 2018

Show notes

Once upon a time, Melissa Boggs worked for a company where their mission was central to everything they did. This podcast is a story about using mission, vision and values as a beacon for Agile transformation.

Boggs is an agility culture and leadership coach with Agile42. As a Certified Enterprise Coach, she is fascinated with company cultures and how they inspire, or conversely demotivate, individuals to become amazing. In this episode, Boggs walks us through concrete steps for how to not only create a mission statement, but how to live and breathe the mission, vision and values every step going forward, and how to avoid the ghosts that sometimes get in the way of an Agile transformation.

Our favorite quote is one that resonates with so many organizations:"They already had a mission statement, but quite literally the only person who could tell me who could tell me what it was, was the sweet lady in marketing who wrote it five years ago."

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 and use code solutionsiq-founding-member to save 25% off registration: www.businessagilityconf.com/

Contact Melissa Boggs via email: melissa.boggs@agile42.comOr follow her on Twitter: @HmngbirdAgilityAnd find our podcast host:@howardsublett

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com

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Lynn Winterboer Talks Test Automation for Data Warehousing Teams at Mile High Agile 2016 Feb 12, 2018

Show notes

Many of the data warehousing problems of the world have been tackled and solved--yet data warehousing and business intelligence teams in Agile settings still struggle with technical practices that better enable Agile. One example is test automation. Lynn Winterboer discusses with Agile Amped at Mile High Agile 2016 in Denver, Colorado, her conference presentation and why she thinks it's hard for such teams to do test automation and how the industry's vendor focus contributes to the problem. The bottom line? Don't wait for the right tool or vendor. Just jump right into test automation. Lynn Winterboer coaches DW/BI teams on applying agile principles to their work. She has filled many roles on data and agile teams for 20 years. Lynn understands the unique set of challenges faced by data teams who want to benefit from Agile project delivery. You can reach Lynn via her website: winterboeragileanalytics.com SolutionsIQ's Howard Sublett hosts. About Agile Amped The Agile Amped podcast series engages with industry thought leaders at Agile events across the country to bring valuable content to subscribers anytime, anywhere. Podcast library: www.agileamped.comConnect with us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFacebook: www.facebook.com/agileampedInstagram: www.instagram.com/agileamped/

Becoming an Agile Leader with ICAgile Feb 08, 2018

Show notes

The International Consortium of Agile (ICAgile) is a certification and accreditation body with presence in more than 100 countries, with close to 70,000 people holding credentials thus far. Recently Agile Amped spoke with ICAgile leaders, Managing Director Shannon Ewan and Director of Learning Programs Shane Hastie about their new Agile Leadership track.

Ewan shared with us that fundamentally ICAgile enables "becoming an Agile leader, as opposed to teaching Agile for Leaders. If you're not interested in changing yourself, then it's not the program for you."

According to Hastie, "The ideas embodied in this leadership track are built on that respect of people, and that people are the primary source of value in our organizations."

Our favorite quote from this podcast? "It's about transforming organizations to be more human-centric. The impact is to truly, fully unleash the potential of people within organizations. Creating cultures of learning; making organizations a place where people continue to learn and thrive and they truly are their best at work." - Shannon Ewan, ICAgile

Hosted by Howard Sublett.

Find out more information about the ICAgile Leadership Track:http://www.icagile.com/Learning-Roadmap/Business-Agility/Agile-Leadership

Contact ICAgile: info@icagile.com

Find our guests on Twitter: @ShannonEwan@shanehastie @ICAgile And our podcast host:@howardsublett

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com

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

Company-Wide Agility with Beyond Budgeting, Open Space & Sociocracy | Business Agility Series Feb 01, 2018

Show notes

What do the Brazilian dance Bossa Nova and company-wide agility have in common? According to Jutta Eckstein and John Buck, both are created from a combination of different elements. While the dance is a synthesis of samba and jazz, company-wide agility can be created using the following elements: Beyond Budgeting, Open Space, Sociocracy and Agile - BOSSA nova for short.

Jutta is a coach, consultant and trainer with a M.A. in Business Coaching and Change Management. John Buck is a Certified Sociocratic Organizational Consultant. Listen to how they encourage organizations to use these time-tested concepts to begin experimenting at your company to become Agile, and how sociocracy can ensure that the power structure of an organization will uphold company-wide agility, not hinder it.

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 and use code solutionsiq-founding-member to save 25% off registration:businessagilityconf.com/

To find out more about Jutta & John's book in progress, visit: leanpub.com/bossanova

Follow our guests on Twitter: @JuttaEckstein@johnabuckAnd find our podcast host:@howardsublett

Podcast library: www.agileamped.com Subscribe to our newsletter: www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Submit a topic idea: www.solutionsiq.com/submit-a-topic/

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The Rise of Business Agility Jan 25, 2018

Show notes

SolutionsIQ Business Agility Lead Kat Conner and CTO Evan Campbell discuss the rise of business agility, the challenges and opportunities before today's organizations, and some advanced topics like adaptive management, Agile portfolio management, and innovation as organizational capabilities.

Notable quotes:"Annual budgeting is irritating and wasteful and not very efficient in the things that we use it for. The hard part is coming up with more effective substitutes for the various purposes that we use annual budgeting."

"Instead of thinking of projects as the primary means of asset allocation and organization of people, we look at the critical streams of value that are flowing from technology to business leaders or customers, and we create long-lived, persistent, capable delivery units."

"One of the things that makes innovation safe and cheap and ultimately more efficient is taking an experimental mindset towards what you're doing."

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Retrospectives | David Horowitz Jan 18, 2018

Show notes

A retrospective is an opportunity for us as a team, as an organization, to ask ourselves what are we doing well, what are we not doing well, and how can we improve going forward. A retrospective is the catalyst for the continuous improvement that Agile promises. David Horowitz is a co-founder and CEO of Retrium, the world's first and only enterprise-ready platform for Agile retrospectives.

David shared these tips (and more) for having successful retrospectives:- When should or shouldn't the manager be included- Why "What happens in the retrospective should stay in the retrospective" might not be the most effective approach- How to drive engagement during retrospectives- Why you shouldn't only think about running a retrospective at the end of the Sprint- Why minimizing scope is powerful

User Story Mapping over Backlogs | Mike Clement Jan 11, 2018

Show notes

Co-founder and Principal Software Craftsman of Greater Sum, Mike Clement is passionate about raising the bar of technical excellence in the software development community. One way to do that is by using user story maps. While Clement doesn't advocate for getting rid of backlogs altogether, he believes that user story mapping helps bring the story and user journey out of disparate tasks. The problem is backlogs don't immediately show how different user stories work together, and prioritization doesn't always help. Clement describes how user story mapping helps the business and teams to think about slices of value that can then be turned into a backlog for an upcoming iteration. This helps limit work in progress (WIP) and drive toward delivering real value.

Howard Sublett hosts at Southern Fried Agile 2017 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The Human Side of Software | James Byars Dec 21, 2017

Show notes

Senior Technical Consultant at SolutionsIQ James Byars has noticed that many teams undergoing Agile transformation only focus on the new frameworks and processes. This makes it difficult to focus on the type and quality of the work being done. Byars, who is presenting on the human side of software at Southern Fried Agile 2017, believes that this tendency contributes to the business thinking of software developers as resources instead of people. When teams focus on outputs, such as how much code are written or how many tasks moved to "done," they lose track of why they are doing these things. When teams understand the "why" it allows them to be more creative about problem solving and providing solutions. This helps teams deliver business value and in turn increases the trust between software teams and the business. James says we need to stop "hiring smart people [only to]... tell them what to do" and instead hire these smart people, set some guide rails and set them free.

Howard Sublett hosts at Southern Fried Agile 2017 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

ATDD & BDD - What's the Difference? Ken Pugh Dec 14, 2017

Show notes

Ken Pugh, author of "Lean-Agile Acceptance Test-Driven Development: Better Software Through Collaboration", gives us a lesson on Acceptance Test-Driven Development (ATDD) and Behavior-Driven Development (BDD). And guess what? They aren't as different as you may think. It comes down to whether the tests are written based on acceptance criteria or on the behavior that a system must meet. Pugh reminds us that the important thing is getting the customer representative, the developers and the testers together to write the acceptance criteria in plain human language before a line of code is even written. More kernels of wisdom from Pugh:- "Fixing a defect is valuable, but preventing a defect is even more valuable."- If during development you can't ship until a particular test passes, then that test is a requirement. "Testers aren't writing tests, they're writing requirements."- "If you take more than half an hour to write the tests, then your story is probably too big."- "If you feel like you need a defect tracking system... you've got too many defects. I have been in places where they actually have just one defect! "

Howard Sublett hosts at Southern Fried Agile 2017 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

History of Southern Fried Agile | James Collins & Neville Poole Dec 07, 2017

Show notes

The Southern Fried Agile (SFA) conference has come a long way since its inception. James Collins, SFA chairperson and a technical leader at Wells Fargo, and Neville Poole, SFA chairperson and Agile Practice Lead for Products at SolutionsIQ, sit down with us to share their experiences going from a literal shoe-string budget to major conference venue. James and Neville touch on some horror stories and victories - and joy - that they have experienced in this fun and energizing conference which may or may not have had a chicken for a mascot once upon a time.

Billie Schuttpelz hosts at Southern Fried Agile 2017 in Charlotte, North Carolina.