Agile Amped Podcast - Inspiring Conversations

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How Drew Jemilo's Caffeine-Driven "Brilliant Moment" Turned Into Portfolio Management in SAFe 4.0 Dec 20, 2016

Show notes

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention and so it was that, in 2009, SAFe Fellow Drew Jemilo invented the starter material for portfolio management approach now found in SAFe 4.0. With only one night and "lots of coffee", Drew managed to piece together a workshop based on Dean Leffingwell's architectural portfolio management material. Over the years, Drew and his colleagues at Scaled Agile have much opportunity and learnings with which to improve the material, and today he provides a rough sketch of it to Agile Amped and you, our viewers!

SolutionsIQ SAFe consultant Steve Davis hosts at SAFe Summit 2016 in Denver, Colorado. Steve and Drew even recount a shared memory of a workshop the duo did together.

About Agile AmpedThe Agile Amped podcast series connects the community through compelling stories, passionate people, shared knowledge, and innovative ideas. Fueled by inspiring conversations with industry thought leaders, Agile Amped offers valuable content – anytime, anywhere. To receive real-time updates, subscribe!Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SIQYouTube, http://bit.ly/SIQiTunes, http://www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/Follow: http://bit.ly/SIQTwitter Like: http://bit.ly/SIQFacebook

Caffeine-Induced "Brilliant Moment" Made it Into SAFe 4.0

Peter Jessen: Features, Not Stories, are the Real Measure of Value Dec 19, 2016

Show notes

It's not uncommon for delivery teams to become so focused on increasing their velocity that they fail to deliver the true business value: features. In the Agile enterprise, it is even more important for teams to focus on delivering complete features rather than simply completing stories. Teams need a way to "look up" to the program level to verify that they're working on the right thing to deliver value at the program level, not necessarily the team level. AgileCraft Peter Jessen says that his company's tool is one such option: it offers a Program Board to help visualize the relationship between team deliverables and program level business value.

SolutionsIQ's Howard Johnson hosts at SAFe Summit 2016 in Denver, Colorado.

Kupe Kupersmith on Business Analysis and Documentation in the Agile Organization Dec 16, 2016

Show notes

Kupe Kupersmith has a bunch of experience in business analysis in traditional and Agile environments, and he still hears from time to time, "We don't do business analysis, we do Agile." But Agile needs BAs too. Documentation is a huge part of the BA's contribution, for which Agile prescribes a less heavy-handed approach. Sometimes a photo of a whiteboard with the rough ideas sketched out is enough documentation. Meanwhile, some developers won't work on new requirements without the requisite documentation, but only as a way of deflecting blame for a defect -- because "that's what the document said." Kupe advocates for the team to think like a team: "If we fail, we fail together." SolutionsIQ's Leslie Morse hosts at Southern Fried Agile 2016 in Charlotte, North Carolina. About Agile Amped The Agile Amped podcast series connects the community through compelling stories, passionate people, shared knowledge, and innovative ideas. Fueled by inspiring conversations with industry thought leaders, Agile Amped offers valuable content – anytime, anywhere. To receive real-time updates, subscribe! Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SIQYouTube, http://bit.ly/SIQiTunes, http://www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Follow: http://bit.ly/SIQTwitter Like: http://bit.ly/SIQFacebook

Judith Mills: "Can You Hear Me Now?" If Not, Try Listening for a Start Dec 15, 2016

Show notes

Judith Mills has a simple message: if you want people to listen to them and work with you, you have to listen to them. "In order to show respect and build trust and have people take ownership, it helps if you listen to them rather than just tell them what to do." In her session "Can you hear me now? Start Listening Instead", Judith advises against jumping into providing the solution -- something that coaches and leaders sometimes do. By listening, we create a sense of shared ownership and active involvement. More advice from Judith on listening: - When speaking, think about the listener. How are people taking the information provided them? Did you leave out any pertinent information that might help the message land better? - When listening, are we qualifying what we're hearing? Use paraphrases to validate that you heard what they said. - During problem-solving, don't jump to solve the problem. Try to understand what attempts have been made previously. Problem-solving isn't about proving your value. SolutionsIQ's Dan Fuller hosts at Southern Fried Agile 2016 in Charlotte, North Carolina. About Agile Amped The Agile Amped podcast series connects the community through compelling stories, passionate people, shared knowledge, and innovative ideas. Fueled by inspiring conversations with industry thought leaders, Agile Amped offers valuable content – anytime, anywhere. To receive real-time updates, subscribe! Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SIQYouTube, http://bit.ly/SIQiTunes, http://www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Follow: http://bit.ly/SIQTwitter Like: http://bit.ly/SIQFacebook

Case Study: Sococo VP Jack Crozier on Agile and Scrum in Sales Dec 14, 2016

Show notes

Sococo VP of Sales Jack Crozier shares with Agile Amped his experience implementing Agile practices and tools in his department After the company CEO mandated that every department was to be Agile. At first, the sales team being reluctant and skeptical, but what started in fits and starts eventually grew into a robust sales workflow with clearly defined Scrum processes, tools for visualizing work flow, and a foundation of Agile values to guide future growth. Jack provides tips on how to balance work between a CRM (e.g., Salesforce) and a work board (they used Trello), how to balance existing workload with new lead nurturing, as well as how to focus on outcomes (e.g., closing a sale) rather than on activity (e.g., making a phone call). SolutionsIQ's Setarra DeVeaux hosts at Southern Fried Agile 2016 in Charlotte, North Carolina. About Agile Amped The Agile Amped podcast series connects the community through compelling stories, passionate people, shared knowledge, and innovative ideas. Fueled by inspiring conversations with industry thought leaders, Agile Amped offers valuable content – anytime, anywhere. To receive real-time updates, subscribe! Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SIQYouTube, http://bit.ly/SIQiTunes, http://www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Follow: http://bit.ly/SIQTwitter Like: http://bit.ly/SIQFacebook

Larry Maccherone on Tricks for Overcoming Cognitive Biases & Decisions as Forecasts Dec 13, 2016

Show notes

Humans are evolutionarily predisposed to see patterns and make snap decisions based on very little information. The problem is that today's world requires a deeper analysis than most people are willing or can afford to give to very complex problems. Larry Maccherone's session "Going for it on the Fourth Down" is a look into taking calculated business risks and overcoming the cognitive biases and human factors that prevent you from making sound business decisions. In his conference session, Larry also identifies decisions as a kind of forecast of the probability that the choice you decided on will work out better than all the other choices. With this mindset, organizations and individuals can begin to invest in using analyses to make better forecasts (i.e., decisions). SolutionsIQ's Sheila Olds hosts at Southern Fried Agile 2016 in Charlotte, North Carolina. About Agile Amped The Agile Amped podcast series connects the community through compelling stories, passionate people, shared knowledge, and innovative ideas. Fueled by inspiring conversations with industry thought leaders, Agile Amped offers valuable content – anytime, anywhere. To receive real-time updates, subscribe! Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SIQYouTube, http://bit.ly/SIQiTunes, http://www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Follow: http://bit.ly/SIQTwitter Like: http://bit.ly/SIQFacebook

Jared Richardson on the GROWS Methodology and its 3 Rs Dec 12, 2016

Show notes

Jared Richardson sits down with Agile Amped to talk about the GROWS method, a new Agile methodology that hopes to succeed where some feel that "Agile has failed". Of GROWS, Jared says, "It's not about being Agile, it's about being effective." The basis for this methodology is the 3 Rs: 1. The Rhythm: Getting teams to iteratively produce working software at a regular cadence 2. The Right Vision: Getting alignment between leadership and the development teams. For example, instead of having the PO write stories in isolation, bring a skeleton story to the team and have the team help fill out the rest. 3. The Right Way: Building quality into the code using Agile technical practices SolutionsIQ's Dan Fuller hosts at Southern Fried Agile 2016 in Charlotte, North Carolina. About Agile Amped The Agile Amped podcast series connects the community through compelling stories, passionate people, shared knowledge, and innovative ideas. Fueled by inspiring conversations with industry thought leaders, Agile Amped offers valuable content – anytime, anywhere. To receive real-time updates, subscribe! Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SIQYouTube, http://bit.ly/SIQiTunes, http://www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Follow: http://bit.ly/SIQTwitter Like: http://bit.ly/SIQFacebook

Roy Maines: Unlike Wine, Conflict Doesn't Get Better With Age Dec 09, 2016

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Often conflict is viewed as something to avoid at all costs. But don't do that because the conflict isn't going to resolve itself just because you ignore it. Besides, "sometimes conflict is a good thing" -- it can lead to positive and productive growth, or resolution of a standing problem. Because you can't avoid conflict, you have to have constructs for navigating through them. SolutionsIQ's Roy Maines shares some patterns for determining the root cause of the problem, taken from his session at Southern Fried Agile 2016, "Navigating Conflict with Teams". He also shares some techniques and perspectives for how to resolve conflict and be more self-aware about how we each, often unknowingly, contribute to it through our actions and words. SolutionsIQ's Leslie Morse hosts at Southern Fried Agile 2016 in Charlotte, North Carolina. About Agile Amped The Agile Amped podcast series connects the community through compelling stories, passionate people, shared knowledge, and innovative ideas. Fueled by inspiring conversations with industry thought leaders, Agile Amped offers valuable content – anytime, anywhere. To receive real-time updates, subscribe! Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SIQYouTube, http://bit.ly/SIQiTunes, http://www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Follow: http://bit.ly/SIQTwitter Like: http://bit.ly/SIQFacebook

Kent Graziano on Petabytes and Performance - Agile Data Warehousing with Snowflake Dec 07, 2016

Show notes

Until recently, the concept of Agile data warehousing was ludicrous. Even today there has been a lot of resistance and minimal exposure to Agile in that industry, despite the need for data warehousing processes to innovate, if only to improve their cycle time. But Kent Graziano of Snowflake Computing has seen a shift in the last two years thanks to the work his company has done to bring the Agile principles to traditional data warehousing. Most exciting are the new techniques in Agile data engineering and modeling, Snowflake's "cloud data warehousing as a service" and its dynamic sizing and cost to address real-world problems in real time. Agile data warehousing is possible today because of enabling technology like Snowflake's, which sees queries of petabytes of data daily. The question isn't so much about the technology anymore, but more about whether large organizations are ready for the cloud. This is Kent's second visit with Agile Amped. See his first appearance here: http://www.solutionsiq.com/resources/... SolutionsIQ's Leslie Morse hosts at Southern Fried Agile 2016 in Charlotte, North Carolina. About Agile Amped The Agile Amped podcast series connects the community through compelling stories, passionate people, shared knowledge, and innovative ideas. Fueled by inspiring conversations with industry thought leaders, Agile Amped offers valuable content – anytime, anywhere. To receive real-time updates, subscribe! Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SIQYouTube, http://bit.ly/SIQiTunes, http://www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Follow: http://bit.ly/SIQTwitter Like: http://bit.ly/SIQFacebook

Michael Patrick Benning on Working with Creative Teams - Conflicts, Myths and New Perspectives Dec 06, 2016

Show notes

Michael Patrick Benning sits down with Agile Amped to discuss improving working relationships when dealing with creative/UX teams. In Michael's experience, differences in working processes can give rise to conflicts, especially when some teams have moved toward more Agile, iteration-based processes while others still deliver value using waterfall. Michael two examples of UX teams burdened with legacy processes: legacy approval processes (e.g., a simple request necessitating approval by five levels of management) and legacy testing processes. He also highlights for viewers what they missed in his session "Balancing Order and Chaos". SolutionsIQ's Sheila Olds hosts at Southern Fried Agile 2016 in Charlotte, North Carolina. About Agile Amped The Agile Amped podcast series connects the community through compelling stories, passionate people, shared knowledge, and innovative ideas. Fueled by inspiring conversations with industry thought leaders, Agile Amped offers valuable content – anytime, anywhere. To receive real-time updates, subscribe! Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SIQYouTube, http://bit.ly/SIQiTunes, http://www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Follow: http://bit.ly/SIQTwitter Like: http://bit.ly/SIQFacebook

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