Future State Now: A Business Technology Podcast

Latest Episodes:

What is a Well-Formed Backlog? w/ Jeff Howey May 23, 2019

Show notes

At LeadingAgile we believe that the ability to realize the benefits of an Agile approach begins with there core things: stable teams, a well-formed backlog, and the ability to consistently deliver working tested software.

In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Managing Consultant, Jeff Howey, spends time talking with Dave about what a “well-formed backlog” actually is. Jeff and Dave discuss characteristics of a well-formed backlog, how you know if you’ve got one and why that's so important. Along the way, they also explore the differences between Epics, Features, Themes, and Stories and how those terms might be used to break down all the work that led up to Marvel’s new film “Avengers: End Game”.

Note: Jeff recommends listening to the podcast at 1.5 normal speed. This will allow you to get through the podcast quicker, but the pace should still be okay for most listeners.

Contacting Jeff Howey

If you’d like to contact Jeff you can reach him at:

Email: Jeff.howey@leadingagile.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffhowey/

Contacting Dave Prior

If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
Email: https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

Why You Need Empathy Maps w/ Scott Sehlhorst May 10, 2019

Show notes

When we develop products, we're responsible for maximizing the value we deliver to the customer. In order to do this, we have to understand who we're actually building the products for. We need to know who the customer is, what problem(s) we're trying to solve for them, and any additional information we can gather that will give us more insight into their needs and how we can address them. We also need to have an awareness of where our assumptions about the customer may be introducing risk. Unfortunately, we often get so focused on creating and delivering that this area of focus doesn't receive the level of attention that's needed to ensure that we're solving the right problem(s) in the best way possible.

In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile SVP and Executive Consultant, Scott Sehlhorst makes the case for why this work is so important and why empathy maps are such a critical (and often ignored) aspect of this work. Scott and Dave talk through a step-by-step approach you can use to deepen your understanding of the customer and their needs, as well as how to make sure the solution you are working on is the right one and how to manage your risk by tracking and testing your assumptions and biases along the way.

If you're skeptical about the value that empathy maps provide, or how important it is to take the time to collect, analyze, and test information about your customer, this podcast is for you. And if you're looking for a detailed explanation of how to go about figuring all this out, this conversation may provide you with the blueprint you need to get started making sure you actually know who it is you're trying to “delight” with the products you create.

The graphic below is referenced throughout the podcast, you’ll want to have that handy as you listen.

Links From The Podcast

The podcast Scott and Dave previously recorded which includes a detailed walk through of how to create an empathy map can be found here:
Creating Empathy Maps with Scott Sehlhorst

You can find Dave Gray's Empathy Map template here: http://gamestorming.com/empathy-mapping/

Contacting Scott Sehlhorst

If you’d like to contact Scott you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/scott-sehlhorst/
Twitter https://twitter.com/sehlhorst
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sehlhorst/
Blog: http://tynerblain.com/blog/

Contacting Dave Prior

If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
Email: https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

Planning a System of Transformation w/ Mike Cottmeyer May 06, 2019

Show notes

When it comes to Agile Transformation, every organization has to deal with things in the system that are blocking them from developing an Agile System of Delivery. Impediments to Transformation exist at many levels: organizations, architectural, cultural, etc. Many of these impediments are common across companies and can be known and planned for ahead of time. In LeadingAgile's approach, there are 3 Things that are necessary for an organization to be capable of an Agile approach. Those 3 Things are stable teams, a well-formed backlog, and the ability to deliver a working tested increment of product on a regular basis. Anything that gets in the way of these 3 Things must be addressed as part of the Transformation.

In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Founder and CEO, Mike Cottmeyer, and Dave Prior discuss what a System of Transformation, some of the more common impediments to Agile Transformation, and ways to cope with those impediments.

This episode is a follow up to the podcast: System of Delivery vs. System of Transformation.

Contacting Mike Cottmeyer

If you’d like to contact Mike you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mcottmeyer
Email: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
Email: https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

Understanding the Problem You're Trying to Solve with Metrics w/ Jessica Wolfe Apr 25, 2019

Show notes

Metrics are important. Tracking work is important. “What gets measured gets done." But, if you don’t understand why you're measuring things, or what the problem you're trying to solve when you begin measuring things—no amount of metrics is going to help.

In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Senior Consultant, Jessica Wolfe and Dave Prior talk about metrics and how important it is to understand what problem you're trying to solve when you begin using metrics to understand performance and improvement. This interview is a follow up to a presentation Jessica gave recently at Agile Tampa called "Achieving Success with any Agile Planning Tool".

During the podcast, Jessica and Dave discuss some of the more common things organizations initially track when they're moving away from a traditional approach, what to be careful about when you begin using these metrics, how the metrics that you're focused on will evolve over time as you mature in your adoption of Agile, and what to do if you find yourself tracking information and you aren't sure why.

Additional Information

During the podcast, Jessica and Dave make a reference to how we design the tool to help the end users understand the new way of working in the LeadingAgile model, so we wanted to provide a couple of screenshots to assist you in seeing some of the possibilities. Here's an example of what the tool might look like at the Portfolio Tier on an Epic.

Image One: Problem Clarity

Image Two: Targeting

Contacting Jessica

If you’d like to contact Jessica you can reach her at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/jessica-wolfe/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejessicawolfe/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thejessicawolfe
Email: jessica.wolfe@leadingagile.com

Contacting Dave

If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Send Us Your Questions

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Upcoming Classes

And if you are interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

ScrumMaster Survival Tips w/ Sarah Smith Apr 18, 2019

Show notes

This week, on LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, Staff Consultant Sarah Smith shares some tips to survive the role of ScrumMaster. During the interview, Sarah and Dave discuss how to create a stakeholder map that a ScrumMaster can use to understand the best approach to take when interacting with different stakeholders in the organization. They also talk about how to develop greater empathy for stakeholders and how important it is to understand the different motivators driving their behavior, as well as how to use that information to get better at managing your relationship with the stakeholders in your organization.

Further Reading

Here are some of the books that Sarah and Dave recommend for learning more about navigating the tricker parts of interacting with stakeholders in your organization:

Contacting Sarah Smith

Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/sarah-smith/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahleasmith/

Contacting Dave Prior

If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Maximizing Value in the Presence of Constraints w/ Mike Cottmeyer Apr 11, 2019

Show notes

Organizations embracing an Agile approach to their work value their ability to inspect and adapt. They value the ability to continually learn and deepen their understanding of what problems they are trying to solve so that they can inspect and adapt toward a better solution. The challenge is that just because we're Agile and we want to inspect and adapt our way to a better solution doesn't mean that we can ignore the constraints of scope, cost, and time. Those constraints matter and we need to find the best solution possible within those constraints. Figuring out how to do that is no small thing.

In this week's podcast, LeadingAgile's Founder and CEO, Mike Cottmeyer spends some time talking with Dave Prior about how to maximize the value we're able to deliver in the presence of constraints.

Mike's presentation from TriAgile

http://bit.ly/2HICyon

Contacting Mike Cottmeyer

If you’d like to contact Mike you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mcottmeyer
Email: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
Email: https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

How Does Sprint Planning Work?: A SoundNotes Tutorial Apr 04, 2019

Show notes

In this week's SoundNotes we're focusing on one of the fundamental elements in Scrum: The Sprint Planning Meeting. During the podcast, Dave Prior reviews the key aspects of Sprint Planning: its purpose, how it works, who attends, what it produces, and tips to help you make sure yours are achieving the desired result.

If you want to help protect your team from over (or under) committing during Sprint Planning, each team member is going to need to have a solid understanding of their capacity for work during the Sprint. If you'd like to check out the Individual Capacity Calculator that Dave mentioned in the podcast, you can find that here: Individual Capacity Calculator

And if you'd like to check out the official explanation of Sprint Planning and how it fits into a Sprint, check out the Sprint Planning section of The Scrum Guide.

Contacting Dave Prior

If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
Email: https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

System of Delivery vs System of Transformation w/ Mike Cottmeyer Mar 28, 2019

Show notes

When people talk about Agile, they often talk about the approach they are taking: Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming, SAFe, LeSS, DAD, Nexus, etc. These and the other frameworks and methodologies that could be considered to fall under the Agile umbrella are Systems of Delivery because they are techniques for delivering.

There's often an assumption that if we adopt the System of Delivery, our organization will Transform to Agile. Sometimes this happens, but often, organizations need more than a System of Delivery. They need a way to go about helping their organization evolve into a state where it's capable of realizing the benefits of the various Systems of Delivery. This journey from your current state, into a state that's capable of fully leveraging the System of Delivery, may actually require a System of Transformation.

In this episode of SoundNotes, our CEO & Founder, Mike Cottmeyer spends some time with Dave digging into what a System of Transformation is, why this is different than a System of Delivery, how the two are connected, and why having a System of Transformation is such a critical part of your organization's ability to realize the benefits of taking an Agile approach to delivering work.

Contacting Mike Cottmeyer

If you’d like to contact Mike you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mcottmeyer
Email: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
Email: https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

What is the Worth of a Good Product Owner? w/ Tim Wise Mar 21, 2019

Show notes

This week, on SoundNotes, we're featuring another question from a student in one of our Certified Scrum classes. The question came from someone who's working in an organization that doesn't see value in the role of Product Owner and isn't convinced that it's needed as part of the Scrum Team.

The question:

What is the worth of a good P.O.?

LeadingAgile Senior Consultant, Tim Wise spent some time with Dave talking through various aspects of the question. Together, Dave and Tim will explore the role of the P.O., the value a P.O. can add in an organization, and some contexts in which different aspects of the P.O. role might be solved through other means. Lastly, Dave and Tim will discuss how an organization that's focused on maximizing the value delivered to the customer might go about measuring the value of a Product Owner.

Contacting Tim

Email: tim@leadingagile.com
LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/tim-wise/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timwise/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/timswise
Scrum Atlanta User Group: https://www.meetup.com/agile-38/

Contacting Dave

Email: http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mrsungo
Personal blog: http://drunkenpm.net

Feedback/Questions

If you have comments on the podcast or have questions for the LeadingAgile coaches that you’d like to have addressed in a future episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, you can reach Dave at dave.prior@leadingagile.com

LeadingAgile CSM and CSPO Classes

For information on LeadingAgile’s upcoming public CSM and CSPO classes, please go to: http://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

Use the discount code: LA_Podcastto receive a 15% discount on the class.

How Do I Use Scrum on Data Warehouse Projects w/ Dave Nicolette Mar 14, 2019

Show notes

In one of my recent Certified Scrum Master classes, I had a number of students who were working on projects involving migrating from a legacy data warehouse to new data warehouses. Figuring out how to apply Scrum to the work they were doing presented a number of challenges and left some open questions.

Here are two examples of the data related topics that showed up in the Parking Lot:

How do I apply Scrum to data factory?
As a Data Architect, I want to learn how Scrum applies to data factory so I can be part of a successful Dev. Team

In talking with the students about the work they were doing, I was left with a question:

Is Scrum really the best option for this type of work?

While I'm able to understand the challenges they face—both with the work and applying Scum in this situation—my background does not include the necessary work experience to speak to this topic with any level of authority. Fortunately, at LeadingAgile I have many experts I can reach out to when I run into situations like this. LeadingAgile Senior Consultant, Dave Nicolette, was kind enough to spend some time digging into this topic with me.

If you are working on large scale data-related projects and trying to figure out how to use Agile to get the work done, this week’s SoundNotes should offer you some valuable tips.

Contacting Dave Nicolette