Future State Now: A Business Technology Podcast

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Agile Planning with TIES w/ Tom Churchwell Jun 22, 2017

Show notes

One of the challenges many organizations face with Agile is how to handle long term strategic planning in a way that creates visibility all the way through to the execution level. TIES is an approach to Agile planning that can help the business engage in long term planning, understand their organization’s capacity to actually execute on the work, and then see how that work can be broken down into pieces that are sized to allow the individual teams to execute on them. In this episode of SoundNotes, Tom Churchwell explains how TIES can help with Agile Planning. Using this approach the work is sized into: - Themes - Strategic long term goals broken down into time boxes of 1 to 3 quarters. - Initiatives - Themes are broken down into elements that collectively address the theme. These are broken down into time boxes of 1 to 3 months. - Epics - Initiatives are broken down into Epics which would take between 1 to 3 sprints to deliver. - Stories - Epics are broken down into User Stories that are small enough to be completed by a Team within a Sprint, ideally within 1 to 3 days. Show Notes This is a pretty short podcast (less than 20 minutes) so I have not broken it down into timed show notes. Contacting Tom Churchwell LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/tom-churchwell/ Email: tom.churchwell@leadingagile.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/tchurchwell LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomchurchwell/ Contacting Dave LeadingAgile: http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/mrsungo Personal Blog: http://drunkenpm.net LeadingAgile CSM & 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_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class. 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

Student Q&A: Working thru the Waterfall Hangover w/ Dave Prior Jun 08, 2017

Show notes

Successfully completing a CSM or CSPO class doesn't impact everyone the same way. For some, it is like a lightbulb went off and everything about Agile just makes sense. For others (like me), some of the ideas and values from waterfall persist for a time. Questioning agile and trying to reconcile this new way of thinking with the old way is part of the personal journey of moving from a traditional approach to an agile way of working. I tend to think of it as a hangover that occurred from drinking a little too much waterfall. In this week's podcast, I address 3 questions that were submitted by a student following a recent class. These were the same kinds of questions I was asking when I took my CSM training and was getting my head around agile. In the podcast I address not only the questions that were asked, but the bigger ones that may be more subtext - around, why do we need to work this way? The questions: 1. What are the factors that lead us to the decision to go Agile or Waterfall? The simple "Scrum is best suited for complex projects" (page 10 of the workbook) doesn't seem to be enough and there could be challenges against that statement. The more complex the issue is, the more effort we would want to spend upfront instead of down the road. Is earlier we detect the issues the less cost to fix it? 2. We know a perfect scrum team should be cross functional but in reality, we're far from that. The question is how to fix the velocity gap between the roles to maximize their efficiency? E.g. developers code faster than testers (usually when the system is huge and a single change would require a lot of regression testing). We know we can fix it by adjusting the ratio among the roles but the amount of work changes overtime, if we keep adjusting the ratio we will NOT have a stable scrum team. 3. As User Stories do NOT contain the requirement details, the requirement is actually conveyed through discussion between PO vs Dev team, how can we capture the product specification? The Product Specification is extremely important for many purposes including training of new team member, doing impact analysis, or for PO to know how the current system works so they can plan for future improvement. Should we spend effort to compose/update Product Specs? If we do, will that be a User Story or just count it as overhead ? This is a pretty short podcast (less than 15 minutes) so I have not broken it down into timed show notes. Contacting Dave LeadingAgile: http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/  Twitter at http://twitter.com/mrsungo Personal site at: 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

Student Q&A - How do you cope w/ the PO being many time zones away from the team? - w/ Derek Huether Jun 01, 2017

Show notes

This week Dave received a request for advice from a student in one of LeadingAgile’s Certified Scrum Product Owner classes: How to effectively work with a distributed scrum team (both time and distance). We have an IT Software project in which PO is in the US, Development is in Ukraine and Testing is in Vietnam. ShowNotes A summary of the suggestions Dave and Derek offer during the podcast: - Reorganize the team - Have additional POs or BAs in each location - Set up a US based team of rockstar POs who organize themselves specifically to support this distributed effort - Spend more time in backlog refinement and try to eliminate risk by taking as much are as possible to make sure the PBI’s area clearly defined enough for the teams to work on them (largely) without needing additional questions answered - Bring the entire team together for a time to establish patterns of communication and personal relationship, with the idea being that they are together for a time to shorten the feedback loop while they practice working together so that they can manage it better when they all go back home. - Team offsites to build the connection and create empathy between the disparate parts of the team - Online interaction - like the recent TDD Mobbing exercise Dave participated in on Twitch for Agile Uprising (https://youtu.be/4HX0JrnHSjI) Contacting Derek You can reach Derek on the LeadingAgile site at https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ Via  Email: derek@leadingagile.com On Twitter at https://twitter.com/derekhuether  Or via his personal site at: http://www.derekhuether.com Contacting Dave You can reach Dave on the LeadingAgile site at http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/  On Twitter at http://twitter.com/mrsungo  Or on his blog at: 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

Student Q&A: Normalizing Points As Time w/ Dave Prior and Derek Huether May 25, 2017

Show notes

Note: This is an audio only version of a video podcast that can be found here: http://bit.ly/2qiC2C5 Dave Prior and Derek Huether respond to a student question: What is wrong with management wanting to normalize points across teams and use them as time. Tools mentioned in the video Focused Objective - Troy Magennis has a wide variety of tools he makes available for free that will help you understand team performance (among other things). You can find them at http://focusedobjective.com/free-tools-resources/ or watch a video where Troy walks through how to use two of those tools... https://vimeo.com/190973081 LeanAgile Intelligence is another great tool that is worth checking out. It is an assessment tool that will help you understand team performance across the organization. You can learn more about it (and sign up for the free beta) at https://www.leanagileintelligence.com. You can also watch a video walkthrough that the tool's co-creator, Troy Lightfoot, gave to Dave recently in response to a question about how to evaluate performance of an individual ScrumMaster... https://vimeo.com/218602967 Contacting Derek You can reach Derek on the LeadingAgile site at https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ Email: derek@leadingagile.com On Twitter at https://twitter.com/derekhuether Or on his personal site at: http://www.derekhuether.com Contacting Dave You can reach Dave on the LeadingAgile site at http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ On Twitter at http://twitter.com/mrsungo Or on his personal site at: 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

Heart of Agile and Personal Agility Canvases w/ Dave Prior May 18, 2017

Show notes

Note: This is the audio only version of the video podcast which can be found here -> https://vimeo.com/217951635 This is a short version of the HOA + Personal Agility Canvas session led by Dave Prior at the 2017 Heart of Agile Conference in Pittsburgh. During this video Dave provides a walk through of the Personal Agility Canvas with a focus on the expanded Heart of Agile. If you are new to this tool, it is a great way to conduct a self-assessment on your own Personal Agile Transformation. It will also help you establish personal goals for your desired state of personal agility and help you define actions you can take immediately to amp up your adoption of Agile. THE PERSONAL AGILITY CANVAS If you'd like to download a PDF of the canvas to complete on your own while you are viewing the video, you can find it here: http://bit.ly/2pVW7Ol CONTACTING DAVE You can reach Dave on the LeadingAgile site at https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ On Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo Or on his personal site at: https://drunkenpm.blogspot.com/ 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_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class. HEART OF AGILE And to learn more about The Heart of Agile, please visit Alistair Cockburn's site here: http://heartofagile.com

Should Work Be Assigned During Sprint Planning? w/ Chris Li May 10, 2017

Show notes

As the 2017 Scrum Gathering in San Diego would down to a close a few weeks ago, Dave Prior and Chris Li began a debate: Is it okay for a Scrum Team to leave the Sprint Planning Meeting with individual work assignments? This is a question that often comes up for both Dave and Chris when they are teaching CSM and CSPO classes. In this podcast you’ll hear them each explain how they respond to this question based their experiences working with teams. You’ll also get to hear what happened when they decided to check in with some experts at the Gathering. SHOW NOTES 00:08 - Podcast Begins 00:26 - How Chris and Dave got into a heated debate about Sprint Planning and went to check with experts 01:50 - Debate setup: During Sprint Planning, is it okay for Team Members to self-assign tasks they will work on during the Sprint? 02:41 - Chris explains his position supporting Team members selection tasks during Sprint Planning 05:30 - Dave explains the reasons why he does not want Team members to leave Sprint Planing with specific work assigned. 08:20 Chris responds to Dave’s position 09:54 - Dave tracks down Diana Larsen to ask for her opinion on the subject 10:39 - Dave asks Ron Jeffries and Chet Hendrickson on the subject 11:52 - “We’re all trying to get to the same place” 13:00 - How to get in touch with Chris 13:53 - Podcast Close CONTACTING CHRIS You can reach Chris on the LeadingAgile site at: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/chris-li/ On Twitter: https://twitter.com/RealChrisLi On his personal site: http://www.sparkplugagility.com/ CONTACTING DAVE You can reach Dave on the LeadingAgile site at https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ On Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo Or on his personal site at: https://drunkenpm.blogspot.com/ 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_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class.

"It's not a math problem" The Cost of Delay Part 3 w/ Dean Stevens May 04, 2017

Show notes

In our third podcast focusing on Cost of Delay, LeadingAgile’s Dean Steven explains how he has used Cost of Delay with management working on defining priority for items at the portfolio level. Dean also explains why the problem Cost of Delay helps you solve is not a math problem, but a collaboration problem. SHOW NOTES 00:08 Interview Begins 00:56 Some background on the work Dean does day to day for LeadingAgile 01:43 Does Senior Mgmt. normally have a specific technique for prioritizing work across the portfolio? 02:40 Clarifying teams at the project, program and portfolio management 03:33 How does a team work at the portfolio level 04:27 What is a Business Architect 05:20 Why do we need Cost of Delay and what question does it help us solve? 06:35 It’s not a math problem, it’s a collaboration problem 07:12 How Cost of Delay will help you develop an understanding of relative business value 09:00 How to calculate Cost of Delay = (User Business Value + Time Criticality + Opportunity Enablement) / Effort SWAG 11:57 Defining Opportunity Enablement 13:18 What happens after all the work is sized? 15:40 When you get to re-estimate the values in Cost of Delay and adjust the relative priority 16:04 An example of how Dean used CoD with a client to align multiple programs of work across the organization and define relative priority for each of them 17:44 It’s not a math problem, it’s a collaboration problem 20:15 Dean’s focus on the portfolio level with Cost of Delay 21:38 Ordering vs. Prioritizing 22:18 Validating your understanding of relative User Business Value 23:40 Using the data and the math to figure out where to point the compass 24:46 What is an MVP? 25:13 Where to go for more information on Cost of Delay 25:57 How to to get in touch with Dean 26:19 Podcast Ends LINKS FROM THE PODCAST An Overview of Cost of Delay with Jim Hayden https://www.leadingagile.com/podcast/an-overview-of-cost-of-delay-with-jim-hayden-and-dave-prior/ Calculating Cost of Delay with Marty Bradley https://www.leadingagile.com/podcast/calculating-cost-delay-marty-bradley/ The Principles of Product Development Flow by Don Reinertsen http://amzn.to/2m6u0xL CONTACTING DEAN You can reach Dean: LeadingAgile https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dean-stevens/ CONTACTING DAVE You can reach Dave: On the LeadingAgile site On Twitter at twitter.com/mrsungo On his personal site at: 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: www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/ Use the discount code: LA_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class.

Student QA: The No Mission Statement Blues w/ Derek Huether Apr 27, 2017

Show notes

This is an audio only version of a video podcast that can be found here: https://www.leadingagile.com/podcast/can-product-vision-without-company-mission-derek-huether/ In this podcast, Derek Huether and Dave Prior take on a question asked by a student in one of Dave’s classes. Can you have a Product Vision Statement if you do not have a Company Mission Statement? Contacting Derek You can reach Derek on the LeadingAgile site at https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ Email: derek@leadingagile.com On Twitter at https://twitter.com/derekhuether Or on his personal site at: http://www.derekhuether.com Contacting Dave You can reach Dave on the LeadingAgile site at http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ On Twitter at http://twitter.com/mrsungo Or on his personal site at: 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_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class.

Scrum Gathering 2017 w/ Maria Matarelli and Alistair Cockburn Apr 20, 2017

Show notes

Last week at the 2017 Scrum Gathering in San Diego, Dave Prior had a chance to sit down with Maria Matarelli and Alistair Cockburn to discuss the 2017 Heart of Agile Conference in Pittsburgh on April 27-28, Guest Leadership, the importance of dancing at conferences, Maria’s budding career as a DJ, her upcoming humanitarian work in New Zealand as well as her Agile Lifestyles event that will be live streamed from a stadium in New Zealand on May 3 (US time)… and of course… the Tango. If you’d like to learn more about the 2017 Heart of Agile Conference being held in Pittsburgh on April 27-28, follow this link: http://heartofagile.com/heart-of-agile-conferences/heart-of-agile-pittsburgh-2017/ Here are some additional links from the podcast: The Scrum Alliance has posted the presentations from the 2017 Scrum Gathering in San Diego on their site. You can find them here: https://scrumalliance.org/why-scrum/scrum-resources/gathering-presentations For more information Guest Leadership please check here: http://alistair.cockburn.us/Guest+Leadership Maria’s presentation in New Zealand on May 4th at 9 AM New Zealand time / May 3rd at 4 PM EST https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/join-powerful-agile-lifestyle-live-streamed-from-new-may-matarelli Dave’s previous interview with Alistair Cockburn on Designing Quality of Life https://soundcloud.com/drunkenpmradio/alistair-cockburn-designing-quality-of-life Contacting Alistair Cockburn Web: http://alistair.cockburn.us Twitter: https://twitter.com/TotherAlistair Contacting Maria Matarelli Web: http://mariamatarelli.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/MariaMatarelli Contacting Dave You can reach Dave on the LeadingAgile site at http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ On Twitter at http://twitter.com/mrsungo Or on his personal site at: 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_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class.

Heart of Agile 2017: w/ Derek Huether and Dave Prior Apr 13, 2017

Show notes

The original video version of this file can be found here: https://vimeo.com/213030252 The Heart of Agile 2017 is being held on April 27-28 in Pittsburgh. It is the 2nd annual HOA conference and it will also be the first Agile Conference held in Pittsburgh. Derek Huether and Dave Prior will both be speaking at the event. In this short video Derek and Dave each provide an overview of the sessions they will be leading at the event celebrating Alistair Cockburn’s approach to getting back to the basics of what makes Agile work. If you’d like to check out Derek’s session: How to Find Early Indications That Your Delivery System Will Fail April 27, 2017 1:30pm - 2:15pm Empress Deck 1 http://heartofagile.com/Session/how-to-find-early-indications-that-your-delivery-system-will-fail/ And if you’d like to see Dave’s session: Heart of Agile + Personal Agility Canvas April 28, 2017 3:30pm - 4:15pm Empress Deck 1 http://heartofagile.com/Session/heart-of-agile-personal-agility-canvas/ And if you need information on the conference in general or want to attend http://heartofagile.com/heart-of-agile-conferences/heart-of-agile-pittsburgh-2017/ We hope to see you there!

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