This Agile Life

Episode 147: Minimum Viable Airlines Sep 26, 2019

Items necessary for "Minimum Viable Airlines" and your "Minimum Viable Project". These are the items that we agreed we would need before embarking on a project together. Do you have all of these before you begin a project?

Destination - Project Vision
Altitude - Depth of backlog
Location - Progress (working software)
Airspeed - Speed of delivery and speed constraints
Fuel - Stories
Captain or pilot - A leader
Black box - Project data or metrics
Landing gear - A clear and well worn path to prod
Good flight procedures - Working agreements
FAA flight time restrictions for pilots - Sustainable pace
Logbook - Source control
Emergency slide - Good enough or a safe way to end a project on short notice

Picks

Jason

Podcasting Innovation - it’s amazing how much has changed in the last 7+ years, thanks to all the people & companies that have created
Goats to Go - www.goatsonthego.com - you can poop out the back of the airplane
The Red Rubber Ball at Work - by Kevin Carroll - a fun book on practical strategies and why you should inject more fun into the workplace - http://kevincarrollkatalyst.com/books
TV shows you can watch that Jason likes:
Why Planes Crash
Airline Repo

John

Uncle Bob, professionalism in software development and the future of programming, https://youtu.be/LmRl0D-RkPU

Craig

Waverunners
Vacation from your vacation
China Airlines Flight 006, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_006
Nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents

Episode 146: The Developer Experience Manifesto Sep 19, 2019

Join the guys as they, on the fly, create the Developer Experience Manifesto

Picks

Jason

Book - “Exactly What to Say: The Magic Words of Influence & Impact” by Phil Jones - great insights and straights on how many of the simple things we say (including on this podcast) impact how people perceive and respond to what we say as agilists - https://www.philmjones.com/exactly/
Product (for virtual teams) Sococo - Provides a virtual office with different spaces for team collaboration, pairing, or solo work - creates the experience where people working virtually can drop in - www.sococo.com
Live Event - Agile Midwest 2019 - Come hang out in the “Agile Lounge” to discuss advanced agile topics or attend any of the other 40+ sessions on the program - www.agilemidwest.org

John

Three Amigos, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092086/
WWT Software Development podcast episode on the Virtual Office, https://wwtapps.podbean.com/e/virtual-office-1563125261/
John's relatively new podcast, Dalio's Principles: A Philosophical Examination, https://daliosprinciples.fireside.fm/

Episode 145: Chaotic and Confusing Sep 05, 2019

Scaled Agile and the similarities between hair styling and agilist.

The Picks

Craig

New version of git, introducing git switch and git restore:
- https://github.blog/2019-08-16-highlights-from-git-2-23/

Lee

Pros and Cons of Scaled Agile
- https://www.qasymphony.com/blog/pros-cons-scaled-agile-framework-safe/

Amos

Rocketbook Beacons
- https://getrocketbook.com/pages/beacons-how-it-works

John

https://daliosprinciples.fireside.fm/ My new podcast Dalio’s Principles: A Philosophical Examination

Episode 144: Inconsistent at Best Jul 18, 2019

In this thrilling episode of This Agile Life, Jason asks for advice from Craig, Amos and Lee on what kind of metrics development teams can provide so there is some level of predictability as to new when features will be available to users or potential customers.

Craig

I Estimate this Talk will be 20 Minutes Long, Give or Take 10 Minutes by Noel Rappin, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBMwT53oGsM
Concolic testing, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concolic_testing
* Concolic = concrete + symbolic

Lee

#NoEstimates Project Planning Using Monte Carlo Simulation, https://www.infoq.com/articles/noestimates-monte-carlo/
ActionableAgile, https://actionableagile.com/

Amos

Agile and Beyond - Tom Churchwell, http://agileandbeyond.com
Code Craftsman Saturdays - Bob Allen, http://codecraftsmansaturdays.blogspot.com
Ford Agile Coaches - They are hiring agile craftsman who want to pair and do TDD email Fadi at fkhoury@ford.com
Give and Take - Adam Grant, https://www.adamgrant.net/give-and-take

Jason

Book - Lynn Cazaly - Visual Mojo – Learn how drawing can be easy and fun & Agile 2019 keynote speaker - https://www.amazon.com/Visual-Mojo-Express-Lynne-Cazaly/dp/0987462911
Video - Brene Brown – Netflix Special: Call to Courage – Learn how shame and vulnerability impact you and your team and what you can do about it – https://www.netflix.com/title/81010166
Event - Agile Midwest Call For Papers Round Two (Sept 25/26 in St. Louis, MO) – Congrats to our first round selections but it’s not too late to submit your idea to share OR improve your submission if you weren’t selected – www.agilemidwest.org

Episode 143: Skinny Agile May 30, 2019

Topics

Marriage Workshop
Skinny Agile
- Commandments:
  - Working software, delivered in short intervals (weekly or more often)
  - Every story has to be deployed when it’s finished
  - Every story has to be valuable (to the stakeholders) and observable

Picks

Craig

Jessica Kerr’s talk about Opera at Agile: Deliver, https://www.agilealliance.org/resources/sessions/the-origins-of-opera-and-the-future-of-programming-jessica-kerr/

John

This is 40, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1758830/

Episode 142: Alone in the Ring May 09, 2019

Jason and Amos in a steel cage match of death.

Picks

Tice

Live Event - Play For Agile NA - September 26 - 29, 2019 - Corwall, ON - Multi-Day Open Space conference focused on collaboration for high performing teams - theme this year is: Growing Empathy through Play - https://play4agilenorthamerica.com/
Elevation of Privilege - Card Game for Threat Modeling - Open Source thanks to Microsoft - Model Your Threats - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20303

Amos

GigCity Elixir - October 17-19, Chattanooga, TN, https://www.gigcityelixir.com/
Property-Based Testing with PropEr, Erlang, and Elixir: Find Bugs Before Your Users Do by Fred Hebert, https://pragprog.com/book/fhproper/property-based-testing-with-proper-erlang-and-elixir
Behind Human Error by a bunch of people, https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Human-Error-David-Woods/dp/0754678342

Episode 141: Letting People Be Vulnerable May 02, 2019

What to do when team members don’t want to follow the established team rules? How to deal with your emotions getting the better of you?

How Craig prefers to work

Introverted, but likes to work with people
Thinking out loud
OK with taking criticism in public
Passive with ideas

The only thing you can control is how you act/react (Amos has been seeing this, but Tice brought it up)
Team-first development

Vulnerability stories

Five Dysfunctions of a Team
The Advantage
Lead or Go First

Tice’s advice on building trust

Share appreciation - more important than sharing constructive feedback (just appreciation & thank you)
Listen
Assume positive intent - assume that others are not out to get you
Share / Transparency

Picks

Tice

Agile Midwest 2019 - www.agilemidwest.org - Call for Awesome Sessions - now open - come share your ideas, help others learn, receive feedback and be part of the agile community.
Team exercise to learn how to work together better - Jason Lankow - https://medium.com/@jasonlankow/how-to-do-the-best-work-with-these-4-creative-types-5bf366a08f9c

Amos

Ballast Point - Grapefruit Sculpin IPA
http://www.thelittletyper.com/

Craig

Single-Site Browsers (SSBs)

Episode 140: Squad, Squad, Squad, Squad Mar 21, 2019

How to tell how well your team is doing

Happiness
Productivity
Informed (communication)
Needed a break?
Learned/improved?
How many times did you feel pain?
Trust
Feeling important/useful
Self-organizing
Have you tried “all” the Agile practices?
Amos: team complains about chairs

https://labs.spotify.com/2014/09/16/squad-health-check-model/

Picks

John

Empathy Map exercise, https://www.solutionsiq.com/resource/blog-post/what-is-an-empathy-map/

Lee

Plickers - App for doing live anonymous polls, https://get.plickers.com/

Craig

TCR (test && commit || revert) - article by Kent Beck, https://medium.com/@kentbeck_7670/test-commit-revert-870bbd756864

Episode 138: Dirty Diapers Feb 21, 2019

Episode 137: Geological Separation Jan 31, 2019

Picks

John

test && commit || revert with Kent Beck on https://hanselminutes.com/663/test-commit-revert-with-kent-beck
GTD, for $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity-ebook/dp/B00KWG9M2E

Amos

GullyTown Double Barrel Aged by Restless Spirits in Kansas City
A Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhout
Elixir Outlaws - https://elixiroutlaws.com

Episode 136: Natural Flow Jan 24, 2019

Picks

Craig

A critique of “the 5 whys” (not the one I saw recently, but similar)
Office Space scenes with the real Michael Bolton
Alchian-Allen effect

Amos

People
Paper
Getting Things Done - David Allen

Episode 135: Shower Standup Jan 28, 2018

Links

Picks

Craig

Doug DeMuro car videos
- Auto Trader column called Oversteer
Music without lyrics, but that I like
- 2Cellos
- Harp Twins

Lee

John

Episode 134: Ideas to Increase Agility in 2018 Jan 15, 2018

Special Guests

Don Peters
Marc Chouinard

Topics

Real-Time Team Improvements
Setting Clear Objectives, Goals, and Working Agreements
Try Pair Testing in 2018
Find Your Personal Impact / Motivation

Picks

Liftoff (Book) by Diana Larsen & Ainsley Nies – provides specific methods for “agile chartering” to help teams define their vision, and then write mission and mission tests to guide activities supportive of the vision
Mile High Agile 2018 (Live Event) – Inspired by being in Denver, consider checking out the annual Mile High Agile conference being held in Denver, CO on May 21 & 22, 2018 – great conference with open space to learn from others
Don’t just attend a conference, go present at it (Personal Development) – If you’ve attended a conference before, consider getting involved by presenting a session at a 2018 conference somewhere – lots of call for papers are open this time of year (early 2018), so consider helping improve the agile community by sharing what you know in 2018 – if you wait ‘til next year, you’ll only be another year older!

Links

Stop Work Authority Card

Episode 133: Agile Tribal Council Oct 22, 2017

Topics

Leadership by example

Picks

Craig

Clean Architecture by Robert “Uncle Bob” Martin
Building Evolutionary Architectures by Neal Ford and Rebecca Parsons

John

The Mother of All Demos, presented by Douglas Engelbart 1968
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Jason

Liberating Structures - helpful and well designed frameworks for specific types of strategic conversations - references available on the web at plus a Mobile App and also in print.
LIVE EVENT - Imposter Syndrome: Innovation Killer Among Us - Wednesday morning, November 8, 2017 in the Kansas City area - Join Billie Schuttpelz after the Lean Agile KC conference to recreate the audacious salon experience from Agile2017 and learn more about Imposter Symdrome and how it impacts all of us.

Episode 132: Stockholm Syndrome Oct 08, 2017

Discussion

The standardization of agile process across an organization.

Picks

Lee

22 Scrum Master Anti-Patterns from Job Ads, blog post by Stefan Wolpers

Nate

Amos (channeling Tice)

ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
How a Raccoon Became an Aardvark
Deep Teases ;-)

John

WASD Keyboards

Episode 131: Great Bathtubs Oct 01, 2017

The Discussion

We discuss ways that you can create a virtual "Save Point" in your project, both technically and with your relationships.

Picks

Nate

Audible Content Exchange

Lee

Welcome Inn Manor - B&B in Chicago

Jason

Jason’s Recommended Bed & Breakfast in Boulder, CO - The Alps Canyon Inn - (Lee thinks they have great bathtubs) - http://www.alpsinn.com/
Let’s Be Awesome - a collaboration framework to guide recurring team/customer conversations to prioritize needs, practices to support them, and metrics to determine effectiveness -
LIVE EVENT - Lean-Agile Kansas City - Nov 7, 2017 - Troy Magennis will be keynoting - Join us to celebrate long live #NoEstimates in Kansas City, MO

John

Factorio

Episode 130: Intelligent Monkeys Sep 24, 2017

Picks

Amos

Moon Monkey - Ginger Beer from Saint Louis’ Urban Chestnut
Quixir - Property-based testing in Elixir

Lee

Artillery - performance testing tool
Testing Pyramid - from Martin Fowler

Craig

Ansible
- Server builds/configs
  - My server configs
- Linux or macOS software install/configuration
  - My macOS configs
- Puppet is also acceptable
- Chef is also acceptable
Approval testing
Previous This Agile Life on Approval Tests

John

Episode 129: What Happened Sep 17, 2017

Links

Maslow’s Hierarchy Needs

Picks

Jason

The DevOps Lego Chocolate Game - a great way to learn about DevOps practices and how to apply them on your team
Team First Development - 3-minute Improv games to improve team dynamics, collaboration and communication - all the essentials to have a great team
Live Event - Agile Midwest 2017 - Join @theagilefactor at the Midwest’s Largest non-profit agile conference - check out our program of 40 agile talks and a keynote by Tricia Broderick (Conference Chair for Agile2017) on growing leadership - conference sessions are held on Thursday, October 12, 2017 & be sure to attend Open Space, facilitated by @theagilefactor, on Wednesday, October 11, 2017 - Register at: https://www.agilemidwest.org/

Lee

Talk - Mozilla’s attempt to bring back civil conversation to the Internet

Amos

Missouri Mule - IPA from Piney River Brewing Company
Nerves - embedded development in Elixir
Strange Loop SEPTEMBER 28-30 2017

Episode 128: Pickle Buckets Aug 20, 2017

Recorded at the Rolla Brewpub

Amos and Craig head out to a Brewery...Yes, a Brewery, and talk Josh Stacy, one of the co-owners of Public House Brewing Company. They talk about learning from our mistakes, continuous improvement, scaling, producing quality, and, of course, making beer.

Picks

Craig

Being Employed ### Amos
Farmhouse Ale ### Josh
Voltron

Episode 127: Someone Stank Aug 13, 2017

Working from Home / Pairing

Suggests on how to pair
Mob Programming

Picks

Amos

Craig

Ruby Conf

Episode 126: Cat Killed the WiFi Apr 24, 2017

Job Interviews

Hiring without Whiteboards
The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews from the New York Times
John Krewson - Casting Casting Casting
Craig's standard interview questions

Picks

Craig

99 Bottles of OOP by Sandi Metz and Katrina Owen
I’ll be giving a workshop at Agile Alliance Technical Conference
- Smaller! - refactoring, story splitting, shorter iterations

Amos

Live Like a Hippy - My Elixir Daze conference talk

Episode 125: DevOps Extravaganza of Tangents Jan 29, 2017

Picks

Craig

Supporting Open Source projects
Ruby Together
5 Web Trends for 2017
Progressive Web Apps - mobile first, responsive, offline, cross-platform,

Amos

Elixir Daze - because I’m speaking
The Commodore - Ballast Point brewer Stout
All the Indiana Jones movies are on Amazon Prime, but we can ignore the one about aliens
Unikernels - Defer Panic

Episode 124: The 12 Days of Agile Jan 08, 2017

Below are the most impactful words that Craig and Jason selected from each of the 12 principles

Principle #1: Delivery & Customer
Principle #2: Welcome & Change
Principle #3: Frequently & Shorter
Principle #4: Business-People & Together
Principle #5: Trust & Trust
Principle #6: Face-To-Face & Conversation
Principle #7: Measure & Progress
Principle #8: Sustainable & Pace
Principle #9: Continuous & Design
Principle #10: Essential & Work
Principle #11: Emerge & Emerge
Principle #12: Behavior & Adjust

Picks

Craig

Blog – “Talks that changed the way I think about programming” - http://www.opowell.com/post/talks-that-changed-the-way-i-think-about-programming/

Jason

Invest to have a great team - In the New Year, spend some time focusing to become a great team – perhaps review the agile manifesto like Craig and I did on this episode and use a discussion of the principles to develop a deeper understanding of your colleagues.
Pocket Sized Principles – an activity to compress the agile manifesto down to 3 words per principle - http://tastycupcakes.org/2010/01/pocket-sized-principles/
- Live Event – Agile Alliance Technical Conference 2017 (AATC2017) – April 19-21, 2017 – Boston, MA – Jason will be hosting a fusion of open space, coach camp, technical coaching clinic, mob programming and learning games in the Innovation & Collaboration Lab at the second annual Agile Alliance Technical Conference – join us in Boston for fun & learning - https://www.agilealliance.org/agile-alliance-technical-conference-2017/

Episode 123: Return of the Amos King Dec 11, 2016

Amos interview David Bernstein

Episode 122: The Amos Files, Part 2 Dec 04, 2016

Amos King interviews Fadik Houry, Francie Van Wirkus and Ryan Ripley following their presentations at Agile Dev East

Episode 121: The Amos Files, Part 1 Nov 27, 2016

Amos King interviews John Krewson and David Hussman following their presentations at Agile Dev East

Episode 120: 2 Person Retro Nov 20, 2016

Craig shows how to open yourself up for feedback as he and Amos discuss his recent presentation at Ruby Conf. Craig and Amos demonstrate how to do a retrospective with 2 people, and how to give and receive feedback.

Episode 119: Trust, Transparency and Truth Oct 02, 2016

This presentation was recorded at Agile Gravy 2016 Trust Transparency Truth

Sponsored By:

Agile Dev East Promo Code: AGILELIFE

Episode 118: At the Wheelhouse (Agile Lunch) Sep 18, 2016

Co-location Remote teams Measurement and measuring

Sponsored By:

Agile Dev East Promo Code: AGILELIFE

Quick Announcement from Amos Aug 25, 2016

Look out UK. Here comes Amos!

Episode 117: Rubber Duck Effect (Scrum to Kanban) Aug 21, 2016

Scrum vs. Kanban

Sponsored By:

Agile Dev East Promo Code: AGILELIFE

Episode 116: It’s Called a Comic Book – Pt. 2 (State of Agile) Aug 07, 2016

The Version One 10th Annual State of Agile

Sponsored By:

Agile Dev East Promo Code: AGILELIFE

Episode 115: It’s Called a Comic Book – Pt. 1 (State of Agile) Jul 31, 2016

The Version One 10th Annual State of Agile

Sponsored By:

Agile Dev East Promo Code: AGILELIFE

Episode 114: You Can’t Handle the Truth (Trust, Truth and Transparency) Jul 24, 2016

Dealing with constructive criticism

Sponsored By:

Agile Dev East Promo Code: AGILELIFE

Episode 113: Wiggly and Stabler (Return of Waterfall) Jul 17, 2016

The Return of Waterfall, video from Kent Beck, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4IncnNVzMA Vision Strategy Product Design Engineering

Episode 112: Agile Dev East Jul 10, 2016

Special Guest: Lee Copeland, Conference Chair at Agile Dev East Discussion Agile Dev East Program Tracks Quality Software DevOps Agile Software Training Leadership Summit Social Networking The Expo

Episode 111: Scrum (You Can’t Reason with a Methodologist) Jul 03, 2016

Special Guest: Dave West, Product Owner at Scrum.org Discusses

Episode 110: Silver Search (Trouble with POs) Jun 26, 2016

Problems in communication and the behavior of a PO

Episode 109: Slack Dander (Fallacies of Software Developers) May 22, 2016

Todd Kaufman, Test Double Discussion Fallacies of Software Developers (Todd Kaufman’s presentation at Agile and Beyond 2016)

Episode 108: The Empathy Toy (Agile Technical Conf) Apr 12, 2016

Agile Technical Conference April 2016 – Raleigh, NC From Agile Alliance

Episode 107: Ypsilanti Safe Space (Amplify Learning) Mar 20, 2016

Lean Principle – Amplify Learning: what is it? How do I do it?

Episode 106: A Drove of Asses (Team Cohesion) Mar 13, 2016

Team Cohesion Forming, storming, norming, performing Leading from the back of the room Shared vision Pairing on story writing

Episode 105: Elevator Retrospective Jan 31, 2016

Diana Larsen, co-author of “Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great” visited St. Louis and held an opening gathering at a local agile meetup group. Some of our regular hosts from ThisAgileLife attended this event and took note of the following questions to discuss on a podcast episode to pass along some of the insights Diana shared and also to perhaps add a few of their own.

Episode 104: Chasing another Dragon (Too Reactive) Jan 17, 2016

Released Sunday, January 17, 2016
Hosts: Amos King, Craig Buchek and John Sextro

Discussion

Too reactive to requests

7 Righteous fights

Picks

Amos

Glenmorangie – The Quinta Ruban – 12 year single malt scotch finished in a port barrel
New programming jargon from Coding Horror

John

Craig

Not drinking alcohol or soda
The Scrum Guide
Coding Horror Recommended Reading List for Developers
Neil deGrasse Tyson Reading List

Episode 103: Chasing the Dragon (Giving Thanks for Agile) Nov 29, 2015

Things we’re thankful for about agile

Episode 102: We’re more similar than we know (Feedback Game) Oct 11, 2015

Playing the feedback game

Episode 101: Don’t Make Mud (Tech Debt) Sep 27, 2015

Technical Debt Quote “Software is never finished” Phases of a project Race to market MVP MMF Growth

Episode 100: First Agile Experience Sep 21, 2015

Yay! We made it to 100!!!! The hosts sit down to share their first experiences with agile.

Episode 99: (Dealing with Negativity) Puns Everywhere Sep 13, 2015

How to deal with negativity on a team Good naked and bad naked, Seinfeld reference

Episode 98: (Aug. 2015 Agile LINC) Automate, Automate Sep 06, 2015

Craig Buchek and Jason Tice both attended the August 2015 St. Louis Agile LINC user group meeting

Episode 97: (Agile 2015 Wrap-up) Podcasting at a non-sustainable pace Aug 16, 2015

Jason Tice and Natalie Simonsen Discussion Now that the Agile2015 conference has concluded, join Natalie Simonsen and Jason Tice for a round-robin discussion of their key take-aways and themes from the week

Episode 96: (Agile 2015 – Friday) I like Big Boards Aug 10, 2015

Stephen Vance shares highlights from the multi-team agile framework he has put in place at his organization with Natalie and Renee.

Episode 95: (Agile 2015 – Wednesday) That’s a Wiener Aug 07, 2015

ThisAgileLife celebrated a “winning” episode recorded immediately after guest Dan Parker and Jason Tice won prizes at the Agile2015 “Night at the Museums” vendor raffle event. Jason and Dan were joined by Melanie Hopwood and Charles Elsner (also attending the conference) to discuss sessions they attended on Wednesday, August 5, 2015.

Episode 94: (Agile 2015) Booth Bitch vs. the Cucumber Guy Aug 06, 2015

Natalie and Jason were joined by Agile2015 conference attendees including Renee Troughton, Rich Rose Hemlock and Joe Naumann to reflect on the second day of the conference and share a few learnings from the sessions they attended.

Episode 93: (Agile 2015) Agile Bangers & Mash Aug 05, 2015

Natalie and Jason were joined by Agile2015 conference attendees Rose Hemlock and Joe Naumann to reflect on the first day of the conference and share a few learnings from the sessions they attended

Episode 92: (Agile 2015 Kickoff) Don’t Leave Your Children Unattended on the Balcony Aug 03, 2015

Agile 2015 Kickoff

Episode 91: (Lean Coffee) Version 1 Spy Jul 26, 2015

“Lean Coffee” discussion with several regular ThisAgileLife hosts

Episode 90: (9th Annual State of Agile Survey) “MMWAP” – Making money with agile processes Jul 19, 2015

Our annual tradition of providing insights and commentary based upon the 9th annual state of agile survey

Episode 89: (Wishful Planning) Don’t be an agile hoarder Jul 12, 2015

Join Natalie, Nate and Jason for a discussion about “Wishful planning”

Episode 88: (Commitment to Value) Diabetes Waiting to Happen Jun 28, 2015

Wes Higbee (Full City Tech) author of Commitment To Value: How to make technical projects worthwhile.

Episode 87: (Change Leadership) A Sense of Urgency Jun 14, 2015

Lee, Craig and Jason for a discussion on John Kotter’s ideas about “Change Leadership”

Episode 86: (Centralized Agile Coaching) Questatement May 31, 2015

Central teams consisting of coaches as a barrier to organizational learning

Episode 85: (Agile Games 2015) The Theater of the Oppressed May 24, 2015

Agile Games 2015 Recap and Review

Episode 84: (Product Ownership) That One Looks Delicious May 17, 2015

Product Owners and their product vision, or lack there of

Episode 83: (Pros/Cons of Testing & TDD) The Price is Right May 03, 2015

When should we do TDD?

Episode 82: (Agile Games) I’m Famous on this Podcast Apr 26, 2015

Special guest Renee Troughton

Episode 81: (Scrum Master Anti-Patterns) Anarcho-syndicalist commune Apr 19, 2015

2015 Agile Indy conference entitled “The Scrum Master IS The Impediment”

Episode 80: Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich (Live Coaching) Apr 12, 2015

Times when you shouldn’t test your code.

Episode 79: March Metaphor Madness (Celebrate as a Team) Apr 05, 2015

Celebrate as a Team

Episode 78: Squirrels (Team Practices) Mar 29, 2015

Round Robin Discussion

Episode 77: Sniffleupagus (Hardware) Mar 22, 2015

Hardware The intersection between software and hardware on agile teams

Episode 76: Contrivance of Humans (#NoEstimates) Mar 15, 2015

No Estimates with Woody Zuill

Episode 75: Sass Factor (Managing Up) Mar 08, 2015

Managing Up

Episode 74: Perfect Rundown (Working the Board) Mar 01, 2015

Working the Board

Episode 73: In a World (No BAs / No SMs) Feb 15, 2015

We don’t need Scrum Masters and Business Analysts In the future agile teams will optimize around 2 roles, PO and Engineer

Episode 72: Lawyer’s worst nightmare (Continuous Improvement) Feb 01, 2015

How much time is considered healthy for an agile team to spend improving themselves?

Episode 71: Woo, I Smell Somethin’ (Stories & Prioritization) Jan 18, 2015

Driving teams to small stories Cards “Twitter sized” stories

Episode 70: Horrible Waste of Space (Open Space Floor Plans) Jan 11, 2015

Open Floor Plan Offices

Episode 69: Wookiees and Cookies (Ops. Review & Incentives) Dec 28, 2014

Raising our Podcast Assurance

Episode 68: Just Dance Jason (Collaboration) Dec 14, 2014

Let’s talk about collaboration in a large group, and what happens to a group’s ability to build / maintain a mental model as it becomes larger

Episode 67: Death by Charts (Code Coverage) Nov 23, 2014

The holy practice of measuring code coverage

Episode 66: Standups Nov 16, 2014

Effective standups Purpose all about communication and commitment not about status updates

Episode 65: Checklists (Education & Code Reviews) Nov 03, 2014

College/University what they should teach? Code Reviews Do you need to do code reviews when pairing? How much time should you spend on a code review?

Episode 64: Anything that is Sacred is Not Agile (Scrum) Oct 05, 2014

Why Scrum Should Basically Just Die in a Fire

Episode 63: A Team of A-Holes (Servant Leadership) Sep 21, 2014

Demystifying Servant Leadership

Episode 62: Death Rattle Sep 14, 2014

When agility starts to fail

Episode 61: I’m Still Being a Jerk (Bullying in the Workplace) Sep 07, 2014

Bullying in the workplace

Episode 60: Wine Will Fix My Problems (Following Through on your Retros) Aug 31, 2014

Capturing Retro Notes

Episode 59: Center of Amos Excellence (Writing Stories) Aug 24, 2014

Writing great stories

Episode 58: Splitting, Slicing and Breaking Down Stories Aug 03, 2014

The importance of slicing stories

Episode 57: I’ve Got a Story to Tell Ya (PMs in Agile) Jul 20, 2014

How do Product Owners Fit on a Team

Episode 56: Talking Out of Both Ends (Product Ownership) Jul 13, 2014

How do Product Owners Fit on a Team

Happy July 4th Jul 06, 2014

Released Sunday, July 6th, 2014

Hosts: John Sextro

Happy July 4th

The show will return to its regular schedule on Sunday, July 13, 2014

Episode 55: They Can’t All Be Blockbusters Jun 29, 2014

Is the “whole team approach” attainable?

Episode 54: Tice is Immune to Sarcasm (Good to Great) Jun 22, 2014

Agile…Good to Great John’s Recommendation

Episode 53: Gnat Crap Chart (Agile Practices) Jun 15, 2014

Agile Practices

Episode 52: This Agile Gaming Life on the Charles River (Agile Games 2014) Jun 08, 2014

Agile Games 2014 Jason summarizing the games session by Chris Simms and Laura Powers

Episode 51: I Do Run From Chickens (Adopting Agile) Jun 01, 2014

Adopting Agile

Episode 50: Tice Doesn’t Have a Dirty Bone in His Body (Improving ThisAgileLife) May 25, 2014

A self-facilitated retrospective on what we have learned doing the last 50 episodes of ThisAgileLife.

Episode 49: Amos on Fire (Feature Prioritization) May 18, 2014

Feature Prioritization

Episode 48: Let the Boom Boom Through (Building Teams) May 11, 2014

Building Teams

Episode 47: Be Controversial (TDD) May 04, 2014

TDD

Episode 46: Rough Sketch of Your Mom (Approval Tests) Apr 27, 2014

Origins of Approval Tests Architecture of Approval Tests

Episode 45: 50 Shades of Metric Grey Apr 20, 2014

Database Migrations

Episode 44: I Like Habits Apr 13, 2014

Dealing with Blocks

Episode 43: It’s Just Semantics, But Semantics Mean Everything Apr 06, 2014

Discussion with JB Rainsberger

Episode 42: We Can All Just Get Along (Mob Programming) Mar 30, 2014

Mob Programming

Episode 41: Dave Gave Me Goosebumps Mar 23, 2014

Dave Gave Me Goosebumps

Episode 40: Tice is the Reason I Drink (TDD, Pairing and Mobbing ) Mar 16, 2014

TDD, Pairing and Mobbing

Episode 39: Do not as I do (Sustainable Pace) Mar 09, 2014

Sustainable Pace

Episode 38: Don’t be a Douchebag Mar 02, 2014

10 Commandments of Egoless Programming

Episode 37: Let’s Pretty Sh!t Up Feb 23, 2014

Technical Debt

Episode 36: A Larger 3% Feb 16, 2014

State of Agile 2013

Episode 35: Spam Amos (Splitting Stories) Feb 09, 2014

Splitting Stories

Episode 34: So I have a rational fear of spiders (Introspectives) Feb 02, 2014

Introspectives, defined

Episode 33: Wanted Posters (Retrospectives) Jan 26, 2014

“Getting Value Out of Agile Retrospectives“, by Ben Linders and Luis Gonçalves “With plenty of exercises for your retrospective toolbox, this book will help you to become more proficient in doing retrospectives, and to get more value out of them

Episode 32: Location, Location, Location Jan 19, 2014

The 3 Faces of Environment You were saying that Agile resonated with you because it reminded you of kindergarten?

Episode 31: Physical versus Digital Work Boards Jan 12, 2014

Pros and Cons of Physical and Digital Work Boards Digital Pros Easily shared and viewed by many Automatic metric capture Cycle Time Cumulative Flow Velocity Trend Analysis Etc.

Episode 30: People Work Here (2014 Predictions) Jan 05, 2014

2014 Predictions regarding the Human Side of Agile

Holiday 2013 Dec 29, 2013

Happy Holidays from This Agile Life.

The next episode will be released on Sunday, January 5, 2014.

Episode 29: Yesterday Me was an Idiot (Pair Switching) Dec 22, 2013

Recorded Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Hosts: John Sextro, Amos King, and Craig Buchek

Pair Switching

Pairing, in general
How to pair switch
- Using a “Pair-a-mid” to track pairings
- How to rotate pairs

Length of pair sessions
- 1 week, 2 day, 1 day, half-day, 2 hours, 1 hour, 15 mins
- Benefits of short pairing sessions
- Pitfalls of long pairing sessions

When to switch
- What should trigger a pair switch
- Time, using a timer
- Story completion

Concerns about context switches

Insights on the C2Wiki

Picks of the Show

Craig (@CraigBuchek)

Amos (@adkron)

Arduino projects
Geek Desk, Amos is anticipating the arrival of his new desk

John (@jcsextro)

Bitcoin
7 Habits of Highly Effective Pair Programmers, published article, by Me
The Hour of Code 2013

Episode 28: The Incentive is the Freedom (Too Big) Dec 15, 2013

What is Too Big for a Team

Episode 27: That’s Some Nasty Kool-Aid (Product Owners) Dec 08, 2013

Product Owners

Episode 26: Isn’t That Where They Put Richard Simmons Dec 01, 2013

Walking Skeleton, Minimal Marketable Feature and Thin Vertical Slice Minimal Marketable Feature, definitive article Walking Skeleton

Episode 25: 4 Estimates and a Gantt Chart Ago Nov 24, 2013

Planning, How much is too much

Episode 24: I Know Nov 17, 2013

NoEstimates and Metrics

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