Agile Amped Podcast - Inspiring Conversations

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/

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/ Connect on Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFollow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/agileampedFind us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/agileamped/

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." To receive real-time updates: Podcast library: www.agileamped.com Subscribe to our newsletter: www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Connect on Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFollow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/agileampedFind us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/agileamped/

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 To receive real-time updates: Podcast library: www.agileamped.com Subscribe to our newsletter: www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Connect on Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFollow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/agileamped

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. To receive real-time updates: Podcast library: www.agileamped.com Subscribe to our newsletter: www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Connect on Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFollow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/agileamped

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. To receive real-time updates: Podcast library: www.agileamped.com Subscribe to our newsletter: www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Connect on Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFollow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/agileamped

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. To receive real-time updates: Podcast library: www.agileamped.com Subscribe to our newsletter: www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Connect on Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFollow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/agileamped

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. To receive real-time updates: Podcast library: www.agileamped.com Subscribe to our newsletter: www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Connect on Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFollow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/agileamped

How is a cellphone like a satellite? Says Tom Friend, Agile consultant at Duke Energy who is blowing our minds with his work at NASA, "If you think about it, a cellphone is a micro satellite [without] stabilization [or] propulsion." Tom walked us through using Scrum and other Agile practices in a satellite mission simulation to create a roadmap and a backlog and to produce a paper prototype of a to-scale small satellite (smallsat), which Friend calls a cubesat. Of the experience, he says, "It creates a shared mental model that everyone can see. It's not what you get out of the paper, it's individuals and interactions." Howard Sublett hosts at Southern Fried Agile 2017 in Charlotte, North Carolina. To receive real-time updates: Podcast library: www.agileamped.com Subscribe to our newsletter: www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Connect on Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFollow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/agileamped

Richard Kasperowski is the author of "The Core Protocols: A Guide to Greatness", a book in which he describes how to use the Core protocols developed by Jim and Michele McCarthy, an Agile mindset and practices, and Open Space Technology to create high-performance teams. In this podcast, Kasperowski defines for us what he means by "high-performance teams" thus: "High-performance team is a team that gets objectively better results than other teams doing similar work. It's something you can observe and something you can measure." To achieve this end many times over with different clients and customers, Kasperowski has over time devised what he calls a "protocol stack" whose four layers - Positive Bias, Autonomy, Self-Awareness and Connections - he argues is foundational to all high-performance teams. Howard Sublett hosts at Agile Arizona 2017 in Phoenix, Arizona. To receive real-time updates: Podcast library: www.agileamped.com Subscribe to our newsletter: www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Connect on Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFollow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/agileamped

Ever asked your team, "How's our KPIs? Are we hitting our numbers?" Cat Swetel says that the answer you get may not be very useful for determining actual value delivery. In her Agile Arizona 2017 session "Agile Metrics You Should Use But Don't," Cat shared some metrics that everyone in Agile knows they should focus on, but for whatever reason get set aside. These include: Start date ("when a story crosses the line of commitment"), End date (when the acceptance criteria and definition of done have been met), how many things in progress, time in process (AKA "cycle time" - which in Cat's experience has different connotations in manufacturing), throughput (units of value per unit of time, AKA velocity). Cat also shares a powerful story about how a delivery team radiated information to their business representatives about the negative impact expedite requests would have on eminent customer satisfaction and how this sharing of information had a profound, positive impact on communication and delivery flow. Hosted by SolutionsIQ's Howard Sublett at Agile Arizona 2017 in Phoenix, Arizona. To receive real-time updates: Podcast library: www.agileamped.com Subscribe to our newsletter: www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Connect on Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFollow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/agileamped

Derek Neighbors is the CTO of Tanga, whose Daily Deals make online impulse shopping even more dangerous. Derek dives into the metaphor that they use at Tanga to make product management more fun and, more importantly, more effective. They call it "Blockbuster Product Management": it maps the many product delivery and release processes to similar processes in movie-making. For every strategic initiative, there are pitch scripts, executive directors and directors (the latter being the Product Owner), screenings, and even a cast of characters who "star" in the movie that is developing and delivering a particular product. The cast will include developers, designers, operations people. For the last two to three years, Tanga has been reaping the benefits of this movie metaphor, releasing posters that gets everyone excited - and completely clear - about what products are being released and when. Derek also shares stories about the power of this metaphor - and, yes, there have been sequels and even "straight-to-DVD" products. Hosted by SolutionsIQ's Howard Sublett at Agile Arizona 2017 in Phoenix, Arizona. To receive real-time updates: Podcast library: www.agileamped.com Subscribe to our newsletter: www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Connect on Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFollow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/agileamped

People don't always use the word "joy" to describe a place they would like to work, but Rich Sheridan thinks we should start. Author of Joy, Inc. and CEO of Menlo Innovation, Rich shares how he created an open space for delivery teams where computers and code were shared – an idea that one respondent said would result in “blood, mayhem, murder.” Instead this approach was what led Sheridan to recognize joy as the very thing that makes a place worth working in. 18 years after starting, Sheridan's mission to bring joy into the workplace is stronger than ever. Memorable Quotes:- "It's okay to say, 'I don't know.'"- "We have intentionally created a culture focused on the business value of joy." Hosted by SolutionsIQ's Howard Sublett at Agile Arizona 2017 in Phoenix, Arizona. To receive real-time updates: Podcast library: www.agileamped.com Subscribe to our newsletter: www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Connect on Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFollow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/agileamped

In this edition of Round Table Roulette, we sit down with SolutionsIQ's Alan Dayley, Reece Schmit from Agile Velocity, and Jeremy Wood from Matrix Resources. Some questions and head-scratchers that our panel wrestles with include:- Where will Agile be in 10 years?- What's your favorite retrospective technique?- How do you know if your pace is sustainable?- Describe the high-performing Agile team you've ever seen. Hosted by SolutionsIQ's Howard Sublett at Agile Arizona 2017 in Phoenix, Arizona. To receive real-time updates: Podcast library: www.agileamped.com Subscribe to our newsletter: www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Connect on Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFollow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/agileamped

Author of the book "Tribal Unity" and SAFe Fellow Em Campbell-Pretty holds the claim to fame for launching the first Agile Release Train (ART) in Australia. Em believes that book clubs are a great vehicle for deep learning, scaling is about building the social fabric of the organization, and that companies get better results by starting with culture. Her session at SAFe Summit 2017 is called "Tribal Unity – The Heart of Scaling Agile." Hosted by SolutionsIQ's Leslie Morse at SAFe Summit 2017 in San Antonio, Texas. To receive real-time updates: Podcast library: www.agileamped.com Subscribe to our newsletter: www.solutionsiq.com/agile-amped/ Connect on Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFollow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/agileamped