Agile Amped Podcast - Inspiring Conversations

Collaboration is considered a fundamental part of "being agile" but how can you help your team understand HOW to collaborate? "Improvising" is not really about being funny, or panicking when things go wrong. It's a simple process that groups of actors follow in order to create interesting stories and scenes without the aid of a script. This session will show how the five 'secrets' of improvisational theatre can support an agile team's growth and also give you some practical guidance on how to get your team's collaborative and creative juices flowing from the very start!Follow Paul's journey on Twitter - @PaulKGoddard

Change is often much slower than hoped for, and more painful than anticipated. In the end, you may be left with feelings of frustration and dismay rather than the benefits you hoped for. How can we make change--whether it's adopting Scrum at the team level, or agile at the enterprise level--more successful, and more enlivening? Through her work with many organizations, Esther has distilled principles for successful transformation into Six Rules for Change. These principles address both the complexity of the organization and the complexity of the human experience of change. They provide a set of touch-points to guide Change Artists as they support and enable change in their organizations.

Jim Benson talks about why you should stop using user stories and start using hypotheses.

We all know that User Stories capture goals from the user perspective along with their business value. On the flip side, how can we ensure we've thoroughly examined the ways in which hackers, criminals and adversaries can exploit those stories to get access to our most valuable resources: Our Data! Abuser stories is a way to capture potential vulnerabilities in software systems, using the standard user story format. While user stories are written from a user perspective, abuser stories are written from an enemy or attacker's perspective and describe the enemy's mal-intent and motivation.

Pat Reed addresses many of the enterprise adoption "blockers" that companies may encounter.

When will it be done?" That is the first question your customers ask you once you start work for them. And, for the most part, it is the only thing they are interested in until you deliver. Whether your process is predictable or not is judged by the accuracy of your answer. Think about how many times you have been asked that question and think how many times you have been wrong. Now think about how much harder it is to answer that question when practicing Agile at scale. Your customers most likely feel like they have better odds of winning the lottery than they do of your next Agile project coming in on time. That you don't know your odds of success is not necessarily your fault. You have been taught to collect the wrong metrics, implement the wrong policies, and make the wrong decisions. Until now. This session will introduce how to utilize the basic metrics of flow to more effectively manage the uncertainty associated with very large scale software development. In it, we will discuss how to leverage the power of advanced analytics like Cumulative Flow Diagrams, Cycle Time Scatterplots, and Monte Carlo Simulations to drive predictability at all levels of the organization. Your customers demand better predictability. Isn't it time you delivered?

The industry holds that both Mentoring skill and Professional Coaching skill are useful for ScrumMasters, agile coaches, and managers. Yet, the differences between these approaches is not crystal clear for most people. It's time to show more than tell. Learn about the anatomy of powerful Coaching conversations and Mentoring conversations, see how these skill sets address problems in radically different ways and become clearer on when to use which.

Ed Kraay and Stas Zvinyatskovsky discuss Yahoo's incredible come- back story and their strategic shift towards business agility

Jeff discusses the fact that only 39% of Scrum Teams have working software at the end of a Sprint - that means that 61% of Scrum teams are not meeting the second principle of the manifesto. This is the biggest problem with Agile today. Aggressive Scrum focuses on using Scrum practices to actually deliver value Sprint after Sprint. Like a synchronized bike team where the leader cleaves the air, a successful Scrum team follows tried-and-true principles to realize value. Agile doesn't mean doing whatever you want; it means working together toward a common vision and producing a potentially shippable product increment at the end of every Sprint. Keeping with the bike team analogy, "the guy leading the bike team [the ScrumMaster] is parting the resistance. And the faster they go, the more resistance there is... and the more necessary it is for the ScrumMaster to block and tackle."

Brian Bozzuto discusses his experiences moving from the consulting side to the client side. What is it like to to be the manager you once tried to coach?

The Agility Health Assessment tool is designed for companies that are scaling Agile and want visibility into the performance and health of their teams and enterprise.

David Scott Bernstein discusses his new book "Beyond Legacy Code: Nine Practices to Extend the Life (and value) of Your Software" with over 30 years of experience David shares stories and valuable lessons in Software Development

Johanna discusses her conference sessions, her experiences so far and her new book "Agile and Lean Program Management: Scaling Collaboration Across the Organization."

Anders Wallgren discusses life at Electric Cloud, upcoming events and the importance of continuous integration.

LeSS is a lightweight (agile) framework for scaling Scrum to more than one team. It was extracted out of the experiences of Bas and Craig while Scaling Agile development in many different types of companies, products and industries over the last ten years.LeSS consists of the LeSS Principles, the Framework, the Guides and a set of experiments. The LeSS framework is divided into two frameworks: basic LeSS for 2-8 teams and LeSS Huge for 8+ teams.But what does that all really mean? Find out.

LeSS is a lightweight (agile) framework for scaling Scrum to more than one team. It was extracted out of the experiences of Bas and Craig while Scaling Agile development in many different types of companies, products and industries over the last ten years.LeSS consists of the LeSS Principles, the Framework, the Guides and a set of experiments. The LeSS framework is divided into two frameworks: basic LeSS for 2-8 teams and LeSS Huge for 8+ teams.But what does that all really mean? Find out.

Where have we come from and where are we going? Agile over the years as seen by Shane Hastie.

Where have we come from and where are we going? Agile over the years as seen by Shane Hastie.

Ron and Chet discuss their conference experience, thoughts on the best sessions so far, trends in the industry and so much more!Buckle up.

Drum Roll Please..... - Form Stable Teams - Value Cohesion - Coach the Team - Watch Where You Place the Water Cooler - Help the Team Set Specific and Challenging Performance Goals Bonus Step* - Listen to this podcast.

Drum Roll Please..... - Form Stable Teams - Value Cohesion - Coach the Team - Watch Where You Place the Water Cooler - Help the Team Set Specific and Challenging Performance Goals Bonus Step* - Listen to this podcast.

Transforming an organization to become more agile requires more than just process change. Rather, it requires a complete culture shift. Sustainable, effective agile transformations affect all the elements of culture such as, leadership style, leadership values, work structures, reward systems, processes, and of course the work habits of people.

The responsibility process consists of a number of levels of progressive awareness:blame: looking outward and pointing at others as the source of your problems: they didn't deliver their part of the project in time for me to complete my workjustification: finding reasons in your environment for why things are the way they are: my computer wasn't working well and it slowed me downshame: an inward laying of blame or guilt for the situation: why can't I work harder and get this done?obligation: the sense that you have no choice but to get something done: I have to get this done because people are expecting itresponsibility: the target state of owning up to the situation and actively engaging from a positive position of power: I will complete the project because it gives me the opportunity to master this skill and opens doors to new ideasThere are two associated states that you also need to be aware of:denial: you do not believe that a problem exists or choose to ignore its existence. this is an avoidance mechanism that only serves to delayquit: an means to avoid the pain of coping with the other states. this is a passive attempt to resolve the issue but still leaves the underlying problem unresolved and likely to repeat.Once you have gained awareness of this mental model of responsibility, there are three keys to engaging to successfully reach an empowered state of responsibility:intention: you must enter a mindset where you are willing to act from a position of responsibilityawareness: you must recognize the problem you are addressing and your mental state relative to the problemconfrontation: you must look inward to discover the facts of the problem so you can confront it and yourself to find ideas and solutions

The responsibility process consists of a number of levels of progressive awareness:blame: looking outward and pointing at others as the source of your problems: they didn't deliver their part of the project in time for me to complete my workjustification: finding reasons in your environment for why things are the way they are: my computer wasn't working well and it slowed me downshame: an inward laying of blame or guilt for the situation: why can't I work harder and get this done?obligation: the sense that you have no choice but to get something done: I have to get this done because people are expecting itresponsibility: the target state of owning up to the situation and actively engaging from a positive position of power: I will complete the project because it gives me the opportunity to master this skill and opens doors to new ideasThere are two associated states that you also need to be aware of:denial: you do not believe that a problem exists or choose to ignore its existence. this is an avoidance mechanism that only serves to delayquit: an means to avoid the pain of coping with the other states. this is a passive attempt to resolve the issue but still leaves the underlying problem unresolved and likely to repeat.Once you have gained awareness of this mental model of responsibility, there are three keys to engaging to successfully reach an empowered state of responsibility:intention: you must enter a mindset where you are willing to act from a position of responsibilityawareness: you must recognize the problem you are addressing and your mental state relative to the problemconfrontation: you must look inward to discover the facts of the problem so you can confront it and yourself to find ideas and solutions

Tim's journey towards the year of living shamelessly - and what that means for his every day life.

Can you mix distribute open source culture with agile and lean principles? Sonatype is a unique company of open source leaders that produces software development support tools for companies that are struggling to keep track of their usage and risks of open source software components. Mark discusses how this startup has successfully used Scrum with completely distributed teams spread across multiple time zones. Find out what pre-conditions exist, principles we're discovering, practices we use and continuing challenges we face as we coordinate the work of multiple teams across an open source product line with everyone working from a home-based office.

A story map is a simple way to visualize your product idea from your users' perspective. Mapping your product's story uses the same approach scriptwriters use to think through a movie or TV story idea. It's fast, collaborative, and telling your product's story helps you spot the holes in your thinking. Once created, a map lets you think through options and alternative ideas that'll make your product better. It's easy to slice out what you think is a smallest viable product, and to identify the next experiment that'll help you validate your product concept.

Einstein said "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them" yet many organizations that want to adopt Agile end up using existing organizational structures to make it happen. That is, they create a centralized team to roll Agile out, define metrics, create a dashboard, communication and training plan and finally a Sharepoint site to push the change outwards. The outcome ends up being another failed Agile transformation story because people either resisted change or they failed to change their organizational culture.This isn't an 'Agile' problem, it's a structure problem. The real issue is that organizational structures are designed to serve the internal purposes of the organization, not their customers or the value they create for their customers. Jason and Declan explore how real organizations are thriving by structuring in radically different ways.

Do you work in an organization that expects development to be agile but doesn't see any advantage of changing the way the rest of the organization operates? Do your colleagues in sales, marketing, finance, legal, HR, governance, etc., unintentionally make your job more difficult just by doing things they way they've always done them? Do you try to explain that agile requires changes across the organization, only to hear, "But agile is all about development, right?"The reality is that if we want to be successful with agile, I mean truly reap the benefits of what we expect to get from agility, then we need to embrace agile throughout the full value chain. In other words, the non-development parts of the organization have to embrace agile and align their efforts with those of development.

Manny Gonzalez, talks about what's next for the Scrum Alliance! He is 90 days in to his new role as CEO and he is ready to rock the future!

Will Evans discusses the challenge that companies face in creating products customers actually want, reducing cost, and eliminating waste in the process. The lean thinker does this in part through experimentation.Teams practicing LeanUX inside of organizations embracing Agile have developed a set of principles and methods for experimentation based on collaboration, customer research, problem space exploration, set-based design of solution hypotheses, and tight feedback loops. These approaches increase the optionality in the product development pipeline while mitigating risk. These principles and methods in experimental design based on the scientific method don't come naturally, but they are very useful and valuable if you are interested in increasing organizational learning, reducing risk, and delivering real value to customers.

Brains, Beauty, Agile Testing, and Donkeys with Lisa Crispin at Agile 2015- what more could you possibly need?

Mike Vizdos talks about the power of the Scrum Alliance Coaches clinic and why its so important stop by!

Learn how to build the bridge from the traditional government practices to a brave new world where we can plan, estimate and still inject agility with Brandon Raines at Agile 2015 - Washington D.C.

Scrum coaches say many things - both good and bad. It's a toughbalancing act to be effective. This might help your coaching & teams.

Maria facilitated the CST/CSC retreat here at the Global Scrum Gathering in Phoenix. Maria is also the author of a new book titled "Workaholic" - where she offers her insight on the importance of maintaining a sustainable place.

We can't always be Agile. By understanding the linkage betweenbusiness models, architecture and agility, we can make faster pivot decisions

Michael discusses his passion around group interaction and getting people to interact in meaningful ways. Podcasts are brought to you SolutionsIQ and the Scrum Alliance

Michael and Tom discuss their session at Global Scrum Gathering Phoenix - focused on understanding how complexity thinking can be applied in Scrum Team situations and specifically in the Product Owner context. Podcasts are brought to you by SolutionsIQ and Scrum Alliance

Kalpesh Shah enterprise Agile coach talks about his experience driving innovation by involving teams earlier in the vision definition and hypothesis generation process. By providing access to user behavior analytics after deployment we help teams asses the impact of their work closing the feedback loop. Kalpesh is also a sketch note ninja shows us his skills from the Global Scrum Gathering in Phoenix. Podcasts are brought to you by SolutionsIQ and Scrum Alliance.

The power of paired coaching - finding balance, fluidity and synergy together. Podcasts are brought to you by SolutionsIQ and the Scrum Alliance

Use Agile Chartering and Liftoff to propel your project on a trajectorythat delivers results. Every time.Discover Agile chartering and how you can establish the project container you need to deliver successful results. Explore how Agile chartering with Liftoff adds context and depth to the project start strategies you already use.Podcasts are brought to you by SolutionsIQ and Scrum Alliance

As an industry that prizes stories, why don't we have more successstories? If we've got the people, process and technology, what's missing?Podcasts are brought to you by SolutionsIQ and Scrum Alliance

Zuzi Sochova co-chair for the Global Scrum Gathering in Prague this November discusses her session at the Global Scrum Gathering Phoenix focused on mastering retrospectives.

Richard Cheng on "So you want to become a Scrum Trainer" through a Pecha Kucha style presentation and how hard the presentation style has been to master! Podcasts are brought to you by SolutionsIQ and the Scrum Alliance.

Lance Dacy discuss his role as a founder of DFW Scrum (in Dallas), one of the largest and most prominent Scrum user groups in the world and what it takes to keep the group flourishing.

Carlton Nettleton talks about using story cubes to write more creative user stories. Using story cubes with your teams can help inspire conversations, spark creativity and collaboration! Podcasts are brought to you by SolutionsIQ and the Scrum Alliance

Catherine Louis talks us through her session here at the Global Scrum Gathering Phoenix on how to use Design Thinking techniques to explore & identify agile transition failure patterns.Podcasts are brought to you by SolutionsIQ and the Scrum Alliance

We captured this impromptu conversation between some of the greatest minds in the industry and trust us you are going to want to see the magic that ensued. You're welcome. Podcasts are brought to you by SolutionsIQ and the Scrum Alliance.

Are you tired of being afraid of having conversations with your manager or executives? Bob Hartman discusses how to speak with the C-Suite in a meaningful way!Podcasts are brought to you by SolutionsIQ and the Scrum Alliance