LiminalArc SoundNotes

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: Getting to Yes Getting Past No Drive Never Split the Difference The Art of War The Speed to Trust What We Say Matters What Every Body Is Saying Emotions Revealed 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: [email protected] If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to [email protected]

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/

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/

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/

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: [email protected] 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 [email protected] 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.

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 LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-nicolette/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/davenicolette LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davenicolette/ 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/

This week, on SoundNotes, we've got Part 3 of a trio of interviews with LeadingAgile Chief Methodologist and Co-Founder Dennis Stevens. The series focuses on how to build an organization that can embrace change. In the final episode of the series, Dennis and Dave cover how to prioritize work being done to maximize return. During the interview, they discuss how prioritization at all levels of the organization can support the ability to inspect and adapt and how some lingering traditional approaches to work, compensation, and prioritization can have a negative impact on your organization's ability to embrace change. Links If you'd like to check out the first two parts of this interview: Building an Organizational System That Can Embrace Change Designing a Feedback-Driven Strategic Execution Model Here are links to the two other podcasts mentioned during the interview: Designing an Organization that Manages Value w/ Mikkel Ladegaard The Language of Loss and The Language of Gain w/ Mike Cottmeyer & Andrew Young Here is a link to the article he co-authored for Harvard Business Review The Next Revolution in Productivity Contacting Dennis Stevens Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dennis-stevens/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/dennisstevens 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/

In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Senior Consultant AJ Sanford joins Dave to answer a student question that's frequently asked in Dave's CSM and CSPO classes. How do you use Scrum when you have to coordinate work between teams that are using both Waterfall and Agile all within one organization? During the interview, AJ and Dave touch on the following topics: What to expect from an Agile pilot project The types of challenges you can expect when you begin working on Agile Transformation Why you need to align on quality standards as well as schedule The importance of focusing on communication when coordinating work across multiple teams How risk management practices and Cost of Delay can help when coordinating work across teams in a mixed environment Tracking dependencies across teams Why a culture of shared learning and empathy is such a vital part of working with teams in a mixed environment Contacting AJ Sanford Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/aj-sanford/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aj-sanford-5a9a4264/ 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/

Mikkel Ladegaard is a Senior VP and Executive Consultant with LeadingAgile. This week, on SoundNotes, Mikkel and Dave Prior discuss Mikkel's focus on designing product-centric organizations in which the company's strategic prioritization of work is implicit and decision-making can be localized at the team level. During the conversation, they unpack a range of issues related to this topic, including how favor-based economies work, what the value is in designing organizations where there is a separation between those who identify the problem and those who solve the problem, and what the benefits are in making sure your organization is managing value rather than resources. Contacting Mikkel Ladegaard If you’d like to contact Mikkel, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mikkel-ladegaard/ LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2GU3Fg7 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/

In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile's own Brandon Dudley—Senior Consultant—shares his experience making the shift from a Waterfall mindset to a more Agile way of thinking and working. Brandon got his start in traditional, PMI-centric, project management working in the auto industry in Detroit. His introduction to Agile didn't involve the hard break that many of us experience. For him, this was just another set of tools to help him get work done. During the podcast, Dave and Brandon talk through his experience of transforming his way of thinking about people and work and his advice for those on a similar journey. Outside of work, one of Brandon’s biggest interests is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Mixed Martial Arts. The work he does there, both study and practice, have a significant impact on his view of work, how he interacts with people, and how he deals with challenging situations. This is a topic that Brandon and Dave dig into during the podcast as well. Contacting Brandon Dudley LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/brandon-dudley/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-dudley-msc-safe®-spc-csm®-pmp®-6b1a5421/ 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/

When we try to explain Agile, many of us begin by trying to describe some of the characteristics of how we approach work. We often talk about things like: Limiting work in process Delivering smaller increments of work Reducing team size and empowering the teams to become cross-functional and self-organizing These are all things that, from an Agile point of view, are good because they help us to focus on the most important things, optimize flow, localize decision making, and deliver the most important thing at a higher level of quality. But, for those who are not familiar with our approach, what they may hear is I can't have all the things I want The things I do get will be smaller I no longer have control of the people and how they work A lot of this comes down to the words we use to convey the message. This week's episode of SoundNotes is a discussion centered around the Language of Loss and the Language of Gain. During the podcast, you'll hear LeadingAgile Founder and CEO Mike Cottmeyer, Senior Consultant Andrew Young, and Dave Prior as they dig into the different levels of this topic. Together, the three of us will discuss how we can raise our awareness and shift the conversation to focus on what Agile gives, as opposed to what Agile takes. Links Whitepaper: https://www.leadingagile.com/whitepaper/ The Trust and Influence Loop Podcast: https://www.leadingagile.com/podcast/trust-influence-loop-mike-cottmeyer/ 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/andrew-young/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/atyoung/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/exclamation101 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/

This episode of SoundNotes features, LeadingAgile Technical Consultant, Rich Dammkoehler in a conversation about why it is so important to make sure your organization is focused on improving their technical practices. If you're struggling with helping your organization understand why introducing technical practices like collective code ownership, refactoring, pair programming, and test-driven development is such a crucial part of attaining business Agility; this podcast will help you build the case. Rich is a deeply experienced developer who got his start doing development using Waterfall and then found his way to Agile. In the Agile Transformation work that Rich does now, he focuses on helping organizations understand why and how the techniques and tools that came from Extreme Programming make them more effective at solving business problems and bring greater business success to the organization. Towards the end of the interview, Rich also explains what it is that keeps him excited about doing development work after all these years, what development-related topics he is currently following the closest, and why punk rock is better than stadium rock. Links from the Podcast The Cathedral and the Bazaar The Rise of Worse is Better Contacting Rich Dammkoehler If you’d like to contact Rich you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/rich-dammkoehler/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/net_zer0 Email: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richdammkoehler/ Github: https://github.com/rdammkoehler 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/

If your company is working on Agile Transformation, understanding how you can track the organization’s response to change and the impact it's having on business outcomes can be a bit daunting. It’s not so tough to track whether or not people have been trained and what practices they are using, but when it comes to understanding what people see, feel, believe, and desire, that can be harder to understand. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Managing Consultant, Jeff Howey and Dave Prior talk through some of the things you need to consider when trying to understand how change is taking root, how it's impacting what people think, how they work, and what they see, feel, believe, and desire. Contacting Jeff Howey If you’d like to contact Jeff you can reach him at: Email: 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/

Estimating work in Agile is something many people struggle to understand. It's not that it's an especially complicated thing, but there is often confusion about things like why many people prefer to use story points instead of hours, why some people feel compelled to try and convert story points to hours (and why some of us find that so frightening), how t-shirt sizing works, and the eternal question of how do I get my teams to estimate accurately. Hint: They're called estimates, not exactimates for a reason. There's even a whole camp dedicated to the idea of notestimating work. So, if this is something you're struggling with, you're not alone. This episode of SoundNotes is a brief tutorial on Agile Estimation and some of the ways you and your team could estimate work. The podcast offers some tips in general about Agile estimation, things to watch out for, how to estimate work using Story Points and Poker Planning, how to estimate work using T-shirt sizing, and–once you break your Product Backlog Items down into discrete tasks—how to estimate the using Ideal Hours. There are volumes that can be said about how to estimate work and a lot of fun "debates" to be had along the way, but if you're struggling to understand it, if you need to get a sense of whether your current approach makes sense, or if you just want a refresher on how to go about it, this podcast should give you plenty to start working with. For More on Agile Estimation LeadingAgile's FieldNotes has a number of posts covering different aspects of how to estimate work in Agile. Two great posts to start with are: Agile Estimation Guidanceby Marty Bradley The Real Reason We Estimateby Mike Cottmeyer To see in index of all our posts on estimation,click here. 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/

Iteration 2019 has begun and we’re starting off the year with an episode of SoundNotes where, LeadingAgile CEO and Founder, Mike Cottmeyer shares what's on his mind as we begin the new year. During the interview Mike talks about some of the trends he’s been paying attention to in and around the Agile space, the changes he sees coming down the pike, and how that's influencing his focus and expectations for the next 12 months. Oh.. and… Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Links Whitepaper - https://www.leadingagile.com/whitepaper/ WakeUp Warrior.com http://wakeupwarriormovie.com 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/

A few weeks ago, Dennis Stevens and I recorded a podcast called Building an Organizational System That Can Embrace Change. The podcast introduced three critical concepts which we are exploring at a deeper level in additional interviews. In this episode of SoundNotes, Dennis Stevens, LeadingAgile’s co-founder and Chief Methodologist, and Dave Prior, dig into one of those key concepts: How to design an execution model that can provide feedback which can then be incorporated back into the strategic planning. If you're involved in making strategic decisions and planning at the program and portfolio level, there is a lot of valuable information here about how to reduce risk and create greater optionality for your organization. Contacting Dennis Stevens Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dennis-stevens/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/dennisstevens 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/

While many organizations would like to adopt an Agile approach, there are certain types that—due to the nature of their work and their relationship with the client—are not an easy fit with a process like Scrum. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Senior Consultants AJ Sanford and Andrew Fuqua explore how Process Maps and Value Stream Maps can help you gain greater clarity on where there are practices that need tuning and how Agile might be able to help. During the conversation, AJ, Andrew, and Dave also discuss the difference between Value Stream Maps and Process Maps and when one may be more helpful than another. If you'd like check out this sample Process Map. Links Mentioned in the Podcast Learning to Seeby Mike Rother Agile Manifesto Contacting AJ Sanford Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/aj-sanford/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aj-sanford-5a9a4264/ Email: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/andrew-fuqua/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewfuqua/ 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/

LeadingAgile has grown significantly over the past few years. Along the way, we’ve found that one of the most critical elements of growing successfully is how we introduce new folks to the company and how we approach helping organizations Transform. In this episode of SoundNotes, Dave is joined by Betsy Layman and Matt Smith—two of the latest additions to the LeadingAgile family. Both Betsy and Matt started their on-boarding process a few weeks ago as Expedition Lead and Transformation Lead, respectively. Together, they discuss the difference between these roles, what it's like to go through LeadingAgile’s on-boarding process, and how it helps to position our new team members for success. To learn more about joining LeadingAgile - Click Here Contacting Betsy Layman Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/betsy-layman/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/betsylayman/ Email: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/matt-smith/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-f-smith/ 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/

This episode of SoundNotes features LeadingAgile’s Chief Methodologist and Co-Founder, Dennis Stevens, and focuses on how to build an organization that can embrace change. The interview provides an overview of some of the key capabilities an Agile organization needs to accelerate learning, increase optionality, and improve their decision making including: How to incorporate market sensing capabilities into strategic planning How to design an execution model that can provide feedback which can then be incorporated back into the strategic planning How to prioritize the work being done to maximize return The interview digs into some of the steps an organization will need to take to develop these abilities and the challenges that come along with it. We also explore the impact on organizations that can’t remove all their internal dependencies, prioritizing risk to support learning, and the need for an organizational information broker that can collect and interpret the information coming out of the teams, so that the right information can be delivered back to the strategic level. This is a heavy topic, so we’re planning on recording a few additional podcasts that will dig deeper in each of these individual topics. Contacting Dennis Stevens Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dennis-stevens/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/dennisstevens 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/

One of the most important things you can do for your team is to make sure you have a clearly defined, and well-documented, Definition of Done. If you’ve ever seen footage of the flight control center when NASA launches a rocket you’ve seen a great example of a Definition of Done. Imagine what it would be like if NASA didn’t have all those stations that had to report in with “Go for launch” or “No Go for launch”. Imagine how that would work if we assumed we all had the same understanding of what "Ready for Launch" actually meant? In this episode of SoundNotes, Dave Prior is giving a tutorial on how to create a Definition of Done for your team. If you're following Scrum as it's defined, then “done” and potentially shippable are intended to be the same thing. Unfortunately, for many organizations, this isn't something that holds true. For example, your team may require additional integration testing that is done by a separate team and happens outside the Sprint. Yes, it’s dysfunctional from a Scrum perspective. Yes, you should try to fix it, but sometimes you’ve got what you’ve got and you're too fully consumed with other battles. Over the course of the podcast, Dave talks about having clarity on three different levels of done. Here's what the three levels look like: Work that is “done” and can be presented to the Product Owner for Acceptance - this is an agreement between the PO and the Dev Team. Example: Code Complete Test Cases are automated and executed No defects Acceptance Criteria Met Pass Unit Testing Pass Code Review Documentation Complete as defined in Acceptance Criteria Team knows how they will present feature during Sprint Review 2. Work that is “done” and can be presented to Stakeholders in the Sprint Review Example: Work has been presented to Product Owner Product Owner Accepts as Potentially Shippable Passes Previous Acceptance Tests Demo Ready for Sprint Review No Compile Warnings Bugs Committed in Sprint Resolved Deployment Docs Updated Release Notes Updated 3. Work that is “done” and can be actually shipped to customers. Example: Published to Stage Server Passes Deployment Testing Deployment Docs Delivered Release Notes Delivered Infrastructure Change Notes Delivered Passes Performance Testing Passes Security Audio If you don’t have a clearly defined, well-documented Definition of Done that you're updating every Sprint, you're putting your team and your organization in danger. If you don't already have a Definition of Done, you need one...and you need it now! In this episode of SoundNotes, Dave walks you through the creation of a Definition of Done. 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/

Earlier this month, Dave sat down for another Q&A with our CEO, Mike Cottmeyer. Prior to recording, we asked the audience to submit their questions via a sign up sheet, and Dave collected some questions from the students in his certified Scrum training classes. However, when people get to asking questions about Agile, Mike has found that the questions are often the wrong question. In order to get the right answer from a wrong question, you have to go back what Mike calls "first principles." Learn more about first principles, and Mike's latest thoughts on Agile Transformation in this episode of SoundNotes Live. 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/

Once again, Mike and Dave sat down to discuss some of Mike's latest thoughts on Agile Transformation and answer questions that we received from the audience. Some of the topics discussed were: Agile PMO, velocity, and governance just to name a few. These live Q&A sessions will be recurring, so make sure you're on the lookout for the next installment. For more of Mike's latest thoughts on Agile Transformation, you can check out his latest white paper, here: www.leadingagile.com/whitepaper Contacting Mike If you’d like to contact Mike you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/ Twitter: twitter.com/mcottmeyer Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo Twitter: twitter.com/mrsungo Email: [email protected] If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to [email protected] And if you're interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified ScrumMaster or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

In this week’s episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, we’ve got an interview/case study of sorts. Marty Bradley, Greg King, and Jessica Wolfe share the story of how they were able to leverage tooling and reporting in support of the transformation effort at one of LeadingAgile’s clients. In telling the story, they explain what was in place when they began the transformation, the data elements they used to help create awareness and transparency at the beginning of the project, and how the reporting evolved over time. They also discuss how some of the more popular metrics, like velocity, cannot tell a story alone. Understanding what is actually happening may require that you examine multiple data points at the same time. If you’d like to get in touch with Marty, Greg, Jessica or Dave, here is how to reach them... Contacting Marty Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/marty-bradley/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/AskCoachMarty Email: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/greg-king/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/greguf96 Email: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/jessica-wolfe/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thejessicawolfe 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/

Back in September, Mike and Dave got together for our first ever live Q&A. The conversation was streamed on Facebook, so they were able to answer some viewer questions, as well as questions Dave had been collecting, beforehand, in his CSM and CSPO classes. We're planning on making the live Q&A a recurring event, so make sure you're on the lookout for the next one. We want to answer all of your burning, Agile related questions. Contacting Mike 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/

his Spring at Agile Australia 2018, Martin Fowler, Chief Scientist at Thoughtworks and Agile Manifesto co-author gave a Keynote titled "The State of Agile Software in 2018". He recently published the text of his talk here. (If you refer video, you can find it on InfoQ.) His Keynote centered around 3 specific concerns with the current state of Agile, the first of which was The Agile Industrial Complex and imposing process on teams. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile CEO, Mike Cottmeyer shares his thoughts on the Agile Industrial Complex and some of the problems it can create. During the interview we dig into why the challenges come into play and what we can do to try and resolve them. Contacting Mike 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/

Cara presented two sessions at Agile 2018: Shifting Diversity Through to Inclusion What Part Does My Priviledge Play (with Steve Holyer) Codex Story: Challenging the Metrics that limit Diversity in the Software Industry Contact Info: http://projectcodex.co https://twitter.com/Cara_Faye

Esther's Sessions at Agile 2018 were: Creating an Environment for Successful Agile Teams Clarity, Conditions, and Constraints: An Alternative to Top Down Control Contact Info: http://www.estherderby.com/ https://twitter.com/estherderby

Contact Info: https://www.agileclassrooms.com/ https://www.agileineducation.org/ https://twitter.com/agileschools

Laura's sessions at Agile 2018: Never Would I Ever: Examining Your Agile Non-Negotiables w/ Jenny Tarwater Say “Yes" to “No" - The Power of “No" in Agile Contact Info: https://www.radtac.com/ https://twitter.com/laurapowers

Natalie led two sessions at Agile 2018: MVR: Minimally Viable Relationships (with Jenny Tarwater) The Customer is Not Always Right... and Neither are You For more on the Women In Agile Initiative: Click Here. Contact Info: http://nataliewarnert.com https://twitter.com/nataliewarnert

We had the chance to sit down with Olaf to discuss the workshop he led at Agile 2018. The workshop was called: Rekindle the Magic of Agile Click below to learn more about "Clean Language": http://bit.ly/cleanagile2018

Scott is one of the thought leaders behind Disciplined Agile. He stopped by the booth to talk about not only Disciplined Agile, but also his Agile 2018 session entitled: Agile Architecture: Mindset, Skills, ad Practices. Contact Info: @scottambler

Agile Alliance Board Member Becky Hartman stopped by to talk about her work with the Alliance, the power of volunteering, and what it was like to move from a Purple Shirt to a Board Member. Contact Info: https://twitter.com/BecksPM

Bernie and Dave sat down to talk about team collaboration and Bernie's talk on swarming as a team: Harness the Hive: Bottom Line Impacts of Team Collaboration. Contact Info: https://about.me/berniemaloney https://twitter.com/berniemaloney

Dean and Dave sat down, at Agile 2018, to talk about how you can use SAFe to drive enterprise-scale innovation. Dean's also led a session at the conference called: Driving Enterprise-Scale Innovation with Scaled Agile Framework For more on the 2018 SAFe Summit (October 1-2, 2018): http://safesummit.com Contact Info: https://www.scaledagileframework.com/ https://twitter.com/Deanleffingwell

Our very own Chief Methodologist popped in to sit down with Dave and talk shop. Contact Info: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dennis-stevens/ https://twitter.com/dennisstevens

Dhaval's session at Agile 2018 was entitled: Worm Holes to Product Innovation: Fold your Edges Contact Info: https://evolveagility.com https://twitter.com/dhavalpanchal

John sat down to give us a sneak preview of what his Agile 2018 session: Agile Metrics - A GQM Approach. Contact Info: https://twitter.com/tannerjs

Larry led a session at Agile 2018 called: Agile Quantified: Measuring the Impact of Agility Contact Info: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larrymaccherone/ https://twitter.com/LMaccherone

Peter stopped by the set of SoundNotes to tell us a little bit about his history as a professional pass trumpet player, and how that relates to Agile. In addition to a few lightning talks, Peter also led two sessions: The Surprising Links Between Agile and Jazz and Overcoming Immunity to Change Contact Info: https://twitter.com/tptman https://agileforall.com

Keynote speaker Troy Magennis stopped by the booth to talk about his Agile 2018 Session: What is the Story with Agile Data? Contact Info: http://focusedobjective.com/ https://twitter.com/t_magennis

Cass led a session at Agile 2018 entitled: The Flying and the Thud: Mental Health Issues on Agile Teams Contact Info: kroll.com/ Twitter

David stopped by the booth to tell us all about his talk: Lean Experiments with Agile Teams, which is about his thoughts on Lean Startup and Design Thinking and how to blend those things with Agile. Contact Info: David Bland on Twitter

Keynote speaker, Dominic Price came by the set to talk about his keynote speech:The Future of Work and Healthy Teams (that might ot be Agile). He also shares some stories about his adventures in scaling Atlassian Contact Info: Dominic on Twitter

Jeff Patton led an Ask Me Almost Anything session at Agile 2018. And, Jeff has also authored a book called User Story Mapping Contact Info jpattonassociates.com/ Twitter

Joe was at Agile 2018 facilitating a workshop on Business Agility with Innovation Accounting Contact Info: Twitter

At Agile 2018, Lyssa and Dave sat down to talk about Lyssa's Inspire Me Deck, Integral Life Practice, and the concept of "shadow work." Contact Info agilecoachinginstitute.com https://twitter.com/CoachAgileTeams Lyssa on Twitter

Our two favorite purple shirts, stopped by the booth to talk about what volunteering to be an Agile 2018 event coordinator looks like and how you can get involved in next year's conference. Contact Info: Sarah Klarich on Twitter Pam Corbin on Twitter

Erika and Michele's session at Agile 2018: Verbal Agility - Facilitation Tips and Techniques Contact Info Erika Lenz: erikalenz.com/ Twitter Michele Sliger sligerconsulting.com/ Twitter