LiminalArc SoundNotes

LeadingAgile's very own CEO, Mike Cottmeyer, stopped by the booth to talk about his Agile 2018 speaker session entitled: Agile Transformation Explained. To download the white paper that corresponds to Mike's talk click the link below: Download the White Paper Contact Info Mike:leadingagile.com/ Twitter

Our very own CFO, Paul Argiry led a session at Agile 2018 entitled: Addressing Your CFO’s Concerns to an Enterprise-Wide Agile Transformation Contact Info Paul: leadingagile.com/ LinkedIn

Ron and Chet's Agile 2018 Session:Ask Us Almost Anything - Ron and Chet Experience Agileis taking place in Lisbon, Portugal on October 1-2 Contact Info: Ron Jeffries: RonJeffries.com/ Twitter Chet Hendrickson: hendricksonxp.com/ Twitter

Bob led a session at Agile 2018 entitled: Agile Road Trip: Lessons from a Coach at Toyota Contact Info Bob: zen-pm.blogspot.com/Twitter

Diana's Sessions Ask me Almost Anything Going Beyond "Are we Doomed: to Sticky, Tricky and Icky?" Shining a Light on Sexism at Work w/ Sharon Buckmaster Diana's Books Liftoff: Launching Agile Projects and Teams with Ainsley Nies Agile Retrospectives with Esther Derby Contact Info Diana: agilefluency.org/ Twitter

Linda's Agile 2018 Sessions Ask Me Almost Anything Thinking Fast and Slow - So What Can We Do About It Linda's books include The Pattern Almanac 2000 Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas More Fearless Change Contact Info Linda: lindarising.org/ Twitter

Mark and Johanna Co-Presented a talk at Agile 2018 entitled: You have to Say More There: Effective Communication in a Distributed Agile Team Their book is called From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teamsit can be purchased on LeanPub Johanna led another session at Agile 2018: Agile and Lean Roadmapping Mark also led an additional session at Agile 2018: Agile Distributed Teams—Oxymoron or Option? Contact Info Johanna: jrothman.com/Twitter Mark: markkilby.com /Twitter

Agile 2018 is almost here! Whether you’re attending for the very first time, or you’re a seasoned veteran, getting the most out of this Agile experience…all comes down to how you show up. In this episode of SoundNotes, Dave has recruited Rachel Howard and Tim Zack—our Chief Cultural Officer and Chief Marketing Officer, respectively. Together, these three will help you prepare for—and maximize your time in—San Diego. Whether you’re coming to find a new gig, learn new techniques you can bring back to work, or you just want to network. There are tips in this podcast that can help. And just in case you aren't able to attend the conference, keep an eye on LeadingAgile's Facebook Pageand our YouTube feed. We'll be streaming and posting interviews with speakers and thought leaders all week long at Agile 2018. Contacting Rachel If you’d like to contact Rachel you can reach her at: LeadingAgile https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/rachel-howard/ LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelhoward/ Twitter https://twitter.com/agilerecruiter Email https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/tim-zack/ LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/timzack/ Twitter https://twitter.com/timzack 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's CFO, Paul Argiry, will be at Agile 2018 to lead a session on Addressing Your CFO's Concerns To An Enterprise-Wide Agile Transformation. In this episode of LeadingAgile's SoundNotes, Paul offers a preview of the session he'll be leading in San Diego. During the interview, Paul and Dave discuss why it's so important to understand what your CFO's concerns are when it comes to making the case for—or tracking progress towards—Agile Transformation. They also touch on the level of financial literacy that we should be expecting Agile coaches to have. Agile 2018 LeadingAgile Presentations Mike Cottmeyer - Agile Transformation Explained- Tuesday, August 7 • 15:45 - 17:00 John Tanner - Agile Metrics - The GQM Approach- Wednesday, August 8 • 10:45 - 12:00 Paul Argiry - Addressing Your CFO's Concerns To An Enterprise-Wide Agile Transformation- Thursday, August 9 • 09:00 - 10:15 Contacting Paul LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/paul-argiry/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulargiry/ 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/

John Tanner is going to be at Agile 2018 delivering his talk entitled: Agile Metrics - The GQM Approach. The session will take place on Wednesday, August 8 at 10:45 AM. If you're new to GQM, it stands for Goal - Question - Metrics—which has been John's key area of focus for quite some time. If you're working towards gaining clarity around what data to collect at the different levels of your organization—and what to do with the information those metrics provide—John's session is one you won't want to miss. In this episode of SoundNotes, John provides a quick preview of some of the topics he'll be covering during his session in San Diego and some of the new elements he's included based on using these techniques in the field. Agile 2018 LeadingAgile Presentations Mike Cottmeyer - Agile Transformation Explained- Tuesday, August 7 • 15:45 - 17:00 John Tanner - Agile Metrics - The GQM Approach- Wednesday, August 8 • 10:45 - 12:00 Paul Argiry - Addressing Your CFO's Concerns To An Enterprise-Wide Agile Transformation- Thursday, August 9 • 09:00 - 10:15 Contacting John LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/john-tanner/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tannerjs/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/tannerjs 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/

Creating a Definition of Ready is one of the best ways to help your Team(s) make sure they're only committing to work they can actually get done. It's also one of the best ways for a Product Owner to make sure they're not going to waste valuable time in Sprint Planning by asking the Team to work on things that aren't in an actionable state. In this episode of SoundNotes, Rick Austin and Dave Prior discuss how to go about creating a Definition of Ready and why it's so critical to your Team's ability to deliver. They also cover some examples of the types of things you might want to include in your Definition of Ready. BACKGROUND INFO If you'd like some background on this topic before listening, check out the following: Why You Need A Definition of Ready w/ Dave Nicolette(podcast) Definition of Ready- by Rick Austin (blog post) CONTACTING RICK If you'd like to reach out to Rick for more information, here is his contact info: Email: https://twitter.com/rickaustin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdaustin/ Contacting Dave 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/

In this episode of SoundNotes, Mike Cottmeyer and Dave Prior discuss how organizational Transformation continues to evolve. The conversation offers a brief preview of some of the things Mike will be covering at his Agile 2018session: “Agile Transformation Explained”http://sched.co/EUF1 During the interview, Mike and Dave discuss how the skill sets needed to lead and shepherd those Transformations have grown to include much more than what we would have expected from an Agile coach several years ago. They also explore how we continue to refine our understanding of what happens during organizational Transformation and how we can better prepare our clients for the changes they will experience. LeadingAgile at Agile 2018 Mike Cottmeyer’s session “Agile Transformation Explained”will take place on Tuesday, August 7 at 3:45 PM. You can learn more about it here: http://sched.co/EUF1 Paul Argiry’s session “Addressing Your CFO’s Concerns to an Enterprise-Wide Agile Transformation”will take place on Thursday, August 9 at 9:00 AM. You can learn more about it here: http://sched.co/EU93 John Tanner’s session “Agile Metrics - The GQM Approach”will be held on Wednesday, August 8 at 10:45 AM. You can learn more about it here: http://sched.co/EUCr 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/

This episode of SoundNotes focuses on Definition of Ready. A few weeks ago, Dave Nicolette created a post in Field Notes that was the result of a current debate in the Agile community about whether having a Definition of Ready helps, or harms our ability to deliver value for the customer. The episode begins with Dave Nicolette explaining Definition of Ready within the context of the LeadingAgile model. After that, he and Dave Prior discuss/debate the the pros and cons of DoR from their respective backgrounds (Developer vs. PM). Links From The Podcast The LeadingAgile Compass www.leadingagile.com/our-compass/ Dave Nicolette's Field Notes Post "Should Agile Teams Have a Definition of Ready? www.leadingagile.com/2018/05/should…tion-of-ready/ Mike Cohn's blog post "The Dangers of a Definition of Ready www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/the-d…n-of-ready Jeff Sutherland's Definition of Ready post on Scrum Inc. with comments from Michael James www.scruminc.com/definition-of-ready/ If you'd like to check out a sample Definition of Ready, here is one provided by Kenny Rubin. www.innolution.com/blog/definition-of-ready For more on Alexander Laufer's work on Uncertainty www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080…67.1994.9726951 Or you can read Mike Cohn's explanation here. www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/articles/t…ncertainty RUN FORREST RUN! youtu.be/x2-MCPa_3rU?t=44s Contacting Dave Nicolette • LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-nicolette/ • Twitter: twitter.com/davenicolette • LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/davenicolette/ • Contacting Dave Prior 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/

If you are working at an organization that is applying Agile practices across the enterprise, chances are, somewhere early on in the transformation a tool was selected to help the teams manage their work and hopefully provide management with some kind of visibility into the work being done. One of the unfortunate truths about the tools is that while they are capable of doing a lot of things, most companies do not invest the time in setting the tool up to work for them. This often leads to teams struggling with having to adjust their practices to meet the tool and management not getting the visibility it needs into how the work is going. It doesn’t have to be this way. The tools can add a lot of value, but you have to get them set up right for that to happen. In this episode of SoundNotes, Jessica Wolfe shares a story about how she was able to help one organization adjust the tool to provide the business with the information the CEO needed to understand how work was progressing across the portfolio and how it was tying back to the company’s strategic objectives. As they dig into the story, Jessica and Dave explore what kinds of information the tools are able to provide, and how that can help your organization understand what is happening at a level of detail that includes strategic value, financial metrics, risk and much more. She also manages to completely change Dave’s long mistrust of anything other than post-its and sharpies. Contacting Jessica If you’d like to contact Jessica you can reach her at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/jessica-wolfe/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejessicawolfe/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thejessicawolfe Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave 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] Send Us Your Questions If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to [email protected] Upcoming Classes And if you are interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

In this episode of SoundNotes, Dean Stevens and Dave Prior dig into Capability Mapping, how it works and why it is such an important part of the transforming your organization. Capability Mapping is a technique that can be used to quickly gain greater awareness of how an organization does what it does, what processes it uses to do what it does, and where there are opportunities to remove waste and optimize flow. During the interview you’ll hear Dean walk through the steps of identifying the processes an organization has in place, understanding the value each process provides, and finding ways to optimize these processes for better performance. This approach will also help identify gaps your organization may need to resolve in order to achieve its’ goals. Links from the Podcast For some background on capability mapping, check out this Harvard Business Review Article: https://hbr.org/2008/06/the-next-revolution-in-productivity Contacting Dean If you’d like to follow up with Dean directly, here is how to reach him: Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dean-stevens/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/leanopinions LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevensdean/ 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/

For any organization moving to Agile, the question of how to handle tracking and reporting is going to present challenges. If you are moving from a traditional environment, there may be an expectation (dependency) on traditional forms of reporting. If you are starting out with an electronic tool, there may be a wide range of reporting options. Just because you an create a report, does not mean you should. If your audience doesn't know how to digest the information, you may create cognitive dissonance and (cue inner Yoda voice) dissonance leads to confusion leads to fear, fear leads to "help". #thatwassarcasm Derek Huether recently put up two blog entries that dig into come of the challenges that come with determining what to track and how to report on it. In this episode of SoundNotes, Derek and Dave pick up the conversation but come at it from a different angle. If your PMO is stuck the middle of some quasi-agile/waterfall environment and trying to figure out how to provide meaningful information to the folks upstairs, this podcast may be able to help. Links from the Podcast How to Define Metrics to Reach Better Business Outcomes An Introduction to OKR: Objectives and Key Results Contacting Derek If you’d like to contact Derek you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekhuether/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/derekhuether Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave 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] 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 https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

One of the most important things you can do to help your team be successful is to ensure they have a Definition of Done. Once you have it, you need to revisit in in each Retrospective meeting to make any updates and you need to explain it to the Stakeholders in every Sprint Review. A Definition of Done is more than just Acceptance Criteria. These are the conditions that must be met for your organization to safely release work into the wild. This is especially critical if you are working in an environment where there is a difference between "done" and "shippable". In this episode of SoundNotes, Tim Wise and Dave Prior talk through why a Definition of Done is so critical to your team successfully delivering work, what level of detail you should include in your DoD, and how to create one. Links from the Podcast Why You Need A Vision Statement 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: [email protected] LeadingAgile: 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_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class.

For Development Teams transitioning to Agile one common challenge is breaking the work down into small vertical slices that can go from a Post-It Note to shippable product in 2-3 days. Most of the time, (there are always exceptions) the issue is not that the work cannot be broken down, but that the Development Team is accustomed to looking at the work in a more traditional way and they are not able to see how they could break it down into smaller actionable elements that can be developed independently and provide value and the opportunity to learn. If you're working with a team that is struggling with this, and you do not come from a technical background, the issue may be even more daunting. Without the in-depth knowledge of how the work might be executed, many people will feel ill-at-ease challenging the Dev Team's assertion that the work is just that big and can't be broken down. In this podcast, Tim Wise and Dave Prior take on the topic of what to do when the Development Team can't break down the work. They share how they've each approached this challenge with teams and offer some ideas about how you could help your team find a way to break the work down. Agile Day Atlanta http://agiledayatlanta.com 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: [email protected] LeadingAgile: 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_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class.

One of the common misconceptions about Agile is that there's no documentation. This simply isn't true. The second line of the Agile Manifesto reads: “Working software over comprehensive documentation” This doesn’t mean that we don’t have documentation. It just means that the folks who created the manifesto did not see the value in delivering the documentation at the expense of delivering working, tested software. In a recent Certified ScrumMaster class in NYC, one student raised an issue she was experiencing with her Development Team who is deeply committed to the “no documentation” camp. In this podcast, Dave Prior is joined by Anil Jaising (who helped to facilitate the New York class) to discuss the myth of no documentation, the truth about documentation in Agile, and how that can play out in a highly regulated/audited environment. Events Mentioned in the Podcast Big Apple Scrum Day: https://www.bigapplescrumday.org NYC Scrum User Group: https://www.meetup.com/NYC-Scrum-User-Group/ Contacting Anil Email: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/aniljaising LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aniljaising/ Contacting Dave 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] 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 https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

This week, at the 2018 North American Global Scrum Gathering, the Scrum Alliance and Scrum co-founder, Dr. Jeff Sutherland, announced the creation of a new joint venture to train, coach, and promote Scrum@Scale. Scrum@Scale is an extension of the Scrum Framework that is designed to deliver business Agility across an entire organization. Dave Prior had a chance to sit down with Jeff during the Scrum Gathering and ask some questions about his partnership with the Scrum Alliance, Scrum@Scale, and how it can help organizations achieve greater business Agility. Links from the Podcast If you’d like to read the press release on the joint venture, you can find it here: https://tinyurl.com/yc5z4w3p Here is a link to the Scrum@Scale Guide Here is a link to Jeff's latest book, "Scrum, The Art of Doing Twice The Work In Half The Time". Contacting Dr. Jeff Sutherland If you’d like to contact Jeff you can reach him at: Scrum@Scale: https://www.scrumatscale.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeffsutherland Email: [email protected] Jeff's books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2H9ZePk Contacting Dave 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] 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 https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

A few weeks ago Dave Nicolette put up a blog post in FieldNotes called "Putting the Journey Into Journeyman" (https://tinyurl.com/ybehorv7). I really enjoyed the post and wanted to ask Dave some additional questions about the idea of a Journeyman, how to reach that state, and what happens once you get there. In this episode of SoundNotes, Dave and I discuss what a Journeyman is, and what a Journeyman isn't. We discuss the skills LeadingAgile expects from a software Journeyman, how to know if you've reached this state, and what you should expect to happen after you get there and each one of the states that comes after Journeyman. (Oh Look! A Squirell!) This podcast is also a great resource if you have been interviewing with LeadingAgile and you'd like to get a handle on the mindset of the folks who work here and what we expect of one another. If you'd like to check out Dave's original blog post, you can find it here: "Putting the Journey Into Journeyman" -https://tinyurl.com/ybehorv7 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 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] 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 https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

In almost every CSM or CSPO class that Dave teaches he gets asked to explain the difference between Scrum and Kanban. So, in this episode of SoundNotes, Jessica Wolfe, Derek Huether, and Dave take turns responding to the question and detailing some of the main differences between two of the most popular approaches to Agile. If you'd like to reach out to Jessica, Derek or Dave for more—here's their contact info: Contacting Jessica If you’d like to contact Jessica you can reach her at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/jessica-wolfe/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-wolfe-ab025a36/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thejessicawolfe Email: [email protected] Contacting Derek If you’d like to contact Derek you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekhuether/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/derekhuether Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave 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] 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 https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

“Culture is just the boogeyman people use when they don't know how to articulate an organizational change management strategy that executives will buy into.” ~ Mike Cottmeyer In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile CEO, Mike Cottmeyer shares his thoughts on why we need to stop blaming culture when organizations are unable to adopt Agile. During the interview, Mike and Dave dig into the reasons why many of the organizations that struggle with Agile are dealing with deeply rooted mechanisms that extend far beyond culture. Unfortunately, one of the most common refrains in the Agile community is that the culture is the primary thing that must be addressed, and once that is solved, the rest will take care of itself. For many organizations that buy into the promise of Agile without having clarity on the organizational impediments they must overcome for Agile to be able to exist, maybe culture isn't the best place to start. If you'd like to read Mike's blog post on the topic, you can find it here: https://bit.ly/2pO8YU4 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: [email protected] Contacting Dave 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] 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 https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

This episode of SoundNotes features a question submitted by a student in one of Dave's recent CSPO classes. Maheesh’s question centers on how to apply Scrum on a project that involves BI reporting and ETL. Since Jessica Wolfe and Derek Huether both have far more experience in that type of work than Dave does, he asked them to help him respond to the question. Here's the question we got from Maheesh: “As a Product Owner for a BI reporting platform I typically get requests for new reports and this might entail bringing the data from a CRM platform or any other platform into the data warehouse so that that requires building ETL for that and developing the report on top of that. Which typically cannot be done within a two week Sprint. So how would I go about taking this requirement from the customer and converting into shippable user stories that can be delivered through a Scrum methodology?” If you'd like to reach out to Jessica, Derek or Dave for more, here is their contact info: Contacting Jessica If you’d like to contact Jessica you can reach her at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/jessica-wolfe/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-wolfe-ab025a36/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thejessicawolfe Email: [email protected] Contacting Derek If you’d like to contact Derek you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekhuether/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/derekhuether Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave 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] And if you are interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

After co-teaching a CSM class in Atlanta earlier this week, Tim Wise and Dave Prior sat down to talk about Empathy in Agile. During their conversation, they dug into why empathy is such an important factor in developing an Agile mindset, working with teams, building trust, and helping your organization adopt an Agile approach to work. Tim and Dave also offer some advice on: How you can go about trying to develop empathy towards those up and down the org chart How that plays out in your communication with others How to deal with groups of people you may find especially difficult to have empathy towards Links from the Podcast The Responsibility Process by Christopher Avery 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: [email protected] LeadingAgile: 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_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class.

This episode of SoundNotes is all about Vision Statements. Dave Prior offers his thoughts on why they're so critical to the success of your team and how to go about putting one together. One of the most important things a Product Owner can do to help the Development Team deliver value for the customer is to make sure they have clarity on the context of the problem they are trying to solve. If the Dev Team is just being given User Stories, and there's no understanding of the problem-space in which the story lives, it's going to be much harder for the Dev Team to make the choices that will maximize value for the customer. Also, Vision Statements are one of the best ways a Product Owner can make sure that all the stakeholders are in agreement about what problem is being solved, who it's helping, and why it matters. If the Vision Statement is documented and agreed upon by all the stakeholders, it is going to be a lot easier to keep them in sync with one another. Listen as Dave presents two very popular templates that can be used to create Vision Statements and walks you through how to go about putting them together. Links Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm (3rd Edition) Roman Pichler's Product Vision Board Contacting Dave 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] And if you're interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

In this episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, Derek Huether and Dave Prior take on the topic of Leading and Lagging Indicators. During the podcast they discuss how Key Performance indicators can help guide you towards an understanding of what to track with the expectation that it will create a certain result in the future (leading indicators), and what to measure in order to confirm if that result has in fact occurred (lagging indicators). One example they touch on in the podcast is: if you are trying to lose weight, tracking things like how much you exercise and how many calories you are consuming each day are leading indicators because it is reasonable to expect that if you are exercising regularly and limiting your caloric intake, that these actions could result in you losing weight. This is a way of tracking the actions you are taking to in order to bring about a desired change. But, we still need a way to confirm if the desired result has actually occurred. The only way you will know if you have actually lost weight, is to climb up on the scale and check your weight. That is a lagging indicator because it confirms whether or not the actions you took had resulted in the desired outcome. Audio Version Only: https://soundcloud.com/leadingagile/introduction-to-leading-and-lagging-indicators-w-derek-huether Links If you’d like to learn more about Leading and Lagging Indicators, check out Derek’s recent blog post on the topic here: https://www.leadingagile.com/2018/02/leading-lagging-indicators/ Contacting Derek If you’d like to contact Derek you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekhuether/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/derekhuether Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave 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] And if you are interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

In this week's episode of SoundNotes, Derek Huether and Dave Prior respond to a question from a student who works in a long-standing supply chain organization that wants to move to Agile, but has questions about how to get started. Here's the question: I took your scrum master class and your product owner class a couple weeks ago and I got a lot out of it. Thanks so much for everything you did for everyone in the class. After taking the class I was thinking about how I could apply what I’ve learned to my organization and to all of our customers who are thinking about implementing Scrum Teams in their supply chain organizations. So, what my question is for you Dave is, what do you think is needed for an organization to transform to develop an Agile mindset across the organization and develop successful scrum teams? I’d imagine that new organizations have the benefit of not having a status quo to compare it to so you don’t have to deal with change so they can start with Agile mindsets and they can start Scrum teams from the get go, but organizations that have been established and have been around for decades and even centuries have the challenge of having a traditional way of doing things. So they have to get over the change management and implementing and changing the way they think… it seems like a lot to do for an organization so I’m curious to see what your thoughts are on what an organization that’s established…what they should do? Contacting Derek If you’d like to contact Derek you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekhuether/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/derekhuether Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave 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] And if you are interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

This week Jessica Wolfe and Dave Prior respond to a question about how to be an effective ScrumMaster when you are not in the same location as your team. To complicate matters even more, try stepping into the ScrumMaster role in place of an SM who was colocated with part of the team. If that doesn’t seem challenging enough—try two Product Qwners working with the team. Here is the question: My Scrum team consists of 4 devs in San Diego and 3 devs and 2 POs remotely (I know, breaking a rule right there having 2 POs and multiple projects assigned to one team) The previous scrum master for our team was located in San Diego and was able to have actual facetime with the portion of the team 2 times a week on average. Tuesday for Daily Scrum and Wednesdays for Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective and Sprint Planning (and then off week's Daily Scrum and Backlog Refinement). While we do everything virtually (Sprint backlog, Product Backlog, screenshare ceremonies encouraging video (but not required)), it was something the team welcomed, it was a rallying day, and I believe allowed the SM a better check on the morale/heartbeat of over half the team - seeing them in person, having easier one on one time available if needed. I have now taken over as SM for this team and another team (other team is all remote and they never met in person regularly), so I'm wondering if you might have any suggestions to foster that same closeness, continue to keep a close pulse on the team and provide a safe environment for openness and collaboration while serving the team from across the country. Links from the Podcast If you are curious about Jason Kelce’s speech at the Eagles parade, here you go: Uncensored version (NSFW) Censored version Contacting Jessica If you’d like to contact Jessica you can reach her at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/jessica-wolfe/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-wolfe-ab025a36/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thejessicawolfe Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave 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] Send Us Your Questions If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to [email protected] Upcoming Classes And if you are interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

As organizations continue to grow and evolve in their practice of Agile, what they expect from Agile transformation coaches continues to evolve as well. Ten years ago, an Agile coach was someone who had enough experience working with Agile to help others pick up the basic habits and avoid some common mistakes. Today, we need a lot more. In this episode of SoundNotes, Mike Cottmeyer talks with Dave Prior about how the needs and expectations of coaching have changed over the last 10 years. During the interview, Mike explains how LeadingAgile has evolved its understanding of the specific areas of skill and expertise the company needs to focus on when talking with transformation coaches during the interview process. Dave and Mike also discuss how coaches can address some of these gaps, and why it is so important to understand what type of coaching you are passionate about and how to leverage that. 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: [email protected] Contacting Dave 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] And if you are interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

We frequently get questions from clients who are transitioning to Agile when they begin working through the challenge of determining which roles are the best fit for individuals in their organization. Since many of our clients begin their Agile journey by taking on Scrum, the question usually shows up as: Who should I make a Product Owner and who should I make a ScrumMaster? While there is no locked down definition of who should transition into what role, there are some standard patterns that appear across organizations. A lot of it though depends on how an organization views the individuals in those positions and what level of responsibility they are given by the company. In this short video, Dave Prior, LeadingAgile’s resident Certified Scrum Trainer, offers some advice and guidance with respect to sorting out which individuals in your organization should move into a Product Owner role and who is a better fit for ScrumMaster. CONTACTING DAVE 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] And if you are interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

Jessica and Dave take a look at the Sprint Report template Dave uses in his CSM and CSPO classes. Using the report as a starting point, Jessica and Dave talk through the most valuable data points for new Scrum Teams as well as additional variables which are an important part of tracking the information that matters as your team learns to work together and gets better at delivering value for their customer. Contacting Jessica If you’d like to contact Jessica you can reach her at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/jessica-wolfe/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-wolfe-ab025a36/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thejessicawolfe Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave 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] And if you are interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

In this episode of LeadingAgile's SoundNotes, Derek Heuther and Dave Prior take on a question Derek received from a student in one of his recent classes: What do you do, as a developer if the planned task cannot be resolved, or can not result in a potentially shippable product by the end of the Sprint? For an audio only version of the podcast click here. Contacting Derek If you’d like to contact Derek you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekhuether/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/derekhuether Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave 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] And if you are interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

Many of us start out the new year by making resolutions that we hope will help us become the better version of ourselves. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile’s Jessica Wolfe and Dave Prior talk through some ideas you can use with your team to help them renew their focus on delivering value not just for the customer, but for the individual team members themselves. If you or your team are struggling to get the value you crave out of the work you are doing, this discussion will give you some ideas and tips to start getting more out of 2018! Contacting Jessica If you’d like to contact Jessica you can reach her at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/jessica-wolfe/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-wolfe-ab025a36/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thejessicawolfe Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave 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] And if you are interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

In this week’s podcast, LeadingAgile’s Jim Hayden and Tim Wise join Dave to respond to questions submitted by students from our CSM and CSPO classes: Question 1: How PBIs Get Into The Product Backlog "Quick question. I was wondering if you had any ideas around a process for getting items into a backlog? I currently just stepped into a role and one of the first things I'm wanting to tackle is a process for placing items into our backlog. Currently things are all over the place because the developers are kind of doing their own thing . In order to create some consistency among PBI's do you think it's a good idea for one individual (ME) to create all PBI's? It's a fairly small team with 6 developers so I don't anticipate any bottle neck. If you don't think having one individual is a good idea then what recommendations do you have for putting a process in place for my team?" (Begins at 02:37) Question 2: Moving to Waterfall From Agile "The only thing we didn't have time to talk about was how to manage transitions from waterfall to agile. Will you please send me or upload to the box (if you haven't already done it) some tips/techniques/advices about how to handle that process?" (Begins at 19:31) Contacting Jim Email: [email protected] LeadingAgile: http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/jim-hayden/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimhayden85/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/jim_hayden85 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: [email protected] LeadingAgile: 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_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class.

In this week's SoundNotes, LeadingAgile’s Tom Churchwell and Matt Fischer join Dave to respond to two questions submitted by students of our Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Product Owner classes. STUDENT QUESTIONS Question 1: "How do you see the way companies, after long years of waterfall, trying to move to Agile in few weeks?" Question 2: "How does a ScrumMaster correct a development team member?" CONTACTING TOM CHURCHWELL LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/tom-churchwell/ Email: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/tchurchwell LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomchurchwell/ CONTACTING DAVE PRIOR LeadingAgile:http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ Email: [email protected] Twitter at http://twitter.com/mrsungo Personal Blog: http://drunkenpm.net SEND US YOUR QUESTIONS If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to [email protected] UPCOMING CLASSES And if you are interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

The Scrum Alliance’s Certified Scrum Professional (CSP) designation is changing on Jan 1, 2018. If you meet the qualifications for the current version of CSP, applying before it expires on December 31, 2017 may provide you with a much easier path to the practitioner level of certification offered by the Scrum Alliance. You’ll find details on the current version of CSP here: https://www.scrumalliance.org/certifications/practitioners/csp-certification In order to qualify for CSP there are a number of requirements that must be met including earning 70 Scrum Education Units (SEUs). With the pending change, I have been recommending to all my CSM and CSPO students that they apply for CSP as soon as possible in order to beat the deadline. Many of them have come back with questions about how to earn the SEUs required for the CSP designation. In this podcast, Scrum Alliance Director of Global Learning and Assessment, Erika Massie and Scrum Alliance Learning Coordinator, Cody Wanberg break down the changes to the CSP certification, the timeline for the change AND we talk through different ways to attain the required SEU’s before the deadline. It’s a short podcast, so no actual show notes for this one. Just a few things to keep in mind… In order to qualify for CSP before the change, you must have your completed application submitted to the Scrum Alliance before it becomes 2018 in Denver. Once you submit, the turnaround time you should expect is 8 weeks. Here are a few of the ways you can earn SEUs… Watch the CST facilitated webinars on the Scrum Alliance website. There are 19 of these and they are an hour each. If you watch them all, you’ll earn 19 SEUs. Watch the Scrum Foundations e-learning series to earn 1 SEU. If you took a CSM or CSPO, each class is worth 16 SEUs. If you’ve taken both, that is 32. AND, if you’ve taken CSM or CSPO more than once, you get the 16 for each time you take the class. During the interview, Cody and Erika explain that listening to something like the Agile Uprising’s Manifesto Author Review podcast series could be submitted under Category E - Independent Learning. You get 1 SEU for each hour of time spent listening. It is a great series and I highly recommend it. You can find it here. There are a number of additional ways to earn SEUs and you can find that detailed on the Scrum Alliance site. https://www.scrumalliance.org/certifications/practitioners/csp-certification/ways-to-earn-seus Additional Questions If you have questions for the Scrum Alliance about the changes to CSP or SEU’s, send an email to [email protected] with the subject line CSP Application Question

In October, LeadingAgile SVP, Scott Sehlhorst spent some time talking with Dave about the importance of Personas and Proto-Personas and how to use them. In this episode of SoundNotes, Scott is back to talk about Empathy Maps, how they work, why they are so valuable and how to create one. During the conversation, Scott and Dave talk through each step of creating an Empathy Map. The podcast is one of our longer ones, but if you are seeking a better understanding of how to put one together, you’ll find a lot of valuable information in this interview. You’ll probably want to download a copy of David Gray’s Empathy Map to have on hand while you listen to this episode. You can find that here: http://gamestorming.com/empathy-mapping/ SHOW NOTES 00:08 Interview Begins 00:50 Some background on Scott 02:30 Intro to the topic of Empathy Maps and how they relate to Proto-Personas and Personas 03:09 What is Empathy? How does it relate to Sympathy and Cognitive Empathy 05:46 What is an Empathy Map and who creates it? 08:42 Understanding their understanding of their problem 09:39 Whose job is it to create it? 10:45 Where to learn how to interview users 11:30 How do you pick which customers to focus on? (And the set up for the example we walk through) 20:20 Who are we empathizing with? (Understanding the role you are focusing on) 21:17 Understanding what they need to do 24:13 What is the goal they are trying to achieve? 26:25 Understanding what success means for the person we are focusing on 27:54 What they see and what do they say - situational awareness and how they interpret what they see 30:08 The disconnect between what do I see and what do I say 32:16 What do they do 33:19 The Double Design Process (Double Diamond Design) 36:18 Moving from empathy maps to experiment maps or the value proposition canvas 37:28 What do they hear (and how it is not all about sound) 41:18 What do they think and feel 45:45 How often do I revise the empathy map 48:35 When I’m done filling out the empathy map, what do I do with it? 51:05 How to reach Scott with additional questions about Empathy Maps 51:57 Podcast Ends LINKS FROM THE PODCAST LeadingAgile SoundNotes: Using Personas to Reduce Risk w/ Scott Sehlhorst (our earlier podcast on personas) http://bit.ly/2BGumyJ David Gray’s Updated Empathy Map http://gamestorming.com/empathy-mapping/ "Mental Models" - Indi Young http://amzn.to/2BGBtaw "Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights" - Steve Portigal http://amzn.to/2zTzQWl "Impact Mapping: Making a big impact with software products and projects" - Gojko Adzic http://amzn.to/2k4cKpA Double Design - The Double Diamond Design Process http://bit.ly/2B9EwvF CONTACTING SCOTT If you’d like to contact Scott you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/scott-sehlhorst/ Twitter https://twitter.com/sehlhorst LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sehlhorst/ Blog: http://tynerblain.com/blog/ CONTACTING DAVE 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] SEND US YOUR QUESTIONS If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to [email protected] UPCOMING CLASSES And if you are interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

For this episode of SoundNotes, we’re back with more of the questions submitted by recent CSM and CSPO students. In this week’s podcast, Jessica Wolfe and Dave Prior respond to the following questions: Question 1: What is the desired relationship interaction between the Scrum Master and Development Managers with regard to developers who are participating on a scrum team, and how does that impact performance management from an HR standpoint? In other words, if there are performance issues with a Developer, where does the responsibility fall for addressing & resolving those performance issues? Question 2: I work at a fairly large company on a product that has direct eyesight from the CEO, who constantly says things like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if our app did X?” with the expectation being that it doesn’t matter how cool X actually is, we can expect to be implementing it right frickin’ now. How, for the love of SCRUM can I deal with this within my framework? Contacting Jessica If you’d like to contact Jessica you can reach her at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/jessica-wolfe/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-wolfe-ab025a36/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thejessicawolfe Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave 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] And if you are interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

One of the best parts of working at LeadingAgile is the continual focus on helping the brilliant people who work here amplify their ability to deliver value for customers. We have a weekly call where we focus on different aspects of the work we do and how we can get better at delivering on the LeadingAgile approach so that our customers can achieve their goals. In a recent call Mike Cottmeyer walked through the Trust Influence Loop, which explains the way we interact with our clients in order to develop the safety and trust we need to be able to help them achieve the outcomes they are looking for. The model had a huge impact on me and I asked Mike if he’d be willing to do an interview on it so that we could share it with others. While this podcast is a little on the long side, the whole conversation is incredibly valuable. SHOW NOTES 00:08 Interview Begins 00:30 How LeadingAgile syncs up in the morning 02:47 The Tuesday Night Calls 04:17 The Trust Influence Loop Model - Part 1: Influence 08:55 Getting Access… then what” 11:12 The importance of continually creating safety and earning the right to have influence 13:25 Demonstrating empathy, listening and learning 17:43 Why it is so important to hear the client’s explanation of the problem 19:18 The girl with the nail in her head 20:34 The difference between thinking everything is a nail and asserting a position you believe in 23:31 The Trust Influence Loop Model - Part 2: Trust 26:45 Integrity in context - are you going to do what you said you are going to do 28:04 Developing integrity from the promise through the delivery 30:13 Integrity and maintaining a shared understanding with the client throughout execution 36:28 It’s not about artifacts, it is about demonstrating integrity, building consensus and reaching shared understanding 37:52 You have to understand who the client is and what problem you are trying to solve 43:13 How the Trust-Influence loop applies outside of work 46:19 Why LeadingAgile writes SOWs that take one trip through the loop at a time 49:06 Mike’s journey of unpacking what’s he’s learned and sharing it with other people 50:17 Random Question for Mike: What was the last album you downloaded and listened to that wasn’t Collective Soul? 51:29 Nothing but peace and martinis LINKS FROM THE PODCAST Trust Influence Loop Graphic You can download a copy of the Trust Influence Loop here If you want to watch the video of the girl with the nail in her head, you can find it here: It’s Not About The Nail The Slash album Mike refers to during the interview is: Slash (2010) CONTACTING MIKE If you’d like to reach Mike, here is how you can contact him: Email: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/mcottmeyer

For this episode of SoundNotes, we reached out to some of the students who have taken CSM and CSPO classes over the last few months. We got a lot of great questions and will be responding to them over the next few weeks. This week, Derek Huether and Dave Prior respond to these two questions: Question 1: My team seems to have a problem with estimating and understanding the estimating concepts. The team members are accustomed to traditional waterfall projects and estimating everything in units of time. How can I help them understand estimating, but continue to complete the sprints with no pbis rolling over to the next sprint? Question 2: I have a team lead who is skeptical of scrum, especially metrics related to the process. He doesn’t think carryover matters from sprint to sprint as long as we’re “creating value” and getting the program priorities completed. Any advice on how to convince him that metrics can be a tool for good, and that the sanctity of the sprint commitment matters? Links from the Podcast If you’d like to check out the Multiple Team Throughput Forecasting Tool that Troy Magennis has created for use with multiple teams who have different ways of estimating work, you can find it (and his other tools) here: http://focusedobjective.com/free-tools-resources/ For an audio only version of the podcast click here. Contacting Derek If you’d like to contact Derek you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekhuether/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/derekhuether Email: [email protected] Contacting Dave 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] And if you are interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

If you have ever considered moving into consulting, this podcast is for you.In this podcast, In this interview, Rick Austin, John Tanner and Dave Prior talk about what it is like working as a traveling consultant for LeadingAgile. They discuss how it changes the focus of your work, what it takes to be good at it, how it impacts your personal life and some of the things you have to do to maintain your sanity when you spend most of your life on the road. SHOW NOTES 1:13 Podcast Begins - Overview of Topic 2:35 What consulting did to Rick’s world when he started at LeadingAgile 3:08 How John got started with consulting and then got back into it 3:31 How being a traveling consultant impacts your personal and professional life 4:52 Shaping your life around how you work 5:23 Being intentional about your life when you are back home 6:10 How long each of us can spend on the road before having to take a break 7:11 Building relationships and maintaining objectivity on site 9:29 The importance of gaining permission to consult and coach 11:34 How do you entice people to invite you to coach once you get onsite 13:30 Learning how to get people to want you to be there 14:40 Why you should not immediately try to solve the problem 15;51 Developing better communication skills 17:42 How Dave coped with being introverted when building connections 18:27 When you meet people you just can’t connect with no matter how hard you try 19:46 Taking responsibility for the communication issues you face (It’s on the sender/communicator) 22:26 Things you should know about consulting before they start 23:57 Taking ownership of the room and holding your space 26:36 Engaging with authority 27:10 Developing mastery of the subject and never being caught off guard 29:09 Being humble and maintaining confidence 30:10 The value of hard knocks 30:49 Finding the right people to partner with 31:18 Why you need to find a mentor to help you when you are learning how to work this way 32:29 What makes consulting difficult and the importance of maintaining personal connections outside of work 33:21 When you leave the house time stops for you, but not for the other people in your life 33:47 Creating clear space between work and non work 34:59 Finding the right company to consult for 35:26 How LeadingAgile makes it easy for us to work as consultants 36:18 Finding the things you need to do to recharge when you get burnt out from work 38:38 Getting in touch with John and Rick LINKS FROM THE PODCAST Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help CONTACTING JOHN Email: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/tannerjs Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tannerjs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tannerjs/ CONTACTING RICK Email: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/rickaustin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdaustin/

This is a explaination of the new tool I introduced at the 2017 Digital PM Summit. The session I led was called Hacking Agile for Digital Agencies and the canvas tool I built for the session is intended to help Digital Agencies understand more about why they want to use Agile practices in the first place, how they are expected to help and what they are willing to risk in order to achieve some level of agility. If you'd like to check out the slides from the actual presentation, you can find them here. If you'd like to download a PDF of the DPM Agility Canvas you can find that here. And if you have any feedback or questions, please email me at [email protected]

Scott Sehlhorst, SVP and Executive Consultant at Leading Agile, goes deep on Personas in this episode of SoundNotes. During the interview Scott and Dave discuss the difference between Proto-Personas and actual Personas, the importance of empathy maps and how to help management understand that making the investment in developing personas is a great way to reduce risk. This is the first of several podcasts we are going to be posting on Personas, how to create them and why they are so valuable. Show Notes 00:08 Podcast begins 00:56 Scott’s background 03:00 Why Scott is so focused on understanding the customer 07:10 Scott explains what a proto-persona is 10:51 Why we need to understand the customer’s problem at a deeper level than they do 13:00 The difference between a proto-persona and an actual persona 19:08 Making the case for taking the time to do personas 20:20 Why we start by making assumptions 24:35 Using empathy maps as a tool to help us test our assumptions 26:48 Personas are an investment in understanding the customer and reducing risk 28:52 Helping executives understand why they need to make this investment 30:34 “You put together a plan and you remove risk and uncertainty from that plan” 31:54 Can you stop at the empathy map and how do you move past it into something more data driven 36:00 Getting the data we need to get to actual personas 39:25 Accepting the risk of not moving all the way to actual personas 43:54 What are the most effective ways to collect the data we need 49:39 Once you have all the data, then what? 52:36 What we’ll focus on in future podcasts about personas 53:25 Contacting Scott Links from the Interview Scott’s article (which includes some examples) Progressively Elaborated Users http://tynerblain.com/blog/2017/09/10/progressively-elaborated-users/ Dave Gray’s updated Empathy Map https://medium.com/the-xplane-collection/updated-empathy-map-canvas-46df22df3c8a Contacting Scott Twitter: https://twitter.com/sehlhorst LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sehlhorst/ LeadingAgile site: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/scott-sehlhorst/

When you think of the annual Agile conference, you usually think about speakers and content. However, Paul Hammond wants to augment the content at the conference with the answers to your questions and one-on-one time with experts from around the industry. That’s why, this year, the conference includes Agile Therapy. Learn more in this video with Paul and Chris Li.

Tricia is the Agile2017 conference Chair and in this video, she discusses how the conference has grown and changed over the years. Also, she speaks about how the speakers are chosen and how the organizers try to provide a variety of things to do for attendees to self-care and stay fresh. Midway through the podcast, Tricia switches gears and talks about her personal ascension to the role of an Agile leader and how she tries to pay it forward to the Agile community.

In this – all LeadingAgile – edition of SoundNotes, Rick Austin and Paul Argiry discuss each of their talks. The talks focus on portfolio management and capitalizing software in an Agile world. In the video the guys discuss the new definition of portfolio management, road mapping, and capacity management as well as how to avoid common accounting pitfalls when trying to fund your Agile initiative.

In this short video, Jesse Fewell and Kim Brainard discuss their talk that they delivered at Agile2017: The PMO Paradox. The talk centers around what to do with the PMO when your organization is in the middle of an Agile initiative. Often, the answer is fire them but Jesse and Kim have a different suggestion. What if you could collaborate with the PMO in an Agile environment to ensure that they are an asset?

We received a question from someone who has been working as a Scrum Master for awhile and is considering moving into coaching. They just weren’t sure how to tel if it was the correct next step and had a lot of questions about what the job involved, what skills were needed, etc. In this week’s podcast, Tim Wise and Dave Prior discuss the role of an Agile Coach, what it involves, the day to day work, what skills are needed and, if you are in that role, some important things to watch out for. Show Notes 0:08 Interview Begins 00:25 How Tim ended up working in Agile Coaching 03:32 What skills do you need to be an Agile Coach 06:12 What is the job of a coach - at the team and enterprise level? 09:08 What you need to move from being a ScrumMaster (coaching one team) to being a coach of multiple teams 12:33 Is it better to work as a consultant, moving from team to team and seeing lots of ways of making Agile work (and not) or is it better to stick with one team and get them to a high performing state? 14:30 What areas Tim had to focus on to become effective at providing coaching for multiple teams 16:11 Mentoring, school or hard knocks, or surrounding yourself with brilliant people? 18:53 Be wary of “EXPERTS” 19:28 Moving past imposter syndrome 22:05 Knockaround Guys… 500 fights to consider yourself a legitimate tough guy 23:32 Will coaching camp or certification make you a good coach? 26:07 Always be the student 27:57 Understanding your own coaching shortcomings… and how they may somtimes be strengths 31:00 Practice the skills you need to take risks and be vulnerable 32:00 Avoiding the addiction to pontificating after the team fails 35:15 What does a coach do all day 39:20 How the day breaks down if you are doing team level coaching 40:04 Working with the Executives and using Social Engineering for good 41:41 Two additional skills to work on 43:12 Understanding your own capacity 45:55 How much selling is an Agile Coach required/expected to do 48:28 Building the desire for change 51:54 What does Tim with he had been told about coaching before he got started down the path 53:11 You never know when the seeds will germinate 55:30 Keeping it fresh for yourself 56:38 Getting in touch with Tim 56:57 Scrum Atlanta User Group events 57:41 Interview Ends - Knockaround Guys Links Mentioned In This Podcast Agile Coaching Institute http://agilecoachinginstitute.com Scrum Alliance Certified Team Coach https://www.scrumalliance.org/certifications/ctc-certification Scrum Alliance Certified Enterprise Coach https://www.scrumalliance.org/certifications/cec-certificatio Scrum Atlanta User Group https://www.meetup.com/agile-38/ Contacting Tim Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timwise/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/timswise

Mike Vizdos is a busy guy. He’s someone whose passion for helping agile change lives extends well beyond coaching traditional organizations and teaching classes. At Agile 2017, Mike stopped by to provide an update on Agile In Education and the work he and others are doing to bring agile to schools and transform the way we learn. This work is taking place e at every level of education - from grade school up through university. It is an inspiring and impressive thing. Mike also talks about the work he’s been doing with Ron Jeffries to create an online community that provides mentoring and support for Agile practitioners and coaches. Here are some of the links mentioned in the interview: AgileMentoring.com http://www.agilementoring.com/ Agile in Education: http://www.agileineducation.org Scrum In School http://www.scruminschool.org The VCU daVinci Center http://www.davincicenter.vcu.edu And if you’d like to learn more about Mike, check out: Web: http://www.michaelvizdos.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/mvizdos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mvizdos/