Troubleshooting Agile

Commercial and technical debt are twins: when your product is mispriced, your engineering investment is out of whack too. Listen to this episode of Troubleshooting Agile to learn how you can build product plans that scale, with special guest Ulrik Lehrskov-Schmidt. Links: - Ulrik’s book The Pricing Roadmap: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pricing-Roadmap-Design-Models-Customers/dp/1544536305/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1682577248&sr=8-2 - Ulrik’s website: willingnesstopay.com - Ulrik’s YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@SaaSPricing - Unselling episode link: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/unselling-your-software -------------------------------------------------- Order your copy of our book, Agile Conversations at agileconversations.com Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected] About Your Hosts Squirrel and Jeffrey first met while working together at TIM group in 2013. A decade later, they remain united in their passion for growing organisations through better conversations. Squirrel is an advisor, author, keynote speaker, coach, and consultant, helping companies of all sizes make huge, profitable improvements in their culture, skills, and processes. You can find out more about his work here: https://douglassquirrel.com/index.html Jeffrey is Vice President of Engineering at ION Analytics, Organiser at CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, author and speaker. You can connect with him here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfredrick/

If you have one product per customer and aren't charging a princely sum, you're not pricing your customers right. Listen to this episode of Troubleshooting Agile to find out how you can take lessons in pricing a train ticket and apply them to your SAAS sales, with special guest Ulrik Lehrskov-Schmidt. Links: - Ulrik’s book The Pricing Roadmap: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pricing-Roadmap-Design-Models-Customers/dp/1544536305/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1682577248&sr=8-2 - Ulrik’s website: willingnesstopay.com - Ulrik’s YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@SaaSPricing -------------------------------------------------- Order your copy of our book, Agile Conversations at agileconversations.com Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected] About Your Hosts Squirrel and Jeffrey first met while working together at TIM group in 2013. A decade later, they remain united in their passion for growing organisations through better conversations. Squirrel is an advisor, author, keynote speaker, coach, and consultant, helping companies of all sizes make huge, profitable improvements in their culture, skills, and processes. You can find out more about his work here: https://douglassquirrel.com/index.html Jeffrey is Vice President of Engineering at ION Analytics, Organiser at CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, author and speaker. You can connect with him here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfredrick/

Vague instructions from the Board or CEO are the norm, and in fact mean great opportunity. Listen to this episode of Troubleshooting Agile to discover why there's no recipe that gets the right answers to executive problems, with Squirrel & Jeffrey! Links: - The Psychology of being a CEO: https://a16z.com/2011/03/31/whats-the-most-difficult-ceo-skill-managing-your-own-psychology/ - Cynefin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework -------------------------------------------------- Order your copy of our book, Agile Conversations at agileconversations.com Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected] About Your Hosts Squirrel and Jeffrey first met while working together at TIM group in 2013. A decade later, they remain united in their passion for growing organisations through better conversations. Squirrel is an advisor, author, keynote speaker, coach, and consultant, helping companies of all sizes make huge, profitable improvements in their culture, skills, and processes. You can find out more about his work here: https://douglassquirrel.com/index.html Jeffrey is Vice President of Engineering at ION Analytics, Organiser at CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, author and speaker. You can connect with him here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfredrick/

You can be your own "devil's advocate" to boost the quality of what you produce. Listen to this episode of Troubleshooting Agile to learn how and why to be self-critical, with Squirrel and Jeffrey! Links: - Devil's Advocate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_advocate - Six Thinking Hats: https://www.debonogroup.com/services/core-programs/six-thinking-hats/ -------------------------------------------------- Order your copy of our book, Agile Conversations at agileconversations.com Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected] About Your Hosts Squirrel and Jeffrey first met while working together at TIM group in 2013. A decade later, they remain united in their passion for growing organisations through better conversations. Squirrel is an advisor, author, keynote speaker, coach, and consultant, helping companies of all sizes make huge, profitable improvements in their culture, skills, and processes. You can find out more about his work here: https://douglassquirrel.com/index.html Jeffrey is Vice President of Engineering at ION Analytics, Organiser at CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, author and speaker. You can connect with him here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfredrick/

Flickr started as an online game, but the company quickly learned that they had much greater value on tap as a photo site, and "unsold" their initial customers instead of sticking to their original idea. By being curious, you can learn what the market really needs, jettison the custom-built "products" that are holding you back, and keep the right customers delighted. Listen for more on the art and practise of "unselling"! -------------------------------------------------- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now. Go to agileconversations.com to order your copy. Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected] About Your Hosts Squirrel and Jeffrey first met while working together at TIM group in 2013 . A decade later, they remain united in their passion for growing organisations through better conversations. Squirrel is an advisor, author, speaker, coach, and consultant, helping companies of all sizes make huge, profitable improvements in their culture, skills, and processes. You can find out more about his work here: https://douglassquirrel.com/index.html Jeffrey is Vice President of Engineering at ION Analytics, Organiser at CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, author and speaker. You can connect with him here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfredrick/

Are you building a house of cards? On this week’s episode, Squirrel talks about how to test the value of what you’re doing using mark to market - and how not to be Silicon Valley Bank! Listen to find out why you should aim to bring new software to the market every day and what methods of testing you can use to make sure that you’re always adding value to your organisation. Links: - Mark to Market: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marktomarket.asp - Elephant Carpaccio episode: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/summer-shorts-and-learning-loops-elephant-carpaccio -------------------------------------------------- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now. Go to agileconversations.com to order your copy. Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected] About Your Hosts Squirrel and Jeffrey first met while working together at TIM group in 2013 . A decade later, they remain united in their passion for growing organisations through better conversations. Squirrel is an advisor, author, speaker, coach, and consultant, helping companies of all sizes make huge, profitable improvements in their culture, skills, and processes. You can find out more about his work here: https://douglassquirrel.com/index.html Jeffrey is Vice President of Engineering at ION Analytics, Organiser at CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, author and speaker. You can connect with him here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfredrick/

Are “Try-Hards” slowing down your team? On this week’s episode, Jeffrey describes a type of person that shows up in a lot of organisations - someone who isn’t competent, but sounds like they are! Listen to find out about how you can spot (or self-identify) a “Try-Hard” by discounting their visibility and focussing only on their expertise. Links: - Hobbies article: https://brooker.co.za/blog/2023/04/20/hobbies.html -------------------------------------------------- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now. Go to agileconversations.com to order your copy. Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected] About Your Hosts Squirrel and Jeffrey first met while working together at TIM group in 2013 . A decade later, they remain united in their passion for growing organisations through better conversations. Squirrel is an advisor, author, speaker, coach, and consultant, helping companies of all sizes make huge, profitable improvements in their culture, skills, and processes. You can find out more about his work here: https://douglassquirrel.com/index.html Jeffrey is Vice President of Engineering at ION Analytics, Organiser at CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, author and speaker. You can connect with him here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfredrick/

Are you pushing alone or pushing together? On this week’s episode, we take a closer look at how to be helpfully demanding and how to identify removable discomfort, with a story about helping a product manager who's "pushing" for progress toward a quarterly goal. Listen to find out how to approach your conversations with more curiosity, so you can uncover better solutions. Links: - Brooks on essential complexity: http://worrydream.com/refs/Brooks-NoSilverBullet.pdf - Toyota Kata: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Kata - Previous episode on being helpfully demanding: https://agileconversations.com/blog/how-to-be-helpfully-demanding/ -------------------------------------------------- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now. Go to agileconversations.com to order your copy. Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected] About Your Hosts Squirrel and Jeffrey first met while working together at TIM group in 2013 . A decade later, they remain united in their passion for growing organisations through better conversations. Squirrel is an advisor, author, speaker, coach, and consultant, helping companies of all sizes make huge, profitable improvements in their culture, skills, and processes. You can find out more about his work here: https://douglassquirrel.com/index.html Jeffrey is Vice President of Engineering at ION Analytics, Organiser at CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, author and speaker. You can connect with him here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfredrick/

Are assumptions killing your curiosity? On the podcast this week, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss abduction - but not the alien kind!! Listen to learn about the methods of abductive reasoning and coherence busting, and find out how you can apply the principles of Wordle to improve your outcomes. Links: - Abductive reasoning: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning - Affirming the consequent: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent - Coherence busting: https://blog.jeffreyfredrick.com/2016/04/08/coherence-busting-explained/ -------------------------------------------------- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now. Go to agileconversations.com to order your copy. Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected] About Your Hosts Squirrel and Jeffrey first met while working together at TIM group in 2013 . A decade later, they remain united in their passion for growing organisations through better conversations. Squirrel is an advisor, author, speaker, coach, and consultant, helping companies of all sizes make huge, profitable improvements in their culture, skills, and processes. You can find out more about his work here: https://douglassquirrel.com/index.html Jeffrey is Vice President of Engineering at ION Analytics, Organiser at CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, author and speaker. You can connect with him here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfredrick/

Are you wearing a Viking helmet, sun hat or graduate cap? On the podcast this week, Squirrel and Jeffrey are joined again by fellow podcast host duo Russell and Ken of the “I Need to F-ing Talk To You” podcast. In this episode, Russell and Ken detail the "hats" they use to identify the different patterns of human behavior that affect conversations, and how they use BEEF and COACH models to improve the outcome of conversations. Links: - Website, Podcast, Book, Course: www.ineedtof-ingtalktoyou.com/ - Ken Cameron: www.corporate-culture-shift.com - Russell Stratton: www.bluegemlearning.com - Forum Theatre: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_theatre - Situational Leadership: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situational…eadership_theory -------------------------------------------------- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now. Go to agileconversations.com to order your copy. Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected] About Your Hosts Squirrel and Jeffrey first met while working together at TIM group in 2013 . A decade later, they remain united in their passion for growing organisations through better conversations. Squirrel is an advisor, author, speaker, coach, and consultant, helping companies of all sizes make huge, profitable improvements in their culture, skills, and processes. You can find out more about his work here: douglassquirrel.com/index.html Jeffrey is Vice President of Engineering at ION Analytics, Organiser at CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, author and speaker. You can connect with him here: www.linkedin.com/in/jfredrick/

Can you speed up your learning with improv? On the podcast this week, Squirrel and Jeffrey are joined by fellow podcast host duo Russell and Ken of the “I Need to F-ing Talk To You” podcast. In this episode, Russell and Ken discuss their Forum Theatre for Business methods and Squirrel considers if they’ve been missing a trick by not incorporating real actors in their conversations. Links: - Website, Podcast, Book, Course: https://www.ineedtof-ingtalktoyou.com/ - Ken Cameron: www.corporate-culture-shift.com - Russell Stratton: www.bluegemlearning.com - Forum Theatre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_theatre - Situational Leadership: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situational_leadership_theory -------------------------------------------------- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now. Go to agileconversations.com to order your copy. Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected] About Your Hosts Squirrel and Jeffrey first met while working together at TIM group in 2013 . A decade later, they remain united in their passion for growing organisations through better conversations. Squirrel is an advisor, author, speaker, coach, and consultant, helping companies of all sizes make huge, profitable improvements in their culture, skills, and processes. You can find out more about his work here: https://douglassquirrel.com/index.html Jeffrey is Vice President of Engineering at ION Analytics, Organiser at CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, author and speaker. You can connect with him here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfredrick/

Can it really be more effective to throw out the plan? This week on the podcast, Squirrel talks about his late-night escapades at improv classes and why he’d prefer to travel to Mars in a starship, not a rocket. Join Squirrel and Jeffrey to find out how you can use improvisation to benefit your business. Links: - Squirrel's Making It Up event: https://squirrelsquadron.com/events/2023/03-23-makingitup.html - Impro book: https://www.goodreads.com/cs/book/show/306940 - Previous episode on "Yes And": https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/yes-and -------------------------------------------------- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now. Go to agileconversations.com to order your copy. Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected] About Your Hosts Squirrel and Jeffrey first met while working together at TIM group in 2013 . A decade later, they remain united in their passion for growing organisations through better conversations. Squirrel is an advisor, author, speaker, coach, and consultant, helping companies of all sizes make huge, profitable improvements in their culture, skills, and processes. You can find out more about his work here: https://douglassquirrel.com/index.html Jeffrey is Vice President of Engineering at ION Analytics, Organiser at CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, author and speaker. You can connect with him here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfredrick/

Scrum. XP. Kanban. Squads. Pods. Feature teams. Trying to figure out the ideal tech team structure and process? Listen to this first! On this week’s episode, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss why the "right" choice isn’t going to solve your problems, and what you should be focusing on instead. Links: - Squirrel’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/douglassquirrel/status/1636738222955872256 - Krakow keynote 18 May: https://aceconf.com/speaker/387/douglas-squirrel Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now. Go to agileconversations.com to order your copy. Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected] About Your Hosts Squirrel and Jeffrey first met at CITCON in 2006 and later worked together at TIM group. 17 years later, they remain united in their passion for growing organisations through better conversations. Squirrel is an advisor, author, speaker, coach, and consultant, helping companies of all sizes make huge, profitable improvements in their culture, skills, and processes. You can find out more about his work here: https://douglassquirrel.com/index.html Jeffrey is Vice President of Engineering at ION Analytics, Organiser at CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, author and speaker. You can connect with him here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfredrick/

Jeffrey is fresh in from IT Revolution’s DevOps Forum in Portland, where one of his takeaways was the power of streamlining and doing the absolute minimum. Join us on this week’s episode where Jeffrey discusses what tech teams can learn from the calamitous collapse and subsequent rebuilding of a highway outside San Francisco in 2007, and Squirrel shares his “Independence Day method" to discover the limits of what's possible. Links: - IT Revolution Guidance papers: https://itrevolution.com/resources/ - Overpass: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacArthur_Maze#2007_I-580_East_Connector_collapse - Independence Day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_(1996_film) - Krakow keynote 18 May: https://aceconf.com/speaker/387/douglas-squirrel Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! Go to agileconversations.com to order your copy. Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Study Groups are a great way of developing new skills in the team and strengthening the learning culture in your organisation, but if not executed currently, their impact can be limited. Listen to this week’s episode to discover how to get company-wide benefits from your study group, and why you shouldn’t look at learning activities as “perks” for your team - even if they come with pizza! Links: - https://twitter.com/douglassquirrel/status/1631284049971953665 - Getting Started with Radical Collaboration: https://itrevolution.com/articles/getting-started-with-radical-collaboration/ - Podcast: Learning Through Action: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/learning-through-action - Podcast: A Radical Enterprise: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/a-radical-enterprise-part-i and https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/a-radical-enterprise-part-ii Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! Go to agileconversations.com to order your copy. Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Is there a place for Stack Ranking? Squirrel and Jeffrey concur that Stack Racking can be problematic, but Jeffrey has some ideas about where this sub-par practice comes from, which underline the importance of difficult conversations about performance no matter how you create them (even with a stack rank) Links: - Vitality Curve (Stack Ranking):https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve - Poppendiecks on compensation: http://www.poppendieck.com/pdfs/Compensation.pdf - Chesterton’s Fence: https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Chesterton%27s_Fence Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! Go to agileconversations.com to order your copy. Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Could Chat GPT improve our conversations? While pondering a difficult conversation with an unhappy client, Squirrel took to Chat GPT to see if he could recreate the dialogue. Listen to this week’s episode to discover his findings, and learn about how you could use prompt engineering and role playing with chatbot to get better results from your conversations. Links: - ChatGPT @ OpenAI: https://chat.openai.com/chat - Agile Conversations Dojo: https://www.meetup.com/agile-conversations-dojo/ - Conversational Dojo kit: https://itrevolution.com/product/conversational-dojo-kit/ Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! Go to agileconversations.com to order your copy. Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

This week, Jeffrey is joined by guest Elisabeth Hendrickson, who shares her powerful dream that inspired a new theory of office politics. Elisabeth and Jeffrey discuss the behaviors that lead to toxicity, and how to utilise the core value of consent to evoke positive change. Recorded live at CITCON. Links: - Elisabeth’s company, Curious Duck: https://curiousduck.io - Elisabeth’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/testobsessed/ - CITCON: https://citconf.com Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

In this week’s episode, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss how you can use emotional outcomes in your conversations to build trust and evoke more positive responses from your customers, rather than relying solely on intellectual ones. Listen to see how you can incorporate lessons from “Emotional Rugby” in your sales and customer relations, as well as across your workplace practices. Links: - “Many of us have faced buyers who seem to agree with everything we say…but never sign the contract. We have played intellectual chess with them but not emotional rugby.” – Alan Weiss and Nancy McKay, The Modern Trusted Advisor - Simon Sinek Start With Why: https://simonsinek.com/books/start-with-why/ Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

After last week's episode on starting before you're ready, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss some ways you can encourage this behaviour—while still providing a safety net for participants and the wider organisation. SHOW LINKS: - Toyota Kata: https://agileconversations.com/blog/we're-the-aliens-three-ways-to-seek-safety/ - How to be helpfully demanding: https://agileconversations.com/blog/how-to-be-helpfully-demanding/ --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Squirrel and Jeffrey note examples of teams who never get started because they're aiming to do a project "right", and contrast with those who get started without being ready. SHOW LINKS: - https://twitter.com/douglassquirrel/status/1593243886180216832 --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss two examples where engineers are trying to get accurate answers, when getting a (slightly) wrong result would actually be better for speed or learning. --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Squirrel and Jeffrey continue discussing why you and your team might need a coach—for techniques and skills that they are already good at. This week they concentrate on practical steps for finding internal and external sources of instruction and inspiration. SHOW LINKS: - Pair Programming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_programming - Mob Programming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_programming --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

An article by Atul Gawande on coaching for surgeons inspires Squirrel and Jeffrey to reflect on why you and your team might need a coach—for techniques and skills that they are already good at. SHOW LINKS: - Personal Best: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/03/personal-best - Mundanity of Excellence: https://fermatslibrary.com/s/the-mundanity-of-excellence-an-ethnographic-report-on-stratification-and-olympic-swimmers - Our podcast episode on Principle 12 of the Agile Manifesto: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/finding-the-motivation-to-learn-stay-agile --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

This week on Troubleshooting Agile, we revisit another one of our “Greatest Hits” In this episode, we look at how the Ladder can help you discover your own reasoning as well, to discover ways to promote mutual learning with your own behaviour. SHOW LINKS: - Top Business Podcasts for CEOs, from Fiona Anderson: https://www.rocktime.co.uk/insights/listen-and-learn-the-art-of-podcasting-for-ceos/ - The Ladder of Inference (annotated by Jeffrey): https://agileconversations.com/docs/TheLadderOfInference.pdf - The London Organisational Meetup: www.meetup.com/London-Action-Science-Meetup/ - Thinking Fast and Slow, Kahneman: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

This week on Troubleshooting Agile, we revisit one of our “Greatest Hits” In this episode, we start describing our favourite trust-building technique: the Ladder of Inference. Our take this week is on using the Ladder to understand someone else's reasoning and align your stories, creating trust as a foundation for further improvement in your agile team. Surprisingly, the experience of using the Ladder in this way is similar to Test-Driven Development: careful, understandable, small steps with confidence, and meaningful signals from both success and failure. SHOW LINKS: - Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003ELY7OW/re…ding=UTF8&btkr=1 - The Ladder of Inference (annotated by Jeffrey): troubleshootingagile.com/docs/TheLadd…nference.pdf - Cognitive biases book and more: youarenotsosmart.com/ - Schwarz on unilateral control (again!): www.schwarzassociates.com/managing-per…tionships-2/ - TDD for people video: www.douglassquirrel.com/how-i-work.html - Schwarz 8 behaviours (Paula/Ted are on page 4): www.csu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf…arter-Teams-2.pdf --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

A listener asks, "how will we know it's working?" when considering changes of process or technology. Jeffrey and Squirrel discuss how to set "imperfect indicators" to measure your progress—or lack thereof!—along the J-shaped curve that takes you through learning to improvement. SHOW LINKS: - Tic-Tac Change: https://blog.jeffreyfredrick.com/2008/07/07/tic-tac-change-slides/ - J-Curve episode: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/a-tale-of-two-change-models-part-ii-getting-better-by-getting-worse --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Jeffrey remarks that he's working with a software team whose code is "done", that is, the organisation wants to keep using it but doesn't want to invest more in changing it. He and Squirrel reflect on when this make sense and how "software doneness" affects processes and measurements. SHOW LINKS: - Control Chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_chart - Principles of Product Development Flow: https://www.pdma.org/page/review_principles_pr --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

It is easy to see our dominant organizational structure of teams divided by roles as natural. But Jon Smart, author of the book Sooner, Safer, Happier, points out that this goes against 1.9 million years of evolution. In this podcast Jon and Jeffrey discuss the link between the outcomes we’re getting and how we organize, and thus how changing our organization can change incentives, which in turn shape behaviors to get us better outcomes. Recorded live at DevOps Enterprise Summit 2022 in Las Vegas. SHOW LINKS: - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathansmart/ - https://soonersaferhappier.com - Dr Ron Westrum: A typology of organisational cultures: https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/qhc/13/suppl_2/ii22.full.pdf - NUMMI : This American Life: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/403/nummi-2010

Do you find the yourself constantly fighting for making even small improvements? Randy Shoup has a way to avoid such “nickel and dime” conversations: agree with your peers on an innovation budget. In this episode Randy Shoup and Jeffrey discuss why these strategic conversations require learning how to speak executive, and why new engineering leaders often struggle to live up to their role in these conversations. Recorded live at DevOps Enterprise Summit 2022 in Las Vegas. SHOW LINKS: - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randyshoup/ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/randyshoup - Communicating Effectively with Your Business Partners (video): https://www.infoq.com/presentations/communication-business-partners/ --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Dominica Degrandis is an expert on flow and helping companies get the benefits of using flow metrics to make systemic improvements. What does she find as the biggest obstacle to success? A proper investment in change. In this conversation Jeffrey and Dominica talk about the importance of a daily change budget, time you’d expect people to be working in the new way, with some advice for both leaders and practitioners. Recorded live at DevOps Enterprise Summit 2022 in Las Vegas. SHOW LINKS: - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicadeg/ - Dominica Degrandis: https://ddegrandis.com - Making Work Visible, 2nd Edition: https://itrevolution.com/making-work-visible-by-dominica-degrandis/ - Dominica Degranids past episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?i=1000458010204 - Donald Reinertsen Principles of Product Development Flow: http://reinertsenassociates.com/books/ --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Audit, compliance, security, and governance: these words all carry the heavy weight of bureaucracy, the feeling of a burden to be overcome. In the recently published learning novel Investments Unlimited Bill Bensing and coauthors introduce the idea of automated governance, and in this conversation Bill and Jeffrey explore the difference between “governance theater”, automating away bullshit, and acting to get the real benefit. SHOW LINKS: - Investments Unlimited: https://itrevolution.com/investments-unlimited-book/ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billbensing/ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillBensing - Bill Bensing: https://billbensing.com - Jon Willis part 1: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/john-willis-on-devops-past-present-and-future - Jon Willis part 2: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/john-willis-devops-past-present-future-part2 --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

If you want to create a “value flywheel” where success breeds success, you need to start with clarity of purpose. Join Jeffrey and his guest David Anderson to learn how David uses the technique of Wardley Mapping to generate shared understanding. But don’t make the mistake of thinking the map is the point! David says throwing away the map is just as important as creating it in the first place. SHOW LINKS: - The Value Flywheel Effect: https://itrevolution.com/the-value-flywheel-effect/ - David Anderson @ The Serverless Edge: https://theserverlessedge.com - Twitter: https://twitter.com/ServerlessEdge - Wardley Mapping: https://learnwardleymapping.com --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Want to know the agenda? We aren’t going to tell you! Join Jeffrey with guests Pascal Dufour & Ronald Doelen to talk about how the “tilted slider” applies to meetings just as much as other software development process. Recorded live at CITCON. SHOW LINKS: - Pascal Dufour: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pascaldufournl/ - Ronald Doelen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rdoelen/ - Episode: Tilted Slider: https://agileconversations.com/blog/dont-add-more-metrics/ - Open Space: https://citconf.com/openspace.php - Lean Coffee: http://leancoffee.org - Liberating Structures: TRIZ: https://www.liberatingstructures.com/6-making-space-with-triz/ --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Following last week's debate, Squirrel and Jeffrey share their different takes on the value of having estimated a tech team's planned work when it comes to a retrospective at the end of a cycle, like a sprint or a quarter: Jeffrey sees that checking what the team achieved against what they planned can lead to important lessons about dependencies, inefficiencies, and skills gaps, while Squirrel thinks the risk of the estimates "escaping" is too high, and that the team ought to be able to notice process failings as they go without the "crutch" of estimates. SHOW LINKS: - LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dsquirrel_my-friends-at-cto-craft-are-45-right-about-activity-6983761206993899522-raHE - Squirrel Tweet: https://twitter.com/douglassquirrel/status/1578315480472985602 - You’re Not So Smart : https://www.davidmcraney.com/new-page-1 --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Squirrel and Jeffrey have different takes on the value of estimating a tech team's planned work at the beginning of a longer cycle, like a sprint or a quarter: Jeffrey says the discussion of an estimate often leads to insights and better outcomes, and Squirrel says you can get the same results without the estimates. Both agree that sharing and measuring against the estimates outside the team is counterproductive! SHOW LINKS: - LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dsquirrel_my-friends-at-cto-craft-are-45-right-about-activity-6983761206993899522-raHE - Squirrel Tweet: https://twitter.com/douglassquirrel/status/1578315480472985602 --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss various ways to make statements about the future ("this feature will take a week" or "users will buy 20% more if we cut prices in half") and disagree about exactly how valuable they are and how to use them. SHOW LINKS: - Tilted Slider: https://agileconversations.com/blog/dont-add-more-metrics/ - Toyota Kata: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mrother/Homepage.html - Thinking in Bets: https://www.annieduke.com/thinking-in-bets/ - Estimates are Lies: https://squirrelsquadron.com/events/2022/09-15-estimates.html - Superforcasting: https://www.amazon.com/Superforecasting-Science-Prediction-Philip-Tetlock/dp/0804136718 - Betting Market: https://manifold.markets Events: - Jtf at CITCON Europe Oct 14th & 15th: https://citconf.com/zwolle2022/ - Jtf at DevOps Enterprise Summit Oct 18th-20th: https://events.itrevolution.com/lasvegas/ - Squirrel live in Vienna Oct 20th: https://squirrelsquadron.com/events/2022/10-20-vienna.html - Squirrel live in Miami early November: https://squirrelsquadron.com/events/2022/11-09-miami.html --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

One of Jeffrey's clients solves their burnout problem, and then the same problem comes up in other coaching sessions: needing the freedom to disagree. Squirrel finds a related problem of burnout from being unwilling to disappoint others. Both the need to disagree and to disappoint require difficult conversations, but you can’t really say yes without being able to say no! SHOW LINKS: - The Uncanny Valley of a Functional Organization: https://stratechery.com/2013/the-uncanny-valley-of-a-functional-organization/ - Amy Edmondson (author of Teaming): https://amycedmondson.com/#books - Hard Work Not Hard Conversations: https://agileconversations.com/blog/hard-work-not-hard-coversation/ Upcoming Events: - Squirrel live in Berlin Sept 29th: https://squirrelsquadron.com/events/2022/09-29-berlin.html - Jtf at CITCON Europe Oct 14th & 15th: https://citconf.com/zwolle2022/ - Jtf at DevOps Enterprise Summit Oct 18th-20th: https://events.itrevolution.com/lasvegas/ - Squirrel live in Vienna Oct 20th: https://squirrelsquadron.com/events/2022/10-20-vienna.html - Squirrel live in Miami early November: https://squirrelsquadron.com/events/2022/11-09-miami.html --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Squirrel has a suggestion for collaborating with people who are irrationally wedded to particular "agile processes", and Jeffrey has related ideas for working to their polar opposite, the anti-zealots who say no process will ever work. SHOW LINKS: - Squirrel's tweet on zealotry: https://twitter.com/douglassquirrel/status/1570321020543696897 - CITCON Europe: https://citconf.com/zwolle2022/ - DevOps Enterprise Summit: https://events.itrevolution.com/lasvegas/ - Squirrel in Berlin and Vienna: https://squirrelsquadron.com/events.html - Xavier Amador, LEAP: http://dramador.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnbOizw_zS0 --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Squirrel describes how deals with overly vague strategy descriptions: tune them until they’re specific enough that someone could disagree with them. He and Jeffrey discuss how this applies beyond strategy, the value of asking probing questions, and the productive conflict that can arise from getting past the "motherhood and apple pie" answers. SHOW LINKS: - Podcast episode, Adversarial Analysis: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/scoring-briefing-and-back-briefing - Agile Conversations: https://agileconversations.com

Squirrel describes how he tells clients to handle overly specific, too-coherent directions: consider what an adversary would do to comply with the direction and still get bad results. He and Jeffrey discuss illustrative examples and applications from military history, economics, and pizza delivery. SHOW LINKS: - Little Bobby Drop Tables: https://xkcd.com/327/ - Goodhart’s Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law - Pizza Arbitrage: https://www.readmargins.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage - Art of Action, Briefing and Back-briefing: https://www.stephenbungay.com/Books.ink - Podcast episode, Briefing and Back-Briefing: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/briefing-and-back-briefing - Podcast episode, Scoring Your Briefing and Back-Briefing: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/scoring-briefing-and-back-briefing --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

A client challenges Squirrel on his directive style when coaching, wondering whether this clashes with his espoused belief in joint design and inquiry. Jeffrey and Squirrel reflect on the crucial differences between being asked for advice and help, and manipulating the situation and information flow to "win" an argument. These considerations turn out to be relevant to product and technical decisions too! SHOW LINKS: - Unilateral control & mutual learning values: https://infed.org/chris-argyris-theories-of-action-double-loop-learning-and-organizational-learning/#_Model_I_and - Coaching Kata: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mrother/The_Coaching_Kata.html --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Squirrel and Jeffrey trade stories about leaders who live in fear of key software developers leaving, and therefore avoid honest feedback and effective reprimands. The ironic result is that this "skilled incompetence" leads to exactly what they're trying to avoid: the best engineers do leave because of the negative and secretive culture. The way out, of course, is the Accountability Conversation. SHOW LINKS: - Tweet: https://twitter.com/douglassquirrel/status/1559121793830379521 - Squirrel Squadron: https://squirrelsquadron.com - One Minute Manager: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_Minute_Manager - Unilateral control values: https://infed.org/chris-argyris-theories-of-action-double-loop-learning-and-organizational-learning/#_Model_I_and - Accountability Conversation episode: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/accountability-leaders-are-accountable-too --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Responding to a listener's question, Jeffrey and Squirrel reflect on the difference between a product owner and a process owner, and how IT projects differ from building products for external users. Unsurprisingly, methods for delivering value and saying no feature prominently! SHOW LINKS: - Project to Product: https://itrevolution.com/book/project-to-product/ - Mik Kersten interview: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/project-to-product-with-mik-kersten - Reengineering the Corporation: https://bookshop.org/books/reengineering-the-corporation-a-manifesto-for-business-revolution/9780060559533 --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

We look at why "prop trading" companies like Jane Street have phenomenally profitable technology operations, and how we can learn from them and improve, even in organisations where IT is a "cost centre". SHOW LINKS: - Jane Street article: https://www.thediff.co/p/jane-street - DevOps Enterprise Summit: https://events.itrevolution.com/virtual/ - Spike and Stabilise: https://dzone.com/articles/patterns-effective-delivery-%E2%80%93 - Previous episode on ROI: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?i=1000574885063 --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Squirrel and Jeffrey look at two ways to "thin" features to achieve a better return on investment, for both customer features and productivity improvements. SHOW LINKS: - Squirrel’s tweet: https://twitter.com/douglassquirrel/status/1554153810876157953 - Feature thinning: http://www.agilekiwi.com/other/agile/feature-thinning/ - Poppendieck lean book: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/194338.Lean_Software_Development --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Taking iterative development to heart, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss a learning loop topic, Summer Shorts and Learning Loops: OKRs, in five minutes or fewer. Take just a few minutes with us to improve your team's learning and speed! --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Taking iterative development to heart, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss a learning loop topic, Summer Shorts and Learning Loops: Retrospectives, in five minutes or fewer. Take just a few minutes with us to improve your team's learning and speed! --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Taking iterative development to heart, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss a learning loop topic, Summer Shorts and Learning Loops: Walking the board, in five minutes or fewer. Take just a few minutes with us to improve your team's learning and speed! --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]

Taking iterative development to heart, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss a learning loop topic, Summer Shorts and Learning Loops: Elephant carpaccio, in five minutes or fewer. Take just a few minutes with us to improve your team's learning and speed! --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at [email protected]