Agile Teams and more

Chief Editor of The Outsourcing Journal interviews two tech entrepreneurs about how to build and manage effectively remote Agile software development teams. 

Intersog Podcast #2: How To Staff and Manage Effectively Your External Agile Team

Hosts: Tim Meyers (meyers_timothy@bah.com) and Luke Lackrone (lackrone_luke@bah.com)

On this episode, our Backlog's got a new agile tool, a new book from the creator of Scrum, more effective meetings, the Agile Coaches' Coach's perspective on SAFe, the #NoEstimate movement, and "The Happiness Advantage."

Additionally, in the Time-box this week, we take on the values that Agile is grounded in and what makes them special, our Spotlight this week is the "Bockman Technique" for ordering, and we check out some of our feedback.

The Backlog:
* Taiga.io - https://taiga.io/
* Scrum Book - http://www.amazon.com/Scrum-Doing-Twice-Work-Half/dp/038534645X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412609645&sr=8-1&keywords=scrum+sutherland
* Time-boxed Meetings - http://www.boost.co.nz/blog/2014/09/the-joy-of-timeboxed-meetings/
* Lyssa Adkins on SAFe - http://www.infoq.com/articles/agile-coaches-coach-view-safe
* #NoEstimates - http://zuill.us/WoodyZuill/2013/01/25/if-you-found-estimates-bring-no-value-what-would-you-do/
* The Happiness Advantage - https://www.youtube.com/embed/GXy__kBVq1M 

The Time-box:
* The Agile Values

The Spotlight: 
* Bockman technique --  http://www.agilelearninglabs.com/2012/05/how-to-play-the-team-estimation-game/

Please send us feedback at tca@bah.com
Subscribe at http://feeds.feedburner.com/TCABAH

Iteration 1: Agile Family Values

The retired four-star general and and bestselling author of My Share of the Task shares a powerful new leadership model

Former General Stanley McChrystal held a key position for much of the War on Terror, as head of the Joint Special Operations Command. In Iraq, he found that despite the vastly superior resources, manpower, and training of the U.S. military, Al Qaeda had an advantage because of its structure as a loose network of small, independent cells. Those cells wreaked havoc by always staying one step ahead, sharing knowledge with each other via high-tech communications.

To defeat such an agile enemy, JSOC had to change its focus from efficiency to adaptability. McChrystal led the transformation of his forces into a network that combined robust centralized communication (“shared consciousness”) with decentralized managerial authority (“empowered execution”).

Now he shows not only how the military made that transition, but also how similar shifts are possible in all kinds of organizations, from large companies to startups to charities to government agencies. In a world of rapid change, the best organizations think and act like a team of teams, embracing small groups that combine the freedom to experiment with a relentless drive to share what they’ve learned.

McChrystal and his colleagues explain their process for helping organizations embrace this model. They also share fascinating research and examples from settings as diverse as emergency rooms and NASA’s mission control center.

Read by Paul Michael. Introduction and recaps read by General Stanley McChrystal.


Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal, Chris Fussell, Tantum Collins, David Silverman

In this edition of Sound Notes we sit down to interview Enterprise Agile Coach, Dean Stevens ahead of his presentation at the Agile2015 Conference. The basis of Dean's presentation explores how a Product Owner Team functions in large organizations. Dean shares a preview of the roles associated with a Product Owner Team and how this team helps accelerate your product delivery. 

Product Owner Teams: Leading Agile Program Management - Agile2015

Agile in Wonderland: Designing for an agile client with an offsite UX team

In this version of Sound Notes, we sat down with Jann Thomas and Tim Wise of our consulting team to answer questions from attendees of our Certified Scrum Training courses. This podcast tackles questions on how UX fits into Agile and recommendations to help Design and UX work with Agile.

Recommendations for Dealing with Agile and UX

Join Dr. Krister Lowe and today’s featured guest and leading organizational coach Bob Costello—a Senior Agile Coach with the Eliassen Group—for this week’s episode of The Team Coaching Zone Podcast! Bob offers over 20 years experience in the software industry and has held leadership positions in both software startups and large organizations. He has a background in software development, product management, and engineering. For the last 8 years Bob has been helping organizations, both at the team and leadership levels, to make the transition to agile. Bob excels at helping organizations achieve both their business and organizational goals of an agile change program, with leadership coaching, team coaching and change management. He has a rich background of experience with IBM Design Studio, BlueCollar Objects, Akkolade Consulting, Valtech, ACS, CGI-AMS, BEA Systems, Deloitte, Next Software and more.

In this episode Bob shares his journey over the last 20 years rising up through the ranks in the software development industry to becoming an agile leadership and team coach. Themes covered in the podcast include: working at NEXT Software with Steve Jobs; The Agile Manifesto; the changing operating context that catalyzed the agile movement; agile principles and practices; coaching agile mindsets vs. process; “being” vs. “doing” agile; using situational leadership for coaching agile leaders and teams; shared leadership in agile teams; the 4 SCRUM ceremonies; managing your role as an agile team coach; team maturity and development; agile teams as learning teams and more. Bob also shares some great stories coaching agile teams as well as recommendations on books and team coach training programs that focus on agile.

All team coaches including both generalist practitioners as well as specialists in coaching agile teams will find Bob’s insights and lessons learned well worth the listen. This is an episode that you will surely not want to miss!

053: Bob Costello: Coaching Agile Teams: From Being a Group to Becoming an Agile Team

The Refined Consultant Ep. 11 - Maturing Agile At The Team Level Podcast

An excellent indicator of a good Agile team is their High Performance.  This is very closely linked to the Happiness levels in the Team.  So what makes a Happy Agile team?

The Happy Agilist Podcast

What makes a happy agile team?

Agile marketing enthusiast Andrea Fryrear provides a list of solutions that can help marketers better implement Agile in their teams and increase their productivity.

For more great work management tips, visit the Talking Work Blog at: https://resources.workfront.com/project-management-blog

4 Agile Tools To Make You Happier And More Productive (No Matter What Kind Of Team You’re On)

In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Jay Trimble, mission operations manager, ground data system manager, and resource prospector for the Lunar Rover Mission at NASA. We talk about applying Agile, adopting design thinking and user-centered design, and what he and his team rely on to design and build software for mission control.

Agile Teams and more

Alexander Vermeulen