One of the things you need for Agile practices to deliver on their promise is a fully dedicated team of people working together to deliver value in a predictable manner. What we want is a high-performing, learning team that can consistently make and meet commitments. 

But what if that isn’t an option? What if you work in an organization that still believes in the power of multi-tasking, or you work in an agency whose whole business model is built around the idea that everyone is 100% utilized across however many teams/projects are needed to hit that number?

In this episode of SoundNotes, Jeff Howey and Dave Prior take on the question of what to do if you don’t have dedicated teams. They explore the various forms this commonly takes, how it is likely to impact your ability to deliver value and they share some coping mechanisms as well as ideas on how to approach the conversation with the appropriate people when the time comes. 

Contacting Jeff Howey
Email: Jeff.howey@leadingagile.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffhowey/

Contacting Dave Prior
LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

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/

What if You Don't Have Dedicated Teams? w/ Jeff Howey

This is the first in a series of podcasts we’ll be doing on Growth Mindset. In this episode Mary Kaufman and Dave Prior discuss what a growth mindset is, why it is vital it is to the work we do at LeadingAgile, and how embracing challenges fits into a growth mindset approach. During the conversation, Mary and Dave provide examples of common challenges we all face both at work, in our day-to-day lives, and in introducing large-scale organizational change. As they walk through the examples, Mary and Dave share tips on how to embrace the challenges you face and keep yourself firmly grounded in a growth mindset.

Growth Mindset - Embrace Challenges

What is PSTIR? PSTIR is an acronym for a change management model we use at LeadingAgile to explain our approach to creating lasting change. It stands for Prepare, Socialize, Tailor, Implement, Reinforce and it is a series of collaboration and implementation activities that enable our clients to be part of the change while leveraging the LeadingAgile reference architecture. 

In this episode of SoundNotes, Dave is joined by LeadingAgile Principal Consultant, Melissa Oberg and Dennis Stevens, our Chief Methodologist to discuss what PSTIR is, why it exists and why it is such a crucial part of how we introduce and manage change in an organization.

Understanding Change Management w Melissa Oberg and Dennis Stevens

This week in SoundNotes, Chris Barton joins me to talk through a problem that shows up one way or another in every single CSM class I teach…

How do I get my team to want to do Agile when they don’t want to do Agile?

During the interview, Chris and I talk through different lenses you can employ to get a better understanding of what is driving the resistance and strategies for overcoming it. 

We also spend some time near the end of the conversation on how to influence when you have no sway. This one came from someone on a team who is earlier in their career and is paired with an older Tech Lead that seems to view her primary role as Team Meeting Scheduler.

Whether you are the one trying to influence, or you are the recipient of someone’s efforts to influence, there is a lot here that you’ll find valuable.

When The Team Doesn't Want to do Agile w Chris Barton

In this episode of SoundNotes, Len Greski joins Dave to discuss leadership and emotional systems. Len is a Principal Consultant at LeadingAgile and he has a background in sociology. As Len explains, “The most difficult challenge in delivering great products is getting people to work together." During the interview, we explore emotional systems theory and how that can be applied within our organizations and teams to create sustainable change and deliver great products.

The Bowen Family Systems Theory was developed by Dr. Murray Bowen. It is rooted in taking a systems view in studying families and the relationship patterns that develop between family members. Bowen’s theory and the eight concepts that came out of it can also be applied to the workplace and the emotional systems we create and participate in day to day. The better you are able to understand these systems, the more able you will be to foster systems that lead to a positive outcome for your team, your organization, and your customer.

Links from the Podcast

Bowen Family Systems Theory: https://www.thebowencenter.org
Johari Window: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johari_window
A Failure of Nerve by Edwin Friedman  https://amzn.to/3Cxc6dD

Contacting Len Greski

If you’d like to contact Len, you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/len-greski/
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/leonardgreski
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lgreski
GitHub: https://github.com/lgreski
Email: Leonard.greski@leadingagile.com

Contacting Dave Prior

If you’d like to contact Dave, you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to Dave.

Emotional Systems Theory and Leadership

Our guest, Troy Magennis, has been described as a national resource in the Agile community. He’s a published author and frequent speaker on forecasting and modeling Agile projects.

Today, Troy joins us to discuss how many of the metrics the Agile industry uses actually prevent companies from achieving the change they so desperately desire. Together, we’ll explore some ways the industry gets metrics and forecasting right and where it tends to go wrong. And Troy offers a ton of insight on how you can begin thinking about the work differently to release more value more rapidly more often.

Contacting Troy Magennis 
If you'd like to contact Troy, you can reach him at: 

Focused Objective: https://www.focusedobjective.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/troymagennis/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/t_magennis

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: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Interested in CSM or CSPO Training?
You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

Agile Metrics: Enabling Change with Data Modeling & Forecasting

Mike and Dave sit down to have another debate with ChatGPT about dealing with dependencies in Agile. Mike asserts that dependencies kill Agility and that they’re meant to be broken. ChatGPT says that it’s all about managing dependencies and that while dependencies may limit Agility, they can also foster collaboration and synergy.

The debate quickly rolls into a conversation about dealing with legacy technical debt and business capability modeling and how we need to focus on minimizing dependencies in all aspects of the business, not just at the team level. Dave even gets Mike to start talking about his latest thinking on composable enterprises and what executives need to know about software architecture.

Contacting Mike Cottmeyer
If you’d like to contact Mike, you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/
Twitter: twitter.com/mcottmeyer
Email: mike@leadingagile.com

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: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Interested in CSM or CSPO Training?
You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

Are Dependencies Meant to be Managed or Broken?

Join us for today’s podcast where we dive into the world of Kanban and Agile methodologies to unravel the thought process behind large organizations who want embrace Kanban. If you’re considering Kanban, or you’re currently grappling with workflow challenges, this video will equip you with some Kanban strategies to help you seamlessly implement and optimize Kanban in a dynamic enterprise environment.

Contacting Tom Furland
If you’d like to contact Mike, you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/tom-furland/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tfurland/
Email: tom.furland@leadingagile.com

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: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Interested in CSM or CSPO Training?
You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

Exploring Kanban in an Enterprise Environment

Business Agility is all about creating strategic alignment between different parts of your organization. One of the ways that we help our clients create strategic alignment is by implementing a four-tiered governance model that has a dedicated strategy team, or investment team on top. This team is responsible for setting the strategy, applying context for all the other teams, and making sure that they are holding the system of delivery accountable. 

But this requires a shift in how you think about things like metrics, OKRs and KPIs. IT requires a shift in how you think about funding and what it means to have a system of delivery. We explore all this and more in this episode of SoundNotes.

Contacting Andrew Young

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/andrew-young/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/atyoung/
Email: andrew.young@leadingagile.com

Contacting Andy Fine

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/andy-fine/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/andyfine/
Email: andy.fine@leadingagile.com 

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: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Interested in CSM or CSPO Training?
You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

How to Create Clarity and Unlock the Flow of Value in Large Organizations

As Agile becomes more mainstream and commoditized, breaking into the industry is harder. Companies value certifications differently, and expectations are all over the place. Even when you find a job that looks promising, finding a way to stand out and differentiate yourself is more challenging than it was 10 years ago. In this episode of SoundNotes, Dave sits down with Aimee McLean, who we recently hired, to discuss how they see the Agile job market and advise you on how to get started with a career in Agile in 2024.

Contacting Aimee McLean
If you'd like to contact Aimee, you can reach her at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/aimee-mclean/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/aimeemclean/
Email: aimee.mclean@leadingagile.com

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
X: x.com/mrsungo
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Interested in CSM or CSPO Training?
You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

How to Get Started with a Career in Agile

Thinking about becoming a ScrumMaster? Or maybe you recently got your CSM Certification, and you’re still trying to get your footing. Check out this quick podcast to learn what ScrumMasters do all day and gain some insights into the softer skills required of a ScrumMaster. 

Links From the Podcast

ScrumMaster Checklist
https://scrummasterchecklist.org/

42 Tasks for a ScrumMaster’s Job
https://agiletrail.com/2011/11/14/42-tasks-for-a-scrum-masters-job/

Contacting Vic Bonacci

If you’d like to contact Vic you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/victor-bonacci 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vbonacci/ 
Email: Victor.Bonacci@leadingagile.com

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 
X: x.com/mrsungo
 Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Interested in CSM or CSPO Training?
You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

What Do ScrumMasters Do All Day?

Carrying work over from one sprint to the next is a thorn in the side of many scrum teams. And often, it’s due to one or two team members who aren’t quite carrying their fair share of the weight. We recently covered this topic in a previous podcast but got some other cool ideas from our listeners that we wanted to discuss. So, in this quick podcast, we explore even more possible solutions for scrum teams dealing with an underperforming team member.

Podcast Mentions
https://www.leadingagile.com/podcast/what-do-you-do-when-one-dev-is-slowing-you-down/

Contacting Vic Bonacci
If you’d like to contact Vic you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/victor-bonacci LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vbonacci/ Email: Victor.Bonacci@leadingagile.com

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 X: x.com/mrsungo Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Interested in CSM or CSPO Training?
You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

What Do You Do with Underperforming Team Members?

Large organizations that want to stick around and maintain their competitive edge have to stop treating everything in their business like a distinct set of processes. How your technology is architected, your organization is designed, and your teaming strategies, resource management, governance, OKRs, and KPIs are all part of the same system. And you need to start treating them that way. In this podcast, Mike Cottmeyer and Dave Prior talk about the current state of Agile, how a lack of systems thinking is tanking the market, and the role of systems thinking as the transformation industry moves forward.

Contacting Mike Cottmeyer
If you’d like to contact Mike, you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/
 X: x.com/mcottmeyer 
Email: mike@leadingagile.com

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
 X: x.com/mrsungo 
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Interested in CSM or CSPO Training?
You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

A Systems Approach to Organizational Change

A couple years ago, Mike Cottmeyer did a webinar series on the fundamental building blocks of agility. These days, we’re calling these building blocks the physics of agile. Today, Mike and Dave get together to discuss the four laws that make up the physics of agile and why these laws must be taken into account to make agile work inside large organizations.

Contacting Mike Cottmeyer
If you’d like to contact Mike, you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/
 X: x.com/mcottmeyer Email: mike@leadingagile.com

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 
X: x.com/mrsungo Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Interested in CSM or CSPO Training?
You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

4 Truths You Need to Know to Make Agile Work

In the face of change, many people inside large organizations are often left with more questions than answers. Do I have the ability to lead my team through this? Do I possess the necessary skills? Will my role become obsolete? Is my job safe? A good change management strategy accounts for these questions and tries to reduce the angst surrounding the change by deploying solid stakeholder management practices. 

Today, Mike and Dave sit down to discuss how we approach stakeholder management and reveal some of the tactics we deploy during a transformation to create safe, win-win situations for all those participating in the change effort.  

Contacting Mike Cottmeyer
If you’d like to contact Mike, you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer 
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/ 
X: x.com/mcottmeyer 
Email: mike@leadingagile.com 

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 
X: x.com/mrsungo 
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com 

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com 

Interested in CSM or CSPO Training?
You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

Empathy, Trust, and Alignment: Stakeholder Management Tactics for Agile Leaders

In this episode of SoundNotes, Dave sits down with Dennis Stevens to discuss cloud transformation and why you might want to step back, take a deep breath, and come up with a more strategic and planful approach to moving to the cloud. Over the course of the conversation, they dig into some of the anti-patterns Dennis sees in the market that cause cloud transformations to fail, and they explore the benefits of having a strong cloud readiness plan and how you can begin to ensure that your plan is integrated with your business strategy.

Video Mentions 

Dennis’ Blog: Navigating the Challenges of Cloud Migration
https://www.leadingagile.com/2024/01/navigating-the-challenges-of-cloud-transformation/

Contacting Dennis Stevens 
If you’d like to contact Dennis, you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/dennis-stevens
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennisstevens/
Email: dennis@leadingagile.com

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
X: x.com/mrsungo
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Interested in CSM or CSPO Training?
You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

Avoid These Common Cloud Transformation Mistakes

Dave Prior sits down with LeadingAgile consultants Mary Lloyd and Lance Kind to discuss value stream mapping. What is it?  Why use it at all? And when should you use this technique? Together, they answer these questions, dig into an example of value stream mapping, and explore some use cases for the technique. 

Contacting Mary Lloyd 
If you’d like to contact Mary, you can reach her at:

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/mary-lloyd/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mary-lawson-lloyd/
Email: mary.lloyd@leadingagile.com

Contacting Lance Kind
If you'd like to contact Lance, you can reach him at: 

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/lance-kind/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/lancer-kind/
X: x.com/LancerKind
Email: lance.kind@leadingagile.com

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
X: x.com/mrsungo
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Interested in CSM or CSPO Training?

You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

An Introduction to Value Stream Mapping

Dave Prior is back again with Lance Kind and Mary Lloyd to talk about value stream mapping. In the last installment of this miniseries, the team gave a high-level introduction into what a value stream map is and why they’re important. On today’s episode of SoundNotes, they discuss how use value stream mapping to demonstrate the economic benefit of reducing waste in the system. 

Contacting Mary Lloyd
If you’d like to contact Mary, you can reach her at:

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/mary-lloyd/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mary-lawson-lloyd/
Email: mary.lloyd@leadingagile.com

Contacting Lance Kind
If you'd like to contact Lance, you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/lance-kind/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/lancer-kind/
X: x.com/LancerKind
Email: lance.kind@leadingagile.com

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
X: x.com/mrsungo
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Interested in CSM or CSPO Training?
You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

Quantifying Waste Reduction Using Value Stream Maps

In this third installment of our value stream mapping series, Mary shows Lance and Dave how to apply the technique of value stream mapping to your business architecture and capabilities so that you can make more informed, intentional, data-driven decisions to improve your business.

Contacting Mary Lloyd
If you’d like to contact Mary, you can reach her at:

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/mary-lloyd/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mary-lawson-lloyd/
Email: mary.lloyd@leadingagile.com

Contacting Lance Kind
If you'd like to contact Lance, you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/lance-kind/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/lancer-kind/
X: x.com/LancerKind
Email: lance.kind@leadingagile.com

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
X: x.com/mrsungo
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Interested in CSM or CSPO Training?
You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

Using Value Stream Maps to Identify Improvement Opportunities

A big part of becoming a truly product-driven organization is getting better at understanding the needs of your customers, and improving your products to meet their needs. In this video, Mary, Dave, and Lance take on the topic of customer journey mapping and show you how this tool can help you align around the needs of your customer. They’ll explain how this technique can identify the customer experience and put specific actions in place to court correct and wee out any of the negative experiences customers are having with your product. 

Contacting Mary Lloyd
If you’d like to contact Mary, you can reach her at:

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/mary-lloyd/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mary-lawson-lloyd/
Email: mary.lloyd@leadingagile.com

Contacting Lance Kind
If you'd like to contact Lance, you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/lance-kind/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/lancer-kind/
X: x.com/LancerKind
Email: lance.kind@leadingagile.com

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
X: x.com/mrsungo
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Interested in CSM or CSPO Training?
You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

How to Align Your Product-Driven Organization to the Customer Experience

We’re back with an all-new episode of SoundNotes where we discuss the nature of products. What are they? How are they different from services and experiences? And does it really even matter? Watch this week’s spirited conversation to see how we’re thinking about and defining products, and discover how your organization might be spinning its wheels by even having the debate.  

Contacting Mary Lloyd
If you’d like to contact Mary, you can reach her at:

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/mary-lloyd/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mary-lawson-lloyd/
Email: mary.lloyd@leadingagile.com

Contacting Andrew Young
If you'd like to contact Andrew, you can reach him at: 

LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/andrew-young/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/atyoung/
Twitter: x.com/exclamation101
Email: andrew.young@leadingagile.com

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
X: x.com/mrsungo
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Interested in CSM or CSPO Training?
You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

Product Development: Using Systems Thinking to Achieve Better Business Outcomes

Jim Hayden explains the five critical factors he looks at in tracking Agile Team Stability: Staffing, Unplanned Work, Too Much WIP, Churn and Dead Weight. During the interview Jim also explains how to measure the work and roll it up into an Index of Team Stability that he often uses with Agile Transformation Clients.

It3 - Measuring Team Stability - Jim Hayden

In this version of Sound Notes, we sit down to talk with Enterprise Transformation Consultant, Russ Peńa ahead of his talk at the 2015 Building Business Capability Conference in Las Vegas. Pulling from this background with IIBA and his role as the former Chief Methodologist of a Fortune 500 Bank, Russ discusses the differences between Business Analysts and Business Architects and how Business Analysts can grow themselves professionally to become Business Architects. From there, Russ and Dave discuss how Business Analysts can hone their chops to think strategically, the growth of IIBA and the crucial partnership between Business Analysts and Business Architects.

The Integrated Business Analyst - Aligning Business Analysts and Business Architects

In this episode of LeadingAgile's SoundNotes, Tim Wise joins Dave Prior to answer some questions from CSM and CSPO students about how Business Analysts, Systems Analysts and Product Managers can work with Scrum Teams.

If you are interested in learning more about LeadingAgile's Certified ScrumMaster and Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, please visit http://www.leadingagile.com/training/

If you would like to reach Tim, you can find him here:
LeadingAgile http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/tim-wise/
WiseAgile http://www.wiseagile.com
Tim on Twitter https://twitter.com/timswise
Tim on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/timwise

Student Q&A - The Role of BA, SA and Product Manager on Scrum Teams with Tim Wise

One of the challenges many organizations face with Agile is how to handle long term strategic planning in a way that creates visibility all the way through to the execution level. TIES is an approach to Agile planning that can help the business engage in long term planning, understand their organization’s capacity to actually execute on the work, and then see how that work can be broken down into pieces that are sized to allow the individual teams to execute on them.

In this episode of SoundNotes, Tom Churchwell explains how TIES can help with Agile Planning. Using this approach the work is sized into:

 - Themes - Strategic long term goals broken down into time boxes of 1 to 3 quarters.
 - Initiatives - Themes are broken down into elements that collectively address the theme. These are broken down into time boxes of 1 to 3 months.
 - Epics - Initiatives are broken down into Epics which would take between 1 to 3 sprints to deliver.
 - Stories - Epics are broken down into User Stories that are small enough to be completed by a Team within a Sprint, ideally within 1 to 3 days.


Show Notes

This is a pretty short podcast (less than 20 minutes) so I have not broken it down into timed show notes.

Contacting Tom Churchwell

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/tom-churchwell/
Email: tom.churchwell@leadingagile.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tchurchwell
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomchurchwell/

Contacting Dave

LeadingAgile: http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mrsungo
Personal Blog: http://drunkenpm.net

LeadingAgile CSM & 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.

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 dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Agile Planning with TIES w/ Tom Churchwell

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/

[podbean resource="episode=vv526-7e7f20" type="audio-rectangle" height="100" skin="1" btn-skin="107" share="1" fonts="Helvetica" auto="0" download="0" rtl="0"]

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: dave.prior@leadingagile.com
SEND US YOUR QUESTIONS

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

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/

Creating Empathy Maps with Scott Sehlhorst

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.

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: derek@leadingagile.com
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: dave.prior@leadingagile.com
If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

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/

Introduction to Leading and Lagging Indicators w Derek Huether

In one of my recent Certified Scrum Master classes, I had a number of students who were working on projects involving migrating from a legacy data warehouse to new data warehouses. Figuring out how to apply Scrum to the work they were doing presented a number of challenges and left some open questions. 

Here are two examples of the data related topics that showed up in the Parking Lot:

• How do I apply Scrum to data factory?

• As a Data Architect, I want to learn how Scrum applies to data factory so I can be part of a successful Dev. Team 

In talking with the students about the work they were doing, I was left with a question:

Is Scrum really the best option for this type of work?

While I'm able to understand the challenges they face—both with the work and applying Scum in this situation—my background does not include the necessary work experience to speak to this topic with any level of authority. Fortunately, at LeadingAgile I have many experts I can reach out to when I run into situations like this. LeadingAgile Senior Consultant, Dave Nicolette, was kind enough to spend some time digging into this topic with me. 

If you are working on large scale data-related projects and trying to figure out how to use Agile to get the work done, this week’s SoundNotes should offer you some valuable tips.

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

Contacting Dave Prior
If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

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/

How Do I Use Scrum on Data Warehouse Projects? w/ Dave Nicolette

When people talk about Agile, they often talk about the approach they are taking: Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming, SAFe, LeSS, DAD, Nexus, etc. These and the other frameworks and methodologies that could be considered to fall under the Agile umbrella are Systems of Delivery because they are techniques for delivering.

There's often an assumption that if we adopt the System of Delivery, our organization will Transform to Agile. Sometimes this happens, but often, organizations need more than a System of Delivery. They need a way to go about helping their organization evolve into a state where it's capable of realizing the benefits of the various Systems of Delivery. This journey from your current state, into a state that's capable of fully leveraging the System of Delivery, may actually require a System of Transformation.

In this episode of SoundNotes, our CEO & Founder, Mike Cottmeyer spends some time with Dave digging into what a System of Transformation is, why this is different than a System of Delivery, how the two are connected, and why having a System of Transformation is such a critical part of your organization's ability to realize the benefits of taking an Agile approach to delivering work.

Contacting Mike Cottmeyer
If you’d like to contact Mike you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mcottmeyer
Email: mike@leadingagile.com

Contacting Dave Prior
If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

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/

System of Delivery vs System of Transformation w/ Mike Cottmeyer

This week in LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, Tina Wang spends some time with Dave talking about Lean Portfolio Management. During the conversation, Tina and Dave cover exactly what Lean Portfolio Management is and how it differs from a more traditional approach to Portfolio Management. A good part of the discussion is spent on the topic of how to create alignment from strategic goals at the organizational level down to delivery team execution and the role that funding plays in this.

If you have questions about Lean Portfolio Management or you're curious about how to apply Lean practices and systems thinking to traditional portfolio management to consistently deliver value at a sustainable pace, this podcast is a great place to get started.

For additional content on the LeadingAgile site about Lean Portfolio Management, click here.

Contacting Tina

Email: Tina.Wang@leadingagile.com
LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/tina-wang/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-wang-spc/

Contacting Dave

Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com
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

Link to the case study: http://info.leadingagile.com/techcasestudy

We Need Reviews

If you like this podcast, we'd be very grateful for reviews or feedback in iTunes. It will help us create more visibility for this podcast so that we can reach more people. Click here to leave us a review or post feedback.

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 dave.prior@leadingagile.com

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.

Lean Portfolio Management w/ Tina Wang

In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Managing Consultant, Greg DePasquale explains what Outcome-Based Planning is, how it works, why it's so critical for enabling successful delivery, and how it works at different levels of the organization.

In outcome-based planning, we focus on “a results-driven plan rather than plan-driven results." There is a focus on the Why as opposed to the How. We center around the business outcome we are looking to achieve, rather than making sure we are doing “all the things." 

If you work in a project-based organization and status is tracked by things done (or percent of a thing done), you are probably more output focused. If you are planning for the results you want to achieve, and you and employ a strategy where we can continue inspecting and adapting towards that desired result, regardless of how many things you can check the done box on along the way, then you are outcome-focused.

Contacting Greg DePasquale:

Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/greg-depasquale/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregdepasquale/
Email: greg.depasquale@leadingagile.com

Contacting Dave Prior

If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at:

LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

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/

Outcome Based Planning w/ Greg DePasquale

This week’s SoundNotes features a question submitted by a student during a recent Certified Scrum Master class. The question was posted in the topic parking lot and we did not have time to address it during class, so I followed up with the student after class and we discussed it via phone. I also offered to do a podcast on it and Jeff Howey joins me this week to dig into the topic. Because I spoke to the student after class, I was able to add some more detail for Jeff which you will hear during the conversation, but the question posted by the student was:

I would like to know how long should milestones typically be and how many sprints should we break it down to. We have a goal of what we want to achieve and a rough timeline but we don’t log too many feature tickets ahead of time thinking that the task might become stale or pollute the board with an everlasting list of things to do and most of the time we were just closing the tickets. As a result, I feel we become short-sighted and optimize for the current sprint but not for the milestone.

Planning Sprints and Releases w Jeff Howey

LeadingAgile's resident Scrum trainer Dave Prior, hosts a weekly podcast that covers all sorts of topics about Agile, Scrum, Organizational Transformation and Leadership. No matter if your new to Agile development or an Agile veteran, Dave and his guest are sure to make you think about Agile in a whole new way.

Popular tracks by LeadingAgile