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

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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 info@agileconversations.com

Coaching On Strength, Part I

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

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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 info@agileconversations.com

Coaching On Strength, Part II

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 info@agileconversations.com

Play Rugby Not Chess

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 info@agileconversations.com

Office Politics and Toxic Behaviors

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 info@agileconversations.com

Study Groups Should Share

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 info@agileconversations.com

Absolute Zero

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 info@agileconversations.com

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/

Don't Worry About Doing It The Right Way

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 info@agileconversations.com

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/

The Value of Not Having a Plan

Troubleshooting Agile is a problem-solving session for agile teams. Jeffrey Fredrick and Douglas Squirrel look at common problems agile teams face and provide practical, immediately useful advice for getting back on track.

New tracks tagged #jeffrey fredrick