Sprint Commitment

We're launching a podcast!

Hosted by Tim Meyers and Luke Lackrone, "The Competitive Advantage" is Booz Allen's regular look across the agile landscape.

On this initial episode, our Backlog contains Scrum Masters and Product Owners, the Agile Mindset, Agile@Scale, Failing "Agile Initiatives," and, what can only be referred to as Lackrone's Coach Manifesto.

Additionally, we take the podcast itself into the Time-box for a meta-discussion, our Spotlight this week is the "Walking Skeleton" practice, and we answer some agile emails.

Backlog:
* ScrumMaster - http://www.agileprojectmanagementtraining.com/why-scrum-master-what-about-scrum-apprentice-maybe-we-need-a-scrum-jedi/
* Product Owner - http://allisonagile.com/index.php/articles/agile-theory/57-the-lorax-would-have-made-a-great-product-owner
* Scaling Agile - http://blogs.versionone.com/agile_management/2014/09/08/scaling-agile-your-way-agile-scaling-aspects-and-context-matter-greatly-part-1-of-4/
* Agile Mindset - http://sdtimes.com/guest-view-agile-mindset-time-change-thinking-scrum/
* Stop Agile Initiatives - http://agilitrix.com/2014/09/stop-agile-initiatives/
* TED: Shut Up and Listen! - http://www.ted.com/talks/ernesto_sirolli_want_to_help_someone_shut_up_and_listen?language=en

The Time-box:
* The podcast itself

The Spotlight: 
* http://alistair.cockburn.us/Walking+skeleton
* http://blog.codeclimate.com/blog/2014/03/20/kickstart-your-next-project-with-a-walking-skeleton/

Please send us feedback at tca@bah.com


Iteration 0: Walking Skeleton

All the tracks from my last album 'Skizm' previously released on Fruit Soup.

09 - Scrum Master Skids

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 this week's SoundNotes,  LeadingAgile’s Tom Churchwell and Matt Fischer join Dave to respond to two questions submitted by students of our Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Product Owner classes.

STUDENT QUESTIONS

Question 1:

"How do you see the way companies, after long years of waterfall, trying to move to Agile in few weeks?"

Question 2:

"How does a ScrumMaster correct a development team member?"

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

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

SEND US YOUR QUESTIONS
If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to 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/

Agile in a Few Weeks and Correcting Developer Behavior w/ Tom Churchwell

For this episode of SoundNotes, we reached out to some of the students who have taken CSM and CSPO classes over the last few months. We got a lot of great questions and will be responding to them over the next few weeks. This week, Derek Huether and Dave Prior respond to these two questions:

Question 1:

My team seems to have a problem with estimating and understanding the estimating concepts.  The team members are accustomed to traditional waterfall projects and estimating everything in units of time.  How can I help them understand estimating, but continue to complete the sprints with no pbis rolling over to the next sprint?

Question 2:

I have a team lead who is skeptical of scrum, especially metrics related to the process. He doesn’t think carryover matters from sprint to sprint as long as we’re “creating value” and getting the program priorities completed. Any advice on how to convince him that metrics can be a tool for good, and that the sanctity of the sprint commitment matters?

Links from the Podcast

If you’d like to check out the Multiple Team Throughput Forecasting Tool that Troy Magennis has created for use with multiple teams who have different ways of estimating work, you can find it (and his other tools) here: http://focusedobjective.com/free-tools-resources/


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/

Estimation and Meeting Sprint Commitments w/ Derek Huether

Booz Allen's regular look across the agile landscape