The Annual Halloween Episode: Scary Good Agile Stories with Eric Landes, Andrea Floyd, Alba Uribe, Erica Menendez, and Justin Thatil

This week, Dan Neumann is joined by Eric Landes, Andrea Floyd, Alba Uribe, Erica Menendez, and Justin Thatil. In today’s episode, they are celebrating Halloween by talking about some scary good Agile Stories, unlike previous Halloween episodes where the lessons learned after challenges and difficulties were addressed, this time, you will hear about crazy great Agile experiences that are worth sharing.

Key Takeaways

• Do you want to hear something scary? Doing Agile without digital tools!

  • Feel the transformation.

  • Don’t forget what Agile looks like from the interpersonal relationship aspect.

  • Focus on the toolset that you have and your perspective will get wider.

  • Sometimes taking a small step into something that you are uncomfortable with is the beginning of growth.

• The failing product story:

  • Justin tells the story when after a long time working trying to get a product right and being at the point of almost reaching the so-wanted outcome, the executive Team decides to cancel the project.

• A Scrum-But Situation:

  • The state of the Team was the scariest at the beginning, there were problems releasing, and they were not finishing on time. This Team was doing Scrum, but poorly. Eric and Dan were part of the engagement part of this Team, they talked with the client, and the outcome was good. The client went beyond what was suggested and better Scrum was starting to happen.

• When Agility sneaks up on you!

  • Andrea was working with a client, and there was a pause when she stepped away for the client to continue the journey alone, but then she was invited back. When she resumed work with the client she found that a reset had happened; she was asked very basic questions and even doubted if it was Agile that they were really doing. Andrea decided to stay curious and realized the Team was doing great things respecting the principles and practices of Agile, which are very foundational. They were, in fact, mastering Agile!

  • The Team start to self-identify Agile improvements by looking for the what and the why behind what they were doing and the outcomes.

• Enabling communication and transparency can create a scary amazing effect on a Team.

  • There was an organization that went 100% into Agile, it covered the organization, the Team, and also the physical location. Everything the Team needed was in place, they even have an additional TV to track progress on releases. They worked on the proof of concepts.

• Scary good collaboration!

  • No one is taking the lead and everyone knows what they need to do. The lead is there to answer questions, it is so scary good when the leader does not know what to do because everyone is doing so great!

Mentioned in this Episode:

Lead without Blame: Building Resilient Learning Teams, Diane Larsen and Tricia Broderick

Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great, Diane Larsen

The Art of Agile Development, James Shore and Shane Warden

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