Product Agility

Send us a textAri has woven his thoughts on group dynamics by consolidating 70 years of research into something he believes are the team dynamics fundamentals that everyone Scrum Master should know how to leverage to help teams reach high performance WHO IS ARI?Ari provides coaching, training, and consultation for Agile Teams, Product Owners, Adoption Leaders, and executives. He has worked in the software business since 1990, including seven years of developing fault-tolerant embedded real-time systems.✨This research was done in som elunlikley contexts, you will be amazed what we in the Product Agility world can learn from coal miners.✨Were Coal miners the first Feature Teams?✨What is the "third" relationship that we can find in a team that is not between each individual but between the individuals and something else✨how can understanding thie extra entity help us to create teams whose performance sets them apart from the crowd?✨What can we develop in ourselves that enables us to be aware of this and manage the power it holds over us and others?✨We learn the first necessary step in team forming, that if missed could caause performacne improvement inertia✨What is the role of the "situational leader" and how teams thrive because of it✨✨And how this situational leadership can then lead the team to an untimely death✨How can you tell if your team is in its Teenage years?✨How the teams "internal questions" are the key to the next stages of team development✨How long does it take for teams to reach distinguiable levels of performance✨Why "Dreaming" is better than "Norming"✨How can we turn this advice to communiities?✨Team resiliacny, does it mean being hard so nothing effects your or soft so that they can dented and recover, becoming something newUSEFUL LINKSThe images Ari was showing during the episode (Team Life Cycle) - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1D_GnHqZtnp1RsSnl0PBb8aQZcsYP2JZ-?usp=sharingTeamwork and Rewarding, a blog post by Ari - https://gosei.fi/blog/teamwork-and-rewarding/More info on Ari's approach - https://gosei.fi/teHost Bio Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes. Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱! Ben Maynard 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/ 🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard 💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ Product Agility Podcast 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/ 🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56 iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p Want to come on the podcast? Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80

Send us a textTeam performance has almost become a taboo topic in the agile world, which I believe is ridiculous. Scrum Masters and Agile Team Coaches are there specifically for that reason. You can guess how I felt when Ari Tikka - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aritikka/ wanted to talk about this. In a word, EXCITED. WHO IS ARI?Ari provides coaching, training, and consultation for Agile Teams, Product Owners, Adoption Leaders, and executives. He has worked in the software business since 1990, including seven years of developing fault-tolerant embedded real-time systems.WHAT IS IN THE EPISODE🎭How introducing a new vocabulary and knowledge of teamwork enables transformational team dialogue and performance🎭What type of work is inherently inconsequential, and why this work stops team performance improvement in its tracks🎭How do you resolve the big impediments? What two things are needed in a room to accelerate continuous improvement and the removal of BIG impediments? Ari shares a huge secret to his success🎭 How Ari's work builds on top of Richard Hackman's work (standing on the shoulders of giants - diff thumb)🎭What are the enabling conditions that enable teams to have great performances?🎭Does Ari think that psychological proofing to choose team members works?🎭Would you believe that coaching a team only contributes 10% towards their performance? We talk about the other 90 10% of the performance that can be influenced.🎭According to Richard Hackman's research, how much of an effect can coaching a team have when compared to, let's say, getting the team set up in the first place a coach, if coaching a team may be only influencing performance by 10%, Ari gives you some options🎭What is the contract game, and why should you know about it!USEFUL LINKSThe Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/255127.The_Fifth_DisciplineMIT Beer Simulation Game - https://web.mit.edu/jsterman/www/SDG/beergame.htmlHost Bio Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes. Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱! Ben Maynard 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/ 🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard 💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ Product Agility Podcast 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/ 🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56 iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p Want to come on the podcast? Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80

Send us a textAri Tikka - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aritikka/ has a magic wand for team performance, just what this wand was took me by surprise. Not because its actually magic but because it stands a pretty good chance of working because 1) its not actually magic 2) its based upon research 3) Ari has a rather special approach.WHO IS ARI?Ari provides coaching, training, and consultation for Agile Teams, Product Owners, Adoption Leaders, and executives. He has worked in the software business since 1990, including seven years of developing fault-tolerant embedded real-time systems.WHAT IS IN THE EPISODE?In this episode, Ari makes the case that, to achieve a great systemic, organisational performance a Team, regardless of size, is required. Focusing on 7+/-2 won't get us to where amazing performances are staged,  so we spoke about🍄What is performance in a team context? 🍄Everyone knows there are two types of magic Harry Potter style (real) and Dynamo - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo_(magician) (not real). Which is Ari's?!🍄What are group dynamics?🍄What does Ari recommend when you get to more than around eight teams? 🍄What type of Teamwork and collaboration mode has Ari seen between Product Owners🍄The problems with people who have never really experienced great teamwork leading and managing teams 🍄In small-scale software development, how does Ari see leadership being enacted? 🍄How the performance of the "smartest person" has held back our thinking on Teams 🍄 Why is it that in some organisations, the "aggressive whippers" (aka Project Managers who focus on Jira ticket management) get promoted?🍄 Ben's complete ignorance as to what Zen meditation is was exposed (Ben: "turns out its inverse floating") 🍄Is a Requirement Area  - https://less.works/less/less-huge/requirement-areas in If the enablers for Teamwork are the same for communities, so what are Ari's tips for getting a community working well?  USEFUL LINKSRichard HackHost Bio Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes. Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱! Ben Maynard 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/ 🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard 💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ Product Agility Podcast 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/ 🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56 iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p Want to come on the podcast? Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80

Send us a textJames Mayers is the Cofounder & former CEO, Mind the Product. I grabbed James for 10 minutes at the Product Elevation 2022 conference in Dublin to get his talk in Ten.Now his talk wasn't titles the "Product Mentor" shortage, but I needed something pithy to put on the thumbnail and it seemed relevant to our conversation. Here is the offical title and synopsis for his talkHow to build the best support for you AND your teamProduct mentors are in short supply, leadership mentors even more so - and real experts are always time poor. This lightning session will run through tips, tactics and hacks to help you build the support networks you needWhat James has to say on mentoring in the Product world was fascinating, thought provoking and  practically useful.These descriptions are short, mostly because I am sat in the conference venue trying to keep the cycle time per episode nice and short :-)Useful LinksJame's slides from  Product Elevation -https://www.slideshare.net/JamesMayes/building-support-for-product-peopleLinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmayes/Twitter – https://twitter.com/James_MayesHost Bio Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes. Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱! Ben Maynard 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/ 🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard 💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ Product Agility Podcast 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/ 🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56 iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p Want to come on the podcast? Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80

Send us a textJanna is a product manager, taking the forms of a startup founder and CEO, consultant, and accidental event manager.  As a product manager, she is always looking for better tools, which led to her founding ProdPad, product management software that helps you manage your roadmap and your product backlog.Janna on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jannabastow/Continuing with the hugely popular "Talks in Ten" format Ben is at the Product Elevation Elevation 2022 conference in Dublin asking people to summarise their talk in ten minutes (ish)This time up it is Janna Bastow, her talk was enlightening and this short interview is rammed with good tips.Here is the overview of her talk (and this chat)In this talk, Janna will look at modern road mapping best practices, including where lean road mapping came from and how to put it to use in your organization. You’ll learn practical tips on how to move away from old school feature and date-driven roadmaps, and how to move your team on to a leaner, more objective-focused track of product management using OKRs.Brilliant linksThe slides - https://bit.ly/lean-roadmapping-okrsA safe place to play with Janna's Prodpad-  www.prodpad.com/sandboxProdpad- - www.prodpad.com/Host Bio Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes. Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱! Ben Maynard 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/ 🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard 💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ Product Agility Podcast 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/ 🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56 iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p Want to come on the podcast? Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80

Send us a textBen is at the Product Elevation Conference in Dublin and delivered an experimental talk on Product Team Coaching. TLDR: Its about how to increase Product Team Performance.This talk was done live less that one hour before release, how's that for a low cycle time :-)Product Elevation - https://skillsmatter.com/conferences/13772-pe2022-in-person#programThe slides are here - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gfV1UHp2ZFov3iFEfCmkcQoEchsEzI8w?usp=sharingWhy experimental? The slides were a bit out there and the content, perhaps a little different to what people were expecting!Either way, it went down brilliantly. Enjoy!Host Bio Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes. Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱! Ben Maynard 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/ 🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard 💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ Product Agility Podcast 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/ 🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56 iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p Want to come on the podcast? Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80

Send us a text**DISCLAIMER** This is my MOST POLITICAL PODCAST to date and goes deep on a HUGE failure of a HUGE project. It is an emotive topic for many so I want to make it clear that there were great people working long hours and nothing we say is aimed at any one person. It was, in my (Bens') opinion, a systemic failure with nothing to do with individual people. Pardeep "Paddy" Dhanda - https://www.linkedin.com/in/paddy-dhanda/,  Creative Industry Awards Best Content Creator nominee,  Agile Practices Director for the UKs largest technical training company QA picks up from where we left off in episode 1 to try and understand what could have been done to have made the £2 billion project less of a sh*t show.  Having been on benefits for half of his life, this was a  topic close to Ben's heart.So what did we talk about?✨ When people parent the truth away from the people doing the work.✨ How the LeSS Huge Product Owner structure creates alignment✨ With a project with such a strong purpose, why didn't people speak up?✨Did the fact that consultancy firms had incumbent software give them too much power?✨Would it have been possible for Universal Credit to have been a single Product with a single Product Backlog?✨How competition between consultancy firms leads to feature/requirement land grabs, (much like corporate Cobra Paw - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45oTvnqTmrc) where the desire was to be the richest, not do the right thing for the people of the UK.✨Was there any approach that could have saved the project from disaster?✨ The Sponsor employed Go See, so what on earth went wrong?Some awesome links🔗 Universal Credit, the UKs largest agile failure - https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=universal+credit+agile+failurePardeep's AWESOME podcast superpowers.school - https://superpowers.school🔗 Seacom Enterprise Agility Conference - https://www.seacom.online/🔗 Check out this VisuaHost Bio Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes. Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱! Ben Maynard 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/ 🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard 💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ Product Agility Podcast 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/ 🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56 iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p Want to come on the podcast? Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80

Send us a textPardeep "Paddy" Dhanda - https://www.linkedin.com/in/paddy-dhanda/,  Creative Industry Awards Best Content Creator nominee,  Agile Practices Director for the UKs largest technical training company QA and ex IBM'er tells us about what it was like working on the UKs largest ever (to date) agile failure the UK Department Of Work and Pensions (DWP) £2 billion Universal Credit Platform. Having been on benefits for half of his life, this was a  topic close to Ben's heart. With around £1.12billion burnt on consultants, Paddy tells us what it was like working there and what he blieves were some of the biggest hurdles that lead to the DWP pulling the plug on all agile development for this delivery.Sounds pretty unbelievable right? You can find more information from this great write up from Computer Weekly - https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240187478/Why-agile-development-failed-for-Universal-CreditWhat is:Housing benefit - https://www.gov.uk/housing-benefitCouncil tax benefit - https://www.gov.uk/apply-council-tax-reductionSo what was explored?💣 A whole new reason why component teams are created that I had never though of. 💣How Paddy came from the UK's worst performing school to the UKs worst agile delivery💣What was the human skill that was missing that caused it to be such a HUGE failure💣 What do you get if you have 200 super intelligent consultants, what do you think they were optimising for? 💣 Universal Credit was seen as the UKs Conservative  governments flagship agile programme, how did this contribute towards it's failure? 💣 <Sarcasm> How you can you be totally agile when you have vendors handing large requirement documents they have spent years writing?  </Sarcasm>💣 Why so many scenarios they had to implement couldn't be without them being discussed by the UK Government leaders💣Do any agile approaches take into account the operational overhead created when technology is not the silver bullet? 💣 What is and who were the "middle users"?Host Bio Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes. Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱! Ben Maynard 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/ 🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard 💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ Product Agility Podcast 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/ 🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56 iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p Want to come on the podcast? Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80

Send us a text"The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay" - Henry FordSaloni had a seat at the table and could look people in the eye and help them directly with what they had to do. In her expeditions, did she find a way to make the contract game work? If aviation and agile is your thing, then do contact Saloni.Did Saloni's approach cause a lot of attrition? (The answer is yes, but not how you think)Is it really better to train them and risk the leave rather than not doing that and risk their stay?✔️Hear why Saloni thinks Business Agility is nonsense (and listen to this interview with Karim Harbott, author of the 6 enablers of business agility, to hear another side of the story)✔️What can the Peter Parker principle teach us about how we or others lead an "agile transformation."✔️In Saloni's big one, did they change the role descriptions for the senior people as well as the teams?✔️What is Saloni's elevator pitch for LeSS (given that she has spent time in lifts with very, very senior people before...)✔️What makes Saloni sad?✔️What is happy attrition?✔️Why agile isn't just values and principles anymore, it has morphed into something much scarier✔️Ben makes a case for the Real Product Owners and why they should be senior✔️And when Project Management is equally as senior pain begins, how has Saloni dealt with this in the past?✔️Do you need magic project managers to make a supply and demand model work?✔️Why do we still need Project Managers in big organisations as they begin to make agile work✔️What is Ben on about with the Beer Game - Find out here✔️Why do you need to be bi-lingual, speaking both corporate and agile speak? ✔️Why talking about adoption just messes things up✔️What was the word never said in Saloni's last big LeSS-like usage?As mentioned in this episodeHost Bio Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes. Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱! Ben Maynard 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/ 🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard 💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ Product Agility Podcast 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/ 🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56 iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p Want to come on the podcast? Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80

Send us a textSaloni Seth-Watkins has an agile experience that sets her apart from 99% of the agile crowd.She's been a consultant at one of the BIG 5, helped build successful companies from the ground up, has the unique experience of using agile in the aviation industry AND also been Director of Performance & Talent at one of Europe's most recognisable big banks.What did we talk about? Let's find out 🛫 Why good will and good intentions wont make you agile and how governance cna help. 💣💣SAY WHAT?!💣💣 🛫Should we have sympathy for the Managers 👿? How can we help make it possible for managers to be successful in a corporate environment when using LeSS? 🛫  Saloni gives us some solid advice on how to achieve a bubble and even break through it, reminds me of my my chat with John Coleman 🛫 Has the agile coach industry ended up being an outsourcing partner for peoples agile thinking?🛫 Outcome, purpose, behaviours and interactions descriptions over Job Descriptions? 🛫How can you be MORE agile by reducing power and autonomy?🛫 What can you do with 126 distinct technical "products" and a desire to be agile? 🛫 What 💡did Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) turn on for Saloni? 🛫 How LeSS is more than just Scrum 🛫 Are the agile Values the behaviours we would like to see? 🛫 What is the link between an organisation's and the ability for people to live these values? 🛫 Doe's technical excellence enables the application of the agile principles? And how can LeSS enable the the application of the values? 🛫 What do big organisations and coach tours have in common? Useful LinksLeSS Manager Job Description - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qqdHkJBWzVBwlKqdsFe-ZIRZQDwZPWYY-zJcBDnTP_o/edit?usp=sharingHost Bio Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes. Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱! Ben Maynard 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/ 🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard 💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ Product Agility Podcast 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/ 🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56 iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p Want to come on the podcast? Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80