Product Agility
Ben Maynard
Less Method. More Meaning.The world of Product Discovery and Creation is becoming increasingly challenging due to mistakes and missed opportunities that are prevalent in agile teams, large-scale Scrum and all other agile frameworks. History has shown that when organisations try and scale their product development to more than one cross-functional team, mistakes are made that cut short many chances of getting all possible benefits.The route of this for many is the need for more attention paid to the incredible advancements in Product Management driven by hordes of professional Product People who prove that making their customers happier is not a pipe dream but a hard and fast reality.This podcast exists to explore all topics related to Product and Agility and Coaching. How do you marry the agile principles with Product discovery?Is it really possible to have hundreds of cross-functional teams (or Product Teams) all working from an effectively prioritised single Product Backlog and a dedicated Product Owner?How can you embrace continuous improvement and empirical process control for your product, people and processes?Ever wondered how to overcome the problems people face when trying to scale the Product Owner role and how it relates to Product Management and Product Teams?Baffled by how to define a product in such a way that enables Feature Teams (aka Product Teams) and why doing wrong means you will only ever be stuck with technical teams? Scrum Teams are not compatible with modern product management techniques.Want to know what Product Focus means and how the right focus makes creating a shippable product less painful?Need to get your head around how to blend modern product management techniques with Sprint Planning and Sprint Reviews to achieve Product Increments that cover the entire product?This podcast's original focus was on Scaling Scrum vs Single-Team Scrum and how organisations can reap the benefits of Scrum when working on a larger product but still keeping a single product backlog. We found many Product People liked what we said, and then the penny dropped. This isn't a podcast about scaling Scrum or the limitations of single-team Scrum.This podcast is for Product People & agile advocates who coach or get their hands dirty with Product creation.We promise there is no Taboo topic that we will not explore on your behalf. We aim to transcend the conversations about a single team, Daily Scrums, Scrum Masters and the double-diamond and bring everyone together into responsible teams dedicated to working on the entire product to make their customers happier and their lives more fulfilling.Come and join us on our improvement towards perfection, and give us your feedback (we have a strong customer focus, too), and who knows, perhaps we will discover the magic wand that we can wave over all the broken agile and sudo-products to create a more resilient and adaptable future by bringing the worlds of Product, Agility and coaching together.This podcast has the conversations and insights you need.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Nov 10, 2022 • 13min
Janna Bastow - The Skinny on Lean Road mapping: Product Elevation Talk in Ten
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
Nov 10, 2022 • 38min
Product Elevation Conference - Why Product Team Coaching Is The Secret Sauce We Need
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
Nov 10, 2022 • 27min
The UKs BIGGEST Agile Failure With Paddy Dhanda - Part 2 of 2
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
Nov 3, 2022 • 27min
The UKs BIGGEST Agile Failure With Paddy Dhanda Part 1 of 2
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
Oct 31, 2022 • 29min
How is the Peter Parker Principle Applicable To Large Agile Adoptions - Saloni Seth-Watkins Part 2 of 2
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
Oct 27, 2022 • 28min
Why a Seat At The Table Makes THE Difference to An Agile Transformation - Saloni Seth-Watkins Part 1 of 2
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
Oct 24, 2022 • 42min
Why You Should Give More of a Sh*t About Technical Excellence with Terry Yin
Send us a textPoor technical excellence means terrible quality software products. This low quality makes teams hate their work, so they leave. With high staff churn, baking in that quality becomes a useless endeavour.Or does it?Terry Yin is an Agile Software Development expert, trained and coached by Craig Larman and Bas Vodde for many years.So when he told me he has a training course that simulates a company with 100% attrition, and yet the quality remains high, I honestly thought that he, too, was high.It turns out Terry has spent 10 years crafting what is now called "LeSS In Action", which does what sounds impossible. Creates teams that inherit a codebase, evolve it, release it and, guess what, maintain an incredibly high level of quality.In this eye-opening episode, we explore: 🧨Can you tell if the way the software is being created supports the organisational goal? 🧨Does the PO have the right to ask everyone to work from Trunk to achieve CI? And why would they bother? 🧨What cant you tackle trunk-based development head-on with developers who don't or won't do it? 🧨Can you describe what a good organisational structure would be to help achieve tech excellence 🧨 What's better many teams working on many "high-priority epics" or many teams all working on one high-priority Epic. 🧨Does being a feature team mean only working on one type of feature? 🧨 Explore the course, which lets people see the organisational impact of great technical practices 🧨 What happens when you use Specification By Example (SBE) across people with different native languages?Use the Product being created in Terry's courses - https://doughnut.odd-e.com/Terry Yin - https://less.works/profiles/terry-yin-1 at www.less.worksLeSS In Action: Developer Practices - https://less.works/course-details/less-in-action-developer-practices-singapore-2982 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
Oct 20, 2022 • 34min
Ravi Jay - Incentives, Performance and Annual Employee Reviews in LeSS
Send us a textRavi Jay wins the competition for the most questions asked to me in one course. He had so many questions that I invited him onto the podcast so that we could finish them off.He did not disappoint.What makes Ravi's questions so interesting is that they are coming from a very practical and realistic frame of mind.So when he asks about performance reviews, I don't respond with "In LeSS there are no performance reviews" or "in an agile environment we want continuous feedback not an annual ritual to share out of date news"No, I was helpful and gave some valuable advice that can be applied with ease so we explored:In LeSS Huge how might rotating the APO and PO role help with performanceHow might a LeSS org think about career progression and competency improvementWhy Career paths are flow and we should think more about a Mosaic'sClarity coming from MaturityAnd so much more....Speaking of value, during the conversation I mentioned some LeSS Job descriptions. These are just as good in an healthy agile environment as well as a LeSS one so enjoy!LeSS Scrum Master Job DescriptionLeSS Manager Job DescriptionI also mentioned Saloni Seth-Watkin's (Candidate LeSS Trainer) talk from the LeSS conference 2021 where she spills the beans on LeSS needing More so here it is.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
Oct 17, 2022 • 33min
How to Engage Leadership When Adopting Agile - Rowan Bunning Part 2 of 2
Send us a textIn part two of my conversation with Rowan Bunning we get deep on the why we bother with agile and LeSS and what needs to be in place to make sure that your adoption dreams are not a folly.How is this done?If I wrote it all hear you would have no need to listen, so here are some teasers:What are Optimisation goals?Do organisations benefit from having a Perfection Vision?What the hell is a Gemba Sprint?Why you need both purpose and creation excellence? Michael Sahota's Why Agile Workshop still has legsSo who is Rowan?Rowan Bunning is an Australian pioneer of Scrum having become one of Australia's first ScrumMasters in 2003, Australia’s first Certified Scrum Practitioner® (CSP) in 2006 and Certified Scrum Trainer® (CST) in early 2008. With a background in software development, including with eXtreme Programming, he was hired as an Agile Coach by one of Europe's foremost Agile consultancies in 2007.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
Oct 13, 2022 • 9min
Technical Products SUCK
Send us a textThey SUCK because they mean teams do not get to know their customer, solve problems for their users and appreciate how they are contributing to increased happiness and revenue.And by "Technical Products", I mean Components and by Components I mean pieces of something that as a whole is valuable that has many components all working in unison, but no one component has value on its own.This makes me sad; this is why I think "technical products" SUCK. Why do people end up in this dire situation? In part, it is because of the gap between what is taught is taught in many basic Scrum courses and what the essence of Scrum was. Things to watch and read I mentioned in this episode: Dreams of Feature TeamsWho are the most important people when scaling agile?How to Identify Copy & Paste (Aka) Fake ScrumHost 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
