

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

May 6, 2022 • 8min
Communities Matter In LeSS
Send us a textHost 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

May 4, 2022 • 5min
Why go from Projects to Products?
Send us a textHost 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

Apr 27, 2022 • 5min
What does the term Product Really Mean?
Send us a textProducts here, products there, products are seemingly everywhere. And this is part of the problem.SAFe (The Scale Agile Framework) would seem to imply that a Product could be anything because there is no limit of the number of Product Owners you can have (well one per team, but you get the sentiment). This is wrong and its a problem if you really want to be able to adapt quickly and cheaply.In this episode I want to explain a meaningful way of perceiving a Product, one which doesn't over empower teams, slow you down and quite simply, break 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

Apr 20, 2022 • 5min
The Role of a Manager in a LeSS Environment
Send us a textIn an ideal world, a company would make the transition to #agile and we would all embrace flat structures and embody the roles as defined in the #scrum and #LeSS framework.But organisations don't transform overnight. The traditional style of management and project management has been around for over 100 years and it is deeply entrenched in most organisations.As much as we would love companies to embrace the 21st century style of working, the truth is that we have to integrate the old with the new in order to make progress in our quest for true Business Agility.So, where do managers fit into the equation?The #scrumguide doesn't make mention of line management nor does it make clear what role managers play in nurturing and developing a #scrum environment.And yet, managers exist in many of the organisations we work with, and they have a valuable if not crucial role to play in creating environments where people can excel and thrive.#LeSS expert and certified #coach, Ben Maynard, walks us through the role of a manager in a Large Scale Scrum environment.Ben has deep experience and expertise in #LeSS environments has been and has worked with both teams and managers to ensure successful and productive #LeSS adoptions around the world.Ben understands the enthusiasm with which #scrum is adopted and balances that dogmatic approach with a far more pragmatic approach to integrating traditional and #scrum working environments.In this short video, he shares his thoughts and recommendations for empowering managers to play a crucial role in helping teams to create and develop products and features that truly delight customers.#agile 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

Apr 13, 2022 • 6min
Why I Prefer LeSS over SAFe
Send us a textI (Ben here) have never really enjoyed telling me what to do.It has served me well over the years by gifting me with a very enjoyable, zig zagging career path and the freedom to spend time with the people that I love the most.Why am I saying this?Because Large Scale Scrum has played a ginormous part in the journey, not by telling me, in detail, what I should do. Rather it has provided me with some principles, challenging ideas and a community that have helped me to help others really push the boundaries of what they thought was possible with multi-team agile but in a way that worked (and still works) for them.Perhaps from this you can infer where I am going with this and perhaps why I prefer LeSS over SAFe, if you spend 5 minutes of your time listening to this episode I will give you some the benefit of my years and perhaps even change your opinion of SAFe (or LeSS) a little. 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

Apr 7, 2022 • 48min
Jürgen De Smet (Your Chief Simplification Officer), Certified LeSS Trainer Interview - Part 2
Send us a textWelcome to part 2! This is the best 2nd episode for one LeSS Trainer conversation we have ever published!! (and the first ;-) ) Last time we spoke about Potty Training (or at least I did), in part two we cover the remaining LeSS Trainer questions and also cover some of these tasty topics:Learn how Jurgen and Ben work through their differences when they disagree on Ben’s desire for LeSS to be more popularShould LeSS be mainstream, and if not why not?Find out what Ben is thinking about for the LeSS Matters Christmas SpecialsDo people want LeSS or simply multi-team Scrum and what's the difference?What does it take to push Jurgens boundaries?Is Scrum Master and Agile coaching a role or an industry?Is a Scrum Master and Agile Coach?FOMO is driving agile transitions leading to top-down change effortsThese are the LeSS Trainer questions we covered:What’s the one thing, above all others, you love about LeSS?What was your favourite LeSS adoption?If you could change one thing about LeSS what would it be?Agile In GeneralWhat is something in the agile world that should have been more popular? Following on from this, what is going to be the next big thing?A lot of extra stuff was mentioned, here are some links I promised and others I did not:The Land that Scrum forgotCoaching SupervisionICF and EMMC Team CoachingICF Codes of EthicsAny academic research for coaching effectivenessSoftware craftsmanship and testing community BelgiumSandro Mancuso - CodeuranceBas’s Tech excellence talk from the LeSS conference 2021Host 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

Apr 6, 2022 • 4min
The Role of a Project Manager in an Agile Environment
Send us a textYou often find that newly minted #scrummasters are incredibly enthusiastic about the idea that #projectmanagers don't have the same kind of authority or power as they do in a traditional #projectmanagement environment.For the true die-hard evangelists, there is no place for project managers in #scrum environments or #agile frameworks whatsoever. Something which doesn't go down very well with project managers.So, what do we do with project managers?For anyone who has worked with great project managers, you will know that they are passionate about creating products and features that truly delight customers. They are incredible people with the valuable skill set of being able to build relationships and keep project stakeholders on board through each element of the #project they manage.Why does #scrum not value these individuals? Why do agile frameworks not make provision for the amazing skillsets and passionate drive of these individuals?Truth is, they do.#agile is both a culture and mindset that truly values people. It prioritises people over processes and seeks to create environments where individuals and teams can excel, people with great project management skills, given the right support can be true advocates for this.In this short video, #LeSS coach and #trainer Ben Maynard walks us through the role of a project manager in an agile environment. If you're a project manager thinking about using the Scrum framework, at scale, that lives in the real world rather than dogma you're going to love this.Visit https://www.sheev.co.uk for more information on Ben Maynard and how we can work with you on your project management and product development needs.Find us on socials:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/less-matters-community Twitter - https://twitter.com/LeSSMattersComm Skillsmatter -https://skillsmatter.com/groups/10964-less-mattersThank you for watching! Subscribe for more. #agile #scrum #LeSS #largescalescrum #projectmanagement #productdevelopment #certifiedlesspractitioner #agilecoach #lesscoach #agiletrainer #projectmanagerHost 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

Mar 31, 2022 • 40min
Jürgen De Smet (Your Chief Simplification Officer), Certified LeSS Trainer Interview - Part 1
Send us a textHow does Jurgen greet CEO's in an elevator?By saying "Do you also find that this is a real mess out here!?" An unorthodox approach perhaps, but the way he delivers it must be heard! In this episode, Your Chief Simplification Officer, Jürgen De Smet and host Ben Maynard got along very well, almost too well as they ended up speaking for almost 2 hours. Brilliant conversation, too long for a podcast so we have split this into two parts.This is Part 1 and in it, you can:How organisational change is like potty training a child (clue, it can be quite messy if you do not do it well)Find out the key to creating an effective elevator pitchHear about how to balance the LeSS Adoption principle of Deep and Narrow in a 5000 person organisation where everyone is to be agileLearn about 4 different types of complexity that need to be addressed when simplifying your organisationHere about how LeSS does work with distributed teams (as well as co-located)Discover if LeSS is suitable for people who cannot yet think within the agile or LeSS principles and if not what are their options.Discover if you can ever say you have truely "Done" a LeSS AdoptionFind out what Jurgen thinks of PMBOK and Prince 2 AgileLearn why you should not base LeSS useage decisions on conversations and what you should do insteadFind out how Jurgen priototises his work to give him energy, not take it awayDiscover what kaikaku isSeeing as we spoke for so long, in this episode we covered the following questions About LeSSWhat is your elevator pitch for LeSS?Did you choose LeSS or did LeSS choose you?Stuff that was spoken aboutKaikakuJurgen de Smet: From idea towards a LeSS kaikaku @LeSS Day Europe 2020 (Scrum Ukraine)LeSS Case StudiesAgfaHost 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

Mar 24, 2022 • 2min
Jürgen De Smet (Your Chief Simplification Officer) Interview Teaser
Send us a textHost 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

Mar 23, 2022 • 46min
Bas Vodde Co-Creator of Large Scale Scrum Interview
Send us a textI was stoked that Bas Vodde, co-creator of the LeSS (Large Scale Scrum, www.LeSS.works) framework, agreed to come on the show and answer my favourite questions that I aim to ask every LeSS trainer over the coming shows:About LeSS(+) What is your elevator pitch for LeSS?(+) Did you choose LeSS or did LeSS choose you?(+) What’s the one thing, above all others, you love about LeSS?(+) What was your favourite LeSS adoption?(+) If you could change one thing about LeSS what would it be?Agile In General(+) What is something in the agile world that should have been more popular? (+) Following on from this, what is going to be the next big thing?Bas Vodde (https://less.works/profiles/bas-vodde) is an experienced coach in agile methods and especially Scrum. He’s also a certified Scrum trainer. He is originally from Holland, however, has lived in China, Finland and is currently living in Singapore. In the 90s he worked as a developer in Holland and felt a mismatch between what he experienced as working and between “what the official literature said you should do”. That was solved with the introduction of Extreme Programming and even more so, with Agile Development in general. At the beginning of 2001, he had enough of the “normal life” and moved to China where he started working for Nokia. Here, he gained experience on very large projects and the traditional ways they are run. After this, he became even more convinced that Agile Development is the way forward, for all size projects.Bas created the LeSS framework with Craig Larman (https://www.craiglarman.com/) over a number of years working alongside each other, a topic which we explore in this interview.A number of things were mentioned during the interview, I felt it right to share some links here to make it easier for you to see what we were speaking about:LeSS Case Studies (https://less.works/case-studies)There are 10’s of great case studies here to read, Ben’s RBS case study (https://less.works/case-studies/rbs) is a great example and the most recently released case study on huge LeSS Huge, autonomous driving at BMW (https://less.works/case-studies/bmw-group-autonomous-driving), whilst a hefty read is well worth it.Test-Driven Development (https://less.works/less/technical-excellence/test-driven-dHost 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


