Agile Bites
Integrity Inspired Solutions
There is a lot of material on how a team should operate in an agile manner. There is also a lot of material for leadership as to the benefits of agility, the mindset, etc. But there is not a lot of material directed towards those folks who sit in between.
Agile Bites breaks down key Lean and Agile concepts and practices for the people who are often tasked with supporting these things. People who may have to be redefining their roles in a world of incremental delivery. Or maybe they’ve been put in the middle of an “agile transformation” and things are not going as well as promised.
Agile Bites breaks down key Lean and Agile concepts and practices for the people who are often tasked with supporting these things. People who may have to be redefining their roles in a world of incremental delivery. Or maybe they’ve been put in the middle of an “agile transformation” and things are not going as well as promised.
Episodes
Mentioned books
7 snips
Apr 24, 2023 • 25min
Mapping Your Team's Value Stream
Discover the art of mapping your team's value stream and why it’s crucial for turning raw ideas into deliverable products. Learn how to craft a Kanban board that extends beyond basic labels, optimizing each column to enhance workflow and team productivity. Explore the importance of managing backlogs and prioritizing tasks to eliminate bottlenecks. Gain insights on maintaining visibility in your processes and the roles involved in effective development. Streamline your team's efforts for maximum efficiency!
Apr 17, 2023 • 26min
How to Build Trust in Your Team and Your Organization
The cornerstone of any relationship—at work or elsewhere—is trust. But unfortunately, it's something that many software teams lack, causing a whole slew of problems including dysfunction and inefficiency.
In this episode, we let you in the two biggest ways we build and maintain trust at our organization and how you can do it in yours too.
4 snips
Apr 10, 2023 • 23min
Flows, Not Projects
This discussion explores the limitations of traditional project management in software development. It emphasizes the need for a flow paradigm that prioritizes ongoing value delivery over fixed timelines. The hosts propose adaptive funding models that increase flexibility and responsiveness. Expect insights on rethinking how we plan and monitor software efforts to align with agile principles.
Apr 3, 2023 • 15min
Wrangling Your Spikes and Research Stories
We know we're supposed to be dividing our work into small, deliverable chunks and reflecting that on our boards. But what should we do with the occasional tasks that don't exactly have a tangible deliverable at the end of them (e.g. research, proof of concept)?
In this episode, we're helping you build a policy for when spikes and research stories come along so you can stop trying to retrofit abstract tasks into user stories and keep your board flowing with deliverable value.
Mar 27, 2023 • 19min
Work Item Age - The Silent Killer
Explore the crucial impact of work item age on Agile practices and why it matters for your team's efficiency. Discover how aging tasks can frustrate both stakeholders and developers, leading to a drop in morale. Learn effective strategies to tackle aging work items, prioritize resolutions, and enhance productivity. Emphasizing visibility, the discussion advocates for integrating work item age into daily conversations, ensuring a consistent stream of value delivery.
Mar 20, 2023 • 20min
The One Metric You Need (That You Probably Aren't Tracking)
We'll spare you any more suspense after reading this click-bait title—in this episode, we're talking about throughput. Throughput reveals chaos happening on your team, helps you plan, and can show you where to improve. That's why this is one metric you need to track if you aren't already.
Learn how you can easily start tracking your team's throughput and how you can use it to make your team better at getting valuable software out the door.
Mar 13, 2023 • 21min
Handling Cross-Team Dependencies Without Resorting to Violence
Building software requires a lot of bringing lots of different pieces together. But when some of those pieces depend on others outside your team, there's more opportunity for bottlenecks and inefficiencies. But while dependencies are unavoidable, there are ways to avoid it becoming a bigger problem.
In this episode, we're going over two ways to handle cross-team efficiencies—even when the dependency isn't significant enough to justify adding a new person to the team.
Mar 6, 2023 • 19min
Why Agile Coaches Are Being Fired
Agile Coaching as a professional seems to be going through a shift right now. Recent headlines show large companies laying off large numbers of Agile positions. Some Agile coaches are rebranding what they do. It all raises the question: What is the value of an Agile coach and are we as coaches delivering on it?
In this episode, we're giving our two cents what we see causing this shift and how Agile coaches can stay ahead of it by proving and owning real value for their clients.
Feb 27, 2023 • 20min
The 3 Obstacles
If you're implementing any new practice (and that includes Agile practices), you're likely to come up against some obstacles.
At first, the practice might not work out the way you imagined it to. But an obstacle doesn't mean it's the wrong thing to be doing. In fact, obstacles are often the mechanisms by which we ultimately find success. They can be the signs that help us find what the right direction is
In this episode, we're talking about how to approach and not just overcome, but USE obstacles to your advantage in finding and implementing the best solutions for your situation.
Feb 20, 2023 • 15min
Sprint Goals That Work
Does your sprint planning include sprint goals? Sprint goals are a “newer” addition to the Scrum Guide (if 2013 counts as newer), yet many Scrum Masters seem unfamiliar with them. Broken down, the sprint goal is an explanation to stakeholders of why this sprint is valuable. It's what guides the decisions on what a team will work on for the next sprint.
In this episode, discover how to create good sprint goals that can positively impact your process, get everyone on your team on the same page, and increase the buy-in of stakeholders.
