Agile Coaches' Corner

This week, your host, Dan Neumann, discusses his perspective on the influence of Artificial Intelligence on Agile Teams. AI has created excitement and great expectations, undoubtedly changing how we perceive work and raising some concerns. In this episode, Dan dives deep into how Generative AI can impact Agile Teams’ work, describing AI’s use in this field and using valuable examples to describe several manners to incorporate AI to ease the work at different stages of an Agile process.   Key Takeaways Generative AI, a new thinking partner to Agile Teams: There are sensitivities around using the free AI models currently available. AI could be considered a great partner in addition to Team Members. The definition of done for each project cannot be delegated to AI, since the Team needs to determine the pros and cons, define the goals, and what it means to achieve them. Miro AI can be used as a Retrospective partner to examine the retrospective data the Team has been collecting. It can also help provide different ways of facilitating Retrospectives. AI is helpful to Delivery Teams in predicting releases. Agile Teams can use the Monte Carlo Simulation to predict a Team’s velocity by looking at historical data to create a range of future possibilities. Sprint planning could be simpler with the aid of AI. An Agile Team can seek AI help to provide other work items that might support the original Sprint Goal, based on the product backlog. How can AI assist in dealing with bottlenecks? AI can help identify some bottleneck trends based on the existing delivery data. AI as a tool for Product Owners and Quality Specialists to identify Acceptance Criteria: AI can assist Product Owners and Quality Specialists in defying product backlog Item acceptance criteria. To generate new acceptance criteria, test cases can be generated using an AI public tool or a technology ecosystem like Microsoft Copilot. Using Microsoft Copilot, a Team can look at the sentiment in which you are engaging with your Teammates. By searching the Team’s chat emails, AI can help you anticipate potential issues. Ai can provide strategies to tackle a potential social challenge that might be reflected in the Team’s communication. AI can use your historical information for risk management. AI can help a Team identify risks and develop strategies to solve them or even when to accept those risks since the cost of mitigating them exceeds the Team’s capabilities. Agile Teams can use AI for prioritization. AI can explore big data, search for information on costs and benefits, and provide useful suggestions for prioritization.   Want to Learn More or Get in Touch? Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com! Email your thoughts or suggestions to Podcast@AgileThought.com or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!  

Discover how to balance team autonomy and accountability in Agile frameworks. The discussion highlights the importance of self-managing teams and the role of trust in promoting open communication. Learn why empowering teams fosters creativity and faster decision-making, while also ensuring alignment with business goals. Delve into the significance of transparency and the proactive measures leaders can take to enhance team performance. Ultimately, it’s about creating an environment that encourages innovation while maintaining responsibility.

This week, Dan Neumann, your host, dives deep into how Managers can support and help their Agile Teams. We often fall into common misconceptions, such as believing that self-managing Teams do not need Functional Managers or finding that the Manager’s role is not well defined, making it difficult to identify how he can assist an Agile Team. In this episode, Dan shares many valuable tips for Managers trying to find the best ways to help an Agile Team.   Key Takeaways Tip No.1: Encourage Team Involvement. Involve the team in the solution process and respect their expertise and opinions. Involving team members in decision-making processes can lead to better  alignment, trust, and quality of solutions. Tip No.2: Support Learning and Development. Provide time and resources for training and other activities to support the Team’s learning and development needs. Give Team members time for training and attending relevant events to increase motivation and performance. Tip No.3: Foster a Flexible and Adaptive Mindset. Encourage managers to adopt a flexible and adaptive mindset and be open to change and feedback. Being adaptable and responsive to changes in the Agile environment has remarkable benefits. Tip No.4: Measure and Improve Workflow. Identify wasteful activities like handoffs and delays and streamline the flow of value to customers. Measuring the total time to deliver customer value and designing an effective workflow can improve Team efficiency. Tip No.5: Align Teams with Common Visions and Goals. Form networks of teams centered on common customers and products and push decision-making out to the network's edges. A Manager should align teams with a shared vision and goals rather than top-down control. Tip No.6: Celebrate Successes and Learn from Challenges. Celebrate the team's successes and identify root causes for defects or challenges to improve continuously. Celebrating achievements and learning from challenges fosters a positive Team culture.   Want to Learn More or Get in Touch? Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com! Email your thoughts or suggestions to Podcast@AgileThought.com or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!  

Mike Guiler, an expert in project inception activities, shares his insights on laying a solid foundation for project success. He emphasizes the importance of stakeholder engagement and defining project goals during inception. The podcast highlights strategies for identifying key stakeholders and their interests. Mike also discusses the necessity of scope definition and early risk management to foster collaboration and transparency. Packed with anecdotes, he illustrates how storytelling plays a pivotal role in leadership and effective change management.

This week, Dan Neumann welcomes Nina Sossamon-Poghe to today’s conversation. Nina has an interesting background as a U.S. gymnast, a News Anchor, and a Corporate Leader with a unique perspective on resilience, mental health, and well-being.   In this episode, Dan and Nina discuss an innovative concept, Excellence Exhaustion, while they define and analyze its significance. Nina also shares the “Resilience Route Navigator,” a framework designed to help high achievers combat Excellence Exhaustion.   Key Takeaways What is Excellence Exhaustion? Excellent Exhaustion is different from burnout. Nina likes to define burnout as the mental exhaustion resulting from doing the same thing repeatedly. Excellence exhaustion is the stress and anxiety experienced by high achievers who are driven to surpass their previous achievements. Constantly advancing technology and perpetual connectivity are drivers of Excellence Exhaustion. The Symptoms of Excellence Exhaustion are anxiety, mental fatigue, reduced motivation, and diminished productivity. The Resilience Route Navigator: The Resilience Route Navigator is a framework that helps high achievers combat Excellence Exhaustion through TIPS: Timeline, Isolate the Problem, People, and Story. Timeline thinking: This step is needed to acquire perspective. Whatever is happening to you, put it in the timeline of your life; check on the life that came before this moment and all the blank space ahead for the years yet to come. This exercise is also a great way to gain appreciation for all you have done in your journey so far. Isolate the Problem: Focus on your current situation and leave the past and the future out. At this stage, the present is the main event; this is the only area in which you can take action. People: Who is in this struggle with you? You are not alone. Seek the assistance of others who can assist you in navigating the current situation. Story: It is crucial that you choose the words you use to tell the story of what is going on in your life. Narrate the events in the most empowering and optimistic manner.   Mentioned in this Episode:   Want to Learn More or Get in Touch? Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com! Email your thoughts or suggestions to Podcast@AgileThought.com or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!  

Mike Guiler, a contributor to a recent Kanban Essentials course, shares insights on overcoming initial fears associated with adopting Kanban. He emphasizes the importance of starting small with manageable projects to build credibility and encourage teams. By fostering ownership and leveraging personal Kanban boards, teams can tackle local optimizations and bottlenecks effectively. The discussion also connects personal literary journeys with agility, exploring themes of randomness and professional development, making the journey of learning agile methodologies both relatable and engaging.

Norm Kerth, author of 'Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews' and a pioneer in the field, shares insights into the evolution of project retrospectives. He highlights the value of learning from past projects, emphasizing a blame-free culture that fosters growth. Norm discusses the challenges organizations face in supporting retrospectives and how to prove their worth. He also reflects on his unconventional career path, advocating for personal initiative in professional settings, and underscores the importance of adaptability in Agile coaching.

This week, your host, Dan Neumann, is joined by an external guest: Kristen Belcher, a Software Developer turned Agile Coach. In this episode, they discuss liberating structures, simple and subtle tools that can help everyone attending a group event contribute and be included. They dive deep into some of the Liberating Structures, such as 1-2-4-All, Drawing Together, Purpose-to-Practice, and TRIZ. Listen to this thoughtful conversation and get ready to apply some of these practices to the next event you facilitate.   Key Takeaways Many structures we use with groups, like presentations, status reports, and even tight discussions, tend to fail because they don’t have space for all the participants’ voices or allow members to think “outside the box.” Sometimes, there is even no structure at all. Liberating structures are the tools that liberate everyone in the conversation to contribute and be included. We all have different participation styles: thinkers, talkers, and quiet ones. We all communicate in unique manners, and our input is equally valuable. There are 33 liberating structures. One Liberating Structure is 1-2-4-All. You can apply it starting with 1: People have time to think on their own. Then 2: They pair up and discuss with another person. Then 4: The pairs will pair, generating themes and sharing what they learn. Finally, All: Where everybody can share their ideas. Even though everyone won’t be allowed to speak to the large group, they had the chance to contribute in the previous instances. Another Liberating Structure is called Drawing Together. Everyone needs to draw a picture using the same shapes (no artistic ability is required). Every shape has a significance: Circles stand for wholeness, rectangles represent support, triangles represent goals, spirals represent changes, and the stick or star persons represent relationships. The group interprets a picture, and these views are the kickstart for a discussion. Purpose-to-Practice is a tool for identifying our main purpose and rooting the members together. It helps realize who must be included to achieve a shared purpose. TRIZ is the liberating structure created to assess the absolute worst scenario that can happen. When choosing a liberating structure, you must match it with the problem you are trying to solve in a group. First, you need to frame the problem to find the right tool to approach it. It's a good idea to have a Plan A and a Plan B for facilitation. How can you start applying Liberating Structures? When approaching liberating structures, you will first learn what they are for, then how to approach the space, how people participate, groups, and the sequence of steps to be followed. The material also provides time allocations. You will receive minimum specifications of how the liberating structures are set up. There is no specific script about how you should facilitate. Be comfortable doing something uncomfortable and new.   Mentioned in this Episode: LiberatingStructures.com Download the Liberating Structures App The Art of Gathering, by Priya Parker The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth, by Amy C. Edmondson Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well. by Amy C. Edmondson   Want to Learn More or Get in Touch? Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com! Email your thoughts or suggestions to Podcast@AgileThought.com or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!  

Dan Neumann and Justin Thatil share tips for Agile Facilitation: contextual awareness, time boxing, active listening, and fostering open communication. They emphasize the importance of human facilitators in managing group dynamics and conflicts. Strategies include using tools like post-it notes, creating safe spaces for engagement, and continuous learning through books and travel experiences.

This week, your host, Justin Thatil, welcomes Ned Pope, Director of Product Practice at Agile Thought. In this episode, Ned and Justin explore the most common challenges encountered while engaging with an enterprise client. Ned shares valuable insights regarding creating a new product effectively and timely, emphasizing the crucial value of openness and collaboration within a Team. Ned highlights the importance of focusing on the problem, the elements of the solution, and how they can be broken down to prioritize the most unique and highest value for clients and customers.   Key Takeaways Enterprise clients are dealing with a massive sector of the marketplace. There is a wide range of variance in what the clients are trying to accomplish, so it is important to ground them in their thinking around problem-solving. If you can remove even a minor inconvenience from someone's day, you add value to their life. There must be a list of priorities from executive and senior leadership within the enterprise clients, along with the dates they will be needed. This road map is not based on capacity or capability to deliver a solution around a specific item to be delivered at a particular time. Don’t get frustrated when trying to create a digital product. There is a reason this solution doesn’t exist yet, or in the form you are trying to build it. Make sure everyone is aligned and on the same page. Understand and respect the current processes within an Organization. The organization has already figured out how to solve the problem in the current fashion, and you do not want to disrupt that but to provide something that makes that process more manageable, enhances that solution, and makes it more effective and scalable. There are tangible elements that form a culture. Empower teams to think creatively about a solution. Openness, resourcefulness, and collaboration are critical elements of an Agile Team. Move UX design and UI library components as visual references at the beginning of the process to save time and ultimately allow for a better product. We often get to the details and the complexity of the work and then begin to get consumed with all the nuance and intricacy of the daily work, which can lead to overseeing the most basic aspects. Remember, you are building a visual tool! The vast majority of technology has some form of interface, which generates success and speed with quality and accuracy. Provide visual references to align the Team with what you are trying to accomplish and execute. It is recommended that you bring in a highly skilled UX Designer to the heart of the Product Discovery. Don’t wait until the process is in development; the UX designer needs to join the process from the beginning. Use a UI library.   Mentioned in this Episode: Scaled Agile Scrum.org National Academy of Inventors   Want to Learn More or Get in Touch? Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com! Email your thoughts or suggestions to Podcast@AgileThought.com or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!