Agile and Project Management - DrunkenPM Radio

In June of 2020, I posted an interview with Karim Harbott about his Business Agility Canvas. During the interview, he mentioned that he was working on a book, The 6 Enablers of Business Agility: How to Thrive in an Uncertain World. The book was released earlier this year and I recently started reading it. Karim does an excellent job of breaking down the 6 different areas he has identified as being critical to successfully adopt the practices necessary to achieve business agility. I am truly enjoying the book and I highly recommend it. Even if you are a seasoned transformation coach, you are going to find value in this book. I came across one passage in particular recently that stuck out to me so I reached out to Karim to ask if we could do another podcast on it. The passage is below and it identifies a conversation that I wish more organizations would have. All too often senior leadership declares that Agile is “the way”, they train teams, and then completely fail to provide them with an environment in which they can be successful. The question is, why does that keep happening? Here is the passage: "What I do find surprising is that many organizations that embark on an “agile transformation” have strong Control and Compete cultures as their current profile, and seem to have no desire to change. What this says to me is that the things they value most are stability and control. Why, then, try to adopt a model designed for the exact opposite, adaptability? Is it any wonder, in such cases, that there is friction, resistance, and an unwillingness to make the necessary structural changes? These places do not make the necessary changes because they do not truly value the outcome those changes will deliver. By moving toward flexibility and adaptability, they are moving away from stability and control, the things they value most. This is not an acceptable trade-off to them, and that is when the organizational antibodies, as I think of them, move in to destroy the change agents. This is why so many transformations fail. Agile transformation without corresponding cultural transformations will create nothing but frustration." (Harbott, Karim. The 6 Enablers of Business Agility (pp. 102-103). Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Kindle Edition. ) During the interview, Karim and I dig into why this occurs, why it is such a big deal, and steps you can take to try and protect yourself and your organization from falling into this trap. LINKS FROM THE PODCAST - The 6 Enablers of Business Agility: How to Thrive in an Uncertain World https://amzn.to/2Zn4aLh - Interview on Business Agility Canvas with Karim Harbott https://bit.ly/3CeDk60 Contacting Karim - Web: https://www.karimharbott.com - Email: karim.harbott@agilecentre.com - Karim's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMe5Wmii9YBtw1FD0De1fQ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/KarimHarbott - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karimharbott/

When all the testers have joined self-organizing, cross-functional Scrum Teams, do we actually still need a QA Manager? Joel Norman joins Dave for this episode of the Reluctant Agilist.

Adam Weisbart is back and this time we’re taking on a tragically common problem. Teams who do not have clarity on how the organization defines value. This can happen for a variety of reasons. In some organizations it is simply an oversight… management has achieved clarity and alignment around what is valuable to the organization, but they have not communicated it to the team. In other organizations, there may be an individual or a small group of the leadership team who likes to “go with their gut”, or maybe there are just a lot of assumptions and no one has checked to see if there is agreement across different levels of the org. Whatever the reason, if you have teams that do not have clarity around how leadership defines value for the company, how can they be expected to make choices that align with that definition of value? In this episode of the podcast Adam Weisbart and I take on the topic of how you can get clarity on value, how can you make sure your backlog reflects that understanding of value and how can you ensure the team has awareness of what “value” means to the organization. During the interview, Adam also shares some details about his upcoming Agile Virtual Summit (Bite Size) which is taking place on October 14, 2021. The event is free and there are going to be some great speakers, including people like Jim Benson, Richard Cheng, and Melissa Boggs who have all been guests on the podcast. You can learn more about the Agile Virtual Summit (Bite-Size!) and sign up using the link below. Agile Virtual Summit (Bite-Size) https://agilevirtualsummit.com If you’d like to contact Adam: Web: https://weisbart.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weisbart/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Weisbart

Before the pandemic hit, one of my favorite parts of the summer was going to the Agile Conference and doing podcast interviews with the speakers and thought leaders who were there. Each year, one of the very best moments of each Agile Conference was when I would get to sit down and talk with Troy Magennis. It’s been two summers. I miss talking to Troy. So I reached out and he was kind enough to spare some time for an interview. During the conversation, we cover a number of topics, including: Is it actually possible for a team to become predictable? What gets in the way of predictability? What is BlockedApp and why did he create it? Which constraints are the most important ones to start with? Who is responsible for acting as the scientist of flow? Why are we still so focused on utilization and output instead of results? Why do we all need to know CPR? There is more, but you get the idea. Even if those aren’t questions that keep you up at night, I promise that you are going to learn something valuable by listening to this podcast and that it will keep you engaged the whole way through because Troy is brilliant. Links: Focused Objective: https://www.focusedobjective.com/w/ BlockedApp: https://blockedapp.com This is Lean by Nicklas Modig and Par Pär Åhlström https://amzn.to/2Y3tUeD Contacting Troy: Focused Objective: https://www.focusedobjective.com/contact-us LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/troymagennis/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/t_magennis

In a class recently, a student asked a question that caught me by surprise. He asked if Scrum Master was a necessary role. If the team was fully engaged in approaching the work with an Agile mindset, inspecting, and adapting from one Sprint to the next both with respect to the deliverable AND the way they work together, AND they were self-organizing, then why would they need a Scrum Master? And, if management was imposing a Scrum Master on a team that was functioning this way, wouldn’t that indicate a lack to trust in the team? These are good questions, and while we discussed the topic during class, I found myself returning to it over and over. What I love about this question is that even though I have an answer to it in my head, the asking the question challenged that. In this episode of the podcast, I’m joined by the person who asked the question, Kyle Macey, who works as a Senior Backend Engineer at Chow Now. And, because I wanted to do my best to keep my bias in check during the conversation, I asked a friend, Bjorn Jensen, if he’d be willing to lead the discussion. Bjorn and I volunteer for the Scrum Alliance TAC together. He’s not only a CST with a background in development, Bjorn has a level of openness and calmness that I only wish I could achieve. Contacting Kyle Macey Twitter: https://twitter.com/itskylemacey Web: https://kylemacey.com/ Contacting Bjorn Jensen Twitter: https://twitter.com/mirouhh Web: https://jensen-und-komplizen.de/ Email: mail@jensen.coach

This podcast is also available in video form. You can find it here: https://youtu.be/0-Mha3nv6G4 The Responsibility Process is a system that provides you with tools that enable you to develop leadership skills by leading yourself first. Christopher Avery is now offering a 20-week Responsibility Immersion program where a small group of individuals will work together to learn, and deepen their understanding and practice of The Responsibility Process. This interview features the creator of The Responsibility Process, Christopher Avery, Henning Wolf who is an Accredited Responsibility Mentor and a Certified Responsibility Workshop Leader who leads Responsibility Immersions in Germany, and Patricia Sappenfield, who has recently been through Responsibility Immersion. During the conversation, we discuss what the Responsibility Process is, how Immersion works and how you can learn more about it in advance of the workshop to make sure it is right for you. This interview is being posted in advance of the September 2021 Responsibility Immersion which begins on September 8. For more information please go to: https://responsibility.com/immersion Contact Info: Christopher Avery: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopheravery/ Henning Wolf: https://www.selbstfuehren.de Patricia Sappenfield: patricia_sappenfield@baylor.edu Dave Prior: https://drunkenpm.blogspot.com/

In preparation for transforming the organization to Agile (or implementing some other significant organizational change), many companies will engage a third party to first assess how they are currently working, what the change would entail, and then they make recommendations on how to go about it. This can take anywhere from a few months to a few years. Once the recommendation on how to implement the change is delivered, it is often up to a separate outside company to come in and actually implement the change. George Schlitz is someone who has spent a lot of time leading those implementation efforts. Along the way, he’s learned a lot about what a company can do to set itself up for success when they engage with the third party figuring out the “how” and also what a company can do to set itself up for the opposite of success. If you are working in an organization that has engaged a big consulting company to help you figure out the “how”, there is stuff in this interview that will be helpful. And if you work for people who are considering bringing in one of those big companies to help you figure out the “how”, it might be a good idea to ask them to check this out as well. Contacting George LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gschlitz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/gschlitz Email: george.schlitz@gmail.com

In this episode of the podcast Colleen Johnson, CEO of ProKanban joins me to talk all about ProKanban. During the interview we cover how this new organization came about, the ProKanban Guide, the community they have been fostering, and ProKanban Certification. If you aren’t familiar with Kanban, it is another approach to getting work done that fits under the Agile umbrella. It can look like Scrum, but it solves a different problem set and focuses on different aspects of the work. The ProKanban team has put together the ProKanban Guide explaining how it all works. They’ve also been developing a strong online community, training classes, and they’ve begun offering a certification called ProKanban I. In the interview, Colleen and I explore some of the differences between Scrum and Kanban, the ProKanban Guide, their course offering, why they created the certification, and why, in the already crowded field of Agile certifications, this one merits serious consideration. To download a copy of the ProKanban Guide: https://prokanban.org/the-kanban-guide/ To learn more about ProKanban and ProKanban Certification: https://prokanban.org To learn more about Women in Agile: https://womeninagile.org To learn more about Scatterspoke and how it can help you with Retrospectives: https://www.scatterspoke.com Contacting Colleen Twitter https://twitter.com/scrumhive Email: colleen@prokanban.org

When your organization is getting started with Agile Transformation, one of the more challenging questions is how to track progress. For organizations that are accustomed to measuring things, it is easy to get lost in the swamp of distracting metrics that are interesting, but not particularly helpful, as opposed to ones that provide your organization with the information it needs to make choices about how to become more efficient and deliver more value. In this episode of the podcast, Ross Beurmann is back and we explore the idea of what to measure when you get started with Agile Transformation, how to measure it, and how critical it is to make sure that the things you are measuring actually provide you with the information you need to make informed choices. We also discuss the impact that measuring the wrong things can have on your ability to create lasting organizational change and offer tips on how to protect against that. Contacting Ross • Web: http://rossbeurmann.com/ • LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rossbeurmann/ • Email: ross96h@yahoo.com (Ross has joined me on a few other podcasts. If you’d like to check them out you can find them here: soundcloud.com/search?q=ross%20beurmann)

This week my guest is Scott Ambler. Scott is the Vice President and Chief Scientist of Disciplined Agile at the Project Management Institute. He’s is also the co-founder of Disciplined Agile (DA), the creator of the Agile Modeling method and Agile Data methods, and he is the author of a number of books that focus on software development and Agile. (See links below.) In this episode of the podcast, Scott and I discuss how PMI’s efforts in support of Agile have evolved since August 2019 when PMI acquired Disciplined Agile and Alan Shalloway’s FLEX. We also discuss how the PMBOK is evolving, and we dig into the Project Management Institute’s new Agile certification programs: what they focus on, who they are aimed at, and how they are different from the other Agile certifications. Links: PMI’s Agile Certifications: https://www.pmi.org/certifications/agile-certifications PMI Speaker Request: https://www.pmi.org/about/press-media/speaking-engagements Agile Modeling method: http://agilemodeling.com Agile Data methods: http://agiledata.org Scott’s books: http://www.ambysoft.com/books/ Contacting Scott Disciplined Agile Blog: https://www.projectmanagement.com/blogs/611075/Disciplined-Agile Personal Website: http://www.ambysoft.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottwambler LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sambler/