Agile and Project Management - DrunkenPM Radio

At the 2019 North America Global Scrum Gathering, I had the chance to sit down with Carol McEwan, CEO and Chief Product Owner of Scrum at Scale, to talk about her new role and what has happened since the Scrum Alliance and Scrum Inc. announced Scrum at Scale as a joint venture at last year’s Gathering.  Carol took on the role of CEO/CPO of Scrum at Scale in March, but she previously served as the Managing Director of the Scrum Alliance. She has had a deep impact in the Scrum Community and in this interview you’ll get to hear about the new things she’s been working on, as well as how Scrum at Scale is helping organizations like Saab redefine their operational model and reduce decision latency using Scrum from top to bottom, and how this is enabling business agility across the entire enterprise.  To learn more about Scrum at Scale: https://www.scrumatscale.com If you’d like to get in touch with Carol to follow up, here is how you can reach her: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmcewan/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/carolmcewan Email: carol.mcewan@scrumatscale.com Phone: (303) 598-5039

Charlotte DiBartolomeo is the CEO and Founder of The Red Kite Project, an organization that provides resiliency training in high pressure industries. This work involves coaching, consulting, and training centered around how to dismantle dehumanizing systems, rebuild trusting relationships, and cope with burnout. As an example of this, The Red Kite Project worked with public transit bus drivers in Philadelphia who were trained in ways to cope with conflict, how to recognize and de-escalate verbal attacks, and how to develop coping skills to help them at work and at home. In this interview, Charlotte, who has a background in conflict mediation, crisis counseling, and human services, explains why trust is an endangered species and how we can go about rebuilding it and re-humanizing people. “The problem with fear is that it kills creativity” If you work in an organization where trust is scarce, failure is not an option, and “resources” are expected to meet demands that regularly require that they sacrifice the time they need to take care of themselves and their families, or in an organization that is experiencing system-wide burnout due to constant change, you’ll find ideas in here to help you understand the toll this is taking and steps you can take to rebuild trust. During the interview, Charlotte and Dave discuss how to transform your organization into a place that can celebrate teams and the value humans can deliver when we give them a safe space to thrive. To contact Charlotte DiBartolomeo and The Red Kite Project Web: http://www.redkiteproject.com Phone: (215) 459-3518

Recorded live at the 2019 North American Global Scrum Gathering, this episode of The Reluctant Agilist features a conversation with Scrum Alliance Chief Product Owner Howard Sublett. During the course of the interview, Dave and Howard discuss Dan Pink’s opening keynote at the Scrum Gathering; the Scrum Alliance Labs and volunteer work that have been done to create a free library of material aimed at helping to develop a more mature and more highly-skilled agile coaching community; an update on how things are going with the recent shift in Scrum Alliance leadership moving to a Chief Scrum Master and Chief Scrum Product Owner instead of a traditional leadership model; and the video series Unscripted, which features updates from Howard and Melissa Boggs, the Scrum Alliance Chief Scrum Master.  Note from Dave: at 15:38, something really important in this interview happens. Howard refers to a question he asked Melissa during the first episode of Unscripted. The question was “How are WE doing as a LEADER?” It is a subtle thing, but language is a virus and words matter… “WE” is plural, while “LEADER” is singular. The way the question is encoded demonstrates a very subtle, but important aspect of an Agile mindset. Howard and Melissa have complimentary but different roles in the Scrum Alliance and the two of them together function as a single Leader. Failure Bow: I got The Wonder Twins (Zan and Jana) a little confused during the interview. I have brought shame upon my family and apologize to any comic geeks who were listening. If you are not clear on who the Wonder Twins are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Twins Links from the Podcast Scrum Alliance Labs: https://www.scrumalliance.org/labs Unscripted - To catch the Scrum Alliance Unscripted Videos, just follow them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scrumalliance/ Contacting Howard Sublett Email: hsublett@scrumalliance.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/howardsublett

Trying to figure out when you will be ready to ship is incredibly challenging. Many Scrum teams track historic velocity, or story points completed in a Sprint, and then use the average number of points completed per Sprint as a way of making an educated guess as to when they could deliver when they’d expect to deliver a certain number of story points in the future. There are, however, many who feel that this approach is no better than just making a completely random guess, and there is evidence to support the value in taking a different approach. In this episode of The Reluctant Agilist, Troy Lightfoot explains his approach to Probabilistic Forecasting, what it is, why it matters, and how it is a better way of planning than using a more traditional approach. Books Recommended In the Podcast: Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability - Dan Vacanti https://amzn.to/2HT1zfe When will it be done? - Dan Vacanti https://leanpub.com/whenwillitbedone Principle of Product of Development Flow - Don Reinterson https://amzn.to/2M989DD Tools mentioned in the podcast: Throughput and cycle time calculator:  http://focusedobjective.com/free-tools-resources/ Actionable Agile http://actionableagile.com Agile Uprising Agile Uprising http://agileuprising.com Contacting Troy Twitter: https://twitter.com/g4stroy Web: http://agileuprising.com/bod/troy-lightfoot/ http://www.cookingandketones.com

What does it take to be a great Product Owner? On Wednesday, May 22nd at the North American Global Scrum Gathering, Certified Scrum Trainer Richard Cheng will be leading a session called The Perfect Product Owner. In this interview Richard and I discuss some of the material he will be exploring in his session, some of the organizational conditions needed to enable a Product Owner to deliver value for the organization, and some Product Owner anti-patterns to watch out for. Towards the end of the podcast we also offer some tips for Scrum Gathering first-timers to help them get the most out of their experience in Austin. Here are the details for Richard’s session in Austin: The Perfect Product Owner 2019 North American Global Scrum Gathering - Austin Wednesday, May 22, 2019 2:45 PM - Room E To check out the full program for the Scrum Gathering, click here: https://www.scrumalliance.org/events/calendar/austin2019 If you’d like to contact Richard: Excella: https://www.excella.com/ LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardcheng/ Twitter https://twitter.com/RichardKCheng

This podcast features an interview with Johanna Rothman and Mark Kilby about their new book "From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams: Collaborate to Deliver" (https://tinyurl.com/yyrbhcrz). Distributed Teams present challenges for any group of people trying to work together. This is true in a traditional approach to project work, but maybe even more so in an Agile approach, where many of the frameworks are based on the idea of co-location. The challenges distributed teams face are present regardless of whether you are separated by 12 time zones or by a single flight of stairs. It can absolutely work, and there can be many benefits to working distributed. The big question is how? In their new book “From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams: Collaborate to Deliver" (https://tinyurl.com/yyrbhcrz), Johanna Rothman and Mark Kilby deliver the practical answers we all need to help our distributed teams succeed. During the interview Mark and Johanna explain who they wrote the book for and how it can help. We also walk through a few of the most critical practices that help distributed teams work well together, and the authors share some tips that they did not include in the final version of the book. Now... I generally try to remain objective in this blog/podcast, but... GO BUY THIS BOOK! YOU NEED THIS BOOK! As someone who works with and on distributed teams, I have questions of my own with respect to steps that can be taken to foster a distributed team's success. This book had answers/strategies for all my questions and it is sure to be an invaluable resource for anyone working on or with distributed teams. Links mentioned in the podcast: "From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams: Collaborate to Deliver" can be purchased on: Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PRYM1TF/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0 LeanPub https://leanpub.com/geographicallydistributedagileteams Dave interviews Johanna and Mark about writing as a Distributed Team at Agile 2018 https://youtu.be/JMxEeeCtK2I Johanna and Mark will be speaking at Agile 2019 https://www.agilealliance.org/agile2019/ Mark will be speaking at Mile High Agile https://www.milehighagile.org Contacting Johanna Web: https://www.jrothman.com Create an Adaptable Life: http://www.createadaptablelife.com Johanna's Fiction: https://www.jrothman.com/johannas-fiction/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/johannarothman?lang=en LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannarothman/ Johanna on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/y244gf35 Contacting Mark Web: https://www.markkilby.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/mkilby LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mkilby/

Insights from two days of Personal Kanban training w/ Amitai Schleier A few weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of taking a class put on by Modus Cooperandi called “Individual, Team, & Project Success: Personal Kanban" with Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria, authors of the book Personal Kanban. Even though personal kanban is a system I am very familiar with, I was psyched to be able to take the class because I was confident that spending two days with Jim and Toni was going to have a deep impact. One surprise benefit was that I finally got a chance to meet Amitai Schleier in person. Both Amitai and I had a lot of valuable takeaways from the class. In this episode of The Reluctant Agilist, we share what we learned from our time with Jim and Toni and some of the challenges each of us face day-to-day in dealing with limiting our WIP and managing flow. Both of us highly recommend taking any training you can with Jim and Tonianne. They are brilliant and come from diverse backgrounds, which is part of what makes their classes so insightful. Upcoming Modus Leadership Class in NYC: Leader Standard Work in the Office: How to Be a Lean / Agile Leader or Work... https://www.eventbrite.com/e/leader-standard-work-in-the-office-how-to-be-a-lean-agile-leader-or-work-with-one-tickets-58671636444 Amitai’s Upcoming Events Webinar: "Mob Programming Explained" https://schmonz.com/talk/2019-smartbear (April 11, 2019) Deliver Agile https://schmonz.com/talk/2019-deliveragile (May 1, 2019) Big Apple Scrum Day: "Two Midwesterners Politely Invite You To Explore Coding" https://schmonz.com/talk/2019-basd/ (May 10, 2019) Contacting Amitai Amitai on the web: https://schmonz.com Amitai on Twitter: https://twitter.com/schmonz Agile in 3 Minutes Podcast: https://agilein3minut.es Modus Cooperandi Links: Personal Kanban: http://personalkanban.com/pk/ Lean Coffee: https://moduscooperandi.com/pk-lean-coffee Jim and Tonianne’s books and classes: https://moduscooperandi.com/books-and-classes Contacting Jim and Tonianne Jim Benson on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ourfounder Tonianne DeMaria on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sprezzatura The Reluctant Agilist is hosted on ProjectManagement.com. This podcast may not be copied or reused without their permission.

What we say matters. One of they keys to being a successful ScrumMaster is language. It’s not enough to just put the message out, you need to encode it in a way that allows it to be received and decoded in a way that will deliver the message you intended. Tyler Grant is a ScrumMaster who is concerned with how buzzwords and jargon can create divisions within teams, and is generally less precise than other, more technical language.  These words often lead to poor communication habits, misunderstanding, team members feeling alienated, not to mention the myriad of ways it can impact the deliverable. During this podcast, Tyler and I talk through why this topic is so important, how to become more aware of it, what to do if you find yourself communicating using less than precise language and what to do if you are on the receiving end of it. If you’d like to contact Tyler, you can reach him in the following ways: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyler-grant/ Email: tpgrant91@yahoo.com The Reluctant Agilist is hosted on ProjectManagement.com. This podcast may not be copied or reused without their permission.

In this episode of the Reluctant Agilist, Certified Scrum Trainer and Agile Coach, Eric Tucker, and I talk through two related questions that came from students in my classes: What is the best way to inject defects into a sprint? How do you reset expectations with stakeholders if you are going to fail a sprint? During the interview Eric and talk about why adding/removing work from a sprint is generally not something you want to do, but what you should do if it is unavoidable. We also touch on what to do if the team discovers that they will not be able to deliver on their sprint forecast, why you want to make sure the stakeholders know ahead of time and what some other options might be. If you’d like to reach Eric with follow up questions, here is his contact information: Web: http://sustainedagility.com LInkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericptucker/ The Reluctant Agilist is hosted on ProjectManagement.com. This podcast may not be copied or reused without their permission.

Last fall the Scrum Alliance took the bold step of changing their leadership structure from a traditional model to one that was based around a Chief Product Owner and Chief Scrum Master. Even for an organization whose mission is to “change the world of work” this was a brave experiment to run because it has never been done before. Howard Sublett returned to the Scrum Alliance as Chief Product Owner and the search began for someone to take up the challenge of defining role of Chief ScrumMaster for the Scrum Alliance.  In December the Scrum Alliance announced that Melissa Boggs had accepted the position of Chief Scrum Master. Melissa comes to the role with a background steeped in coaching, transformation and working on teams. In this interview I got the chance to talk with Melissa about her new role, what it entails and how she will bring her experience as a coach into her new leadership role at the Scrum Alliance.  (CONTEXT - If you were not aware of this, it’s a pretty significant moment. You can find examples of a Chief PO leading a group of PO’s, but for an organization to transform it’s leadership team in this way is a huge change that, if successful, could have a ripple effect impacting how organizations are structured and staffed from the very top on down.) Links If you’d like to check out the Unscripted videos Melissa mentioned in the interview you can find them on the Scrum Alliance Facebook page here: https://bit.ly/2XGTLEw And if you'd like check out the interview I did with Howard Sublett on his role as Chief Product Owner, you can find it here: https://bit.ly/2TnQKdJ Contacting Melissa If you’d like to reach Melissa here are a few ways you can reach her: Scrum Alliance Profile: https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/profile/mboggs2 Email: mboggs@scrumalliance.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/hmngbirdagility LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-boggs/ The Reluctant Agilist is hosted on ProjectManagement.com. This podcast may not be copied or reused without their permission.