Agile and Project Management - DrunkenPM Radio

Writing the introduction to a podcast interview with Dr. Alistair Cockburn is not a simple thing. He is the co-author of the Agile Manifesto and the author of numerous books on Agile, Use Cases and Object Oriented Programming. There is also his work with Crystal and now with the Heart of Agile. He’s contributed a significant body of material around the topic of how we work. While this interview touches on most of the above, the primary focus of the interview is around a simple question with a complex answer: How can you design a lifestyle that is based on continually examining and enhancing the quality of your life. The interview is a long one, but is filled with volumes of advice and wisdom on how to build a professional life that supports the level of quality you want to achieve in your personal life. The information will be especially valuable for anyone working on consulting. For those who are pressed for time, I’ve created detailed show notes below so you can jump to a specific portion if you need to and you can find them here: http://bit.ly/2cjamVJ If you would like to learn more about Alistair Cockburn, check out http://alistair.cockburn.us. If you’d like to follow Alistair on Twitter, you can find him at https://twitter.com/TotherAlistair If you’d like to learn more about Heart of Agile, check out http://heartofagile.com If you’d like to check out the Facebook Live conversation between Alistair and Nic Sementa, try http://bit.ly/2cESM57

Nic Sementa from the Agile Marketing Academy joins me in this podcast to share his thoughts on how to craft User Stories that will work for marketing. Nic's thoughts and opinions on this topic are heavily influenced by his marketing background, which, as he points out in the interview, is a little unique since most of the conversations on the topic are led by agile practitioners.  During the interview Alistair Cockburn joined in the conversation to offer his expert advice and guidance on the subject. Alistair is one of the authors of the Agile Manifesto, the creator of the Crystal methods, leading voice on Use Cases and the man behind the Heart of Agile. (There is lots more - you can find it all at http://alistair.cockburn.us/ ) Show Notes: 00:38 Nic’s background and the challenges faced by Marketing that Agile could help with 4:27 Putting Agile together with Marketing 5:52 User Stories from a Marketers perspective 6:52 The historical challenges involved with “marketing” to the customer as opposed to engaging directly with the customer to find out what they need 8:00 How coercing your customer to buy leads to the marketing equivalent of technical debt 8:50 Googling Agile Marketing 9:20 The corporate world is high school with ashtrays 10:00 Why marketing needs a new language framework for Agile 10:57 Apology to the Band Geeks (which Dave is) 11:30 Revenue impact of implementing Agile Marketing Techniques 11:52 How User Stories change in Agile Marketing 12:33 Personas and more 13:33 Developing a deeper understanding of the User and his/her pain points 14:03 MadMen in Reverse is not going to help you understand the “ideal customer” 15:14 Marketing Research 16:10 There is no such thing as offline marketing 17:52 Recap of the Marketing User Story Guidance 18:57 Let’s get al Skynet with this thing! 20:00 Special Guest Alistair Cockburn on Agile Marketing User Stories 25:55 Abstract thinkers vs. concrete thinkers 28:05 Alistair’s visual grammar version of User Stories 35:33 Where to learn more about the Agile Marketing Academy and how to reach Nic Some Links: For more on the Agile Marketing Academy you can go to their Certification site http://www.agilemarketingcertification.com or send them an email at info@agilemarketingacademy.com. You can reach Nic on Twitter -> https://twitter.com/nicsementa

Maria Matarelli and Michael Sahota have joined forces to provide upcoming Certified Agile Leadership Training workshops in Chicago and Toronto, as well as a free webinar which highlights some of the key learnings offered in the public sessions. In this interview Maria, Michael and Dave discuss the challenges Leadership faces when it comes to creating lasting organizational change that can support Agile. Show Notes 00:53 What they’re working on - Helping Change Agents Managers and Companies orient for Agile Success 2:50 - Why the Scrum Alliance created the Certified Agile Leadership program 4:53 - Does Management have awareness of how they may be impeding Agile 7:14 - The ugly truth of Agile and how leadership creates organizational conflict 8:51 - Why a typical approach to Agile transformation doesn’t create change that can last 10:05 - How the class can help Senior Leadership become adopt an Agile Mindset 11:02 - Survival is optional 12:02 - What kind of people attend the program 12:55 - How the class addresses Leadership, Organizational Culture and how we can foster personal and organizational growth 16:31 - Is there a point where organizational transformation is complete? 18:04 - Dave’s bad metaphor for Agile transformation 19:42 - Becoming more mindful about organizational culture at the leadership level 21:48 - Killing Agile 23:16 - Maria saves the metaphor (or analogy) 24:48 - Discipline, joy and figuring out what you want 26:47 - A dream of greatness 28:39 - Details on the 8/25 FREE Webinar: “Navigating Agile Transformation - an Updated Survival Guide” 30:25 - Is taking any step towards Agile adoption a positive thing? 31:23 - Moving beyond Agile practices to an Agile Mindset 33:48 - Your company and your problems ARE NOT DIFFERENT 34:52 - Details on the upcoming classes in Chicago (9/22-23) and Toronto (9/12-13) To learn more and sign up for the 8/25 FREE Webinar “Navigating Agile Transformation - an Updated Survival Guide” http://agileleadershipchicago.com/webinar-replay For information on the upcoming Certified Agile Leadership classes, please follow these links: In Chicago: http://www.agileleadershipchicago.com Other locations: http://agilitrix.com/agile/certified-agile-leadership-training/ For more information on the Scrum Alliance's Certified Agile Leadership program: www.scrumalliance.org/agile-leadership Getting in touch with Maria and Michael - Maria Matarelli- findmaria.com or twitter.com/mariamatarelli - Michael Sahota - agilitrix.com or twitter.com/MichaelSahota

On the Digital PM Slack channel there was some discussion recently about Project Managers' having PTSD. In this podcast, Carson Pierce, Senior PM at DDB Edmonton and Registered Psychologist, Dr. Krista Pierce (who is also Caron's wife) and I got the chance to discuss the topic of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the stress PMs' experience at work and the relationship between the two. Show Notes: Krista and Carson Introductions 0:15 Introduction to the topic of Mental Health and Project Management 1:58 The Stress Project Managers Experience vs. actual PTSD 3:30 Living with failure but expecting success 5:30 Are we making too much of it 6:19 We are a dysfunctional bunch 8:00 The role experience plays in helping you cope 9:55 Lacking self-awareness 12:40 How to cope with being assertive 13:42 Bringing the bad news and being at ease15:58 Role playing the tough conversations18:26 Personal risk management 19:39 Recommendations for coping with the stress of being a PM 21:00 Setting boundaries for yourself (and sticking with them) 24:15 Carving out the self-care space  and finding balance 25:55 Mindfulness 28:42 Talking with your client (and team) about personal boundaries 29:49 Owning the burden you choose to carry 32:32 Letting go of the things you can do (Inbox 1,708) 33:03 Parting advice for coping with stress 36:45 Getting in touch with Carson and Krista 39:50 The Digital PM Summit 2016 40:28 Getting in touch with Carson and Krista Kristi can be reached at http://kristapiercepsychologist.com Carson can be reached at carsonpierce.com or via email at carson@carsonpierce.com If you'd like access to the Digital PM Slack Channel, just email Carson The site for the 2015 Digital PM Summit  can be found here: http://bureauofdigital.com/summits/digital-pm/

Roman Pichler, one of the leading voices in Agile Product Ownership has released a new book, "Strategize: Product Strategy and Product Roadmap Practices for the Digital Age", that presents a number of tools and techniques Product Owners and Product Managers can use to gain a deeper understanding the product(s) they are developing in order to stock and maintain a better product backlog. Show Notes: Why the wrote Strategize 00:26 Adding Product Strategy to Agile Planning 2:46 Vision to Strategy to Roadmap 5:37 How to use the Go Product Roadmap to feed Release Planning 6:00 Who you need to create the Roadmap? 8:40 How Strategize should help Product Owners and Product Managers 10:30 Is the focus on Product Ownership increasing and maturing? 11:50 Explaining the difference between and Product Owner and a Product Manager? 15:20 The key elements of Product Strategy 19:20 Aligning products across the portfolio 21:24 Product Owner at the Portfolio level 23:00 How often should you update your Vision Board and Roadmap? 24:05 How important is it that Team Members know the Product Vision? 25:50 If there was one misunderstanding about Product Ownership that you could fix, what would it be? 27:54 How to get in touch with Roman 30:00 If you'd like to get in touch with Roman, you can reach him at http://www.romanpichler.com If you'd like to pick up a copy of Strategize, you can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/Strategize-Product-Strategy-Roadmap-Practices/dp/0993499201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466442777&sr=8-1&keywords=strategize

Gender Bias in Project Management Episode 4 of DrunkenPM focuses on the impact of Gender Bias in the Project Management space. This episode consists of two interviews. The first is with a group of women who work in Digital Project Management (Larissa Scordato, Tera Caldwell Simon and Patrice Colancecco Embry). The second interview features Agile Coach Natalie Warnert. Warning - there are a few expletives in this one...  Show Notes: Interview 1 : Gender Bias in Digital Project Management - with Patrice Colancecco Embry, Tera Caldwell Simon and Larissa Scordato 00:05 Intro 01:18 Women in Digital Project management Interview start and guest introductions 04:42 Meet the Dexters 05:25 Being a PM comes with challenges, does being a female PM carry additional challenges 9:38 Reaching out to your team for validation and support 12:08 Getting support may not fix the actual problem 13:50 How much does experience factor in 14:35 Does having a commanding presence only come with experience and how does gender impact your ability to take the room 16:46 Larissa is not sorry for interrupting 17:41 Letting your team take the floor 18:28 Note Taking 20:20 Generational gender bias 22:50 An apology is nice, a public apology is better 23:00 Advice for young women who are new to Project Management 24:05 Having difficult conversations and owning your role 24:40 The power of being knowledgable about your topic 26:00 The importance of assigning a notetaker 26:45 Getting a mentor 27:19 Know that you are good at what you do 27:35 How gender bias has an impact on your use of the phrase “I don’t know.” 29:30 When you get caught now knowing 30:09 Pretending to be brave enough / Imposter Syndrome 32:00 Taking care when you act “As if…” 33:30 “You’re either emotional, or your’e a bitch…” 35:20 Putting on the dominant female role and protecting your team 38:00 The “Sorry” thing 44:20 Advice for Men 46:10 Contacting Tera, Larissa and Patrice 46:40 Closing All the participants in the above interview are "on the Twitter" Larissa Scordato: https://twitter.com/larissascordato Patrice Colancecco Embry : https://twitter.com/patrice108 Tera Caldwell Simon: https://twitter.com/tcaldsimon Interview 2 - Gender Bias in Agile - with Natalie Warnert 47:07 Intro to the Interview with Agile Coach Natalie Warnert 47:50 Natalie’s involvement with Women in Agile 48:42 Women in Agile events are not just for women 49:27 Is it more difficult for a young woman to break into Agile 50:40 Behavior at a conferences 51:33 An example of differing standards 52:27 Gender bias, age bias and the Agile Coach 53:30 Women attendees at conferences 54:06 Advice for women entering the Agile space 55:35 Carrying yourself with confidence and owning it 56:00 Being more mindful of gender bias 57:31 What is an Aspiring Feminist? 60:10 Is the bias as significant in Agile as it is in waterfall? 61:20 Proving yourself 62:30 Support among women in Agile and at Agile conferences 65:00 Fighting over the slice of pie 65:39 Not tracking gender at conferences 66:00 Tracking down Natalie Natalie can be reached via her website at http://nataliewarnert.com

Lyssa Adkins is one of the leading voices in Agile coaching. A founder of the Agile Coaching Institute, her book “Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition” set the bar for what it means to be an Agile Coach. In this interview Lyssa and I talk about what’s happening with the Agile Institute, coaching middle management and how to deal with coaching burnout. Show Notes: The Super Nervous Interview Begins 2:10 Focused Listening 4:05 Four essential skill sets of coaching 6:00 The difference between “coaching” and being a professional coach 6:30 Big things going on at Agile Coaching Institute 7:45 Coaching Middle Management 8:40 The impact of the cultural change Agile brings 11:40 Is there a limit to how much change we can handle and where are the boundaries 12:30 Background on the burnt out coach14:30 Burn out is on the rise with Agile Coaches 15:00 Finding a path you can be on with heart 15:45 Finding the heart in letting the org become what it wants to become 16:40 Checking your own ambition 18:20 Goal setting and knowing when to walk away 19:00 What to do with the organizations on Life Support 19:15 Hospicing the death of old systems 20:20 Trying to reach people who don’t want to take your hand 21:30 Meeting confusion with curiosity 22:20 Agile coaches are agents of human evolution 24:00 How Agile Coaching Institute helps organizations 24:30 Developing a coaching capability that is in sync with where the organization’s goals 25:45 How to find and develop the coaches in an organization 27:45 How to help a burnt out coach/change agent 31:25 The importance of self-care if you want to be present and help others 32:50 Exposing why people avoid self-care35:00 Ways Lyssa practices self-care 35:30 The job is to “allow” 37:05 You can’t let go because it’s the tension that holds it together 38:18 What happens when you do let go 38:50 Lyssa Reads Poetry 40:25 All of us in the Agile community are part of evolving our capacity for complexity 41:45 We are in the time of organizations being living thing 43:05 How to contact Lyssa 43:25 Lyssa’s advice for the coaches who are feeling burned out 43:55 Lyssa’s Coaching Agile Teams book is 6 years old 44:45 Thanking Lyssa for making me uncomfortable (in a good way) 45:50 Upcoming Events for Lyssa 46:00 Links Mentioned in the Podcast Lyssa in Twitter https://twitter.com/lyssaadkins The Agile Coaching Institute http://www.agilecoachinginstitute.com/coaches/ 2016 Scrum Gathering Agenda http://bit.ly/1Upsg9W Perseverance - Meg Wheatley http://amzn.to/1W4PSmM Little Guide to Empathetic Technical Leadership - Alex Harms https://leanpub.com/littleguide Agile Base Patterns, a Cross-Quadrant Conversation - a conversation between Lyssa Adkins and Dan Greening http://www.infoq.com/articles/agile-base-patterns Iawake.com http://www.iawaketechnologies.com The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America - David Whyte http://amzn.to/1NtifV7

In this podcast is I got to dig into the topic of Bimodal with two guys who are deeply knowledgeable about both the traditional and the Agile space. If you aren’t familiar with Bimodal yet, you definitely want to check this out because it is poised to have a massive impact on how organizations introduce and work with Agile. And if you are already up to speed on bimodal, there is a good chance some of the discussion in this podcast is going to challenge what you know on this topic. Some links from the Podcast Steve Elliott Interview AgileCraft http://agilecraft.com AgileCraft on Twitter - https://twitter.com/theagilecraft Dennis Stevens Interview LeadingAgile http://www.leadingagile.com LeadingAgile on Twitter https://twitter.com/leadingagile Dennis Stevens on Twitter https://twitter.com/dennisstevens The blog post Dennis mentioned on Agile vs. Waterfall http://www.leadingagile.com/2013/08/agile-vs-waterfall/ Show Notes 0:00 Introduction to the Bimodal Podcast 2:50 Start Interview with Steve Elliott from AgileCraft 3:22 Background on Steve and AgileCraft 5:30 Defining Organizational Agility 6:50 The challenges of scale (with Agile) 8:00 The challenge of Bimodal 9:00 Defining Bimodal 9:40 AgileCraft’s take on Bimodal 11:15 Is Bimodal just a way of legitimizing a hybrid model 12:28 Admitting when we can’t actually go 100% Agile 13:00 The Agile Walk of Shame 13:51 AgileCraft’s decision to support Bimodal and “meet them where they’re at” 15:00 How Bimodal brings the data from both worlds into once place 16:00 Transparency and Measuring Value 17:10 Agile’s connection to strategy 18:11 Figuring out what data you need to pay attention to 20:22 The dangers of big wave planning 21:30 How the Agile space is evolving and maturing 22:30 How to contact Steve 23:15 - Dennis Steven’s interview begins 24:14 Background on Dennis and LeadingAgile 25:00 Dennis explains Bimodal 26:00 Why some things can’t move fast in an organization 27:00 Not everything (in an organization) is ready to move to Agile 27:47 Not everyone is trying to move everything to Agile 28:00 How most people are misinterpreting the message of Bimodal 29:10 Nobody thinks matrix teams are the right way to build software 29:52 People are still running by the pool with scissors in their mouths 30:15 It’s like crack for the business world 31:43 Conditions that must exist for fast feedback cycles and bimodal to work 33:50 Is transitioning to bimodal harder than just transitioning to Agile? (3 options for transformation) 35:51 Realizing when your organization has changed enough 36:45 You have to make Mode 1 be sexy and desirable 37:10 Creating the urgency for change 37:45 Do organizations have the self-awareness needed to understand what change they need? 38:20 Explaining it to Executives 40:10 Why Dennis does not have a “bimodal” conversation with executives 41:00 The value of having a pragmatic and safe roadmap for transformation that resonates with Executives 41:47 The hardest part of transforming to bimodal 42:40 How to contact Dennis

Brand new format! Two part podcast: Part 1: Interview with Shane Hastie on organizational business agility, hybrid agile and bimodal. Part 2: Interview with John D. Cook and Troy Magennis on data literacy, what we should be looking at and finding the multiplying factors to help us increase productivity. Here are some key points with times Shane Hastie Podcast Podcast Overview 00:44 Shane Interview Start 02:14 Opening question on hybrids, organizational agility, and bimodal 02:32 Will Hybrid models continue to exist 03:31 Letting Infrastructure off the hook 03:50 Why knowledge workers aren’t off the hook 04:25 Infrastructure example to explain where you need traditional and where you need agile 05:00 Where you need incremental roll out without iterative change 06:05 The PMP / Architect Happy Dance 07:00 The Agile people are all spitting on themselves 07:24 Launching a new product example 07:50 Learning is everything - you want Lean Startup 08:10 Knowing when to stop pivoting 08:50 Agile is spot on - Learning and Adapting 09:10 The goal is not agile, the goal is learning 09:30 Are we making progress 09:58 Throwing down the Agile banner 10:21 Agile is just a set of tools and a nice brand 10:40 We are still addicted to waterfall 11:00 People have been successful in the old way or working 11:25 There are not many pathological managers out there. 12:05 Helping them see that the global paradigm of business has changed 12:20 Finding the right combination of techniques and practices12:35 Packing agile brands 12:50 Can you design a new insurance product with TDD 13:19 What about the people who do not recognize that the business paradigm has changed 13:41 The pace of change is increasing 14:30 Cultural Change Officer 14:43 People don’t resist change unless they can’t see the benefits 15:00 Finding the personal win 15:40 Defining (Organizational) Business Agility 16:40 Bimodal 17:45 Leveraging skill and knowledge of people in your organization 18:33 Practices designed to fill the gaps in Agile 18:50 Shane’s favorites from the Agile 2015 19:40 Defining value for organizations 12:08 Teaching the organization 21:00 If we could all be Sweden… 21:50 Wrap up 22:00 John Cook and Troy Magennis on Data Intro 22:35 Are we data literate enough? 24:05 experiments and lean startup 24:34 Using legacy charts we don’t understand 15:00 Bing addicted to bad data in legacy charts 25:20 How do we help them see the right data 25:50 What should we measure and look at 26:23 Working on multiple projects 26:35 How much work are we doing 27:00 When they ignore what the data tells them 27:30 The chronic problem of multitasking 28:00 Extreme examples from academia and leveling 29:22 Tools fostering dysfunction 29:50 How do we teach them to ask for better stuff 30:25 We knew this stuff and we threw it all away 31:00 Agile and the laws of physics 31:15 Probability in the future 31:30 A predictable environment vs rolling dice 32:15 How long will things take 32:40 Creating / Defining a stable team 33:00 Tracking interruptions per week: 33:23 Helping hem understand why interrupts are bad by visualizing it 34:20 Understanding the difference between what you do and what the tool says you do 35:25 Interrupting managers v interrupting programmers 35:40 Tracking positive interruptions 36:00 A level playing field - they all suck so it worked well 37:15 The managers that will breed 38:00 Finding the multiplying factors 38:35 Technical Debt 39:10 Figuring out if we are looking at something meaningful 39:45 What is the mission with respect to data? 40:10 Trying to find the best course of action 40:45 We’re more about removing metrics and detail 41:10 Closing 41:40

A Projects at Work podcast from Agile 2015. Jesse Fewell shares his picks for the conference and tips for surviving the week