Agile and Project Management - DrunkenPM Radio

Jessica Wolfe, an expert in Agile methodologies and business outcomes, discusses the importance of focusing on business outcomes when adopting Agile. She introduces Lean Agile Intelligence as a tool to enhance team productivity and explains how to use it to assess Agile practices. She also highlights the use of heat maps and templates to identify organizational problems and recommends a software tool for aggregating assessment results. Listeners can get a 20% discount on an annual license for Lean Agile Intelligence.

Mark Kilby, an expert in AI impact on work, discusses the future of AI in agile space and project management. The podcast explores AI's presence in different fields and its potential use in agile methodologies. It also delves into generating vision statements with AI and the reliability of AI systems in value streams.

The podcast discusses the changes and challenges in the agile community, emphasizing the need to focus on results. They also explore the frustration with agile enthusiasts arguing about irrelevant things, the importance of understanding lean and agile together, and the concept of agile leadership. Additionally, they touch on the impact of AI on a writer's work, technology's influence on attention spans, and have a lighthearted conversation about music and project management.

With each new round of layoffs, the existential crisis facing the agile coaching community deepens. Alan Dayley joins me to discuss how the community is retrospecting on this moment and whether or not it is asking the right questions. Over the past year, a number of high-profile organizations have made a decision to let go of their agile coaches. The impact of that choice on those organizations will become apparent in time. The impact on the coaches, however, has been more immediate. In this episode of the podcast, I am joined by Alan Dayley for a conversation about how the agile coaching community has responded to this existential crisis. With all the current conversations about whether or not Agile is dying, or how coaches could make the value they add more obvious to the organization, but there is very little discussion about the systems and environment that led to the decision to get rid of the coaches I'm the first place. What were these organizations trying to achieve and did they actually get it? Have they reached a level of agility that no longer requires the help of a coach? Is it just change fatigue? Alan and I dig into these topics throughout the conversation. This interview is also available in video. You can find that version here: https://youtu.be/TZ2KoSzkEB8 Contacting Alan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alandd/ X (formerly Twitter): https://twitter.com/DayleyAgile Mastodon: https://mastodon.world/@adayley

Louder Than Ten is a Vancouver-based Project Management Training and Consulting company. L>10 was founded by Rachel and Travis Gertz, and for the past 14 years, everything they have done has been centered around fostering healthy and humane ways of working together and managing projects. There aren’t many organizations in the digital agency space that have taken the time to develop their own project management manifesto. It is truly a unique place and now, as they do, Rachel and Travis have cranked up the volume just a scosche higher by converting their company into a Worker Owned Cooperative. This means that folks who have been working with them for a long time (like Abby Fretz: https://on.soundcloud.com/H6TJq) as well as new employees who join Louder than Ten will have an option to purchase a stake in the company and become an equal partner. This is a far cry from the sweatshop grind-it-out approach that many agencies take and it is definitely unique in the context of what is happening in the field of project management today. In this episode of the podcast, Rachel and Travis join me to talk about what led to this decision, why they made it, and what it means for the future of Louder Than Ten. This podcast was originally recorded with video. You can find that version here: https://youtu.be/mFLfeDYhgE0 If you’d like to learn more about how to turn a business into a worker owned coop, here are some links: Worker Cooperative - Wikipedia Entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative Canadian Worker Cooperative Federation: https://canadianworker.coop/ United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives: https://www.usworker.coop/en/ Democracy at Work: https://institute.coop/ Contacting Rachel and Travis Web: https://louderthanten.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/louderthanten/ Rachel LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rachel-gertz-trainer Travis LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/travisgertz

Learn how Knorr-Bremse uses Personal Kanban to kickstart agile transformation, focusing on individual agile mindset before team integration. Discover the unique challenges of applying agile to hardware development. Dive into the journey of continuous learning and evolution in agile practices within teams.

Getting people to open up to one another and connect at work is not an easy thing. It wasn’t easy before the world went remote, and now that many of us are somewhere in the middle of being half remote and half in-person, it’s not getting any easier. But if we can get to know each other a little better and a little deeper, we will foster stronger connections. As we become more invested in one another, the work we do together will improve as a result. Together To Gather is a card game developed by Lia James from &Human and Jessie Shternshus from the Improv Effect to help leverage the power of great questions to inspire meaningful conversations. If you are looking for a really fun way to build deeper relationships with your team members or any group of people you interact with, you should definitely check out this interview. During our conversation, Jessie, Lia, and I talk about how and why the game works and discuss different use cases for it. You can even watch us play a few rounds and learn one of the reasons I was so bad at working in a recording studio. This interview was originally recorded using video. If you'd prefer to watch the video version, you can find it here: https://youtu.be/YvfqASg2EhI You can find more about Together To Gather Here: Web: https://tinyurl.com/bdht73yu Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/togethertogather/ Connecting with Lia Web: https://www.andhuman.space LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liajames/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liajames Email: lia@liajames.com Connecting with Jessie Web: https://improveffect.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessie-shternshus/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/TheImprovEffect/ Email: jessie@improveffect.com

Zach Stone, an AI expert, discusses the potential impact of AI on Scrum Masters and agileists. He explores the applications of AI in project management and emphasizes the importance of finesse and personal interaction in agile roles. The chapter also explores the potential implications of using AI to analyze team performance.

Times are weird in the land of Agile. More and more big companies are letting go of the people they’ve brought on to help them adopt agile practices, or replacing their Scrum Masters with Technical Program Managers, or creating a homegrown version of Agile by taking an established framework and bailing on the practices they don’t like. Is this just business accepting that what they’ve been trying to do for the past 10+ years was just too hard, have they achieved a level of agility that they are happy with, or have they decided to place different bets on what it will take to carry them into the future? In this episode of the podcast, Jesse Fewell joins me to explore different ideas about what is happening, why it is happening, and what this means for people who’ve spent years trying to establish a career in agile.  The conversation came about as a result of a post Jesse made on LinkedIn. He’s doing research on the topic and I asked him to join me to talk through some of the ideas. If you have stories to share, he’d love to hear from you. You can find his original LinkedIn post here: https://bit.ly/3EjRUf9 Towards the end of the podcast we also discuss a question that came up in one of my CSM/CSPO Lean Coffees: If you are hired as a Scrum Master into a mostly waterfall organization that still has traditional project managers, and the engineers are trying to treat you like a secretary, how do you establish your role and the value you can provide? Contacting Jesse Untapped Agility on Amazon: https://bit.ly/3PnjPBr Untapped Agility Website: https://untappedagility.com/ Jesse’s Site: https://jessefewell.com Jesse’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@JesseFewell LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessefewell/ Email: jesse@fewellinnovation.com

Jardena London is on a mission. After spending years helping organizations transform, adopt agile, and achieve business agility she realized there was something missing. Soul. Yes, change was happening, but at what expense? Were people any more able to bring their whole selves to work, authentically show up, rise to the challenge of the day, and fully contribute themselves to the work? Mostly, not so much. And that is what led her to shift her focus to helping create soulful transformation within an organization. This led to a book “Cultivating Transformations: A Leader’s Guide to Connecting the Soulful and the Practical” and her newly launched community Transformational Leader Community which is the primary focus of our conversation. During this interview, we talk about what Jardena means by “soulful”, how it is different from what many people experience during their normal work, and how the change has to occur on three levels, the me, the we, and the system. If you'd prefer to watch a video of this interview https://youtu.be/zOa4IZT_V2c Join the Transformational Leader Community https://learning.cultivatingtransformations.com/ Read Jardena’s book Cultivating Transformations: A Leader’s Guide to Connecting the Soulful and the Practical https://bit.ly/3QB72fo Links from the interview - 5 Steps to Soul https://www.rosettaagile.com/resources - Inner Workings - Pixar short about happiness at work https://vimeo.com/270992364 - Brave New Work - Aaron Dignan https://amzn.to/440LJHn - The Responsibility Process - Christopher Avery https://amzn.to/47o5AD6 - 4 Stages to Psychological Safety - Tim Clark https://amzn.to/47fnKqR Contacting Jardena - CultivatingTransformations.com https://www.cultivatingtransformations.com/ - RosettaAgile.com https://www.rosettaagile.com/ - JardenaLondon.com https://www.jardenalondon.com/