In this episode of Mik + One, Mik sits down with Gene Kim, best-selling author of The Phoenix Project and The Unicorn Project, as well as co-author of The DevOps Handbook. In this episode, Gene chats to Mik about the next book that he’s working on, and provides many insights into: The journey of the Unicorn Project, the effect it had on technology leaders and how it changed their perspectives A deeper look into the importance of Psychological Safety and how this links to an organization’s structure and dynamics Successful communication paths within an organization in order to improve culture, maximize flow and see successful results, faster The properties and prerequisites of high performing, dynamic learning organizations and advice to help teams become one The effective patterns that leadership can adopt to enable an effective communication architecture and organizational structure in order to maximize flow faster and more efficiently Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review. Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne www.tasktop.com For more information about Gene Kim, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit: https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/gene-kim-ep-31/

It’s episode 30 and what a guest we’ve got! Mik welcomes Brian Solis, Global Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce and world-renowned keynote speaker and an award-winning author of eight bestselling books. In this episode, Mik and Brian cover a lot of ground and discuss many key topics including: How people should think about their digital transformations in order to change their thinking in 2021 and adapt to the novel economy Avoiding the pitfalls and traps of digital transformations and guidance on how organizations can successfully adapt The importance of defining a product value stream and measuring transformations to increase customer value, faster Driving innovative digital experiences in order to gain customer attention and loyalty Advice to the Digital Change Agents in order to get leadership buy-in and drive change middle-up instead of top-down Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review. Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne www.tasktop.com For more information about Brian Solis, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit: https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/brian-solis/

In this episode, Mik is joined by two IT leaders from American Airlines: Maya Leibman, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer, and Ross Clanton, Managing Director of Technology Transformation. Mik, Maya and Ross delve into American Airlines shift to digital innovation, including insights into: Changing and influencing leaderships approach to IT, innovation and software Working with finance to enable them to better understand software products and IT value streams How American Airlines delivered touchless kiosk in six weeks in response to the COVID-19 pandemic Some of the missteps and failures where things didn't go as planned Ensuring IT delivery is connected to business outcomes to create a rapid feedback loop Celebrating success, having fun and increasing the happiness and engagement of employees Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review. Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne www.tasktop.com For more information about Maya Leibman and Ross Clanton, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit: https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/american-airlines/

Joining Mik in this episode of Mik + One is Pieter Jordaan, Group CTO at TUI, the world’s leading integrated tourism group operating in more than a hundred destinations worldwide. In this episode, Mik and Pieter discuss Pieter’s contribution to TUI’s successful transformation to cloud and product value streams, as well as other key discussion points including: Pieter’s background and how he came to work for TUI, where the company was when he met Mik and the kind of business they were doing at that time How Pieter approached the transformation to consolidate the company’s different organization structures, operating models and IT systems The importance of visibility and choosing the right technology platform to provide a modern operating model for the entire business How the pandemic changed travel and made TUI look at massive cost savings and readopt a startup day mentality to continue their digital transformation journey Convincing leadership to buy into this transformation and everyone at the company to shift The critical process of allowing people to make mistakes and why managing risks shouldn’t be the first starting position Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review. Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne www.tasktop.com For more information about Pieter Jordaan, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit: https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/pieter-jordaan

Joining Mik in this episode of Mik + One is Robin Yeman, Senior Fellow and Agile DevSecOps Enterprise coach at Lockheed Martin. In this episode, Mik and Robin discuss how Robin approaches leadership with complex systems of systems and other key discussion points including: Insight into Robin’s journey and PhD thesis, examining how to deploy complex system of systems using Agile and DevSecOps The need to develop a common language by connecting the different systems, vocabularies, the ways people work and collaborate, prototype and build systems How Robin helps organizations develop this common language through a common understanding of the vision The need to deliver value at the speed of relevance Successful examples of how Robin gets people to change their thinking Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review. Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne www.tasktop.com For more information about Robin Yeman, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit: https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/robin-yeman/

In this episode of Mik + One, Mik is joined by Eric Willeke, Co-Founder and Principal of Elevate.to. In this episode, Mik and Eric touch on many key points around simplicity and flow to drive successful digital transformations, including: Lean-agile techniques and helping organizations to understand agility, progress and reorganize around it How inherent simplicity relates to flow and how to reverse Work in Progress (WIP) issues and bottlenecks Agile sponsorships and the importance of tying agility to the company’s purpose and market outcomes in a clear and obvious way The risks of mechanical adoption and why it’s a common pitfall The danger of proxy metrics and advice to organizations to drive successful digital transformations and organizational processes in 2021 Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review. Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne www.tasktop.com For more information about Eric Willeke, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit: https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/eric-willeke/

In this episode of Mik + One,  Mik is joined by Rene Te-Strote, Senior IT Project Lead for the BMW Group. In this episode, Mik and Rene discuss Rene’s contributions to innovate the BMW Group by mixing hardware and software development and other key discussion points including: How Rene started his career in BMW, first working in a production plant and then moving to the IT department Some of the foundational principles Rene applied to innovate and point the organization in the right direction, such as thinking of the entire manufacturing process as a product How Rene accelerated the speed of innovation in an industrial context, and how simulation has become a key part of car manufacturing at BMW Group Where Rene’s high-performance computing clusters are at now Rene’s insights into the next 10 years within the automotive industry Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review. Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne www.tasktop.com For more information about Rene Te-Strote, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit: https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/rene-te-strote/

Kicking off the first episode of 2021, Mik is joined by Adrian Cockcroft, VP of Cloud Architecture Strategy at Amazon Web Services. In this episode, Mik and Adrian discuss Adrian’s predictions for application architecture in 2021, what’s happening with microservices architecture and other key discussion points including: Serverless services and why the time is now to use the fastest way to deliver these applications Adrian’s guidance for using AWS’ new greenfield applications that can help quickly bring a product to market How organizations can use Wardley maps as a powerful tool to map out their efforts and navigate rapidly changing technology landscapes How Adrian approaches chaos engineering Big data, its uses and what problems you can solve with it Amazon’s efforts with sustainability and renewable energy, and how moving a workload to the cloud could dramatically reduce a client’s carbon footprint Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review. Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne www.tasktop.com For more information about Adrian Cockcroft, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit: https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/adrian-cockcroft-ep-24/

In the final Mik + One episode of 2020, Mik is joined by Gail Murphy, Tasktop Co-Founder, and Professor of Computer Science and VP of Research and Innovation at the University of British Columbia. This episode with Mik and Gail includes discussion points around: Insights into some of the cutting edge research projects Gail has led on productivity, tooling and development teams Measuring individual, team and organizational productivity and unproductivity Software development as a complex task and the need for teams to have autonomy to apply complex work The fundamentals of decision making and the importance of flow for a fast feedback loop and continuous learning cycle Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review. Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne www.tasktop.com For more information about Gail Murphy, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit: https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/gail-murphy

Joining Mik on this episode of Mik + One is “sage and poet of product thinking” John Cutler, Head of Product Research & Education at Amplitude. In this episode, Mik and John discuss: Defining what a product is Rethinking how to apply product thinking to force multipliers and change steps The “sixth sense” required to understand the challenges of software design and technology What traditional enterprises can learn from startups and tech 2.0 companies Mapping organizational structure to strategy to drive innovation Embracing the interplay of skills and knowledge across the organization Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review. Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne www.tasktop.com For more information about John Cutler, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit: https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/john-cutler/