Agile for Humans with Ryan Ripley and Todd Miller

Hosts Ryan Ripley, Bill Caputo Discussion Bill Caputo (@logosity) joined me (@RyanRipley) for a discussion about 12thprinciple.org – a site dedicated to the only principle in the agile manifesto that describes how teams should be organized: Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done. We dug in to team dysfunctions, system dysfunctions, and how metaphors help us exchange information both effectively and poorly. And then…we called it a night. Agile for Humans is brought to you by audible.com – get one FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/agile Resources, Plugs, and More Ryan – https://ryanripley.com Happy New Year! Dan Greening Base Patterns Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck Bill – http://12thprinciple.org Programming as Theory Building by Peter Naur Metaphors We Live By – George Lakoff & Mark Johnson The Shift from Metaphor to Anology by Dedre Gentner & Michael Jeziorski David Easton – Political Science Systems The New Economics – W. Edwards Deming The post AFH 024: A Bonfire of Metaphors with Bill Caputo [PODCAST] appeared first on Ryan Ripley.See omny.fm/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosts Ryan Ripley, Mark Kilby, David Horowitz Discussion Mark Kilby (@mkilby) and David Horowitz (@ds_horowitz) – CEO of Retrium (@RetriumHQ) – joined me (@RyanRipley) for a discussion about continuous improvement, retrospectives, and remote teams. Agile for Humans is brought to you by audible.com – get one FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/agile Resources, Plugs, and More Ryan – https://ryanripley.com No plugs this week. Just a big thank you to the listeners for continuing to spread the work about the podcast and for your feedback and support. Mark – http://markkilby.com/ Paper – Can you be remotely agile? Slides – Can you be remotely agile? More on how Sonatype works 100% distributed and agile More on distributed facilitation I also work with distributed volunteer teams as well. I’m not only the co-founder of Agile Orlando, but I’m the co-founder of Agile Florida, a network of multiple user groups in the state of Florida. We collaborate on events, share information on speakers, and help other user groups through our efforts. You can read our Agile2015 experience report on how we work as a distributed team at…. User group dying? Time to build a state-wide learning network! by Mark Kilby, Stephanie Davis and Alex Kanaan. David – https://www.retrium.com/ Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen Why Group Brainstorming is a Waste of Time The post AFH 023: Remote Teams with Mark Kilby and David Horowitz [PODCAST] appeared first on Ryan Ripley.See omny.fm/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosts Ryan Ripley, Tim Ottinger, Mark Davidson Discussion Tim Ottinger (@tottinge) and Mark Davidson (@agiledelivery) joined me (@RyanRipley) for a discussion about the Product Owner Role, #NoEstimates, Product Management, and the concept of “controlled disappointment”. The Product Owner (PO) role is near super-human. Shared responsibility is one approach to bring this role back down to earth. During this discussion we talk about the complexity of the PO role, the impact that the PO has on the project, and how developers and Scrum Masters can support the PO as they lead the team towards delivering a successful product *release*. And then…we called it a night. Agile for Humans is brought to you by audible.com – get one FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/agile Resources, Plugs, and More Ryan – https://ryanripley.com Slide deck from SDEC2015 Agile in a Flash by Tim Ottinger Tim – http://agileotter.blogspot.com/ Modern Agile post by Josh Kerievsky Product Owner’s Maximizing Value Mark – https://twitter.com/agiledelivery The post AFH 022: The Product Owner Role with Mark Davidson [PODCAST] appeared first on Ryan Ripley.See omny.fm/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosts Ryan Ripley, Allen Holub Discussion Allen Holub (@allenholub) joined me (@RyanRipley) for a discussion about #NoEstimates, #NoManagement and what it truly means for an organization to adopt agility. Allen is a trainer, writer, speaker, and coach who takes a non-tribal view of software development and eschews the dogma that surrounds many of the current agile topics and practices. Allen recently gave a keynote at DevWeek 2015 on #NoEstimates where he opened with: “We just need to stop doing all estimation now.”   Along with #NoEstimates, Allen I discussed what it truly means for an organization to adopt agility, why such a transformation is so difficult, and how Kanban wrapped around a waterfall can make life easier for both companies and coaches. We wrapped up with a discussion on #NoManagement and Holocracy. And then…we called it a night. Agile for Humans is brought to you by audible.com – get one FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/agile Resources, Plugs, and More Ryan – https://ryanripley.com Vasco Duarte’s NoEstimates Book The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell Drive by Daniel Pink Allen – http://holub.com Allen is teaching a 3 day class on agility at SDD Deep Dive in London on Nov 10-12 Allen’s class offerings: “Agility” focuses on agile culture and what you need to do as an organization to make agile processes work “Designing for Volatility” – an in-depth dive into how to design scalable fault-tolerant systems that can be built in an incremental way and can stand up to the stress of constant change “Design by Coding” an extension of TDD/BDD techniques to the architectural level. Self-Insight: Roadblocks and Detours on the Path to Knowing Thyself by David Dunning The original Kruger/Dunning paper Then of course, there’s John Cleese on Kruger/Dunning The post AFH 021: Agility with Allen Holub [PODCAST] appeared first on Ryan Ripley.See omny.fm/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosts Ryan Ripley, Vasco Duarte Discussion Vasco Duarte (@duarte_vasco) joined Ryan Ripley (@RyanRipley) for a discussion about #NoEstimates. Vasco is the author of the #NoEstimates Book, Founder of Oikosofy, and host of the Scrum Master ToolBox Podcast. One of the staring points of #NoEstimates is: “We as an industry are not able to estimate well.” We as an industry are not able to estimate well.Tweet This With that starting point, alternatives are necessary. #NoEstimates seeks to explore those alternatives. We started with Vasco’s early days of discovering the #NoEstimates path. It started with data. I won’t steal Vasco’s thunder, but it was interesting to learn how much many of the #NoEstimates ideas are driven by actual project data from a variety of sources. Software projects are a search for value. My goal is to find value. @duarte_vascoTweet This We then moved on to cover many of the questions that #NoEstimates critics and skeptics ask when hearing these ideas for the first time. How to pick one project over another, how to align with project dependencies and more are covered during our hour together. Finally, we touched on the kind of environments where #NoEstimates is not an option: In cases where you are not allowed to experiment, where you are not allowed to learn, where you have to know everything upfront, you have no option but to speculate about the cost of a particular project. And then…we called it a night. Agile for Humans is brought to you by audible.com – get one FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/agile Resources, Plugs, and More Ryan – https://ryanripley.com Woody Zuill Neil Killick Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck Agile in 3 Minutes via Amitai Schlair I’m presenting at SDEC 2015 – November 2-5 2015 – Winnipeg, CA Vasco – http://softwaredevelopmenttoday.com/ #NoEstimates Book Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Vasco’s company – Oikosofy User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton Impact Mapping by Gojko Adzic The post AFH 020: #NoEstimates with Vasco Duarte [PODCAST] appeared first on Ryan Ripley.See omny.fm/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosts Ryan Ripley, Amitai Schlair, Bryan Beecham Discussion Ryan Ripley (@RyanRipley) Amitai Schlair (@schmonz) and Bryan Beecham (@BillyGarnet) started the show by talking about the great impact that Tim Ottinger (@tottinge) has had on their lives and on the agile community. To learn more about Tim and his thoughts on agile, you can visit his blog:  agileotter.blogspot.com We then jumped over to the #NoEstimates topic where value and impediments to continuous delivery were highlighted. Bryan also went in to the people side of #NoEstimates and finding the value in the work that we do. We spoke about trust in the workplace and how Industrial Logic promotes trust as a core value. If there is no trust, then there cannot be alignment. Which begs the question: If the people aren’t aligned, how are they supposed to do great work? If the people aren’t aligned how are they supposed to do great work?Tweet This We also noted that the #NoEstimates discussion on Twitter isn’t “safe” at times and that needs to change for real progress and learning to happen. We then moved in to the art of human refactoring and how people can implement change in their own lives. We barely scratched the surface of this topic and will tackle it again on a future episode. And then…we called it a night. Agile for Humans is brought to you by audible.com – get one FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/agile Resources, Plugs, and More Ryan – https://ryanripley.com I’m speaking at SDEC 2015 in Winnipeg, Canada on November 2-4th and would love to meet you if you are also attending Amitai – http://www.schmonz.com/ Agile in 3 Minutes 11: Safe Follow Michael “GeePaw” Hill on Twitter Bryan – https://humanrefactor.wordpress.com/ Agile Brazil – TDD with Legos Agile Testing Days Agile in a Flash by Tim Ottinger Tim Ottinger’s I Want Agile Back The 4 Hour Body by Tim Ferriss Llewellyn Falco’s visualization of mob programming The Industrial Logic Blog The post AFH 019: Human Refactoring with Bryan Beecham [PODCAST] appeared first on Ryan Ripley.See omny.fm/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosts Ryan Ripley, Esther Derby, Don Gray, Amitai Schlair Discussion Ryan Ripley (@ryanripley) Esther Derby (@estherderby) Don Gray (@donaldegray) and Amitai Schlair (@schmonz) got together to discuss the vast topic of “trust”. We covered how to establish trust with a new team, how trust impacts the scrum master role, and how easily managers can lose the trust of their teams. Agile coaches can set expectations early and establish an environment of trust through intentional behaviors and follow through. This is a nuanced discussion that scratched the surface of how large of an impact trust plays on the success of a team. We also talked about Ryan’s horrible laundry skills…and then we called it a night. Agile for Humans is brought to you by audible.com – get one FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/agile Resources, Plugs, and More Ryan – https://ryanripley.com I’m speaking at the Software Development and Evolution Conference 2015 (SDEC) Esther – http://www.estherderby.com/ Coaching Beyond the Team – October 19-20 2015, in Minneapolis, MN “What’s the Worst that Could Happen?” via Marc Burgauer (@somesheep) “Building Trust: In Business, Politics, Relationships, and Life” by Robert C. Solomon & Fernando Flores “Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great” by Esther Derby & Diana Larsen “Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management” by Johanna Rothman & Esther Derby Don – http://www.donaldegray.com/ Coaching Beyond the Team – October 19-20 2015, in Minneapolis, MN Amitai – http://www.schmonz.com/ Agile in 3 Minutes is finally on iTunes! Agile in 3 Minutes: Trust Toronto Agile Conference The post AFH 018: Don’t Trust Ryan with Your Agile Laundry [PODCAST] appeared first on Ryan Ripley.See omny.fm/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosts Ryan Ripley, Zach Bonaker, Dan Greening Discussion A rejuvenated Zach Bonaker (@zachbonaker) joined Dan Greening (@greening) and Ryan Ripley (@ryanripley) to talk about #NoEstimates and some of the limitations of not estimating work. We quickly moved on from that topic to an area that Dan has put a lot of work in to: What are the patterns that agile organization exhibit? In other words, how do we know that we are agile? Dan has expressed his thoughts on what it means to be agile within 5 base patterns that he explained to Zach and Ryan: Measure economic progress Experiment Limit work in progress Embrace collective responsibility Solve systemic problems From there the discussion pivoted to top down vs. bottom up agile transformations. We discussed how they work, the pitfalls of each, and our personal experiences with trying to help organizations adopt agile. Management must be the first mover when adopting agile, followed by the rest of the company. Dan gave a few cautionary tales of what happens if management does not adapt along with the rest of the organization. Management must be the first mover when adopting #agile, followed by the rest of the company.Tweet This Dan gave us a preview of some exciting work he’s doing with Scrum, Inc.…and then we called it a night. Agile for Humans is brought to you by audible.com – get one FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/agile Resources, Plugs, and More Ryan – https://ryanripley.com Joy, Inc. By Richard Sherridan Software Development and Evolution Conference 2015 (SDEC) Zach – https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachbonaker Agile Cancer: Stop Whining and Cure It The Art of Thought by Graham Wallas Dan – http://senexrex.com/ Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences Agile Base Patterns The post AFH 017: 5 Base Patterns to Guide Agile Teams [PODCAST] appeared first on Ryan Ripley.See omny.fm/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosts Ryan Ripley, Amitai Schlair, Arlo Belshee Discussion Ryan Ripley (@RyanRipley) Amitai Schlair (@schmonz) and Arlo Belshee (@arlobelshee) covered one of the most diverse agendas ever covered on the podcast. We started with a discussion about scaling agile, the limitations of frameworks like SAFe, LeSS, and DaD. We then moved on to the limits that consistency puts on innovation and how tuning consistency can be a serious competitive advantage. However, this is complicated task because “anytime we are going for consistency we are necessarily hurting innovation in that same space.” Next we discussed the controversial topic of refactoring vs test driven development (TDD). Arlo described his views on the differences between the two skills and ways that teams can work to refactor their designs safely – with tools – so that the code can then be come testable using TDD practices. On the TDD side of the discussion the group agreed that “a unit test that uses mocks is not a unit test.” Mocks are a smell that can reveal design issues within your code. Arlo also provided ideas about how to work without mocks and improve designs. Finally, we covered hiring people for emotional intelligence instead of skills. If smart, inquisitive people can be taught programming and other related skills quickly (~6 months) then what advantage does hiring for skills really bring to a team? Couldn’t it be better to hire for empathy and culture first if skill are cheap to grow…especially in a pair/mob-programming environments? The answers to these questions and how this mindset shifts hiring led to an interesting conversation about how such thinking can help companies build innovative and effective teams. Empathy and Emotional Intelligence are skills worth hiring for.Tweet This And then…we called it a night. Agile for Humans is brought to you by audible.com – get one FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/agile Resources, Plugs, and More Ryan – https://ryanripley.com No plugs from me this week. Just a big thank you to the listeners for your feedback and support! Amitai – http://www.schmonz.com/ Agile in 3 Minutes Podcast What’s there to be afraid of? Approval Tests via Llewellyn Falco Arlo – http://arlobelshee.com/ Industrial Logic Blog 7 Languages in 7 Weeks by Bruce Tate The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You by Karla McLaren The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life’s Most Essential Skill by Karla McLaren The post AFH 016: Are You Mocking My Unit Tests? [PODCAST] appeared first on Ryan Ripley.See omny.fm/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosts Ryan Ripley, Tim Ottinger, Don Gray Discussion Ryan Ripley (@RyanRipley) Tim Ottinger (@tottinge) and Don Gray (@donaldegray) got together to talk about the word “enterprise”. Quite a few connotations were thrown around: inertia, masses of people, waterfall. Better, Faster, Cheaper was even discussed. We moved on to talking about the limitations imposed on scaling by Dunbar’s Number (150) and then learned about the Rule of the 2nd Floor: “Nobody 2 levels above or below you in the organization really understands what you do for a living.” The discussion then shifted to how we can do Agile with 5,000 people. Typical scaling patterns emerged: Scale by Division:  Dividing people in to functional teams. Scale Out, Not Up:  Group people in to feature teams. Holocracy:  Peer to peer organization. Using Extreme Programming (XP) and other disciplined software engineering practices to improve team outcome were discussed as was an organizationals ability to move up the Agile Fluency Model. We talked about Mike Cottmeyer’s recent post about stopping the anti-management rhetoric and finding ways to meet management where they are and help them find the path to an agile organization. The discussion then shifted to how teams can measure their agility and the renaissance of craftsmanship in the software development world. Don walked us through transformation management theory, we asked why organizations should even go “agile” in the first place, and worked on a definition of “agile” in the enterprise. And then…we called it a night. Agile for Humans is brought to you by audible.com – get one FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/agile Resources, Plugs, and More Ryan – https://ryanripley.com Nature of Software Development by Ron Jeffries Holocracy by Brian Robertson Name Calling and Ad Hominem Attacks by Mike Cottmeyer Dan Greening’s Agile Base Patterns Tim – http://agileotter.blogspot.com/ Industrial Logic Blog Agile by Example Don – http://donaldegray.com The Art of Thought by Graham Wallas Managing Transitions by William Bridges Jerry Weinberg books on lean pub The Future of Organizations The post AFH 015: The USS Agile Enterprise [PODCAST] appeared first on Ryan Ripley.See omny.fm/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices