Software Process and Measurement Cast

SPaMCAST 562 features our essay on the power of saying no.  I firmly believe that unless you have control over the amount of work you take, you are asking for a trainwreck.  The problem is that saying no is often harder than being late or over budget.   We will also have a visit from the Software Sensei.  Kim Pries is back to kick off September with an essay titled, Real Planning. While the actual plan might not be exactly what happens in real life, the act of planning is crucial.  Re-Read Saturday News Well, I missed posting an entry of Re-read Saturday and if you had not noticed SPaMCAST 562 is not exactly what I had planned.  Five weeks ago my standard poodle Jax (named after the New Orleans Beer of yesteryear) died. My wife and I missed having a canine presence around the house.  Yesterday, we drove to Brantford, Ontario and picked up a new standard poodle, Nyssa (named after Nyssa of Traken -- Dr. Who aficionados will recognize the name). It was a round trip 14 hours, including a stop at the in Buffalo --- I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THE PLACE.  This is the long way around saying that I did not have WIFI, so I failed to post. Hence the pivot on the material in the cast this week.  Never fear you never know what tomorrow may bring! Remember, if you do not have a favorite, dog-eared copy of , please buy a copy.  Using the links in this blog entry helps support the blog and its alter-ego, The Software Process and Measurement Cast. ,  It’s time to get reading!    The installments: Week 1: – Week 2: – Week 3: – Week 4: – Week 5: – Week 6: – Week 7: – Week 8: -   Week 9: -   Week 10:  -   Week 11: -   Week 12: -   Week 13: -   Week 14: -   Week 15: -   Week 16: -   Week 17: -   Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 563 will feature an interview with Steve Tendon and Daniel Dioron.  We discussed their new book Tame Your Work Flow. Steve and Daniel share deep insights into applying the Theory of Constraints in the real world. The flow of work is not an esoteric topic.  Steve and Daniel provide very useful advice on how to deliver more value.

In SPaMCAST 561 we discuss making the Daily Scrum work for the mission it was intended.  When a Daily Scrum or daily stand-up is not used for micro-planning and collaborating to achieve the team’s goal, they are occurring for a reason.  Those meetings are scratching some other itch than planning, an itch that however unagile is often defended. When the goal of a daily meeting is something other than group planning there are more efficient and less expensive approaches even for highly agile teams to address status and have a social event. Also in this podcast, Susan Parente brings us her Not A Scrumdamentalist column.  Susan discusses the product owner's role and why it is important.   Susan’s LinkedIn Profile  Websites (Technical Risk Management) (Company Website) Email Address Twitter Re-Read Saturday News I took a day off from our re-read of to spend the day at a pickle festival.  I began the morning with a bike ride (Mr. Adam’s has already commented on Strava) rather than running to change things up just a little which helped shift me to an introspective mood!  For your reading pleasure, a slightly modified entry from the Motivational Sunday series, this one from a Sunday in December 2013. Remember, if you do not have a favorite, dog-eared copy of , please buy a copy.  Using the links in this blog entry helps support the blog and its alter-ego, The Software Process and Measurement Cast. ,  It’s time to get reading!   The installments: Week 1: – Week 2: – Week 3: – Week 4: – Week 5: – Week 6: – Week 7: – Week 8: -   Week 9: -   Week 10:  -   Week 11: -   Week 12: -   Week 13: -   Week 14: -   Week 15: -   Week 16: -   Week 17: -     Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 562 features an interview with Steve Tendon and Daniel Dioron.  We discussed their new book Tame Your Work Flow. Steve and Daniel share deep insights into applying the Theory of Constraints in the real world. The flow of work is not an esoteric topic.  Steve and Daniel provide very useful advice on how to deliver more value.

In SPaMCAST 560 we complete our wide-ranging interview with Al Shalloway.  We continue our conversations about the troubles dogging classic agile, the Agile Industrial Complex, using a scientific approach to change, and FLEX.  I recommend that you listen to SPaMCAST 559 before listening to this week’s podcast  Mr. Shalloway’s bio: Al Shalloway is the creator of FLEX (FLow for Enterprise Transformation), a framework that is a platform for any practices consistent with Flow, Lean, and Agile, including technical practices. Al has made explicit his thought leadership in Scrum, XP, SAFe, Lean, Flow, design patterns and test-first methods into creating FLEX. FLEX takes a scientific approach regarding what methods work best. While it integrates with its own baseline of practices to offer a complete solution to organizations, its architecture enables it to be both tailored as needed to an organization as well as having other consultants integrate their own practices in it. The intention is to create a community of consultants that can offer the services needed by practitioners in a cohesive manner while avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach. Al is the co-author of 5 books as well as the author of the upcoming book on FLEX. Website: Email:   Twitter: @alshalloway  Re-Read Saturday News Why does leadership bring a release home to great adulation only to have the next release crash and burn? Did the leader’s skill change between releases or were other random factors, such as luck, involved. Kahneman suggests a simple formula as a thought experiment.  Success = skill + luck. Chapter 17 of , Regression To The Mean, discusses correlation and causal interpretation.   Remember, if you do not have a favorite, dog-eared copy of , please buy a copy.  Using the links in this blog entry helps support the blog and its alter-ego, The Software Process and Measurement Cast. ,  It’s time to get reading!    The installments: Week 1: – Week 2: – Week 3: – Week 4: – Week 5: – Week 6: – Week 7: – Week 8: -   Week 9: -   Week 10:  -   Week 11: -   Week 12: -   Week 13: -   Week 14: -   Week 15: -   Week 16: -   Week 17: -     Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 561 will feature our essay on the Daily Scrum.  The Daily Scrum, sometimes known as a standup, is ubiquitous but it is often a hot mess.  Let's fix it.   We will also have a visit from Susan Parente!

SPaMCAST 559 part one of our interview with Al Shalloway. I am breaking two guidelines this week.  First, rarely do I bring guests back so quickly. And secondly, I have not broken an interview into two parts for 7 years (ish). The conversation with Al was full of huge ideas, s, concepts, and calls to action cutting any of the content did not make sense. Al and I talked about about the troubles dogging classic agile, the Agile Industrial Complex, using a scientific approach to change, and FLEX.  Edited, the interview was 49 minutes (with about 20 minutes of chit chat ended up on the cutting room floor - figuratively). I have broken the interview into two parts of approximately 27 and 22 minutes.  Today we have part one and next week we will complete the interview.   Mr. Shalloway’s bio: Al Shalloway is the creator of FLEX (FLow for Enterprise Transformation), a framework that is a platform for any practices consistent with Flow, Lean, and Agile, including technical practices. Al has made explicit his thought leadership in Scrum, XP, SAFe, Lean, Flow, design patterns and test-first methods into creating FLEX. FLEX takes a scientific approach regarding what methods work best. While it integrates with its own baseline of practices to offer a complete solution to organizations, its architecture enables it to be both tailored as needed to an organization as well as having other consultants integrate their own practices in it. The intention is to create a community of consultants that can offer the services needed by practitioners in a cohesive manner while avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach. Al is the co-author of 5 books as well as the author of the upcoming book on FLEX. Website:   Email:   LinkedIn:  Re-Read Saturday News Chapter 16, Causes Trump Statistics, was revelatory for me the first time I read  , and it was revelatory during this read. Over my career, I have been shocked many times to see a perfectly sane leader stand up and show a single statistic or estimate which promises delivery of a product at a cost or in a timeframe that is well outside of normal performance.  This chapter provides a rationale for what often seems to be less than rational. Remember, if you do not have a favorite, dog-eared copy of , please buy a copy.  Using the links in this blog entry helps support the blog and its alter-ego, The Software Process and Measurement Cast. ,  It’s time to get reading!    The installments: Week 1: – Week 2: – Week 3: – Week 4: – Week 5: – Week 6: – Week 7: – Week 8: -   Week 9: -   Week 10:  -   Week 11: -   Week 12: -   Week 13: -   Week 14: -   Week 15: -   Week 16: - Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 560 will feature part two of our interview with Alan Shalloway including more on the Agile Industrial Complex and how we can reinvigorate learning and challenging ideas.  Let not let inspect and adapt perish!

SPaMCAST 558 features our essay .  Story Points are not evil and they may be useful in some circumstances. But like most tools, at some point, they lose focus. They have outlived their usefulness, therefore, I will leave them when at all possible.   This week, Jeremy Berriault brings his QA Corner to the podcast.  We talked about focus. How much focus is enough and how much is too much? Mr. Berriault has an opinion and stories to back his opinion up.  Re-Read Saturday News In Chapter 15 of we explore two types of fallacies. Logical and conjunction fallacies can impact any process improvement effort, typically in a manner that does not benefit change.  Remember, if you do not have a favorite, dog-eared copy of , please buy a copy.  Using the links in this blog entry helps support the blog and its alter-ego, The Software Process and Measurement Cast. ,  It’s time to get reading!    The installments: Week 1: – Week 2: – Week 3: – Week 4: – Week 5: – Week 6: – Week 7: – Week 8: -   Week 9: -   Week 10:  -   Week 11: -   Week 12: -   Week 13: -   Week 14: -   Week 15: -   Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 559 will feature our interview with Al Shalloway.  Rarely do I bring guests back so quickly, however, Al has a number of important ideas to share that only recently began to see wide distribution.  We talked about the troubles dogging classic agile, using a scientific approach to change, and FLEX. This was a long discussion . . . it was so riveting that I lost track of time.

SPaMCAST 557 features our interview with Jorgen Hesselberg.  We talked about his book ,  assessing agility, and whether leadership and structure lead culture when adopting an agile mindset.  It is a thought-provoking and fun interview. Jorgen’s irrepressible nature shines through even when tackling tough topics!  Jorgens Bio: “Jorgen Hesselberg is the author of and co-founder of Comparative Agility, a leading agile assessment, and continuous improvement platform. A proven thought leader of numerous successful enterprise transformation efforts since 2009, Jorgen provides strategic guidance, executive counsel, and coaching to some of the world’s most respected companies both as an internal change agent and an external consultant. He has trained thousands of people on agile and Scrum, disruptive innovation, and enterprise transformation strategy.” Contact Information Email:   LinkedIn:   Comparative Agility:    Re-Read Saturday News Chapter 14 continues the discussion of cognitive biases and heuristics.  In Chapter 14 of we explore the representative heuristic.     Remember, if you do not have a favorite, dog-eared copy of , please buy a copy.  Using the links in this blog entry helps support the blog and its alter-ego, The Software Process and Measurement Cast. ,  It’s time to get reading!   The installments: Week 1: – Week 2: – Week 3: – Week 4: – Week 5: – Week 6: – Week 7: – Week 8: -   Week 9: -   Week 10:  -   Week 11: -   Week 12: -   Week 13: -   Week 14: -     Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 558 will feature our essay .  I use them when needed but I am becoming less enamored with story points every day.   We will also return to the QA Corner and spend some time with Jeremy Berriault.

SPaMCAST 556 features our essay on Socratic Questioning.  Questions are a critical tool that every coach, mentor or leader uses to help shape and improve the performance of those they interact with — I don’t think this statement should surprise anyone.  That said, pushing past the concept of just asking questions, Socratic questioning is a formal and disciplined approach to getting the person answering the questions to synthesize and answer based on knowledge and logic. We also have a visit from Susan Parente.  Susan brings her Not A Scrumdamentalist column to the SPaMCAST. In this installment, Professor Parente discusses being agile in name only. Being agile in name only is not an enviable place to be! Re-Read Saturday News The availability heuristic, introduced in Chapter 12,  states that we make judgments about an attribute based on how easy or hard it is to retrieve information about the attribute. In Chapter 13, Kahneman dives deeper into how the availability heuristic functions, and provides some hints on how it can be used.  Remember, if you do not have a favorite, dog-eared copy of , please buy a copy.  Using the links in this blog entry helps support the blog and its alter-ego, The Software Process and Measurement Cast. ,  It’s time to get reading!    The installments: Week 1: – Week 2: – Week 3: – Week 4: – Week 5: – Week 6: – Week 7: – Week 8: -   Week 9: -   Week 10:  -   Week 11: -   Week 12: -   Week 13: -     Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 557 will feature my interview with Jorgen Hesselberg.  We talked about his book Unlocking Agility and assessing agility.  A thought-provoking and fun interview.  Jorgen’s irrepressible nature shines through even when tackling tough topics!

SPaMCAST 555 features our essay applying a simple filter to determine whether an interaction or event is collaborative. In this essay we put the simple four attribute model we introduced in SPaMCAST 554 to use.  Collaboration is an important tool, so let's recognize what is or isn’t collaboration and stop calling everything collaboration. We will also have a visit from the Software Sensei, Kim Pries. In this installment, Kim returns to the topic of lean software development.  In 2019, the concepts of lean and agile have become intertwined. Understanding concepts like waste is important for everyone involved in delivering value.   Re-Read Saturday News This week we dive into the availability heuristic.  The availability heuristic is useful for understanding what people believe and how they will act.  All leaders need to understand the impact of top of mind experiences on decision making and how to disrupt those biases; the availability heuristic is a tool for building that knowledge.  Remember, if you do not have a favorite, dog-eared copy of , please buy a copy.  Using the links in this blog entry helps support the blog and its alter-ego, The Software Process and Measurement Cast. ,  It’s time to get reading!   The installments: Week 1: – Week 2: – Week 3: – Week 4: – Week 5: – Week 6: – Week 7: – Week 8: -   Week 9: -   Week 10:  -   Week 11: -   Week 12: -     Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 556 will continue our essay and discussion extravaganza.  We will feature an essay on using questions to coach and teach. Asking questions is one way to get someone to own a change rather than use renting it from you. We will also have a visit from Susan Parente!

SPaMCAST 554 features our essay on the misuse of the word 'collaboration'. Collaboration is a hallmark of agile techniques, but people confuse collaboration with many other forms of interactions. When that happens everyone gets confused and disheartened. In order to stop the cycle, we identify four attributes to help recognize collaboration. We'll also hear from Gene Hughson who brings his Form Follows Function Column to the podcast.  In the second part of a three-part series on architects, Gene discusses the role of the solutions architect.  Part One can be found on SPaMCAST 543 - Value Chain, Solution Architects, Essays and Discussions Web Player and Show Notes: Re-Read Saturday News Today we dive into the concept of anchors and the impact of anchor bias. This is one of my favorite topics for understanding behaviors in negotiations. Negotiations are all around us whether you are discussing salary, buying a car, or wrestling with a request for an impossible due date.   Remember, if you do not have a favorite, dog-eared copy of , please buy a copy.  Using the links in this blog entry helps support the blog and its alter-ego, The Software Process and Measurement Cast. ,  It’s time to get reading!    The installments: Week 1: – Week 2: – Week 3: – Week 4: – Week 5: – Week 6: – Week 7: – Week 8: -   Week 9: -   Week 10:  -   Week 11: -   Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 555 will complete our latest set of essays on collaboration.  In this essay, we apply the four attribute model we introduced this week. Having a model is great and it is even better if it can be applied in the real world!  We will also have a visit from the Software Sensei, Kim Pries.

SPaMCAST 553 features our interview with Jim Benson.  Jim and I focused on prioritization and how prioritization can be a reflection of more deep-seated problems. One of the ideas Jim shares is that processes are the social contract for getting work done.  I really enjoy talking with Jim and think you will enjoy the conversation. During the close of the interview, Jim talks about Modus Cooperandi’s class on prioritization.  Jim has extended a discount code for listeners of the podcast for all of the MI classes. The code is SPAMCAST20 or you can use the link:     Jim’s Bio: Jim’s career path has taken him through government agencies, Fortune 10 corporations, and start-ups. Through them all, his passion has remained consistent – applying new technologies to workgroups. In each case asking how they can be leveraged to collaborate and cooperate more effectively. Jim loves ideas, creation, and building opportunities. He loves working with teams who are passionate about the future, pushing boundaries, and inclusion. His goal with all technologies is to increase beneficial contact between people and reduce the bureaucratic noise which so often tends to increase costs and destroy creativity. Jim is the author of the Shingo Research Award-winning book (use the link to buy a copy and support the podcast). He is a noted expert in business process, personal work management, and the application of Lean to personal work and life. Jim believes that the best process is the least process necessary to achieve goals. He has zero tolerance for process waste. All said, Jim enjoys helping people and teams work out sticky problems, an advocate of people actually seeing their work, and inventing new ways to work at the intersection of Lean thinking, brain science, and leadership. Contact Jim Twitter: LinkedIn: Personal Kanban: Modus Cooperandi: Re-Read Saturday News Today we dive into the concept of the Law of Small Numbers, chapter 10 in our re-read of .  I found this chapter particularly useful because I see the results in the process improvement world nearly every day.  It is great to experiment but make sure you get enough observations so that when you draw a conclusion it will be correct.  Remember, if you do not have a favorite, dog-eared copy of , please buy a copy.  Using the links in this blog entry helps support the blog and its alter-ego, The Software Process and Measurement Cast. ,  It’s time to get reading!   The installments: Week 1: – Week 2: – Week 3: – Week 4: – Week 5: – Week 6: – Week 7: – Week 8: -   Week 9: -   Week 10:  -   Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 554 will feature our essay on the misuse of the word 'collaboration', and how to recognize when are talking about something else (like a lecture).   We will also hear from Gene Hughson!