For the video version of this podcast: https://youtu.be/pnmbdAxskXo

When an organization has taken the decision to switch an Agile way of working, they often get so caught up in trying to adopt the various practices and processes that they forget to stop and ask the question, “Is this providing the business outcome we need?”

Remembering to keep that question top of mind is important. Knowing what to pay attention to and how to understand the answer is even more important.

In this episode, Jessica Wolfe returns to the podcast so that we can discuss some of the things you might want to focus on, and how paying attention to areas that may be less obvious can give you greater insight into how agile is impacting your business and delivering the results you are looking for.

As we work through the topic, Jessica shows how Lean Agile Intelligence can be used to help discover and interpret metrics you need to see so that you can understand how agile is impacting your organization.

During the podcast Jessica was kind enough to offer a special 20% discount on an annual license to Lean Agile Intelligence if you purchase before the end of 2023. In order to get the discount go to https://leanagileintelligence.com/Account/Register?promoCode=DRUNKENPM6W and tell them you listened to the DrunkenPM podcast.

This podcast was originally recorded using video. If you would like to check out that version so you can see the demo of Lean Agile Intelligence, click here: https://youtu.be/pnmbdAxskXo

For more on Lean Agile Intelligence

Web: https://tinyurl.com/2p23z556

LinkedIn: https://tinyurl.com/mspwy5r7

Instagram: https://tinyurl.com/bdcs2fnd

Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/3dkjwh9t

Contacting Jessica

LinkedIn: https://tinyurl.com/erzxw66m

On Friday, December 8, The Agile Alliance is hosting a MiniCon on the Future of Artificial Intelligence. During the event, Mark Kilby will be hosting a roundtable discussion with the speakers to explore the ways AI is poised to impact how we work and what it will take to utilize it in an ethical and responsible way.

Mark joins me in this episode of the podcast to discuss why he made a conscious decision to get schooled up on AI, how he’s going about doing it, some of the key learnings he has had along the way, and his take on what the future of AI has to offer those of us work in the agile space and project management.

The Future of AI MiniCon

If you’d like to learn more about the Agile Alliance’s Future of AI MiniCon: https://tinyurl.com/mw5ww3w2

Contacting Mark

If you’d like to contact Mark: https://www.markkilby.com/

Distributed Teams

And if you need some help with distributed teams, you should pick up a copy of From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams which Mark co-authored with Johanna Rothman. I cannot recommend this book highly enough! https://tinyurl.com/22vvnyjx

Agile is going through a lot of changes right now. The changes aren’t so much in what it is and how it works - that seems to be a bit stable at the moment. The changes stem more from how adopters feel about it, their ideas about much agile they need, what they need to achieve it, and what kind of support they want getting there. As the space works through these growing pains, many Agilists respond to discomfort they way they (unfortunately) have since the very beginning, by pointing figures at each other and saying “OM%G! CAN YOU BELIEVE THOSE PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE AGILE?” It is a sad but true thing that baked deep into the culture of the agile community is this idea that the best way to prove that you are good enough, smart enough and doggone it, people like you is by calling out the people who you think are not good enough, smart enough and doggone it… you get the idea.

In response to one of these incidents that showed up in his LinkedIn Feed, Andy Jordan posted an article called “Letting Go of Pure Agile” (https://www.projectmanagement.com/articles/893794/letting-go-of--pure--agile), making the case that whether or not you are truly Lean, or doing Scrum “right”, or whatever, doesn’t matter because the business cares about results and that is what we should all be focused on.

I reached out to Andy to ask for an interview with the hope that we could dig a little deeper into his concerns over the purists, finding the right tools for the job, the current state of agile and project management, and, of course, how AI is impacting us. (It was also just great getting to catch up with him.)

Andy, Mark Price-Perry, and I used to do workshops for PMI on Redefining your PMO. If you are curious about that you can learn more here: https://www.projectmanagement.com/videos/294895/pmxpo-2015--why-you-need-to-consider-redefining-the-pmo

Andy’s Article:

Letting Go of Pure Agile: https://www.projectmanagement.com/articles/893794/letting-go-of--pure--agile

Contacting Andy

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyjordan/

ProjectManagement.com: https://www.projectmanagement.com/profile/andyjordan/

Web: https://www.roffensian.com

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

As long as there have been agile teams there has been the challenge of putting people together and getting them to actually be agile. You can send them off to a class and teach them Scrum or Kanban, or bring in team coaches, and that helps, but it doesn’t address one fundamental issue. Most people have not taken (or been given) the time they need to learn how to be agile in how they manage themselves as individuals.

Michael Grill is a Product Owner and Head of Process and Methods in the Agile Practice at Knorr-Bremse, and they have taken steps to address this challenge of helping individuals adopt an agile mindset and practices in managing their day-to-day work by adopting Personal Kanban before they put them together on agile teams. In this interview Michael joins me to share how Knorr-Bremse came to make this choice and how it is deeply impacting their agile practice. First, you begin working with Personal Kanban, then you and your team members begin working together using PK, and then you adopt practices from Scrum, Kanban or other forms of agile, to get the work done.

When Michael told me about the approach they had taken I was really excited to do the interview, because it just makes so much sense I was stunned that it had never occurred to me before.

To add a little to the complexity, the work that Michael and his teams use agile to develop hardware like breaking systems for trains, and that adds a whole other dimension to how they incorporate agile. If you’d like to hear more about that, we covered it in a previous interview and there is link to it below as well as links to where you can learn more about Personal Kanban and even take a course in how to get started with it.

Links:


Using Agile to Develop Hardware with Michael Grill https://tinyurl.com/yc32jdc8

Personal Kanban site: https://www.personalkanban.com

Personal Kanban Training at Modus Institute: https://modusinstitute.com

Lean Agile Visual Management Certification: https://tinyurl.com/2m8pzaa7

My blog on Personal Kanban: https://tinyurl.com/33vb3rua

Contacting Michael
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/michael-grill
Twitter: twitter.com/actualMG

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: [email protected]

Connecting with Jessie

Web: https://improveffect.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessie-shternshus/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/TheImprovEffect/

Email: [email protected]

AI is everywhere now. You can’t have a conversation that involves the future of work without heading down the rabbit hole of how Chat GPT and tools like it are changing the workspace. For some, it is a very exciting time. For others, it is scary as hell because it is so hard to figure out how it will impact our work.

In this interview, Zach Stone is back for a chat about the following questions:

- What parts of the work we do on Scrum Teams will be augmented or replaced by AI?

- How do we prepare for that?

- After AI takes over parts of the job, what are we supposed to do and how will we keep adding value?

During our conversation, Zach shares what he’s learned while pursuing answers to these questions, as well as his thoughts on what we need to do to prepare for our work in the not too distant future and what we’ll need to do in order to stay valuable and relevant to our teams and organizations.

Transcript

- A transcript of the interview can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/zmt26ped

Links from the podcast

- Interview with Zach on his team in Ukraine: https://on.soundcloud.com/jG1NM

- Agile Coaching Skills - Certified Facilitator (ACS-CF): https://tinyurl.com/3tnpd637

- Jira Insights: https://tinyurl.com/2br59457

- AI For Everyone (the AI course Zach recommended): https://www.coursera.org/learn/ai-for-everyone/

- Study: Prefrontal Cortex In Jazz Musicians Winds Down When Improvising https://tinyurl.com/2ua826yf

- AI Decision Assistant ChatBot for Software Release Planning and Optimized Resource Allocation https://tinyurl.com/bddz9zdm

- Chat GPT: https://chat.openai.com/

Contacting Zach

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stonezach/

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: [email protected]

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/