Introducing Matt Beam!

Matt will become the show's new co-host and technical editor.  Don't worry, you'll still get to hear me inject more than a few um's and stutters :)  But, you will also get Matt's level-headed observations and ideas!

In this episode, we talk about things we are seeing in the Chicago Agile space as far as Agile implementations, attitudes, practices, and how we've adapted to them.

We talk a little about Doc Norton's presentation at Agile Day Chicago 2015.  Doc has a great new take on the Shu - Ha - Ri  maturity model.

Rick gives a little detail about an experiment he's looking into with crossing the CSM training class and young students.  This gives way to a great discussion on training/educating students.

Join me as I query , of AIM Consulting, on DevOps.  Before Jack spoke to the () in June, I didn't have a great idea of what DevOps, in the Agile space, really was.

Jack breaks down what the components of a DevOps environment need to to succeed.

In July 2015, Maria Matarelli and Harvey Wheaton presented the results of Scrum Alliance's State of Scrum 2015 survey. The survey returned 4400+ responses that led to some very interesting results.

I was able to get Maria and Aakash Srinivasan (both veterans of this podcast) to discuss some of the more interesting analysis of these results.

Now, about the audio quality of this episode...  I'm sorry, but you will hear some obvious static during this episode (more during the first few minutes).  It turns out that I was using an older microphone that I hadn't recalibrated with my laptop. I've tried to mute it as much as possible through some editing. I will go back to my normal microphone in successive episodes. I'm sorry, and it won't happen again :) -- Rick  

About Maria

Maria Matarelli is a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) and experienced Agile coach who travels the world helping people discover better ways to work. As president of Formula Ink, Maria travels to consult with businesses and speak at conferences around the world from Vancouver to Morocco, Sweden to New York, Hawaii to Istanbul. Maria is the author of the book Workaholic? and has coauthored three additional books. Maria is passionate about working with people and organizations to inspire agility.

 

About Aakash

Aakash Srinivasan is a professional speaker and an Agile trainer and coach who travels to consult Fortune 100 companies, working with enterprise management groups, executive teams and individual project teams on business efficiency, process improvements, organizational change and large scale Agile transformations in addition to providing leadership coaching and other Agile trainings. Aakash also enjoys travelling to speak at industry events and user groups including Agile Indy, IIBA DC, Illinois Regional Agile Users Group, Washington DC Scrum User Group, Agile 2015 and leads training classes and workshops across USA.

Aakash Srinivasan is an Agile Coach and Trainer, in the Washington DC area, who speaks quite often at Agile events, conferences and Gatherings.  Aakash and I sat down last month and talked about a great range of topics.  

Besides name-dropping (Mike Cohn, Dhaval Panchal, Roger Brown, Catherine Louis, Maria Matarelli, Dave Prior, Mike Vizdos, Arlen Bankston, Tom Mellor), We actually talk about topics like why Agile Coaches are needed when ScrumMasters are intended to be the team coaches; 'Pure Scrum' vs Reality; DAD, Scrum, Scrumban, and Kanban comparisons and where/when they fit; training, co-training, and being CST candidates; Scrum Gatherings and Agile conferences.

Vivek and Rick discuss many different topics in this conversation ranging from Governance to Training certification, Agile industry diversity to Release Planning, etc.  We breifly touch on our career goals of CST and CSC, and where we are at in our journeys.

Recently, I had a wonderful time talking with  about modifications to Scrum that make us cringe.  Sprint 0 and Story Authors topped the list.  Please give Angela's article  for more on these subjects.

Angela is also offering a $100 discount to listeners who would like to take her , on July 9th & 10th - just use discount code AJ_100.

In this episode I speak with Dave Sharrock, of Agile 42, about scaling Agile ogs.  

Please excuse the hacked up sound quality.  I didn't realize it while Dave and I were speaking, but I entered into this discussion with preconceived ideas of what scaling Agile orgs meant, and it was well reflected in my part of the discussion.  At times I derailed the conversation, and at others, I slowed Dave down from getting his point across.  I believe I've been able to edit the audio back into a semblance of coherent conversation, almost simply by editing out some large portions of me talking. So, please enjoy Dr. Dave Sharrock speaking about scaling Agile organizations.  It's not necessarily all about making your Agile footprint bigger, ideally it's about making it better (and then bigger later).

Mike Marchi, Agilist, and I (re)talk about his experiences in Scrum, XP, and Agile in general.  Mike, VP and co-founder of Agile Professional Learning Network Chicago chapter, runs the gamut of all things Agile - books, Scrum Gatherings, team experiences, motivating teams, etc.  Please listen for some great examples of real-life Scrum success stories, and a few funny stories too.

You can find Mike via... and the Twitter ()

I sat down with Angela Druckman (CST) last week and discussed a few topics that greatly concern us both.  Angela is a Certified Scrum Trainer, from the Pacific Northwest, who trains in several major markets in the USA, and abroad.  She authored 30 Days to Better Agile, and is currently working on a new book about Agile Coaching.  Her new book will be a companion to an Agile Coaching course that she plans on offering for the first time, this Spring.

Tune in to this episode of the Agile Chicago Style Podcast to hear what Angela calls Stealth Scrum, Progressive Independence, "The Homework", and her arguements and opinions on Prioritized Backlogs vs. Ordered Backlogs, and Methodologies vs. Frameworks.  And listen for one great quote from Angela "Good is the enemy of great."

Maria Matarelli, president of , Certified Scrum Trainer (CST), and author, talks with me about her experience in a recent CSM class where she brought in Suzanne Oliver, of Heart of a Fighter, to act as a real-life Product Owner of/for her non-profit organization. 

Maria's idea to have the CSM class focus on a real non-IT organization to help them realize their goals, yielded some very interesting results.  Listen to our conversation to learn more.

Mentioned in this episode:

Maria Matarelli, from

, from

Blaine Blanchard, from  Chicago

Jan Mosier, from Lightreach

You can contact Maria Matarelli on , , , , at , at , and check out her book at