Agile Disrupted

It’s not discovery. It’s discoveries.

If you were asked, how does the company you work for make money? Break it down. Whether it’s an early startup living off of seed funding or a corporate empire running multi-billion dollar enterprises across the globe, what part do you play in helping your company thrive as a business? 

Some responses might be, “Beats me. But who cares? I’m getting paid.” For how long? It all comes down to that, doesn’t it? Money. 

Businesses will fight until their last dying breath to stay invincible in a market that never stops shifting. As Alexander Osterwalder, CEO of Strategyzer, simply puts it, “business models are like containers of yogurt in a fridge with an expiration date.” What evidence can we rely on as indicators of progress that the companies we work for will thrive throughout the test of time? Or even the next decade? Or the next meeting?

Let’s think about:

Does a company become invincible through the confidence of its leaders claiming certainty around the existing products and services that have given financial security up until now, or is it through the leaders who never stopped being entrepreneurs, that carry the conviction to navigate the uncertainty that comes with running a business? The dichotomy remains. 

Find out with newest guest Thomas Schaefer and the return of guest speaker Kaelin Burns, as we uncover what happens when we get caught up in the art of product, but lose sight of the science of business 🔥

Is failing fast effective or reckless, especially without understanding the pattern that led to the failure to begin with?

We create goals. We call them outcomes. We call them objectives. We measure key performance indicators on reaching these goals. We reach these goals to continuously improve. We continuously improve to reach our personal vision. We recruit others to join us in a shared vision. We get there together. We arrive. That’s the plan, right?

Are we more susceptible to enrolling into someone else’s personal vision of the future in avoidance of our own introspection of what we really want?

Are we more susceptible to being compliant, or even apathetic, towards a shared vision that’s forced upon us?

Sometimes we formalize our goals at work and sometimes we disregard them in our personal lives. Every day, we wake up to a blank canvas of possibilities and obstacles towards these goals. Every day is a lottery, ‘because cause and effect is not closely related in time and space,’ as Peter Senge explains it in Laws of System Thinking.

Time isn’t as linear as much as we understand it to be, and yet it is our impulse to respond accordingly. It is our impulse to create solutions for yesterday’s problems. It is our impulse to diagnose symptoms, so that we might avoid the hard truth of the patterns behind ‘the structures that might hold us prisoner.’

Given the limitations of cognitive load, our mental model alone can’t possibly contain every element of the butterfly effect. But the commitment that comes with seeking the truth means we discover how we are co-creating our own reality today and what we’re willing to do to generate the results we want.

So, ask yourself. What progress have you made this year?

Is learning how we co-create our own reality a source of limitation or is reality simply a medium that we are bringing to life each day through our choices?

Find out with the return of guest speaker David A. Brown, and our newest guest speaker Patrick Mercurio.

“It’s a #mindset.” Is it though? 

Do old #habits really die hard, or are we dying each day with them? 

Let’s think about the #narrative we tell ourselves in the perpetual struggle to form new habits and the struggle to break bad ones. 

Our habits and behaviors are tied to how we identify ourselves each day and it is when we confront our #identity, we begin to see significant #change in who we want to become. It all starts with our #choices. 

So, what about a living #system of individuals carrying habits and behaviors that represent the identity of a corporation? Let’s dig deeper. 

If dysfunctional patterns of habits and behaviors are evident #signals alone, are companies willing to confront their identity crisis to welcome positive change, when it’s hard enough to do as an individual? 🔥 

Find out with the return of guest speaker David A. Brown and newest guest speakers Jennifer Burkle, and Kristina Stroud as we uncover mental models, where our habits come from, and what the possibilities could be.

So, is it really SAFe to Fail?

Let’s dig deeper…

Tune into the Season 3 premiere with the return of guest speaker, Matt Miller, and newest guest speaker, 🙎🏼‍♂️ V. Lee Henson - Certified Scrum Trainer, as we uncover what psychological safety looks like in a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) model and the dichotomy of success and failure.

What better way to end 2021 than the much anticipated Season 2 Finale: Disrupters Assemble. With nothing short of profound introspection and prolific disruption.

Agile Disrupted brings back major speakers, David A. Brown, John Augustin, Matt Miller, and Jason Kerney from Season 2 for one last showdown called #ChangeMyMind on these eight topics:

Season 2, Episode 1: Psychology of Product

An Agile team will claim success by meeting their “Definition of Done” and delivering a Product that no one uses

Season 2, Episode 2: Scrum Master of None

When a Scrum Master can’t hold themselves accountable for their own craft, they fail to hold their teams accountable

Season 2, Episode 3: Definition of NOT Ready

Without validation practices provided by Definition of Ready, we fail to identify good ideas from the bad ones that results in an inflated Product.

Season 2, Episode 4: WIP or Whipped?

WIP limits alone won’t help undone work or a fragment team

Season 2, Episode 5: Agilist in Wonderland, a Fragile Transformation Story

An Agile Transformation alone won’t fix the problems an org is having with their software releases. It will only expose it.

Season 2, Episode 6: Ghosted

Ghosting only serves the person or the company in the act alone, without any regard towards the victim being impacted.

Season 2, Episode 7: Hard Conversations

People will be in denial of a problem or conflict to avoid a hard conversation

Season 2, Episode 8: Ugh Agile Interviews, Recruiters Edition

An organization’s obsession with present needs will poorly influence their ability to hire talent for the future

Tune into the Season 2 Finale with speakers David Brown, John Augustine, Matt Miller, and Jason Kerney find out how the disrupters assembled. 🔥

Agile Interviews. Enough said. 

When it comes to the organizations that carry their own perception of what being Agile means, in accordance to their own business model, their own operating model, their own cultural values & principles and ultimately their own brand, how can we be certain that we are being matched appropriately?

We don't. 

Until the actual interview begins with our hiring manager, it is an uncertainty we sit with. The uncertainty of what this manager is going to do with our future as soon as it's in his/her hands. The uncertainty of joining an organization without actually knowing what you signed up for, despite what you learned within a few hours of having a conversation with a stranger, or perhaps a couple of strangers.

If the argument is to embrace change and embrace impermanence of any present state we are in, are we hiring people as they are now? Or are we hiring for the inevitability of who they will become? Are we hiring to help others feel confident in their own future, because we, as leaders, see the future with abundance and absolute clarity. 

Are we at the mercy of an organization's open requisitions and their recruiting agencies, or can we change the narrative by uncovering the belief systems that support the organization's values & principles by asking the right questions? 

Find out with newest guest speakers Jose Mata, and Dionna Steed as they share what it takes to find talent in a market that truly is impermanent. 

Two words: Hard. Conversations. 

When comes to all the professional & personal relationships that fill our lives with fulfillment, or perhaps even dread, do we really accept the responsibility of conflict management? Do we live by the values and principles we carry, especially when conflict arises?

We are truly tested as humans by the decisions we make and its impact to others. We live with our decisions each day. So, is the hard conversation intended for someone else, or is it intended for ourselves? 🔥

Find out with the return of guest speakers, Joshua Mauldin and Emmanuel Wiggins, as well as, newest guest speaker, Jason Kerney, in our special two-part mini series "Corporate Horror & Trauma: Hard Conversations," as we face the hard decisions that come with having the hard conversations that imprint our lives.  

Tis the season to be horrific and ghoulish, let's talk about corporate horror & trauma. Have you ever been ghosted by a company before

Corporate ghosting is when a company completely cuts off all forms of corporate communication with you without prior notice or explanation. Plot twist: this can happen to absolutely any professional in their career.

Is a company's decision to ghost their employee a necessary cruelty that could've been avoided by providing one exit conversation? 🔥

Find out with the return of guest speakers Joshua Mauldin and Emmanuel Wiggins in our special two-part mini series "Corporate Horror & Trauma: Ghosted," as we disrupt the very act of corporate ghosting and what it does to any hardworking professional trying to make a difference.

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Alice. She discovered a world that disrupted her entire perception of reality. It was called Wonderland.

If we look at Alice as this beacon of hope and the personification of curiosity & courage, do organizations exist in the Agile world that we live in or are they hidden gateways to Wonderland?

Find out with newest guest speaker, David A. Brown, as we uncover what it takes to navigate through Wonderland and find our way back home. 🔥

So, how good are you at prioritizing what you need to get done at a sustainable pace? How often do you realistically say "yes" to last minute commitments that come up and how often do you say "no" to promises that you know you can't keep?

Do you find yourself saying the following:

Now, flip that to Agile teams using WIP limits:

WIP limits encourage a culture of work that is done before pulling in more work. The tool(s) we use doesn’t guarantee the culture we seek, but the people do.