Arguing Agile: Product Management, Business Leadership, & Org Design

On this episode of the Agile Podcast, Director of Agile Product Owners: Mike Miller graces us with his presence. Mike discusses the ins and outs of Roadmaps, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), building and/or transitioning to Agile cultures, and a host of other related Product Management topics.

0:00 Introduction
0:29 Roadmap from Scratch
3:30 MVP
7:06 Business Value
10:45 Production Metrics & Alignment
14:43 Back to MVP
16:55 Maturity by Doing It
18:42 Minimum Functional Product (aka. Walking Skeleton)
20:28 Role, Accountability, or Full-Time Job
23:51 The Science on Teams is In!
26:15 Cut-Throat Cultures
31:23 Build Trust with Active Listening
33:53 Borrowed vs Permanent Product Owners
35:31 Agile - "To Be" or "To Do"
37:41 Product Management - Show Me Proof
42:16 PO Training
45:01 Splitting PO & PM
48:31 Context Switching, Multiple Products with One Team
51:06 Break for the Agile Ambush
51:49 Podcast Purpose - Sharing
53:40 Good Feedback vs Listening/Watching Yourself
55:45 Start, then Experiment
1:01:20 Portfolio Management
1:05:08 Gap in Agile Knowledge
1:06:57 Cost and the Product Manager
1:12:22 Budget Shell Games
1:17:47 Taylorism Rears its Ugly Head Again
1:19:52 Wrap-Up

Agile Podcast E23 - Director of Agile Product Owners: Mike Miller
#agilepodcast #productmanagement #productowner

In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel sit down with Certified Scrum Trainer: Fred Mastropasqua.

0:00 Intro
0:17 Scrum Guide Change Process
3:32 Different Orgs Using the Scrum Guide
4:57 Infinite Customization of Scrum
7:29 Segue about Podcast Editing
10:56 Agile Podcast Market
13:24 Agile Purists
16:17 Agile Budgeting (It's Important)
18:51 Issues - When it's Project not Product
22:20 Being Face-to-Face
26:10 Org Changes to Implement Scrum
28:50 Underwater Leadership
31:47 People in Scrum Classes
34:01 Scrum Preconceived Notions
36:10 Meta: Agile Coach & Scrum Master Positions
38:17 The Process Coach
40:23 Meta: The Word "Coach"
42:07 What to do with Project Managers
46:00 Finding & Fitting into the Right Role
50:33 Difference between SM & PO
52:33 Natural Talents & Coaching
55:53 Non-Creatives in Creative Fields
58:57 Allowing Creative People to be Creative
1:02:54 No vs. Yes, And...
1:06:02 Wrap-up

Link to Captain David Marquet's Wiki (author of Turn the Ship Around): 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Marquet

Military Leadership talk by Thomas E. Ricks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE

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Agile Podcast E22 - Interview with a Scrum Trainer: Fred Mastropasqua
#agilepodcast #scrumtrainer #scrumtraining #scrumworks

In this episode, Brian Orlando talks with Curtis Lembke. Curtis is a Scrum Master at a Big Four Financial Firm with experience ranging both small and large organizations across several different business domains. We discuss the nature of Business Analysts and their relationships with Product Owners, different metrics that leadership and managers may ask for (and what they should be asking for), and the nature of work as it relates to Agility.

0:00 Business People & Developers Working Together
1:58 BA as an extension of the PO
5:40 BA is not a Substitute PO
8:10 Product Owner vs Product Manager
9:41 Working Smarter
13:21 Backstory Time (Logistics/Trucking)
16:28 Side-track - Weigh Station Bypass
17:53 Customers Paying for Roadmap Items
20:53 Multiplying White Label Mobile Apps
24:11 Hard Deadlines and Agile
26:14 Product Value vs Product Features
29:41 First Product Owner at a Start-Up
33:26 Success and Problems Scale Equally
37:12 Pre-Roadmapping Story
39:38 Roadmapping - What actually happened
42:35 Form Teams to Follow Roadmaps
44:34 Example of an Overloaded CTO
47:11 Roadmapping In-Person
48:24 Throughput and Stakeholders
50:16 Measure Satisfaction over Velocity
51:27 More on Satisfaction (NPS)
53:52 Adoption Rate & Fake Doors
55:12 Lean Startup
57:47 When Execs ask about Throughput
1:00:01 Reasons to Show Throughput
1:02:18 Backlog Health
1:06:35 Customer Satisfaction Can't Be Gamed
1:07:31 Measure Both: Money & Adoption
1:10:09 Ego or Measuring the Wrong Things
1:12:27 Ego or Bad Learned Habits
1:14:36 Wrap-up

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Agile Podcast E21 - Interview with a Scrum Master: Curtis Lembke
#agilepodcast #scrummasterinterview #agilemetrics

In this episode, Brian Orlando strips the normal conversations around Agility back to the basics by walking through each of the 12 Principles of the Agile Manifesto.

If you are in an organization and are finding dedication to agility (from team members or leadership) lacking, this podcast may be helpful to you! Use it to help create a more concrete list of items you can use to help start those critical conversations that need to take place in order for you to be a more effective change-agent.

0:00 Topic Intro
1:11 (1) Early and continuous delivery...
3:13 (2) Welcome changing requirements...
5:19 (3) Working software frequently...
7:07 (4) Business people and developers...
8:53 (5) Build projects around motivated individuals...
10:59 (6) Face-to-face conversation
15:18 (7) Working software... primary measure of progress
18:20 (8) Maintain a constant pace indefinitely
21:51 (9) Technical excellence and good design...
25:03 (10) Simplicity...
29:28 (11) Emerge from self-organizing teams
32:03 (12) Team reflects on how to become more effective...
33:43 Wrap-up

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Agile Podcast E20 - Twelve Principles of Agile
#agilepodcast #agileprinciples #businessagility #agileprojects

In this episode of the Agile Podcast, Brian Orlando talks about the different types of metrics that software development organizations use.

0:00 Topic Intro
1:21 Flow Rate/Velocity/Forecast
3:16 Percent Committed vs. Delivered
5:28 Team Satisfaction
9:01 Customer Satisfaction
10:11 Prompting for NPS
14:08 Percent of Healthy Accounts
16:08 Transaction Length & Abandoned Transactions
21:43 Backlog Health
26:21 Roadmap Features vs. Technical Features
30:12 Bug Leakage & Triage
35:16 Training Metrics
38:53 Wrap-up

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Agile Podcast E19 - Metrics for Agile and Transformations
#agilepodcast #agilemetrics #agiletransformation

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss one of the main threats to not only Agility and Agile Transformations, but general business ventures - ego. This episode was also an experiment in (bad) lighting and cityscape background; we plan to be back in our normal space next week.

0:00 Introductory Banter
0:33 Topic Intro
2:10 Why have Project Managers
5:10 Transformation Challenges
8:06 Sabotaging Agility
9:57 Challenging Gantt Charts
13:40 Utilization Disguised as Capacity Planning
15:41 Work Assignments Destined for Failure
17:46 Management via Threat
20:16 Working with Other Cultures
25:36 Awareness of Undermining
30:07 Satisfy Outcomes not Egos
36:03 Transformation Metrics
37:55 Side Discussion - Technical Deliverables
42:55 Reasons to Silo
46:52 Takeaways
50:38 Wrap-up

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Agile Podcast E18 - Undermining Your Agility with Ego
#agilepodcast #agileproblems #agilesabotage

In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel explore the Scrum Master's role in Software Releases. This includes both Release Planning and the actual Software Release Deployments.

0:00 Topic Introduction
2:05 Facilitating Release Planning
5:47 Team's Role in Release Planning
9:50 Scrum Master in Deployments
12:58 Working from your Email
14:27 Tell the Story of Progress (or not)
17:24 Backup or Redundant Communicator
20:10 Large Team vs. Small Team Releases
21:33 Scrum Master Shielding the Team
23:05 Deployment Failures
27:50 Insulate Teams from Noise
30:20 Stop Doing Manual Release Notes
34:01 Topic Review / Summary
35:59 Non-Automated Deployments
36:46 Wrap-up

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In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss Communities of Practice and how they can benefit you and your organization. 

0:00 Differences: COI/COP/PMO
3:34 The What (Definitions)
7:03 The Why (the Benefits)
10:03 How to Start
14:50 Challenging the Detractors
16:45 Community Outreach
18:51 COP vs. COI
23:01 Break for #noestimates
27:34 Work Item Sizing & Flow
32:45 COP Example Topic
39:09 Open Cultures
40:54 Trust & Critique
46:44 Starting a COP
52:07 Wrap-up

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On this episode, Brian talks with Om Patel about when companies customize their implementation of Agile. We discuss our observations and share our experiences with companies that began as Agile organizations and then sub-optimized their agility and also companies that were never Agile to begin with who have customized their implementations of waterfall in order to appear Agile.

0:00 Banter on Consultancies
0:57 Customizing Your Way Out of Agile
4:12 Length of Scrum Events
6:42 High Performing Spring Planning
8:48 Poor Sprint Planning
11:41 Confirmation Bias (Every Team is Different)
13:19 Fundamentals (by the book vs. figure it out)
15:05 Teams - Component vs. Feature
19:37 Clarity of Roadmap Progress
23:18 Rebranding Waterfall to Trick Execs
24:28 Siloed Development Management Mind-Set
28:10 Pressure's Effect on Quality & Culture
31:34 Outdated Management Theories
34:11 Taylorism: the Seeds of Command & Control
37:38 That Won't Work Here
41:11 Example of Customizing Out of Agile
43:30 Dashboards, Not Status Reporting
47:22 Roadmaps & Long-Term Planning
49:00 Budget Toward Outcomes
52:04 Wrap-Up

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Agile Podcast E15 - Customizing Your Way Out of Agile
#customizingagile #agilepodcast

In this episode of the Agile Podcast, Brian Orlando answers some questions from comments and feedback (mainly) about Product Ownership.

0:00 Non-relevant Intro
0:28 CSM & CSPO in a Consultancy
1:55 Aligning on Problems, not Solutions
3:45 Connect with Company Direction
4:34 Prioritizing & Being Accountable for Prioritization
6:47 Building Consensus
7:58 Project Example where Consensus Building was Important
10:05 Back to Building Consensus - Leveraging Relationships
12:11 Avoid Becoming a Feature Factory
14:20 Encompassing both Business & Technical Needs
16:26 Should Scrum Teams Share Events (Ceremonies)
18:53 Shared Sprint Planning
21:55 Issues with Having Both Multiple Teams & Products
24:56 Team Size - Sub-optimizing the Team for the PO
27:44 Team Size - Final Thoughts

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