In this podcast is I got to dig into the topic of Bimodal with two guys who are deeply knowledgeable about both the traditional and the Agile space. If you aren’t familiar with Bimodal yet, you definitely want to check this out because it is poised to have a massive impact on how organizations introduce and work with Agile. And if you are already up to speed on bimodal, there is a good chance some of the discussion in this podcast is going to challenge what you know on this topic.

Some links from the Podcast

Steve Elliott Interview

AgileCraft http://agilecraft.com

AgileCraft on Twitter - https://twitter.com/theagilecraft

Dennis Stevens Interview

LeadingAgile http://www.leadingagile.com

LeadingAgile on Twitter https://twitter.com/leadingagile

Dennis Stevens on Twitter https://twitter.com/dennisstevens

The blog post Dennis mentioned on Agile vs. Waterfall http://www.leadingagile.com/2013/08/agile-vs-waterfall/

Show Notes

0:00 Introduction to the Bimodal Podcast

2:50 Start Interview with Steve Elliott from AgileCraft

3:22 Background on Steve and AgileCraft

5:30 Defining Organizational Agility

6:50 The challenges of scale (with Agile)

8:00 The challenge of Bimodal

9:00 Defining Bimodal

9:40 AgileCraft’s take on Bimodal

11:15 Is Bimodal just a way of legitimizing a hybrid model

12:28 Admitting when we can’t actually go 100% Agile

13:00 The Agile Walk of Shame

13:51 AgileCraft’s decision to support Bimodal and “meet them where they’re at”

15:00 How Bimodal brings the data from both worlds into once place

16:00 Transparency and Measuring Value

17:10 Agile’s connection to strategy

18:11 Figuring out what data you need to pay attention to

20:22 The dangers of big wave planning

21:30 How the Agile space is evolving and maturing

22:30 How to contact Steve

23:15 - Dennis Steven’s interview begins

24:14 Background on Dennis and LeadingAgile

25:00 Dennis explains Bimodal

26:00 Why some things can’t move fast in an organization

27:00 Not everything (in an organization) is ready to move to Agile

27:47 Not everyone is trying to move everything to Agile

28:00 How most people are misinterpreting the message of Bimodal

29:10 Nobody thinks matrix teams are the right way to build software

29:52 People are still running by the pool with scissors in their mouths

30:15 It’s like crack for the business world

31:43 Conditions that must exist for fast feedback cycles and bimodal to work

33:50 Is transitioning to bimodal harder than just transitioning to Agile? (3 options for transformation)

35:51 Realizing when your organization has changed enough

36:45 You have to make Mode 1 be sexy and desirable

37:10 Creating the urgency for change

37:45 Do organizations have the self-awareness needed to understand what change they need?

38:20 Explaining it to Executives

40:10 Why Dennis does not have a “bimodal” conversation with executives

41:00 The value of having a pragmatic and safe roadmap for transformation that resonates with Executives

41:47 The hardest part of transforming to bimodal

42:40 How to contact Dennis