Get Agile Podcast

In this episode, Tomasz Wykowski talks with Terry Yin, a seasoned software product developer specializing in helping large-scale software development organizations. They discuss what Continuous Integration really means and why most teams that claim to be doing CI are, in fact, only running a CI server.

Terry explains why integration tests can hide the lack of real integration, and how deterministic versioning, trunk-based development, and a shared codebase support true Continuous Integration in multi-team environments.

They also discuss the organizational factors that make continuous integration difficult, how team goals and structures shape technical practices, and why high-quality engineering requires more than tooling.

You will learn:

• why CI is not the same as having a CI server,
• how end-to-end tests support fast, reliable feedback,
• what "unit tests" should actually test,
• why deterministic versioning and trunk-based development matter,
• how organizational design influences technical practices.

Recorded during the AgileByExample 2025 Conference in Warsaw.

Learn more about Terry at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terryyin/ 
Terry's LeSS in Action course: https://less.works/course-details/less-in-action-large-product-developers-a-k-a-the-glad-developers-amstelveen-4089  

In this episode, Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita talks with Simon Wardley - creator of Wardley Mapping - about how mapping helps leaders make sense of rapid change, why AI won't replace developers, and what strategic mistakes organizations are already making.

Simon explains how mapping strategy reveals patterns of technological evolution, why efficiency often creates more complexity, and how AI will increase the demand for skilled engineers rather than eliminate it. They also explore the long-term consequences of not hiring juniors, the cultural impact of large language models, and the need for open and transparent AI development.

Recorded during the AgileByExample Conference in Warsaw.

Learn more about Simon at https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonwardley/ and about Wardley Mapping from https://medium.com/wardleymaps and https://www.swardleymaps.com/.  

In this episode, Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita talks with Rowan Bunning, Scrum trainer and long-time Agile practitioner, about designing organizations for real adaptability instead of copy-pasting "big framework" solutions. Drawing on experiences from Australia, New Zealand, and the UK, Rowan explains how to align org design with strategy, choose clear optimization goals, and avoid the Spotify/Safe cargo-cult trap.

You will learn:

• why copying popular scaling models often fails,
• how to start from strategy and define the capabilities your org actually needs,
• how to use the Opposite Test to validate if your strategy isn't just a buzzword,
• ways to reach executive alignment on optimization goals,
• how to visualize work and constraints using value stream mapping and sense-making to support decisions,
• why providing solutions without understanding the right capabilities isn't a good idea, and what to do instead,
• how tools like Org Topologies and the Star Model help make options and trade-offs explicit.

This episode was recorded during the LeSS Conference in Singapore.

Resources mentioned in the conversation:

• Org Topologies (by Alexey Krivitsky and Roland Flemm): https://orgtopologies.com/
• Creating Agile Organizations (by Cesario Ramos and Ilia Pavlichenko): https://creatingagileorganizations.com/
• Large-Scale Scrum (by Craig Larman and Bas Vodde): https://less.works/

You can learn more about Rowan at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rowanbunning/ and his website https://www.adaptws.com.au/.

In this episode, Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita talks with Paul Klipp – coach, entrepreneur, and organizer of the ACE! Conference – about one of the most challenging topics in corporate life: one-on-ones and annual performance reviews.

With more than two decades of experience in small startups as well as large corporations, Paul shares insights from both sides of the table – as a manager running dozens of one-on-ones and reviews, and as an employee going through them himself. He explains why traditional performance reviews are built on poor psychology, why managers often avoid hard conversations, and how regular one-on-ones can become a powerful tool for growth instead of a painful ritual.

You will learn:

• why annual performance reviews are a bad idea and why companies still require them,
• why yearly feedback doesn't have a significant impact and what managers should focus on instead,
• how managers can minimize the harm of performance reviews,
• what one-on-ones should be used for and why that's rarely the case,
• what employees and managers can do when their one-on-ones feel meaningless.

Learn more about Paul at https://paulklipp.com and https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulklipp/. 
The details about the upcoming ACE! Conference can be found at https://aceconf.com/

Mentioned resources:

• Donella Meadows - Thinking in Systems
• Nancy Kline - Time to Think
• Jim Benson - The Collaboration Equation
• Stephan Perry ACE! talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_k0zvPPbmM

Alex Sloley, Agile Coach, sits with Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita to discuss how Scrum teams can learn the 'whys' of Scrum. They examine three pillars and five values, and how these can be applied to enhance events, accountabilities, and artifacts. Analyzing examples from their experience, they check how organizations can avoid 'Robotic Scrum', where people follow mechanics, but don't see any value in doing that.

They discover that understanding of the theory behind Scrum cannot be enforced, as opposed to mandating events or artefacts, and they search for ways managers can help teams develop curiosity to learn and apply empiricism in practice.

To learn more about Alex, visit his website https://alexsloley.com/. You can find his book there as well - The Agile Community https://alexsloley.com/books.

Other resources mentioned during the conversation:

• E. Deming website https://deming.org/
• The Goal book by E. Goldrat https://www.amazon.pl/Goal-Anniversary-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0884271951

This podcast was recorded during the Regional Scrum Gathering Dhaka 2025 (https://dhakaregional.com/). You can find Alex's keynote at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeAgtJzM8Zw 

Todd Little, chairman of the Kanban University, calls himself an 'accidental agilist'. He joins Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita to discuss why the Agile movement is failing in a lot of companies, which often leads to 'Agile is dead' statements. They start by looking at how agile courses make people happy, but don't deliver what they promise. Then they check why comparing Scrum to Kanban doesn't make sense and deep dive into the Kanban approach to improving knowledge work delivery.

Todd explains why the Kanban approach prefers smaller changes over large transformations, as the former can often bring significant improvements. They discuss whether the 'meet them where they are' approach can lead to a local optimum of 'better waterfall', and how the organization can improve by understanding delays and managing dependencies.

Learn more about Todd at https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddelittle/ and about Kanban University at https://kanban.university/.  

This podcast was recorded during the Regional Scrum Gathering Dhaka 2025(https://dhakaregional.com/). You can find Todd's keynote at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIONkHQKTJQ.  

"No one wants to review PR that took one week or more to develop," says Dragan Stepanovic, Principal Engineer who helps companies and teams evolve their engineering culture.

In this episode of the Get Agile Podcast, Tomasz Wykowski from Procognita meets with Dragan to deep dive into the unrealized consequences of async code reviews. Dragan shows how developers are often forced to work in isolation and instead of forming one team, they become N teams of one person. Often with different engineering culture and coding practices.

Code reviews are industry standard in software development, used in many organizations, but most of them aren't aware of the hidden costs. As Dragan explains, on one hand engineers prefer small pull requests, which lead to a faster feedback loop, better code quality, a higher likelihood of refactor, and more engagement. On the other hand, small changes generate more waiting time. As a consequence, developers end up with large peer reviews, which are often performed in a rush. "Never had a big PR that didn't look good to me" says Dragan.

They look into alternative approaches, called 'co-creation patterns', reducing transaction costs by letting developers work together. Dragan explains how to start, what are the biggest obstacles, and how to overcome them.

Learn more about Dragan at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dstepanovic/. You can find his article about async code reviews at InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/articles/co-creation-patterns-software-development/

The recordings from the Talk LeSS conference 2024 can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgo9ei2yBfg&list=PLDriDdQlN4CoRscWikngnMB0wNebK6cx9&pp=gAQB 

Previous episodes mentioned during the conversation:

• The interview with Woody Zuill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC3XMPWV5H4&list=PLDriDdQlN4Coumio-67kxTkjeouqn7m64
• The interview Tim Ottinger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkiSCLeSSak&list=PLDriDdQlN4Coumio-67kxTkjeouqn7m64 

Other resources mentioned in the conversation:

• Woody Zuill book: https://www.amazon.com/Software-Teaming-Programming-Whole-Team-Approach/dp/B0BLG1QTYK/
• Mob Mentality Show by Chris Lucian and Austin Chadwick https://www.youtube.com/@mobmentalityshow and their two Trello boards (Software Profession Resources: https://trello.com/b/1lfMkCOh/software-profession-resources, Companies that Mob/Ensemble Program https://trello.com/b/EFSFnE4W/companies-that-mob-ensemble-program) 

"The longer you put off talking to your colleagues, the more likely it is, that you're going to have integration problems", says Jim Benson in his conversation with Tomasz Wykowski.

They start their conversation with The Collaboration Equation, which is "Individuals x Teams = Value. Jim explains that teams are covered by the Agile movement, and Value is discussed in Lean, but the individuals are somehow forgotten - the way they interact, work with each other, help each other, monitor their work, and are self-aware of what they lend to the team and what they gain from it.

Jim defines professionals as people wanting to do the right thing at the right time and wanting to do it better next time. He shows how Value Stream Mapping can help them improve by visualizing their work, pain points, emotions, and confusion. The moment they understand how they cause problems to others they can create their own reasons to collaborate and define the right environment to work as professionals.

You can learn more about Jim and his services at:

• https://modusinstitute.com
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimbenson/
• https://moduscooperandi.com/ 

Jim's four books:

• The Collaborative Equation https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHXDBG25/
• Why limit WIP https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KRJFS2Y/
• Why Plans Fail https://www.amazon.com//dp/B006S3UHGA/
• Personal Kanban https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004R1Q642/ 

Two other books mentioned by Jim during the conversation:

• Flow by  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi https://www.amazon.com//dp/0061339202
• Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374533555
• This interview was recorded during ACE! Conference (https://aceconf.com) in Krakow, Poland with support from Pragmatic Talks (https://www.pragmaticcoders.com/resources/pragmatic-talks) 

Jim's talk from ACE! Conference 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3OfAzt4V-M.

"CI is developers' behavior, it has nothing to do with running Jenkins," says Tim Ottinger, XP coach from Industrial Logic. 

Join Tomasz Wykowski, from ProCognita as he interviews Tim Ottinger about the ongoing relevance of Extreme Programming in modern software development. They look at the state of different XP practices, including TDD, CI/CD, User Stories, Swarming, Pairing, and Teaming. Tim explains why these behaviors are necessary for teams to iteratively develop product, and how they differ from "solo ticket processing" commonly used in software development. 

Tim discusses how XP emphasizes working together, prioritization of the work, and the delivery of end-to-end features. He explains that developers know about 1-5% of the codebase and therefore their work must focus on continuous learning. This cannot be limited to the installation of new tools but requires changes in behaviors. Tim shares insights on fostering a culture of continuous improvement and provides valuable resources for teams looking to elevate their agile practices.

You can learn more about Tim at https://www.linkedin.com/in/agileotter/, read his posts at https://agileotter.blogspot.com, and visit the Industrial Logic website at https://www.industriallogic.com/. 

The Swarm Programming article mentioned in the interview: https://www.industriallogic.com/blog/swarm-programming-with-the-swarm-board/ 

YouTube Channels mentioned by Tim:

• Dave Farley Continuous Delivery: https://www.youtube.com/@ContinuousDelivery
• Emily Bache on TDD: https://www.youtube.com/@EmilyBache-tech-coach 

This interview was recorded during ACE! Conference (https://aceconf.com) in Krakow, Poland with support from Pragmatic Talks (https://www.pragmaticcoders.com/resources/pragmatic-talks)

Tim's talk from ACE! Conference 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3SDiRMEWLE 

Join Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita as he sits down with Alexey Kryvitsky, Certified Scrum Trainer, Certified LeSS Trainer, and co-creator of Org Topologies. Together they discuss how to avoid making the implementation of the Agile framework as an organizational goal. Alexey introduces the concept of Org Topologies as a mapping technique to help companies discover where they are, where they want to be, and how to get there. He discusses two dimensions of the map, which are the scope of capabilities and the scope of work. Then he explains each of the four levels on both axis. 

They discuss the role of the managers in driving organizational development, how they can set their goals, and how their role and responsibility will change when moving to different parts of the Org Topologies map. Alexey also gives examples of how the tool can be used to discuss where the company is and where it wants to be, and how different Agile frameworks can support this development.

Learn more about Alexey at https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexeykrivitsky/ and watch his talk from ACE! Conference at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fiY53icUqE&list=PL-u-TkA0wpjdf0mlSNQmiLYw4_r3Yn-NQ 

About Org Topologies: Org Topologies™, a visual framework-agnostic approach designed to help organizations optimize their structure and processes by focusing on thoughtful organizational design. This helps organizations gain higher levels of adaptability. It provides guides such as Elevating Structures™ to help organizations progress on their transformation journeys with a clear direction toward the target state.
Find out more at https://www.orgtopologies.com/ and https://www.linkedin.com/company/orgtopologies/. 

This interview was recorded during ACE! Conference (https://aceconf.com) in Krakow, Poland with support from Pragmatic Talks (https://www.pragmaticcoders.com/resources/pragmatic-talks).