When it comes to planning sprints and their associated user stories, should your team also create, assign, and size individual tasks?  Bob and Josh debate this topic and help you streamline your team's sprint planning and execution.

Love our content? Help us out by sharing on social media, rating our podcast/episodes on iTunes, or by giving to our Patreon campaign.  Every time you give, in any way, you empower our mission of helping as many agilists as possible.  Thanks for sharing!

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Scrum can be a real drag.  After dozens and dozens of sprints, your team looks forward to yet another sprint with all of the same ceremonies.  Hooray...

How can you make the endless sea of sprints that lay ahead of your team look less dreary?  FUN!  

Love our content? Help us out by sharing on social media, rating our podcast/episodes on iTunes, or by giving to our Patreon campaign.  Every time you give, in any way, you empower our mission of helping as many agilists as possible.  Thanks for sharing!

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We've all been there.  Scrum is getting old, and you want to try something new.  Here comes Kanban to save the day!  Maybe not.  Kanban sometimes just makes things worse.  We help you figure out if Kanban is right for you.

Love our content? Help us out by sharing on social media, rating our podcast/episodes on iTunes, or by giving to our Patreon campaign.  Every time you give, in any way, you empower our mission of helping as many agilists as possible.  Thanks for sharing!

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Great leadership is hard to find.  When you boil leadership down to its essence, all you need is a little responsibility.  

In this episode, learn what great leadership looks like so that you can either grow into a great leader for find a great leader to learn from.

Love our content? Help us out by sharing on social media, rating our podcast/episodes on iTunes, or by giving to our Patreon campaign.  Every time you give, in any way, you empower our mission of helping as many agilists as possible.  Thanks for sharing!

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Agile teams perform best when they have a well formed, and continuously refined, backlog.  That sounds great, but how do you get there if you don't have a backlog yet?!?  How in the world do you get started?

This episode gives you everything you need to jumpstart your backlog, and in turn your road to a great implementation of agile.  Learn how to build your first stories and how to get your team refining and sizing!

Love our content? Help us out by sharing on social media, rating our podcast/episodes on iTunes, or by giving to our Patreon campaign.  Every time you give, in any way, you empower our mission of helping as many agilists as possible.  Thanks for sharing!

We collected dozens of audience questions from one of our recent speaking engagements.  In this episode, we answer them for you, in rapid fire mode.  Good luck finding a more answer-packed agile podcast episode out there!

Are there other questions you want answered that weren't tackled in this episode?  Send us your idea(s) in our contact us form.

Heading to TechWell's Agile Dev West this year?  If so, make sure you check out our sessions and say hello!  Dying to go, but need an extra reason for your boss to send you?  Use code “CAST” to receive $200 off their conference registration fee.  Explore the program at well.tc/metacast

Great teams, and leaders, build a safe environment where truths are told, even if they hurt a little.  How healthy is your team and their relationships?  Are truths told in a healthy manner? 

If there are issues that need to be discussed, but they never get on the table because it is uncomfortable, we help you tackle that with this episode.  Learn from our mistakes as you hear some of the hard lessons learned by Bob and Josh throughout their careers.

Links discussed/referenced in this episode: 

• http://firstround.com/review/radical-candor-the-surprising-secret-to-being-a-good-boss/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIh_992Nfes&feature=youtu.be

Agile adoption is difficult.  When you are in middle management during an agile transformation, so many questions are raised.  What is my role?  How do I effectively lead in this new paradigm?  Does anyone need me anymore?  We answer all of these questions, and more! 

Aside from tackling this classic agile challenge, but Bob throws down a HUGE challenge to Josh.  

Sumo suits.  Yes, your two favorite podcast hosts, in sumo suits.  Who will win?

Let's discuss your views on middle management's role in agile and the imminent sumo suit challenge!

It all starts with a backlog.  The health of an agile team correlates directly with the state of its backlog.  

That all sounds great.  How do we get our backlog to be "great"?  Listen to this podcast, that's how!

We are kidding, or are we?  This episode offers a lot of great tips that can help you get your backlogs back on track and making a real difference in your team's performance.  Oh, and Bob may have written a thing or two about backlogs...

• http://rgalen.com/agile-training-news/2016/4/24/backlog-refinement-are-you-doing-it-right
• 
  
• http://rgalen.com/agile-training-news/2014/9/22/grooming-maintaining-or-refining-your-backlogs-practices-for-success
• 
  
• http://rgalen.com/agile-training-news/2014/7/13/anchoring-your-product-backlogs
• 
  
• http://rgalen.com/agile-training-news/2015/4/19/even-the-best-can-be-wrong

What is your secret sauce for great backlogs?

Learn the importance of treating yourself as a brand, especially in the agile community.  Bob and Josh share their experience, and a few tips, as they walk through their thought processes in building their individual brand, corporate brands, and the brand of this podcast.

More importantly, we want for your feedback and ideas on agile brand building.  To support the community, we need you to engage with your fellow listeners by sharing your thoughts and ideas using the hashtag #ABB.  Let's discuss!