Product Agility

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A talk in 10...

Abstract:

Let's discuss the crucial aspect of Sprint Review that is often overlooked due to our tendency to focus on irrelevant things.

Description:

On the talk, you will have an opportunity to participate in a small aquarium simulation based on a real business case of a Sprint Review.

Together, we observe and evaluate where and why we spend most of our time.

Finally I'll share my LeSS experiment helping to tackle this problem!

Already curious?


Website https://www.fesle.eu/

LeSS talk: https://less.works/conferenza/sessions/2022-less-conference-warsaw-sprint-review-our-tendency-for-irrelevant-things-268

His LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drobniuch

Host Bio

Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.  

Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱!

Ben Maynard

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/

🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard

💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ 

Product Agility Podcast 

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 

💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/

🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility

Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes

• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56
• iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p

Want to come on the podcast?

Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80 

Send us Fan Mail

This is the uncut version of the talk Ben gave at the LeSS conference 2022 in Warsaw

Is Large Scale Scrum (#LeSS) Betamax to #SAFe's VHS (or perhaps S&S LaserDisc)? Betamax was a videotape (remember those) format that was superior to its main competitor VHS. History tells us that the customers mainly cared about cost rather than image, sound and build quality and, to compound this, JVC (creators of the VHS format) allowed anyone, regardless of their manufacturing quality to create VHS machines. The result? VHS was increasingly affordable, proliferated and soon Betamax was gradually resigned to the history books... Join me for an exploration into what the future may hold for LeSS and of the many untold LeSS stories that I have uncovered through the recording of my LeSS Matters podcast.

Host Bio

Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.  

Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱!

Ben Maynard

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/

🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard

💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ 

Product Agility Podcast 

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 

💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/

🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility

Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes

• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56
• iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p

Want to come on the podcast?

Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80 

Send us Fan Mail

Konstantin Ribel is an Organisational Design Consultant & Certified LeSS Trainer with nearly a decade of experience.

This experience spans both hardware and software in the medical and automotive worlds. Understandably this leads him to have some unique and thought-provoking insights into making multi-team  agile really work. There is no better testament to this than his HUGE LeSS Huge case study at BMW Autonomous Driving.

He is a great conversationalist and apparently the world's youngest Certified Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) Trainer.

In this episode, Konstantin does a brilliant job at explaining why the next big thing in the agile world should be something that should have been bigger and it makes Ben think about how that thing could act as something between a rigorous and dedicated yoga programme and industrial strength pain killers that can make organisational flexing, ultimately, less painful.

And what else??!

🏎️ What is the seismic shift that's needed to make Konstantin's agile dreams come true?
🏎️ If it is true that the bigger the organisation the more painful it is to remain flexible, is this why when they adapt too far too soon it's painful and often snaps back to the status quo?
(this is what Ben calls the FIP).
🏎️ An update on how is Ben's mid-life crisis manifesting?

Here are some tasty links for you:
🔗Konstantin's Website
🔗Konstantins LeSS Courses
🔗Konstantin Ribel on LinkedIn
🔗Extreme Programming
🔗HUGE LeSS Huge case study at BMW Autonomous Driving

Host Bio

Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.  

Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱!

Ben Maynard

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/

🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard

💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ 

Product Agility Podcast 

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 

💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/

🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility

Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes

• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56
• iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p

Want to come on the podcast?

Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80 

Send us Fan Mail

Wolfi is a passionate coach with more than 10 years of experience in large-scale Lean and Agile Product Development.

What did he do when Craig Larman and Bas Vodde arrived at his place of work in 2005?

He started learning.

Since coaching his first Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) adoption in 2007 he has continued to support several organizations within Nokia Siemens Networks, and in 2010 he coached a 1000+ people organization on their SAFe adoption.

With all this experience and expertise in project and programme management, it was always going to be another great interview to add to the list.

We of course covered the standard Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) trainer questions:

👟 What is your elevator pitch for LeSS?
👟 Did you choose LeSS or did LeSS choose you?
👟 What’s the one thing, above all others, you love about LeSS?
👟 What was your favourite LeSS adoption?
👟 If you could change one thing about LeSS what would it be?

Not only that by listening to this you will be able to:

🐶 Tell your friends what in Wolfi's opinion is the crucial element of LeSS
🐶 Save yourself time by being told what do you get when you google "Descaling"
🐶 Know forever how Wolfi describes the term "Descaling"
🐶 Still have no idea what apples have to do with descaling
🐶Know whether or not  Wolfi and Ben be opening a Kettle company.
🐶Finally know what was the big thing about LeSS that made sense to Wolfi's ex-Programme Manager's mind?
🐶Answer the question "Does Programme and Project Management ever have a role in a Large Scale Scrum environment?"
🐶 Know what is it about LeSS that Wolfi believes makes it rigorous?
🐶Describe Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) can help with your mould problem in your bathroom
🐶Explain what are Wolfi's two top Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) usage tips?

Some very good links you should definitely click on (first to click on them all will not win anything, except for a warm fuzzy feeling)

• Large Scale Scrum (LeSS)Trainer Case Study - German Big Insurance
• kai kaku.fi - Wolfi's company
• Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) Trainer Profile 
• Wolfi's Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) Courses
• Wolfi on LinkedIn
• A great video with Wolfi and Elad Sofer (another Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) trainer)

Host Bio

Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.  

Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱!

Ben Maynard

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/

🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard

💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ 

Product Agility Podcast 

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 

💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/

🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility

Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes

• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56
• iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p

Want to come on the podcast?

Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80 

Send us Fan Mail

Wolfgang Steffens is a passionate, energetic, inspiring, and authentic coach with 10+ years of experience in large-scale Lean and Agile Global Product Development💼

He is a Certified LeSS Trainer &  Coach, Systems Thinker who started his agile learning in 2005 when he was introduced to Scrum and Agile for the first time⏰

Wolfi is a sterling chap (as we would say in England) and I was excited to ask him...

📣"What Will Be the Next Big Thing in the Agile World"📣

His response was not at all what I was expecting!!


Stay up-to-date with us on our social media!

LeSS Matters website - https://www.lessmatters.co.uk

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/less-matters-community

Twitter - https://twitter.com/LeSSMattersComm

Host Bio

Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.  

Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱!

Ben Maynard

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/

🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard

💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ 

Product Agility Podcast 

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 

💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/

🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility

Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes

• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56
• iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p

Want to come on the podcast?

Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80 

Send us Fan Mail

Jac Hughes spends most of his days providing presently surprising agile support at his company Everday Agile.

If you haven't already done so you should really check out his videos, they make me jealous they are so good 💘

In this episode, Jac educates me about something I knew nothing about, The Swimmers Body Illusion.

At first, I thought it was a classic magic trick, but no, turns out it is actually something very useful for us agile change agents.

🏊 Will swimming every day alone make you as ripped as a swimmer with chees grater abs?
🏊What does it have to do with copy and paste agility (definitely not talking about the Spotify model)
🏊Why Jac feels like agility like a full tank of petrol
🏊Why overlaying scrum on what already exists, is always bad news
🏊 What are the effects over empowerment?
🏊 What was Ben's big app idea you are welcome to steal?
🏊 Hear Jac say the words "Sexy UI in front and Dog Toffee at the back", still not sure what it means


💥💥!!Boom!!💥💥
Useful links

A brilliant book on Team Coaching - Building Top Performing Teams
Some stuff on the Swimmers body illusion that isn't as good as what we said, honest
Kanban maturity model to show leaders like Jac does
Adaptivity fit - a really interesting and useful tool for engaging with leaders on an agile journey

Host Bio

Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.  

Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱!

Ben Maynard

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/

🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard

💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ 

Product Agility Podcast 

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 

💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/

🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility

Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes

• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56
• iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p

Want to come on the podcast?

Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80 

Send us Fan Mail

Wolfgang Steffens is a passionate, energetic, inspiring, and authentic coach with 10+ years of experience in large-scale Lean and Agile Global Product Development.

He is a Certified LeSS Trainer &  Coach, Systems Thinker who started his agile learning in 2005 when he was introduced to Scrum and Agile for the first time.

So, given all of the text, I have copied and pasted from the LeSS website (with a few edits) we could be led to believe that he would have something interesting to say when I asked the question

📣"What In The Agile World Should Have Been Bigger"📣

I was not let down and neither will you be as he covers:

🏁Have we missed the point about agile?
🏁What are the pre-conditions for agile?
🏁Does agile mean different things to different organisations?
🏁Doe's getting old mean that we have to end up inflexible?
🏁What doe's Wolfi know is the only way to act in a complex world?
🏁Why do some managers dislike the idea of experimentation?
🏁What is the impact of a compelling experiment hypothesis?
🏁Who would call agile thrilling?
🏁Is the answer to all of this a coalescence of purposes?


Stay up-to-date with us on our social media!

LeSS Matters website - https://www.lessmatters.co.uk

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/less-matters-community

Twitter - https://twitter.com/LeSSMattersComm

Host Bio

Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.  

Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱!

Ben Maynard

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/

🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard

💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ 

Product Agility Podcast 

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 

💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/

🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility

Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes

• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56
• iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p

Want to come on the podcast?

Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80 

Send us Fan Mail

Jac Hughes spends most of his days providing presently surprising agile support at his company Everday Agile.

If you haven't already done so you should really check out his videos, they make me jealous they are so good 💘

Jac had a question for me, and it stumped me if I am totally honest.

It was not one that I had ever been asked before and the points we hit on were incredibly useful, way beyond the scope set out in the question. There is something here for everyone:

🍬What is the scaling Pick and Mix approach?
🍬Can you mix SAFe and LeSS?
🍬Are any of the popular scaling approaches we know of designed for cross-company collaboration?
🍬Is there something beginning with P that could be the secret sauce?
🍬What could be one thing that would work, but maybe would not be feasible?
🍬And if it could work, what would a company have to give up to get something out?
🍬In what way doe's Ben think SAFe over-empowers people?
🍬What is a bigger concern for Ben & Jac? A receding hairline or grey hairs?
🍬What is the Integration difference between SAFe and LeSS

Whats this??!?! Some Useful and Relevant Links? (Yes)

Open Banking
Jac on LinkedIn
Everyday Agile on LinkedIn
Everyday Agile's website

Stay up-to-date with us on our social media!

LeSS Matters website - https://www.lessmatters.co.uk

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/less-matters-community

Twitter - https://twitter.com/LeSSMattersComm

Host Bio

Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.  

Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱!

Ben Maynard

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/

🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard

💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ 

Product Agility Podcast 

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 

💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/

🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility

Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes

• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56
• iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p

Want to come on the podcast?

Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80 

Send us Fan Mail

In this episode, Jac and I  speak a lot about something called "contracting". Now I can imagine some of you are shouting "we value customer collaboration over contract negotiation", and that is a fair thing to shout, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water on this one...

What we are talking about is an extremely useful practice the agile world has taken from the professional coaching world that helps us to align expectations and co-create an agreement that is a win-win for both the agile coach as well as our clients.

This co-created agreement provides us with the bedrock for collaboration if done well and that's what we honed in on thinking about starting with new clients.


🎯The intangible nature of agile coaching (it's not like we have a lead time for our work? Or do we?)
🎯Are there measures for what could be deemed as "success" when agile coaching? (We thought so)
🎯If we measure some of the things Jac and I talk about would they help us to get senior leaders increasingly engaged?
🎯 What is it that builds trust with a new client and how doe's Jac do it?
🎯 Should we only contract at the start of a new gig?
🎯 Who should we be contracting with?

Useful links

Steve Sampson-Jones Brilliant Infographic of Him

The International Coaching Federation (ICF)
Jac on LinkedIn
Everyday Agile on LinkedIn
Everyday Agile's website



Stay up-to-date with us on our social media!

LeSS Matters website - https://www.lessmatters.co.uk

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/less-matters-community

Twitter - https://twitter.com/LeSSMattersComm

Host Bio

Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.  

Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱!

Ben Maynard

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/

🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard

💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ 

Product Agility Podcast 

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 

💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/

🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility

Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes

• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56
• iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p

Want to come on the podcast?

Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80 

Send us Fan Mail

Dinesh is an agile trainer and coach. He has over 24 years of experience helping organisations with adopting agile ways of working.

He has worked on some of the most complex product development anywhere in the world, including many large, financial services organisations, government departments, aerospace and defence and global consultancies.

And for an hour he sat down with  Ben Maynard to field the LeSS Matters Trainer interview questions! 

What a ✨legend✨

So other than the questions, what was spoken about?

🎯Why Dinesh was a terrible hunter-gatherer (of requirements)

🎯What he helped Sita use with Scrum that helped them succeed

🎯How Dinesh got started with Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) and how similar Dinesh and Ben's stories are

🎯What's the benefit of bringing off-shore partners close to you and the customer?

🎯Doe's having a strong purpose help with Product creation.

🎯Can Large Scale Scrum help to create alignment against that purpose?

🎯What is more important the idea of Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) or LeSS itself?

🎯Dinesh Sharma or Dinesh Vodde?!

🎯Can you really understand how Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) will help you if you don't know your problem

🎯Do you want a simple or complicated organisational structure to deal with complex problems?

🎯Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) does have silos!

🎯Large Scale Scrum (LeSS)  give you a "how" on how to use Systems Thinking to manage the whole, not just the parts.

Dinesh's LeSS Trainer Case Study
Dinesh on LinkedIn

Stay up-to-date with us on our social media!

LeSS Matters website - https://www.lessmatters.co.uk

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/less-matters-community

Twitter - https://twitter.com/LeSSMattersComm

Host Bio

Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.  

Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱!

Ben Maynard

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/

🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard

💻 https://sheev.co.uk/ 

Product Agility Podcast 

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/ 

💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/

🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility

Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes

• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56
• iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p

Want to come on the podcast?

Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80