SPaMCAST 447 features our interview with Angela Wick on the role of the Product Owner and Business Analyst in Agile efforts. These two roles are critically important for delivering value in an Agile environment. Angela provides a fresh take on the Product Owner role and the Product Owner's relationship to other roles Agile teams. Angela is the founder of BA-Squared, LLC, a training and consulting practice. She is passionate about modernizing requirements practices and helping organizations collaborate on a Product Vision aligned to strategy and guiding them to a meaningful backlog and iterations that keep the customer and organizational value top of mind. She trains, coaches and teaches organizations on Product Ownership and Agile BA! Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.ba-squared.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelawickcbap Twitter: https://twitter.com/WickAng This is not the first time the SPaMCAST has featured essays and conversations on the role of product owners ( for exampleSPaMCAST 430 and SPaMCAST 325). Re-Read Saturday News Chapter 9 continues the third section of Holacracy, Evolution Installed: Living Holacracy. Holacracy: The New Management System for a Rapidly Changing World by Brian J. Robertson was published by Henry Holt and Company in 2015. This week's chapter is titled If You're Not Ready To Adopt: Moving Toward Holacracy. In this chapter Robertson softens his if-you-can't-do-it-all-don't-do-anything approach. This chapter begins with a story of Robertson being asked how they can move forward in a limited manner. The person had just intently listened to a talk on Holacracy. The person explained that they could see the value, but did not have to power to change the organization or even their department. Robertson's knee jerk response was that you could not use parts; however, the response felt wrong. So he reached out the larger community of practitioners to gather their field observations for how they handled scenarios in which everything could not be implemented. Whether the story is apocryphal or not matters less than that this chapter softens the all-or-nothing stance stated earlier in the book. Catch up on the all of the Holacracy entries: Week 1: Logistics and Introduction Week 2: Evolving Organization Week 3: Distribution Authority Week 4: Organizational Structure Week 5: Governance Week 6: Operations Week 7: Facilitating Governance Week 8: Strategy and Dynamic Control Week 9 Adopting Holacracy Week 10: Moving Toward Holacracy In approximately three weeks we will begin the next book in our Re-read series, The Science of Successful Organizational Change. Remember to use the link to buy a copy in order to support the podcast and blog. The reread will be led by Steven Adams. I am looking forward to sitting on the other side of the table during the next re-read! Visit the Software Process and Measurement Cast blog to participate in this and previous re-reads. A Call To Action If you got a new idea this week while listening to the podcast, please give the SPaMCAST a short, honest review in iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you are listening. If you leave a review please send a copy to [email protected]. Reviews help guide people to the cast! Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 448 will feature our essay on uncertainty. Al Pittampalli said, "uncertainty and complexity produce anxiety we wish to escape". Dealing with uncertainty is part of nearly everything we do. The second column will feature Steve Tendon talking about Tame The Flow: Hyper-Productive Knowledge-Work Performance, The TameFlow Approach and Its Application to Scrum and Kanban published J Ross (buy a copy here). We tackle Chapter 18. Our third column will be from Jeremy Berriaul.t. Jeremy discusses leading in QA. Jeremy blogs at https://jberria.wordpress.com/ Shameless Ad for my book! Mastering Software Project Management: Best Practices, Tools and Techniques co-authored by Murali Chematuri and myself and published by J. Ross Publishing. We have received unsolicited reviews like the following: "This book will prove that software projects should not be a tedious process, for you or your team." Support SPaMCAST by buying the book here. Available in English and Chinese.