The Agile Coach Podcast

Welcome to another episode of The Agile Coach, and today we are back with Laurin Lukas Stahl, as he and Vivek continue to discuss more details about product management, what it’s like to onboard as a new PM, understanding product market fit, and the importance of making mistakes and making it a learning opportunity.

HIGHLIGHTS

• On-boarding as a product manager
• Getting the product strategy across
• Understanding what product market fit is
• It's always a learning opportunity
• Minimum Viable vs. Minimum Lovable Product
• How a product manager prioritizes
• Learnings while working as a PM

QUOTES

Laurin - On-boarding as a new product manager:

“The first 90 days are crucial to how you're going to basically get on-boarded to the new company, to a new product that you're working on. So when I was a new product manager starting out in that company, before I even had any leadership and strategic responsibilities, I really wanted to get an understanding.

Laurin - Defining Product Market Fit:

“It basically means you need to define the metric for your price, about what you based on what the nature of the product is, what product market fit would mean for you.”

Laurin - Mistakes are part of the game:

“You shouldn't be afraid to make mistakes, because otherwise, you will only try to make safe changes that don't change the game, then you'll just start optimizing and trying to improve metrics by a little bit because you're afraid to make big changes that could have a big impact.”

Get to know Laurin and what he’s up to:

• About Laurin
• About Trality
• Sign up with Trality

Connect with Vivek and find out more about what he’s up to:

• About Vivek
• About The Agile Coach
• Agile Coach Website

If you enjoy The Agile Coach and are interested in learning more, you can check us out at the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-coach-llc

ARE YOU LOOKING FOR A CAREER IN PRODUCT MANAGEMENT? Then this is the episode for you!

Learn what is a product manager and his/her role in the business as a whole, the ins and outs of this job in terms of day-to-day tasks, and its dynamics with the product management team.

Today we have Laurin Lukas Stahl on board. Laurin is the Head of Product at Trality and is a great source of insight into product management. Meet Laurin and learn more from him in this latest episode of The Agile Coach. 

HIGHLIGHTS

• Laurin's quest to become a product manager
• What is a product manager
• What's awesome about being a product manager
• The day-to-day life of a product manager
• Skill set and attributes of a product manager

QUOTES

Laurin - Defining a product manager:

“The product manager that is working on a specific product or feature in a specific scope, that's the person who's supposed to have all the information available to make the right decisions on how the product is supposed to be taken for.”

Laurin - Role of a product manager:

“Make all the decisions and have all the information available, while always trying to get as much value out as possible with as little resources as possible. So basically, how can I drive the product forward as efficiently as possible.”

Laurin - Important attribute of a product manager:

“One thing is curiosity. So I really like to understand how things work and to take things apart.”

Laurin - Strategizing for a product:

“The number one thing is actually having a product strategy and making sure that everyone that works with the product is following and agrees with the same strategy.”

Get to know Laurin and what he’s up to:

• About Laurin
• About Trality
• Sign up with Trality

Connect with Vivek and find out more about what he’s up to:

• About Vivek
• About The Agile Coach
• Agile Coach Website

If you enjoy The Agile Coach and are interested in learning more, you can check us out at the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-coach-llc

In this episode of The Agile Coach, Vivek and Pabitra will go in-depth with explaining the difference between a Sprint Review and a Sprint Retrospective. Pabitra will be spilling all the juicy details from the definition, to how each of these two activities is executed.

HIGHLIGHTS

• What is a Sprint review
• Observed patterns
• The need for databases
• What is a Sprint Retrospective
• Make the retrospective fun
• It's not a blame game

QUOTES

Pabitra - Defining a Sprint Review:

“Sprint Review really is a more of an informal event that happens into the sprint and is really to showcase what the team has done over the sprint, really the product increment, what did they create.”

Pabitra - The need for databases:

“Even though the stakeholders might not understand the technicality of it, just talking about it and saying, we needed to create this database, or we needed to do this thing on the back end, and now because we have this, here is how it's gonna help.”

Pabitra - Defining a Sprint Retrospective:

“Sprint retrospective is a big deal for the team and also for the scrum master because that's one meeting that you solely are responsible for.

Pabitra - Keep it fresh and fun:

“You want to keep it spicy, you want to keep it fun and engaging, and so definitely restarts, research some things so that you can keep it fresh and keep alternating throughout.”

Pabitra - Don’t make it a blame game:

“We want to talk on how we improve on these different things, but we're not here to blame anybody, and so really putting that up there, it's definitely important.”

Get to know Pabitra and what she’s up to:

• About Pabitra

Connect with Vivek and find out more about what he’s up to:

• About Vivek
• About The Agile Coach
• Agile Coach Website

If you enjoy The Agile Coach and are interested in learning more, you can check us out at the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-coach-llc

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PLAN.

Vivek and Pabitra will be sitting down today to discuss the ins and outs of sprint planning. 

Tune in and learn how sprint planning is done, what challenges you may face and the best methods to use straight from our hosts, only here in the latest episode of The Agile Coach.

HIGHLIGHTS

• The art of sprint planning
• The definition of ready
• Autonomy defines the team's capacity
• The purpose of backlog refinement
• The best method of conducting a standup

QUOTES

Pabitra - The importance of goal-writing:

“Coming up with goal-writing the goal based on what the team is committing to a lot of times it's not just like the user story, but the outcome is if we complete this set of a user story or this functionality.”

Pabitra - Why autonomy is needed in a team:

“We're trying to create self-organizing autonomous teams, and so if I don't give that autonomy to the team, we don't know what our capacity is yet.”

Pabitra - The purpose of backlog refinement:

“The way I see the purpose of backlog refinement is to look at the product backlog and create that shared understanding more than anything.”

Pabitra - Best way of doing a stand-up:

“The best method to conduct a stand-up, I found is to kind of walking the board. So instead of like calling on each person and making it seem like that person is giving a status.”

Get to know Pabitra and what she’s up to:

• About Pabitra

Connect with Vivek and find out more about what he’s up to:

• About Vivek
• About The Agile Coach
• Agile Coach Website

If you enjoy The Agile Coach and are interested in learning more, you can check us out at the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-coach-llc

Lynnea is back for another round in The Agile Coach. In this episode, Lynnea will be talking about Radical Self Awareness, where she and Vivek will be touching on The Drama Triangle, its roles, and how it is observed. Tune in and learn more about how this awareness can be used in your daily role.

Haven’t checked Part 1 with Lynnea Brumbaugh yet? Don’t miss Episode 58: CONSCIOUS LEADERSHIP: What It Is, What It Does, How It’s Done, With Lynnea Brumbaugh (Part 1)

HIGHLIGHTS

• Lynnea Brumbaugh is back
• The Drama Triangle
• The three main roles in the melodrama
• How to look at the drama triangle
• How to get out of the drama

QUOTES

How Lynnea defines radical self-awareness:

“When life feels constricted, we start playing roles, we start putting on our masks, we show up not as our sort of glorious, amazing people that we actually truly are.”

Lynnea talks about the roles in the drama triangle:

“If there's a melodrama on stage, you've got a hero, you got a victim, and you got a villain. And those are the three main drama roles that the Drama Triangle place.”

Lynnea presents the 3 steps of observing the drama triangle:

“Step one would be we notice it and other people step, notice it in ourselves, and step three is stepping back and becoming curious becoming the observer of the drama. So it's always easier to detect ego behavior, like drama mask behavior in other people.”

How Lynnea defines a healthy state of being:

“A healthy expanded state of being means that our behaviors, and our thoughts and our emotions are literally responding to whatever is happening at this moment.”

Get to know Lynnea and what she’s up to:

• About Lynnea
• About Quantum Empowerment Academy
• Quantum Empowerment Academy Website

Connect with Vivek and find out more about what he’s up to:

• About Vivek
• About The Agile Coach
• Agile Coach Website

If you enjoy The Agile Coach and are interested in learning more, you can check us out at the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-coach-llc

Last week we talked about minding emotions as a leader, this week, we will be talking about conscious leadership. And there’s no better way to do this than having Lynnea Brumbaugh in this latest episode of The Agile Coach. Lynnea is the CEO of Quantum Empowerment Academy, dedicated to its advocacy of transformational leadership. Tune in to Lynnea and Vivek as they unpack what conscious leadership is and how it helps leaders improve.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Introducing Lynnea Brumbaugh
• What is conscious leadership
• How to become a conscious leader
• How to handle employee blindspots
• What is focused energy flow
• Talking about emotions
• Emotions vs. feelings

QUOTES

How Lynnea defines conscious leadership:

“Conscious leadership is living from the present moments, like living in this moment. And then having the ability to lead other people from a deep place of this is now this is today, this is not what happened last week.

Lynnea on handling employee blind spots:

“Step one for blind spot awareness is taking a breath or two taking learning to take some conscious breaths.”

How Sagar sees organizations strive to innovate:

“Because when we work with our blind spots, we are by definition, tapping into our survival systems, that helped us to survive when we were little in the world.”

Get to know Lynnea and what she’s up to:

• About Lynnea
• About Quantum Empowerment Academy
• Quantum Empowerment Academy Website

Connect with Vivek and find out more about what he’s up to:

• About Vivek
• About The Agile Coach
• Agile Coach Website

If you enjoy The Agile Coach and are interested in learning more, you can check us out at the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-coach-llc

There’s a misconception that the tech world is not a place for emotions, but Sagar Satyal completely disagrees. For Sagar, emotional intelligence is a key factor in communication and is very very vital. Join Vivek as he welcomes Sagar, and they will be talking about the ins and outs of emotional intelligence factoring in the NVC framework, only here in the latest episode of The Agile Coach.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Introducing Sagar Satyal
• Importance of psychological safety
• Empathy and Invulnerability
• What is self-awareness vs. self-deception
• The Jackal vs. the Giraffe
• The language to use in NVC
• Sagar's final thoughts

QUOTES

How Sagar sees organizations strive to innovate:

“The way I see it, having worked with individuals and teams in organizations, obviously, they want to innovate. They want to stay relevant. I think that's the fundamental thing because it's an ever-changing world.”

Sagar’s opinion on teamwork:

“I think teamwork and collaboration are very important, I don't think it's just a matter of individuals performing in silos and then moving up, and then that turning out to be a great creative process, I don't think it works that way.”

What Sagar thinks about empathy:

“I think it requires vulnerability to be empathetic because I have a lot of things to say to you, but I also keep that in mind that just like me, you also have your own needs, objectives, and challenges when you show up at work.”

Sagar on emotional intelligence in leadership:

“Ultimately, it trickles down to emotional intelligence. It's about being able to recognize emotions, understand emotions in yourself, understand emotions in the other person, and acknowledging these emotions that are at play.”

Sagar on actions and consequences:

“A lot of times we lack emotional intelligence because we don't see the consequences of our actions. We don't see the long-term ramifications of our actions right.”

Get to know Sagar and what she’s up to:

• About Sagar
• About My Emotions Matter
• My Emotions Matter Website

Connect with Vivek and find out more about what he’s up to:

• About Vivek
• About The Agile Coach
• Agile Coach Website

If you enjoy The Agile Coach and are interested in learning more, you can check us out at the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-coach-llc

You gotta learn a little bit of everything. These are the best words from Sangya Gyawali, Head of Product at Flextock. Sangya has a mix of business analytics and entrepreneurial background and will be sharing with Vivek and the audience her background, what it takes to be in her role, and how she deals with challenges in her daily routine.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Sangya Gyawali: Business Analyst & Entrepreneur
• Being a business analyst in banking
• The day-to-day routine
• Challenges in communicating
• Sangya's tips to new BAs

QUOTES

Aligning teams the Sangya way: “A lot of it is around aligning your team that you're a part of, in making sure that we're still progressing, and we're still trying to achieve the same thing.”

Sangya’s responsibility as a BA: "As your role suggests, you're there to offer the technical pattern recognition, analytical skill sets that your team doesn't have.”

How Sangya deals with the challenges of her role: "My technique has always been to be good at a little bit good at everything, and I tried to go deep when I can, and that's usually in more my analytical skill set.”

Sangya says adaptability is key: "Your competitive edge is how much you can adapt and be flexible as techniques change and methods change."

Get to know Sangya and what she’s up to:

• About Sangya
• About Flextock
• Flextock Website

Connect with Vivek and find out more about what he’s up to:

• About Vivek
• About The Agile Coach
• Agile Coach Website

If you enjoy The Agile Coach and are interested in learning more, you can check us out at the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-coach-llc

Dilip, author and now the Founder, CEO, and Chief Product Therapist of Nimi is back in the pod with Vivek. This time around Dilip will go deep with Vivek as he shares his personal journey, his dream to work in America, and the challenges he had to go through to get where he is now. The two will also be exchanging their personal experiences in moving to America and their humble beginnings. 

HIGHLIGHTS

• Dilip's background
• The 3 phases of Dilip's career
• Aspirations can hold you back
• There are many paths in life
• Exchange of personal experiences

QUOTES

Dilip on his background: “Getting your products to market or scaling it, growing products that have been so that's my background, my career.”

Dilip on being held back by aspirations: “I have a good career, and I have a good life now. So I think what it tells us is that sometimes we have these aspirations, and they can hold us back.”

Dilip on the different paths of life: “There are many paths in life, and you can make the best out of any path that you're taking. The goal is, are you growing? Are you questioning yourself? Right? Do you have a growth mindset?”

Vivek on the journey to the USA: “It was like this journey that I went to, there's the whole world, new people, opportunities, and there was a lot to learn.”

Dilip on making mistakes: “People should make mistakes. That's how they learn from mistakes. We should minimize the costly ones. Of course, we should have. It's more on processes.”

Get to know Dilip and what he’s up to:

• About Dilip
• About Nimi
• Nimi Website

Connect with Vivek and find out more about what he’s up to:

• About Vivek
• About The Agile Coach
• Agile Coach Website

If you enjoy The Agile Coach and are interested in learning more, you can check us out at the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-coach-llc

It’s ANU day, ANU episode, and in this latest edition of The Agile Coach, Vivek Khattri welcomes Anu Jayasinghe. Anu is the Design Lead at Publicis Sapient. Formerly a UX Designer at IBM, Anu would be a great resource of UX design insights and he will be sharing big chunks of it here, in The Agile Coach.

HIGHLIGHTS

• How Anu get into UX
• Finding the first job
• Anu's first experience with agile
• The UI-UX difference
• Current projects and challenges
• How to start with UX design
• What sets a designer apart

QUOTES

Anu: “My internships and all that I realized I loved what I did. But when I saw the reality of what that's like, professionally, it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do. But I realized that UX and the whole digital space were a lot more interesting to me.”

Anu: “We started doing agile in two weeks, sprints, all of that. And we would, at the end of every two weeks, delivered the design, to engineering.”

Anu: “The biggest thing that sets apart a designer from an engineer or business analyst or product owner, whoever is that, for a designer, the, what they care about the most is that end-user, like the human being, who is using whatever the product or services, and that's what they care about, that's the person they care about.”

Get to know Anu and what he’s up to:

• About Anu
• About Publicis Sapient
• Anu’s Website

Connect with Vivek and find out more about what he’s up to:

• About Vivek
• About The Agile Coach
• Agile Coach Website

If you enjoy The Agile Coach and are interested in learning more, you can check us out at the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-coach-llc