The Agile CTO

It’s a candidate’s market right now. So, what makes employees happy?

Employee experience is a balance of three factors: compensation, company culture, and growth opportunities.

In this episode, we hear from the Haefele Software team about where we’ve come from, what criteria we use to evaluate our jobs, and what irritates us enough to leave.

Our three guests are Jamie-lee Havenga, People & Culture Associate; Clint Hill, Test Lead; and Kyle Roycroft, Business Analyst — all at Haefele Software.

Join us as we discuss:

- How much the factor of money plays into employee choices to stay or leave

- A culture that supports mental health

- What messages an interview should really send about your company DNA

- A primer on cortisol versus oxytocin at work

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Today’s guest is our very own Alan Haefele, Owner and Managing Director here at Haefele Software.  

He’s the perfect person to join this roundtable episode, where we scrutinize what it takes to produce a high-performing development team. 

More specifically, in this episode we discuss: 

- The Haefele Software steering column 

- 3 lenses that help define high performance 

- The growth mindset required for high-performing people and teams 

- How to identify high performance 

Keep connected with The Agile CTO at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website. 

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When today’s guest thought about what the future held for him, culture fit was top of mind. It matters greatly that our value systems align with that of the companies we work for, especially in terms of not being domain driven and learning from and collaborating with other teams. 

In this episode, we interview Andrew Baker, Director of Engineering, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) at AWS, about the rigorous interview process, what attracted him to AWS, and why culture was a major criterion in his decision. 

Join us as we discuss: 

- Earning an outrageously high AS level in statistics 

- What happened at Barclays with algorithmic trading 

- The draw to be a part of an organization 

- Andrew’s views on cloud native and no code 

Check out this related episode: 

- Scott and comprehensive papers referenced at [18:41] 

Keep connected with The Agile CTO at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website. 

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Our guest today didn’t start out passionate about office space and property, but he did have a passion for solving problems by building startups.

The problem he discovered was that office space is filling wildly different roles in our lives today and that people need flexibility and choice when it comes to hybrid work. So he decided to build a platform to solve it (originally written in AngularJS, if you can believe that).

In this episode, we interview Forbes 30 Under 30 Tom Watson, Co-Founder & former CTO at Hubble and Mentor at Seedcamp, about his first startup, why he encourages founders to tinker, and his future plans.

Join us as we discuss:

- How Tom discovered a passion for the office space marketplace

- What landing the Series A was like

- His time as CTO and why he’s former CTO now

- The details of how he built what became the Hubble platform

- Why Tom would probably start a bakery before working for Google

Keep connected with The Agile CTO at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Agile CTO in your favorite podcast player.

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If you ask five developers the same fill-in-the-blank question, you’ll get five different answers.

“As a new developer, it would be best for me to learn ___.”

In our latest roundtable episode, each of us tackles this question and many others. We chat about what frontend and backend really mean, the benefits of full stack for businesses and new developers, the importance of “tinkering,” mentorship, and more.

- Johan Botha , Practice Lead - Backend & Cloud at Haefele Software

- Guy Coleman, Technical Director at Haefele Software

- Harley Ferguson, Practice Lead - Frontend & Mobile at Haefele Software

- Jonathan Georgeu, Intermediate Software Developer at Haefele Software

- Darian Leonard, Intermediate Software Developer at Haefele Software

(Want to know our answers? The basics of JavaScript.. your favorite educational YouTuber... whatever the current popular frontend framework is... how to build a time machine... and the passion that will motivate you to learn.)

Keep connected with The Agile CTO at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

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Building software is not at all like building a building. Something that’s brick today might become tile or green paint tomorrow. More importantly, it’s impossible to know how much it will cost and when it will be done at the beginning of the project.

That’s why explaining to the customer what an agile approach is and how it serves the project better is crucial.

In this roundtable episode, we chat with Jonathan Balmer , Delivery Director at Haefele Software, about the challenges and pitfalls of agile development.

Join us as we discuss:

- How we define agile and what it is (and isn’t) good for

- The problem with business estimation in agile

- Communicating the agile methodology to lessen client resistance

- How to maintain transparency through the agile process

Keep connected with The Agile CTO at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Agile CTO in your favorite podcast player.

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A defined way of doing projects is fine when you don’t anticipate the requirements to change. The reality is, however, that a project with all requirements known upfront just doesn’t exist.

With Agile, you’re reflecting and adapting on your process frequently throughout the entire project. You can adjust course rapidly (and cheaply). One framework for implementing the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto is Scrum.

In this episode, we interview Peter Hundermark, Mentor at agile42, about his decades of experience with what works and what doesn’t with Scrum.

Join us as we discuss:

- How being a jack of all trades taught Peter empathy

- How Agile, Scrum, and Kanban relate to each other

- Why you don’t need Scrum everywhere

- The necessity of finding a mentor and being a mentor

- How to “grow a pair” of Scrum Masters within your org

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

- The Agile Manifesto 

- Humankind by Rutger Bregman 

- Plato’s Republic 

- Peter’s article about growing internal Scrum Masters 

Keep connected with The Agile CTO at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Agile CTO in your favorite podcast player.

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Working at a startup comes with its fair share of unique challenges — ranging from the hiring process to mentorship. Choosing to work for a startup can be a rewarding work path, but only for those with the right predisposition.

In this episode, we interview Sophie Troy, Vice Pres ident of Engineering at Vamp, about how she’s helped build Vamp into what it is today and advice for those thinking of following in her footsteps. 

What we discuss:

- A deep dive into Vamp & Sophie’s background

- Building the hiring process & mentorship

- Downsides & challenges of a startup

- Opinions on full stack experts

Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:

- The Life Changing Magic of Tidying-Up by Marie Kondō

Keep connected with The Agile CTO at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Agile CTO in your favorite podcast player.

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Today’s guest wasn’t really aware of computers until after high school. He has regularly been called young, stubborn, and naive. Proving everyone wrong by landing on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, he embodies the growth mindset of the best of tech entrepreneurs.

In this episode, we interview Tyrone Adams, Co-Founder and CEO at Skywalk Innovations, about his entrepreneurship, innovation, and vision for technology in Africa.

Join us as we discuss:

- Why Africa 1.0 can skip straight to Africa 3.0

- Offering an end-to-end journey to deliver innovation for customers

- The mission of Tyrone’s CTO Sessions

- Building company culture, even when it’s difficult

- Applying a growth mindset to work and life

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

- Carol Dweck’s Mindset

- Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning

Keep connected with The Agile CTO at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Agile CTO in your favorite podcast player.

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Entrepreneurs who are on a limited budget have excellent opportunities to build world-class frontend experiences. The frontend journey is going to change how we speak to our technology, how we move around it, and how we leverage data to create customer experience.

In this episode, we interview Greg Van Berkel, CEO at Code Collective and Head of Software Development and Technology at the Renati Group, about entrepreneurship and how company culture strongly relates to product, whether frontend, backend, or full stack.

Join us as we discuss:

- How Greg grew his company internally in the first few years

- How full stack allows an engineer to own a feature

- The relationship between sales pitches and developer interest

- Building a collaborative culture among team members and among competitors

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

- Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan

- Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber

Keep connected with The Agile CTO at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Agile CTO in your favorite podcast player.

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