The Liberators Podcast

Recently, we had the huge pleasure of participating in an hour-long episode of The Agile Wire by Jeff Bubolz and Jeff Maleski. Its basically just one hour of us talking about what we care about the most, what we've learned through our work with Scrum Teams and what can is made possible when teams work empirically. We also share a lot of our mistakes (and had a good laugh). But we also share some of the success stories we've experienced.

A common theme throughout the episode is how our learning journeys - and that of our community as a whole - are about uncovering better ways to work together. Practices that seemed like a good idea in the past, may not do so in hindsight. And that's okay; it shows that we're learning - individually and as a community.

Check out the podcast The Agile Wire here:
https://www.theagilewire.com

Donate to support our work
https://bit.ly/supportheliberators

Follow us on Medium:
https://medium.com/the-liberators

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

The Scrum Framework urges teams to involve stakeholders. But many Scrum Teams struggle to do so. For some, involving one or two internal stakeholders seems plenty. For others, stakeholders can only be involved when the entire product is done.

In a previous episode, we described one of the symptoms that let you know that your stakeholders are not adequately involved. This article explores the main cause behind this zombified interaction.

Want to get your hands on our book when we publish it? Sign up here:
http://bit.ly/2zrdywv

You can also read the accompanying blog post here (all sources are in there as well):
http://bit.ly/38vmHUx

Donate to support our work
https://bit.ly/supportheliberators

Follow us on Medium:
https://medium.com/the-liberators

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

In this episode we make a bold argument: stop using separate environments for development, testing, acceptance, and production - commonly called DTAP. Why? Because DTAP-pipelines create queues and accumulate all sorts of waste. Not only does this cost you a lot in terms of money and effort, they also make it harder to respond quickly to changing needs and emerging issues.

In this episode, we explore what the problem with DTAP-pipelines is. We also offer a number of alternative strategies that allow you to deploy faster AND with higher quality and reliability.

You can also read the accompanying blog post here (all sources are in there as well):
http://bit.ly/35vPVAz

Donate to support our work
https://bit.ly/supportheliberators

Follow us on Medium:
https://medium.com/the-liberators

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

In the past, we often corrected how people spoke about work. Whenever someone mentioned “project”, we would correct it to “product”. With a pedantic tone, we would explain that “we’re building a product here, not doing a project” (with an implicit “you silly”). People who are passionate about Scrum usually don't love projects. They are believed to be the opposite to what we're trying to do with the Scrum Framework. But is that so?

A reality is that most organizations are used to working with projects. So should we start a crusade to banish the word "project" from the lexicon? In this episode, we explore the myth that you cannot do projects with Scrum. Instead, we offer a more constructive perspective that is all about meeting people where they are instead of where you want them to be.

Let us know what you think in the comments. Or send an email to [email protected].

Read the original blogpost here:
http://bit.ly/2uvzZCc

Donate to support our work
https://bit.ly/supportheliberators

Follow us on Medium:
https://medium.com/the-liberators

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

Our brains have not evolved for complex work. Our memory is limited. We make decisions based on heuristics instead of a full rational analysis of all the facts. And that is exactly why the Scrum Framework works so well: it helps us think by Sprinting.

In this longer-than-usual episode of our podcast, we explore how scientific insights from cybernetics, cognitive psychology and human factors help us understand why the Scrum Framework is better for navigating complex problems than plan-based approaches.

You can also read the accompanying blogpost here (all sources are in there as well):
http://bit.ly/2tHbfWv

Donate to support our work
https://bit.ly/supportheliberators

Follow us on Medium:
https://medium.com/the-liberators

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

The Scrum Framework doesn't work when developers don't take (or are not given) ownership of their craft. Without a developer culture that encourages innovation, experiments and trying new things, Scrum tends to be lipstick on a pig.

In this episode, Barry and I have a conversation about developer cultures. Specifically, we share some of our own experiences in creating and being part of them. How did we notice it was there? How did we contribute to making it possible?

Donate to support our work
https://bit.ly/supportheliberators

Need some strategies to build a developer culture? Check out these posts:
https://medium.com/the-liberators/tagged/developer-culture

Follow us on Medium:
https://medium.com/the-liberators

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

In this episode we're using the Liberating Structure "Troika Consulting" to offer help to one of our listeners. Its an experiment, so let us know what you think.

One of our patrons, Sven de Koning, provided us with the following challenge: "My team is unable to deliver a done increment because they don't know how to slice items on their Product Backlog vertically. How can I help them?". In true Troika-fashion, we briefly explored the challenge in 2 minutes and then started generating ideas for what might be helpful. Although based on many assumptions, the idea here is that simply listening to other people talk about your challenge can generate ideas that you haven't considered before.

Want to know more?

• Learn more about Troika Consulting here;
• Or click here to discover our 10 strategies for breaking down large Product Backlog Items vertically (PDF included);

Have a challenge for us?
If you have a challenge you are facing, and you'd like to hear our perspectives through Troika Consulting, let us know. You can email us at [email protected] or connect wit us through other means.

Donate to support our work
https://bit.ly/supportheliberators

Follow us on Medium:
https://medium.com/the-liberators

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

What do pizzerias have in common with software development? Not much, right? But they do offer a useful perspective on what kind of metrics are really useful and which are likely to encourage the wrong things.

In this episode, we explore how tracking user stories, number of hours, number of hours spent is like measuring the number of pizzerias. It doesn't tell you anything about how valuable that was. Instead, focusing on these kinds of metrics encourages the accumulation of more waste (heaps of pizza to throw away).

Plus, we give you some examples out metrics that ARE useful to measure and actually encourage the removal of waste.

P.s. apologies for the chatty birds in the background. I couldn't get them to shut up :)

You can also read the accompanying blogpost here:
http://bit.ly/37dT21D

Donate to support our work
https://bit.ly/supportheliberators

Follow us on Medium:
https://medium.com/the-liberators

For more about Evidence-Based Management, check out Scrum.org's EBM Framework.

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

You can use Liberating Structures without any prior training or experience. At the same time, practice makes perfect. One example is to always start your explanation by saying "When I'm done explaining". Its a simple tweak, but it prevents people from moving and pairing while you are explaining the steps.

In this episode, we share this and 13 other tips for facilitating Liberating Structures that we've found to be helpful. For many of these, we are indebted to our great mentors Henri Lipmanowicz, Keith McCandless, Fisher Qua, Anna Jackson and other experienced users of Liberating Structures. And hopefully you can also benefit from ours :)

Donate to support our work
https://bit.ly/supportheliberators

Follow us on Medium:
https://medium.com/the-liberators 

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

These days, a lot of the work inside and outside organisations is done in groups. Like task forces, Scrum Teams, management teams or your local church committee. Despite the benefits of working in groups, there are also several risks. Groupthink is a social bias that is clear example of this.

In this episode we explore what it is, what causes it and how to prevent it. Especially when it comes to developing strategy, we feel that Liberating Structure - and Strategy Knotworking in particular - can be a great help.

We're eager to hear your take after listening to the episode. How have you dealt with Groupthink? Let us know!

This podcast is an audio recording of this post on Medium:
http://bit.ly/2s1rw8j

Donate to support our work
https://bit.ly/supportheliberators

Follow us on Medium:
https://medium.com/the-liberators

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.