The Standup Podcast

Agile as a framework is focused beyond just the team, but the system as a whole. Your system might be on a more macro level as your department, or even your entire company. In this weeks episode of The Standup Podcast we discuss the concept of Systems Thinking and how Agile Coaches can pull their mindset to the macro level to look at their Agility at the Systems level.

We sincerely hope everyone is staying safe and healthy during the current COVID-19 pandemic. While we have some episodes in the can ready to go, we're not sure when we'll be able to record more. Because of that, expect new episodes to be spaced out a little until life returns to back to normal.

We're diving right into the first episode of 2020 with a hot button topic in the Agile community: No Estimates. Agile Coaches and Scrum teams are starting to adopt a "No Estimates" mentality when it comes to planning and building out their backlog. How does it work? How will it impact the organization? We tackle these questions and give our guidance as well to this controversial topic.

Backlog Refinement is one of those ceremonies in Scrum that often gets looked over, but honestly it's the one ceremony you can have that will make literally every other ceremony easier. It gives the Delivery Team an opportunity to see work coming down the pipes and a venue for discussions to be had with the Product Owner about the work.

We talk a lot on The Standup Podcast about developing software and delivering features to our customers in an Agile methodology, but what happens in Agile prior to actually writing software? What does the Product Development side of an Agile process look like? Join us this week on The Standup Podcast where we take a deep dive on Agile Product Development!

There are so many electronic tools out now that organizations use to track and organize their Scrum teams, but sometimes what they don't realize is they've molded their process around the tool and not the team. It's time for them to go Unplugged!

This week on the Standup Podcast we discuss the topic of Scrum Unplugged, and the benefits of taking things back to basics and materializing Scrum artifacts in physical forms. Physical Burndown Charts, 3x5 and note card planning walls, and more! Join us and let us know your thoughts!

An important part of having values is our willingness to defend them, to actually stand for what we believe in. Agile is no different, and if you truly value the Agile principles you will, at some point in your career, have to take a stand. This week on The Standup Podcast we cover what this means and what it looks like to take a stand in your organization for Agile values.

An Anti-pattern is a common response to a recurring problem that is usually ineffective and risks being highly counterproductive. You run into a lot of these in the Scrum and Agile community, with some of these actually being considered a "best" or "standard" practice. This week on The Standup Podcast we call out some of these Anti-patterns that have worked their way into our community.

It's not always perfect, and STUFF happens. Your team could find itself one day without a Scrum Master, or perhaps you lose your Product Owner to another project. What do you do? Obviously these are very important roles and the ultimate long term success of your team relies on your ability to backfill this role, but what about short term? 

In this weeks episode of The Standup Podcast we talk about strategies teams can take short term to temporarily fill empty team roles like Product Owner or Scrum Master to make sure the team is still productive in their absence.

In physics, the hardest friction to overcome is static friction, or the friction from first starting motion. Same goes for Scrum and Agile in that there's a lot of work and effort that goes into successfully starting a new team. Today on The Standup Podcast we talk about what goes into starting a new team and strategies for you to be successful.

Some folks view Kanban as "Scrum Lite", or something you can do if you just don't like all the ceremonies or "rules" in Scum. These are common, and incorrect misconceptions about Kanban. Kanban is a great Agile framework which is often abused, this week we aim to talk about some of these misconceptions and how you can use Kanban successfully.