Vasco Duarte, master of Scrum, issues a call to arms for all scrum masters: you have nothing to lose but your estimates and feature factories! Noted Scrum sceptic Squirrel questions Vasco vigorously on what Scrum Masters do and discovers that Vasco's view of the role is very different from the traditional one.

SHOW LINKS:

- Vasco: http://softwaredevelopmenttoday.com/ , https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/

- Scrum Master Summit: https://scrummastersummit.org

- No Estimates book: https://oikosofyseries.com/no-estimates-book-order

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Our new book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list!

We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show.

Vasco Duarte, master of Scrum, issues a call to arms for all scrum masters: you have nothing to lose but your estimates and feature factories! Noted Scrum sceptic Squirrel questions Vasco vigorously on what Scrum Masters do and discovers that Vasco's view of the role is very different from the traditional one.

SHOW LINKS:

- Vasco: http://softwaredevelopmenttoday.com/ , https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/

- Scrum Master Summit: https://scrummastersummit.org

- No Estimates book: https://oikosofyseries.com/no-estimates-book-order

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Our new book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list!

We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show.

Alan Weiss has written over 60 books on consulting and advocates a no-holds-barred approach, "the martial arts of language", to business problems. He eats difficult conversations for breakfast! We find out why language controls business, how us engineers can drive strategy by emphasizing results and not technology , and what tough love is and why it's so effective.

SHOW LINKS:

- Alan Weiss: https://alanweiss.com

- Business as a Second Language workshop: https://alanweiss.com/growth-experiences/bsl/

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Our new book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list!

We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show.

Email us at [email protected]

In the second of a two-part series, Johan Abildskov of Eficode has a conversation with Jeffrey and Squirrel about tools for using conversations to implement agile and DevOps methods, including Test-Driven Development for People (aka the Ladder of Inference).

SHOW LINKS:

- Eficode: https://www.eficode.com/

- TDD for People: https://www.douglassquirrel.com/how-i-work.html

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Our new book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list!

We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show.




Email us at [email protected]

In the first of a two-part series, Johan Abildskov of Eficode has a conversation with Jeffrey and Squirrel about culture, transparency, curiosity, and how to use all three to adopt DevOps methods successfully.

Special addition: a video version of today's podcast! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6c8qIJUdwo

SHOW LINKS:

- Eficode: https://www.eficode.com/

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Our new book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list!

We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show.




Email us at [email protected]

We discuss two very different stories about leaders that communicate a cultural message pithily and clearly, and reflect on why these stories were effective and how all of us can communicate culture in this way.

SHOW LINKS:

- Steve Jobs aquarium story: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/10/in-praise-of-bad-steve/246242/

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Our new book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list!

We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show.




Email us at [email protected]

If your boss isn't helping like you think she should, maybe she's not from Mars, but actually trying to give you more autonomy. We reflect on this in light of real-world coaching stories.

SHOW LINKS:

- Situational Leadership: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situational_leadership_theory

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Our new book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list!

We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show.




Email us at [email protected]

A reader asks whether following the "bad idea" advice from last episode can lead to an unrecoverable local maximum, sentencing the team to endless patches and obscure bugs. Squirrel and Jeffrey have different takes on this based on their ancient greybeard stories.

SHOW LINKS:

- The Power of a Bad Idea episode: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/the-power-of-a-bad-idea

- Local maximum: https://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/functions-maxima-minima.html

- The Strangler Fig Application: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/StranglerFigApplication.html

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Our new book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list!

We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show.

Email us at [email protected]

Drawing lessons from Squirrel's driving test experiences, we explore why making a cultural or process change that's intentionally suboptimal can be surprisingly valuable.

SHOW LINKS:

- Driving Lessons episode: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/driving-lessons

- Cynefin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework

- Kaizen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen

- Toyota Kata: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Kata

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Our new book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list!

We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show.

Email us at [email protected]

We start with a listener question on roles in an agile team, but quickly divert to Squirrel's "driftwood theory" of hiring and role specification, which turns out to be based on effective conversations and flexible problem solving (what a surprise!)

SHOW LINKS:

- We're the Aliens episode: https://www.conversationaltransformation.com/blog/we're-the-aliens-three-ways-to-seek-safety/

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Our new book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list!

We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show.

Email us at [email protected]