Troubleshooting Agile

What we're doing these days is not "remote working"—we have people ill, kids at home, and no option to work from a cafe. But even more than this, most of us haven't put in place alignment and accountability mechanisms, and we're operating on shared understanding from March that is going to expire very soon if it hasn't already. We discuss these and other challenges and briefly point to solutions that we've seen work, like briefing and back briefing from Bungay's Art of Action.

Transcript: https://www.conversationaltransformation.com/posts/pandemicproductivity/

SHOW LINKS:

- TBD blog post on remote working: https://www.tbd.community/en/a/what-you-are-doing-not-remote-work-it-coping-global-emergency

- Tweets on remote working: https://twitter.com/neilmwebb/status/1245012958415073282 https://twitter.com/techgirl1908/status/1246459512069820418

- Art of Action summary covering briefing and back briefing: https://portal.netobjectives.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Bungay_ArtOfAction_ChapterRecaps_Article.pdf

- Sinek, Start With Why: https://simonsinek.com/product/start-with-why/

Episode transcript: https://www.conversationaltransformation.com/posts/pandemicproductivity/

***

Our new book, Agile Conversations, will be out in May 2020! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can pre-order 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]

Switching to remote working means big shifts in the communication patterns of our teams, and the tools we use to do that make some things harder and others easier—they have different "affordances". We explore these differences and suggest strategies for better effective collaboration.

SHOW LINKS:

- Classic book on affordances: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things

- Concept Board: https://app.conceptboard.com

- Sococo: https://www.sococo.com/

Episode transcript: https://www.conversationaltransformation.com/posts/missingaffordances/

***

Our new book, Agile Conversations, will be out in May 2020! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can pre-order 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]

Active Listening is very useful for normal conversations and meetings, but even more valuable when everyone's remote. We describe the technique, give listeners a chance to practise it, and give refinements like the Active Listening Relay for group discussions.

SHOW LINKS:

- Xavier Amador and LEAP: http://dramador.com/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnbOizw_zS0

- Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26156469-never-split-the-difference

- Six Thinking Hats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Thinking_Hats

Episode transcript: https://www.conversationaltransformation.com/posts/active-listening-for-remote-working/

***

Our new book, Agile Conversations, will be out in May 2020! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can pre-order 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]

Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile

Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

With a pandemic raging around the world, how can you and your agile team make sense of the world around you and adjust accordingly? The Cynefin framework gives you a way to categorise known and unknown information and figure out how to approach and change your work appropriately. We describe the framework (including how to pronounce Cynefin!) and explain how you might use it to help your agile team cope and even thrive in a challenging environment.

SHOW LINKS:

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

- Detailed Cynefin drawing by Edwin Stoop: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework#/media/File:Cynefin_framework_by_Edwin_Stoop.jpg

- James Gleick Chaos book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos:_Making_a_New_Science

Episode transcript: https://www.conversationaltransformation.com/posts/cynefinsensemaking/

***

Our new book, Agile Conversations, will be out in May 2020! See conversationaltransformation.com where you can pre-order 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]

Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile

Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troub…d1327456890?mt=2

When a client tells Squirrel "of course there are no releases on Fridays", it's a red rag to a bull. After Squirrel rants for a bit, he calms down and we argue strongly for releasing often, even when it hurts—in fact particularly when it's difficult!—to "bring the pain forward" (Jez Humble).

SHOW LINKS:

- Jez Humble on doing painful things more often: https://continuousdelivery.com/

- Dr. David Burns on anxiety and exposure: https://feelinggood.com/tag/exposure/

Episode transcript: https://www.conversationaltransformation.com/posts/doreleaseonfridays/

***

Our new book, Agile Conversations, will be out in May 2020! See conversationaltransformation.com where you can pre-order 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]

Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile

Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troub…d1327456890?mt=2

Following up from last week, we propose some ways to become emotionally aware, which we argue again is a key skill for success in an agile team. We suggest enriching your feeling vocabulary, self-distancing through disciplined recording of your conversations, and using check-in methods to spread the practise across your team.

SHOW LINKS:

- Center for Nonviolent Communication Feelings Inventory: https://www.cnvc.org/training/resource/feelings-inventory

- David Burns Feeling Chart: https://feelinggood.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Feeling-Words-Chart-with-Five-Secrets-v-2.pdf

- The Four Rs: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/learning-through-case-studies-the-4-rs

- Check In from the Core Protocols: https://liveingreatness.com/files/core-protocols-3.03.html#check-in

Episode transcript: https://www.conversationaltransformation.com/posts/emotionalawareness/

***

Our new book, Agile Conversations, will be out in May 2020! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can pre-order 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]

Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile

Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

Prompted by a listener, we look at a tool from Jim Dethmer called The Line. This leads us to discuss the value of being emotionally self-aware with a variety of examples from our recent consulting practise and bringing in several tools for increasing this awareness, including Six Thinking Hats, the Ladder of Inference, and the Core Protocols.

SHOW LINKS:

- Jim Dethmer on "Leading Above the Line": https://fs.blog/jim-dethmer/

- Naive realism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism

- Feeling Good podcast on "Hidden Emotion": https://feelinggood.com/2020/02/24/181-live-therapy-with-sarah-shrinks-have-feelings-too/

- London Organisational Learning meetup: https://www.meetup.com/London-Action-Science-Meetup/

- Ladder of Inference: https://www.foresightdesign.org/blog/2017/12/21/what-does-the-ladder-of-inference-even-mean

- Six Thinking Hats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Thinking_Hats

- Core Protocols check-in: https://liveingreatness.com/files/core-protocols-3.03.html#check-in

- Past episode on transparency and curiosity: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/mutual-learning-model-transparency-and-curiosity

- Past episode on the 4 Rs: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/learning-through-case-studies-the-4-rs

***

Our new book, Agile Conversations, will be out in May 2020! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can pre-order 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]

Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile

Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

How do you know if a software team is any good? How can you compare teams and the commercial value they are producing? And what are metrics good for anyway? We discuss these, especially the latter, concluding that metrics are triggers for questions not answers in themselves. We look at burn-up and burn-down charts and cycle time, though none of these are fully satisfying.

SHOW LINKS:

- Phases of team activity: https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2015-150507130312-lva1-app6891/95/agile-is-for-wimps-toplevel-software-development-in-the-21st-century-19-638.jpg?cb=1431003851

- Burn-up and burn-down charts: https://stayrelevant.globant.com/en/why-you-should-use-burn-up-chart-in-agile-instead/

- Cycle time: https://codeclimate.com/blog/software-engineering-cycle-time/

- Momentum vs urgency: http://testobsessed.com/2020/02/momentum-urgency/

***

Our new book, Agile Conversations, will be out in May 2020! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can pre-order 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: see link on conversationaltransformation.com

Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile

Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

A listener asks us what to do when a story takes longer than one sprint. Our suggestions involve turpentine, slicing elephants and walking skeletons.

SHOW LINKS:

- Story splitting: https://agileforall.com/new-story-splitting-resource/

- Elephant carpaccio: https://alistair.cockburn.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Elephant-Carpaccio-exercise-instructions.pdf

- Walking Skeleton: https://gojko.net/2014/06/09/forget-the-walking-skeleton-put-it-on-crutches/

- Feature thinning: http://www.agilekiwi.com/other/agile/feature-thinning/

- Unmade: http://unmade.com

- Releasing 50x/day: http://timothyfitz.com/2009/02/10/continuous-deployment-at-imvu-doing-the-impossible-fifty-times-a-day/

***

Our new book, Agile Conversations, will be out in May 2020! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can pre-order 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: see link on troubleshootingagile.com

Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile

Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

We tell the story of a company demanding that developers finish a huge project "so they can test it just once", and then explain why this is only a good idea if you intend to shield yourself from all learning.

SHOW LINKS:

- The Goal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goal_(novel)

- Externalities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

***

Our new book, Agile Conversations, will be out in May 2020! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can pre-order 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: see link on troubleshootingagile.com

Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile

Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2