Troubleshooting Agile

Sunday is the new Monday, and that’s a bad thing - says our guest today, Dominica DeGrandis, author of Making Work Visible. How can you move from default yes to an effective, smooth flow of work? Dominica addresses this question while touching on queueing theory, empathy, and hope!

SHOW LINKS:

- Dominica’s Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/dominicad

- Domenica’s web site: https://ddegrandis.com/

- Kanban book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kanban-Successful-Evolutionary-Technology-Business/dp/0984521402/ref=asc_df_0984521402/

- Queueing theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queueing_theory

- Paul Graham on Maker and Manager Schedules: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html


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

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

Have you ever "flipped the bozo bit" on someone, concluding that he or she is completely clueless and communication is hopeless? We tell some tales of bozo bits we've seen flipped, describe some causes and consequences including the idea of "duelling ladders", and suggest how to get out of the bozo bit trap.

SHOW LINKS:

- The Bozo Bit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bozo_bit

- Jim McCarthy's book on the Bozo Bit: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dynamics-Software-Development-Jim-McCarthy/dp/1556158238

- Previous episode on the Ladder of Inference: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/introspection-with-the-ladder-of-inference

- Fear is the Mind Killer:

https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Litany_Against_Fear

- Squirrel and Jeffrey speaking on Conversational Transformation at DOES Las Vegas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMT_Tqzf_vc

***

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

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

Today we finish our conversation with author, podcaster, and DevOps expert John Willis https://twitter.com/botchagalupe . John covers a wide variety of topics at lightning speed, including:

SHA - a hash algorithm, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-1

CAB - Change Advisory Board, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change-advisory_board

Jim Benson on Kanban - http://personalkanban.com/pk/about-us/team/jim-benson/

Andreesen on “software eating the world” - https://a16z.com/2011/08/20/why-software-is-eating-the-world/

Knight Capital disaster - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Capital_Group#2012_stock_trading_disruption

CAMS - https://medium.com/@brunodelb/the-cams-model-to-better-understand-the-devops-movement-ffe6713c3fd7

Deming 14 points - https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_75.htm

Peter Senge 5th Discipline - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Discipline

Equifax breach - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49070596

Air France 447 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

Sidney Dekker Murphy’s Law - http://raeda.com.au/murphys-law-is-wrong-everything-that-can-go-wrong-usually-goes-right/

David Foster Wallace “This is Water” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Water

***

Our new book, Agile Conversations, will be out in May 2020! See https://itrevolution.com/book/agile-conversations/ to pre-order!

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

Today we speak to author, podcaster, and DevOps expert John Willis https://twitter.com/botchagalupe . John covers a wide variety of topics at lightning speed, including:

SHA - a hash algorithm, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-1

CAB - Change Advisory Board, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change-advisory_board

Jim Benson on Kanban - http://personalkanban.com/pk/about-us/team/jim-benson/

Andreesen on “software eating the world” - https://a16z.com/2011/08/20/why-software-is-eating-the-world/

Knight Capital disaster - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Capital_Group#2012_stock_trading_disruption

CAMS - https://medium.com/@brunodelb/the-cams-model-to-better-understand-the-devops-movement-ffe6713c3fd7

Deming 14 points - https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_75.htm

Peter Senge 5th Discipline - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Discipline

Equifax breach - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49070596

Air France 447 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

Sidney Dekker Murphy’s Law - http://raeda.com.au/murphys-law-is-wrong-everything-that-can-go-wrong-usually-goes-right/

David Foster Wallace “This is Water” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Water

***

Our new book, Agile Conversations, will be out in May 2020! See https://itrevolution.com/book/agile-conversations/ to pre-order!

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

Listener Jamie let us know about a sequel to one of our favourite blog posts, John Cutler on the Feature Factory. We focus on just one of John's well-made points, the idea of lowering Work In Progress to improve throughput. We tell a story about on "death by spreadsheet" project management and the futile and counterproductive attempt to get utilisation to 100%. This brings us back to lean methods, kanban, and the Theory of Constraints.

SHOW LINKS:

- 12 Signs You're Working in a Feature Factory: https://cutle.fish/blog/12-signs-youre-working-in-a-feature-factory

- Feature Factory 3 Years Later: https://amplitude.com/blog/12-signs-youre-working-in-a-feature-factory-3-years-later

- Kanban book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kanban-Successful-Evolutionary-Technology-Business/dp/0984521402

- The Goal: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0566086654

- Slack (the book not the software!): https://www.amazon.com/Slack-Getting-Burnout-Busywork-Efficiency/dp/0767907698

***

Our new book, Agile Conversations, will be out in May 2020! See https://itrevolution.com/book/agile-conversations/ and get ready to pre-order!

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

Our new book is all about what people miss in their digital/agile/lean/devops transformations: cultural changes that underlie human-centred development and the conversations that can lead you to those changes. Inspired by the book Accelerate!, we look at Westrum's Three Cultures and reflect on how the culture you're in affects how you transform to the culture you want.

SHOW LINKS:

- Accelerate!: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Accelerate-Software-Performing-Technology-Organizations/dp/1942788339

- Westrum on Three Cultures: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1765804/pdf/v013p0ii22.pdf

- Gale, Digital Helix: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Helix-Transform-Aspect-Organization/dp/1626344647

- Edmondson, Teaming: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Teaming-Organizations-Innovate-Compete-Knowledge/dp/078797093X/ref=sr_1_1

- Previous 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://itrevolution.com/book/agile-conversations/ and get ready to pre-order!

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

Alistair Cockburn gets us thinking about how agile methods are spreading, even to non-software teams like sales. Further, we bring in the idea of Wardley Mapping to see how, ironically, this very spread can lead to the conclusion that agile development is headed for the dustbin, but conclude (phew!) that agile methods have a healthy future.

Apologies for a minor audio problem about 12 minutes in.

SHOW LINKS:

- Alistair Cockburn says Agile isn't dead: https://heartofagile.com/agile-is-not-dead-quite-the-opposite/

- Moore, Crossing the Chasm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm

- Sheridan, Joy, Inc.: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Joy-Inc-Built-Workplace-People/dp/1591847125

- Wardley Maps: https://www.slideshare.net/swardley/an-introduction-to-wardley-maps

- Previous episode on Agile beyond software: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/agile-outside-software-teams

- Heresy.io: https://heresy.io/

***

Our new book, Agile Conversations, will be out in May 2020! See https://itrevolution.com/book/agile-conversations/ and get ready to pre-order!

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

Following on further from Avery Pennarun's intriguing article on "what executives do", we ask how, exactly, executives (and others!) can trigger action, if they are not themselves going to carry it out? It turns out we've covered our favourite technique for this before - Bungay's Briefing and Back Briefing - but this time we have a scoring checklist that can help you use the technique, and two new stories about successful and unsuccessful delegation.

SHOW LINKS:

- What do executives do, anyway? by Pennarun: https://apenwarr.ca/log/20190926 and Hacker News discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21088425

- Art of Action: http://www.stephenbungay.com/Books.ink

- Previous episode on Bungay: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/briefing-and-back-briefing

***

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 respond to an intriguing and dense article from Avery Pennarun about what executives do. He takes us back to Andy Grove’s classic High Output Management and we reflect on the leverage leaders can use, how they and their staff can fool themselves into thinking they have the right information, and a mindset exercise to help you find “unknown unknowns”.

SHOW LINKS:

- What do executives do, anyway? by Pennarun: https://apenwarr.ca/log/20190926 and Hacker News discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21088425

- Andy Grove, High Output Management: https://www.amazon.co.uk/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884

- Art of Action: http://www.stephenbungay.com/Books.ink

- Argyris, Organizational Traps: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8633384-organizational-traps

- Unknown Unknowns, Rumsfeld: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns

***

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 conclude our conversation with Ryan Singer, Head of Strategy at Basecamp and author of Shape Up, by asking him how the team functions without requiring code reviews or QA checks. Then he goes on to describe in detail their "hill" metaphor for progress measurement and why this method provides a useful narrative that goes way beyond sprint duration or story points.

SHOW LINKS:

- Shape Up: https://basecamp.com/shapeup/?ref=df

- Daring Fireball intro to Shape Up: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/08/04/shape-up

- Extreme Programming Explained: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Extreme-Programming-Explained-Embrace-Change/dp/0321278658

- Feature Factory: https://cutle.fish/blog/12-signs-youre-working-in-a-feature-factory

- Petition the King: https://ronjeffries.com/xprog/articles/petitiontheking/

- Art of Action: http://www.stephenbungay.com/Books.ink

***

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