Integrum » Agile Weekly Podcast

Episode #59 – Running a Transparent Consultancy with Chris Sims

drew.lesueur — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:00:52 +0000

Roy van de Water, Drew LeSueur and Chris Sims discuss:

Transparency in compensation
Using Scrum to run a Scrum consultancy
Elements of Scrum and Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

Episode #58 – Personal Kanban with Gerry Kirk

drew.lesueur — Thu, 03 May 2012 17:00:13 +0000

Roy van de Water, Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Derek Neighbors, and Gerry Kirk discuss:

Kanban in your personal life
Kanban in work life as a one-man team
Personal kanban can help save your marriage
Personal insights from Kanban
Personal Scrum?
Personal Kanban boards
Burnout

Episode #57 – Performance Reviews with Kane Mar

drew.lesueur — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:00:32 +0000

Roy van de Water, Derek Neighbors, and Kane Mar Discuss:

Star teams over star individuals
Need for individual performance reviews?
Team decisions
Individual and team compensation, now and in the future
Cultural change in organizations
Ways to give individual feedback

Episode #56 – Strengths with Scott Dunn

claytonlz — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:00:17 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Roy van de Water and Scott Dunn discuss:

StrengthsFinder 2.0
Playing to your Strengths
Introducing Strengths to your team
Strengths and self-organizing teams
When Strengths go wrong

Episode #55 – Lean Startup Principles and Agile

derek — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:00:51 +0000

Derek Neighbors, Roy van de Water, Clayton Lengel-Zigich, David Bland discuss Lean Startup principles in Agile:

Lots of companies dealing with unknowns
Product teams
Release early, release often
Validate, Experiment, Iterate
Culture preventing engagement?
Executives communicate with teams
How to get the “C” level to change
Eric Ries “Lean Startup” / Steve Blank
Is it a panacea?
Radical culture problems abound
Confusion about what lean startup means
Risk adverse culture problems when you have golden egg to protect?
Alignment across enterprise
Cross functional teams
How do you maintain it?
Give freedom, be creative
Innovation team (I’m a special snowflake)
Executive support mandatory

Episode #54 – Defects in the Sprint, with Mike Vizdos

claytonlz — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:00:59 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Roy van de Water and Mike Vizdos discuss:

Do we estimate defects?
How do I get “credit” for doing defects?
What counts as a defect?
New defect comes in what do we do with it?
How should defects effect velocity?
Why so defensive?
How to deal with predictability?
Definition of done factors in.
Transparency is what is important.
Use the retrospective Luke.
Please don’t punish me.
Person that writes the check decides.
Zero defect mentality.
Hardening sprint. Say What?
Developer Hat v Scrum Master Hat

Episode #53 – Managers in Agile with Jurgen Appelo

claytonlz — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:00:53 +0000

Roy van de Water and special guest Jurgen Appelo, author of Management 3.0, discuss:

Managers in Agile
Environments to enable innovation
Experimentation in Agile
Self-organizing teams
How to help organizations change
Stoos

Episode #52 – Lean Principles in Healthcare

claytonlz — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 18:00:22 +0000

Derek Neighbors, Clayton Lengel-Zigich and special guest Mark Graban, author of Lean Hospitals, discuss:

Agile outside of software
Lean in healthcare
Lean as management principles
Lean is not cost cutting
Risk and quality in Lean
Bad processes and lean improvements
Improving flow

Episode #51 – Software Journeyman Corey Haines

claytonlz — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:00:26 +0000

Derek Neighbors and Corey Haines discuss:

Getting kids interested in programming
The Microsoft stack
Traveling pair programmer
Meandering programmers
Software Craftsmanship
TDD and experience
Global Day of Code Retreat
Code Retreat Community Contribution Fund

Episode #50 – Potentially Shippable Software

roy — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 17:30:33 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Roy van de Water and Jade Meskill talk about potentially shippable software.

* Impossible!?
* How do you define what is potentially shippable?
* Does the product need to be pollished and perfect?
* Focusing on small problems (rather than the whole system) helps us deliver value sooner.
* It’s not an excuse to code yourself into a dead end.
* Value does not necessarily have to be targeted at Users, it might be the CEO or some other stakeholder.

Episode #49 – Topic Smorgasbord

roy — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:30:00 +0000

Derek Neighbors, Roy van de Water, Clayton Lengel-Zigich and Jade Meskill discuss a variety of topics.

* What do you do when someone clearly doesn’t fit in with the team?
* How do you get to the point where you can let a team be self organizing and still mitigate the associated risk?
* Should you hire quality people or try to get the most qualified people for a particular position?

Episode #48 – Missing the Deadline

roy — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:30:35 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Roy van de Water and Jade Meskill discuss a ‘hypothetical’ scenario in which a Scrum team has a deadline approaching and it looks like the team will not be able to complete all of the features to meet the release. How do you deal with this situation that happens to so many teams regardless of software process.

* Do you throw out the process?
* How do you break it to the product owner owner?
* Would removing the overhead of the process make things better?
* At what point do you, as a Scrum Master, step in and prevent the team from self organizing themselves in to fatal failure?

Episode #47 – Can Teaching Kids to Program Help You Be a Better Coach?

claytonlz — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:30:29 +0000

Derek Neighbors, Roy van de Water and Llewellyn Falco discuss teaching kids to program:

Obtaining feedback
Encouraging continuous learning
Feedback vs praise
Just jump in and do it
First Lego League
People are people
Understanding and detecting patterns
Iterating, engaging and stabilization
Collaboration for tighter feedback
Leadership makes a difference
Learning is joyful
Layered learning / Video Games

References:

Mindset by Carol Dweck

First Lego League

Teaching Kids to Program

Lost in Space

Episode #46 – Corporate Cultures

claytonlz — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:30:11 +0000

Jade Meskill, Roy van de Water, Perry Reinert and Alan Dayley discuss corporate cultures:

Inertia against change
Leadership matters
Self-Organization
It’s okay to fail
People matter during transition
Managers tell people what to do.. Any objections? Compliance.
Guilt trips
Mindless drones
Self selection
Using games
Observe and learn from other teams/organizations

Episode #45 – Digital Boards and Physical Boards

claytonlz — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:30:34 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Derek Neighbors, Jade Meskill and Roy van de Water discuss the pros and cons of physical and digital boards:

Benefits of physical vs digital boards
How our brain wiring works
Visibility instead of hidden data
Mind playing tricks on me
Visual speaks volumes
Don’t have to fight tools to try new things
It takes a long time update the board
Overhead, saving paper, distributed team
Historical data
Lack of team trust
Lines of code and function points
Self Organization should rule
Working with other teams
Serendipity happens
Simulate colocation

References:

Pragmatic Thinking and Learning by Andy Hunt

Forget Why You Walked Into the Room?

Episode #44 – Story Sizes, Named Sprints and Partial Credit

claytonlz — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:30:03 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Derek Neighbors, Drew LeSueur and Roy van de Water discuss story sizes, naming your sprints and partial credit:

20, 40, 100 story point sizes
Less accurate as they get bigger
Naming your sprints
Rally point for deliverables
Historical data
Sprint goals
Partial credit for points
Does story size matter
Symptom of a deeper problem
Too focused on velocity
Paycheck advances
The defect board as a debt collector

Special Episode – 2012 Predictions

claytonlz — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:30:24 +0000

Roy van de Water, Derek Neighbors, Alan Dayley, Perry Reinert and Jade Meskill discuss their predictions for 2012:

Last years reflections
Early adopters dig deeper than process
Leadership will come into focus
Companies will become aware industrial age is behind us
Training will have more depth and options
Community will fracture further before it gets to good stuff
Increased competition will raise the bar for Agile
Training for the wrong things
This is the year of storming…
Alan commits to writing more
Perry is going to read 30 books this year
Derek is going to explore leadership/systems thinking frameworks
Saving the Scrum Alliance
Jade is going to champion creative culture creation

Episode #43 – Taking to the Twitters

roy — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:00:59 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Roy van de Water and Derek Neighbors take to the twitters to find controversial topics to talk about.

Kanban, Agile, Scrum are among top trends of 2011
What do you get a ScrumMaster for Christmas?
Getting turned down for a ScrumMaster role because you are too experienced
Water-Scrum-Fall and ScrumerFall
Scrum is a diet, Kanban is a Mirror
When do you use Agile Methodologies and Techniques like Scrum
Is it nuts to invest in specialization when Scrum is generalizing the team
Are story points a proxy for time?

Episode #42 – Shared commitments with Howard Sublett

roy — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:00:57 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Derek Neighbors, Chris Coneybeer and Roy van de Water talk to special guest Howard Sublett from Big Visible to talk about shared resources, multitasking and team members having multiple commitments.

Treating people as resources can cause long term problems
Specialization can discourage team members from taking ownership of a project
Team members complaining of too many meetings is a red flag indicating that developer is probably on too many projects
Product Owners are not exempt from suffering in capability and quality from working on two many projects
Human beings do not context switch as easily as we pretend to be able to

Episode #41 – Working with Proxy Users with Alan Dayley

roy — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:00:21 +0000

Jade Meskill, Derek Neighbors, Roy van de Water, Drew LeSueur are joined by Alan Dayley to discuss working with proxy users.

How can we encourage customers to participate more?
Do we really need customers to participate more?
Are there things we can do to mitigate lack of product ownership?

Episode #40 – Management Inbreeding with Darrin Ladd

roy — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Jade Meskill, Roy van de Water and Chris Coneybeer are joined by special guest Darrin Ladd from Big Visible to discuss management inbreeding.

Managers promote people that are most like themselves
Both positive/negative traits start to feedback on themselves
Innovation decreases as the organization becomes Homogenous
Larger organizations have greater inertia so the culture needs to have more disruptive members in order to change
It is extremely difficult to try to eliminate inbreeding within an organization from within
Reckless attempts can be met with blacklisting

Episode #39 – What is the Right Iteration Length

roy — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:00:03 +0000

Jade Meskill, Derek Neighbors, Chris Coneybeer and Roy van de Water discuss an article by Todd Landry titled “What is the Right Iteration Length”

Is it better to have a shorter iteration and close the feedback loop
Is it better to have a longer iteration to decrease the overhead of the Scrum Ceremonies?
Sprint Review seems to be the only ceremony not proportionally decreased with sprint length
Retrospectives do not have to occur every week, or perhaps have an extended retro every other sprint
The cost of deploying is sometimes an argument for longer sprints
Deployments and releases should be unhinged from sprints
The team agrees that shorter sprints are generally better

Special Episode : User Story Class Interview with Rose Hess-Nunn

coneybeer — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:00:43 +0000

In this video we talk with Rose Hess-Nunn about what brought her to the User Story Class and some of the challenges she faces.

Episode #38 – Communities in Scrum with Perry Reinert

roy — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 12:00:33 +0000

Derek Neighbors, Roy van de Water and Chris Coneybeer are joined in studio by Perry Reinert from InfusionSoft and discuss communities in Scrum.

The Scrum User group is a monthly meeting of people interested in Scrum
Non-Scrum related User groups can also provide lots of value by providing alternative viewpoints
XP groups are also available in most locations
Agile 2011 had many community building activities
Scrum Alliance has “Find a user group in your area” functionality
If there is nothing available, start your own
Open Spaces force you into interacting with new people

Special Episode : User Story Class Interview with Sandra Bufford

coneybeer — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:44:03 +0000

In this video we talk with Sandra Bufford about what got her interested in attending the User Story Class.

Episode #37 – Software Craftsmanship with Adam Sroka

roy — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 12:00:14 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich and Roy van de Water are joined by Adam Sroka from Industrial Logic to discuss software craftsmanship.

Resources for software craftsmanship have increased in availability
Measure the results so you know if you improve
Industrial Tourism – exchange program between companies to refresh perspectives
Important to be disciplined to work in tiny increments

Special Episode : Doug Hall Phoenix Scrum User’s Group Oct 2011

claytonlz — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:00:32 +0000

Alan Dayley interviews Doug Hall after the October 2011 Phoenix Scrum User’s Group.

Episode #36 – Liftoff, with Ainsley Nies

roy — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 12:00:05 +0000

Ainsley Nies joins Jade Meskill, Derek Neighbors and Roy van de Water in discussing the book “Liftoff: Launching Agile Teams & Projects”, which Ainsley co-authored with Diana Larsen.

Formallizing the start of a project or team
Chartering a team increases the communication
Helps align the team around the project vision

Episode #35 – Technical Excellence in Scrum

roy — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:00:09 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Roy van de Water and Derek Neighbors talk about a blog post entitled “Technical Excellence in Scrum” by Dave Rooney. Jeff Sutherland suggested that Agile Leaders are not doing their job if they are not pushing Technical Excellence. Rooney writes that sometimes it’s the teams that refuse, no matter how hard the leader pushes.

Implementing Scrum causes impediments
Technical Excellence practices can remove these impediments
Sometimes the leader can mandate some practices if they can demonstrate the benefits
Leaders should know how to do the practices they advocate

Episode #34 – A Sense of Urgency

roy — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 12:00:13 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Roy van de Water, Derek Neighbors, and Drew Lesueur discuss creating a sense of urgency around the work that needs to be done.

Displaying a sense of urgency to the customer so they feel important.
Creating a sense of urgency to the developers so they stay focused.
No urgency is unmotivating
Perpetual urgency is unsustainable

Episode #33 – Agile Tweet Controversy

coneybeer — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:00:24 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Derek Neighbors, Drew LeSueur and Roy van de Water discuss controversial tweets.

@PMOObserver: “Always deliver what you commit to. No more; no less.”
@elizabethraley: “Scrum Rule: No Additional Requirements Can Be Added to a Sprint!”
@scrumology: “Comparing velocity between teams: Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything th…”
@rslawrence: “In case you missed it over the weekend: ‘Why Longer Sprints Probably Won’t Help’”
@rramirez4444: “What are the TWO best qualities of a good Scrum Master? #agile #scrum (non-SM respondants given more weight on this one..)”
@alechardy: “Purpose of sprint review is to inspect and adapt. Demo during review is to prompt inspect and adapt conversation.”

Episode #32 – Usage of Agile Tools

coneybeer — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:00:38 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Roy van de Water, Derek Neighbors and Drew LeSueur discuss the use of agile tools and what their place is in a philosophy that favors individuals and interaction over process and tools.

Manifesto says to not favor tools and process
Tools remove the “Human-ness”
Distributed teams are often a big reason for wanting to use tools
Digital tools severely decrease visibility
Tools can prevent/impede conversations
Writing something physically forces your brain to engage
Blank index cards are more flexible than any tool
Tools become a crutch for bad decisions

Episode #31 – White Elephant Estimating

coneybeer — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:00:12 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Roy van de Water, Derek Neighors and Drew LeSueur talk about White Elephant estimating, a new way to generate estimates for stories to instead of the same-old planning poker.

Compare stats against planning poker
80 stories
5 minutes to discuss process/application
25 minutes to do estimation
10 minutes to get velocity
Team is moving around and more enganged
Everyone had to be active
Nobody can set the tone
Disagreements were resolved quickly
Made easier by having a trusting team
Link to blog post: http://blog.mikepearce.net/2011/05/02/how-do-i-estimate-how-long-an-agile-project-will-take-before-we-start/

Episode #30 – Leadership and Finding Them On Your Team

coneybeer — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 12:00:58 +0000

Jade Meskill, Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Roy van de Water, Drew LeSueur and Chris Coneybeer talk about leadership and how you might identify leaders within your team.

A leader bring the people around him/her
Teams can have multiple leaders
Leadership is based on trust
People will step up to fill a leadership vacuum
What is the value in identifying the leader?
Having trust/respect makes it easier to lead
Improving the team can be to the short-term detriment of the leader
The more self organizing a team is, the less important the leader is.
Leaders are willing to take responsibility for the team

Special Episode : Keith Denham Phoenix Scrum User’s Group Sept 2011

claytonlz — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:00:57 +0000

Alan Dayley interviews Keith Denham after the September 2011 Phoenix Scrum User’s Group.

Episode #29 – “How Rigid is Scrum”

coneybeer — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:00:31 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Roy van de Water, Drew LeSueur, Chris Coneybeer and Jade Meskil discuss an article on InfoQ, “How Rigid is Scrum“.

Rigid up front
Flexible with experience
Inspect and Adapt
Breaking rules is usually to avoid a deeper issue
Learn through imitiation, then improvise
Set in stone Scrum is not ideal
The uncomfortable parts of Scrum will expose issues
Culture can stand in the way of Scrum adoption

Special Episode : Larry Apke Phoenix Scrum User’s Group Sept 2011

claytonlz — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 18:00:11 +0000

Alan Dayley interviews Larry Apke after the September 2011 Phoenix Scrum User’s Group.

Special Episode : Alix Holmes – Integrating User Experience Design with Agile Process

coneybeer — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:00:22 +0000

The Integrum team traveled to Irvine, California to attend the Agile Open Southern California on September 15th and 16th of 2011. During the event we had the chance to be able to interview some of the attendees and talk to them about the Open Space that they had just facilitated. Open Space Technology conferences are great events where the attendees get to create and completely control the content of the “conference”.

Enjoy this video as we talk to Alix Holmes about her Open Space on integrating user experience design with agile processes.

For more information on this event or their sister event Agile Open Northern California check out the site at www.agileopencalifornia.com.

Special Episode : Greg Kirk Phoenix Scrum User’s Group Sept 2011

claytonlz — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 18:00:43 +0000

Alan Dayley interviews Greg Kirk after the September 2011 Phoenix Scrum User’s Group.

Special Episode : Chris Scripca – Game Programming for Fun and Keeping Thousands of People Happy

coneybeer — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 15:00:09 +0000

Enjoy this video as we talk to Chris Scripca about his Open Space on Game Programming for Fun and Keeping Thousands of People Happy.

For more information on this event or their sister event Agile Open Northern California check out the site at www.agileopencalifornia.com.

Special Episode : Ainsley Nies – Agile Chartering

coneybeer — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:00:37 +0000

Enjoy this video as we talk to Ainsley Nies about her Open Space on “Agile Chartering“.

For more information on this event or their sister event Agile Open Northern California check out the site at www.agileopencalifornia.com.

Special Episode : Scott Dunn – Strengths Based Team and Personal Growth

coneybeer — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 15:00:31 +0000

Enjoy this video as we talk to Scott Dunn about his Open Space on Strengths Based Team and Personal Growth.

For more information on this event or their sister event Agile Open Northern California check out the site at www.agileopencalifornia.com.

Special Episode : Jason Kerney – Using Creative Processes to Drive Development

coneybeer — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:00:12 +0000

Enjoy this video as we talk to Jason Kerney about their Open Space on using creative processes to drive development.

For more information on this event or their sister event Agile Open Northern California check out the site at www.agileopencalifornia.com.

Special Episode : Julie Smith – Reluctant Team Members and Participants on Agile Teams

coneybeer — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:00:17 +0000

Enjoy this video as we talk to Julie Smith about her Open Space on reluctant team members and participants on agile teams.

For more information on this event or their sister event Agile Open Northern California check out the site at www.agileopencalifornia.com.

Special Episode : Marsha Garczewski – Getting Started with SCRUM

coneybeer — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 15:00:17 +0000

Enjoy this video as we talk to Marsha Garczewski about her Open Space on ”Getting Started with SCRUM“.

For more information on this event or their sister event Agile Open Northern California check out the site at www.agileopencalifornia.com.

Special Episode : Woody Zuill – Intro to Agile

coneybeer — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:00:23 +0000

Enjoy this video as we talk to Woody Zuill about his Open Space session titled “Intro to Agile“.

For more information on this event or their sister event Agile Open Northern California check out the site at www.agileopencalifornia.com.

Special Episode : Darrin Ladd – How Can I Help My Teams Continue to Improve?

coneybeer — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 15:30:19 +0000

Enjoy this video as we talk to Darrin Ladd about his Open Space on How Can I Help My Teams Continue to Improve?.

For more information on this event or their sister event Agile Open Northern California check out the site at www.agileopencalifornia.com.

Special Episode : Integrum Invades Irvine

derek — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 02:05:10 +0000

The Integrum crew decided to head to Agile Open California South this year as a way to spend some time together. We took the opportunity to capture some pictures and video to share with others. Sometimes it’s important to get out the office and meet new people. We hope to see you around.

Episode #28 – SCRUM. Where Do You Start?

derek — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:00:11 +0000

Jade Meskill, Roy van de Water, Derek Neighbors, Drew LeSueur and Clayton Lengel-Zigich discuss where might be a good place to start for a team wanting to adopt SCRUM.

Retrospectives
Define the roles
Scrum Primer
Roles and Ceremonies
What is necessary to improve
Strict SCRUM
Without experience it’s difficult to know
It’s not about experts, it’s about learning
SCRUM in 10 minutes
It’s not a panacea
User Stories Applied, Agile Estimating and Planning, Succeeding with Agile
Don’t get discouraged, focus on improving

Episode #27 – Standups

derek — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:00:56 +0000

Drew LeSueur, Derek Neighbors, Roy van de Water discuss standups in agile environments.

why people don’t want to do standups
what if they go longer than 15 minutes
core protocols
avoid status meeting mentality
take things off line
how are you exposed
dealing with people that are late
sit or stand?
talking token

Episode #26 – Reviewing the New Edition of the SCRUM Guide

derek — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:00:44 +0000

Jade Meskill, Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Roy van de Water, Derek Neighbors and Drew LeSueur talk about new changes to the SCRUM Guide.

“The Development Team”
Commitment vs Forecast
Burn down charts
Release planning not necessary
Sprint backlog items bye bye
Ordered vs prioritized

Episode #25 – The Trust Paradox

derek — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:00:49 +0000

Roy van de Water, Derek Neighbors, Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Drew LeSueur, Chris Coneybeer and Jade Meskill discuss John Hagel’s article on “The Trust Paradox“.

Patrick Leonici’s Five Dysfunctions of Team
Trust is important
Way we try to build trust is backwards
Perfection not the way to trust
Mike Cohn’s pair programming story (as recounted over a few beers)
Availability to express vulnerability
Never let them see you sweat?
Expose strength, show weakness.
Vulnerability unlocks creativity and bonds the team
Climbing corporate ladder encourages for self preservation
Lead by example.. Be transparent to others..
People believe success is in their ability instead of increasing the ability of those around them.
Management needs to model open behavior and reward authentic behavior
Team members be a beacon of humanity for your peers

Episode #23 – Agile Principles Seen Through Paintball

derek — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 12:00:16 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Roy van de Water, Derek Neighbors and Jade Meskill talk about an experience playing paintball as a team and how it relates to agile principles.

Inspect and adapt
Iterations felt natural
Focused on us not external factors
beat ourselves not the other team
exposing vulnerabilities
bite size
self-organizing
accountability
communication
hitting impediments before they show up through using “i feel exposed” during standups
getting to point where vulnerability is okay
core protocols – check-in protocol
perceptions can be reality
feelings aren’t facts
shared vision minimizes politics
learn healthy conflict

Episode #22 – Why Enterprises Crave Documentation Artifacts

derek — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:00:17 +0000

Chris Coneybeer, Roy vandeWater, Derek Neighbors and Drew LeSueur discuss reasons why enterprises seem so hungry for documentation artifacts.

Accountability
Requirements
Cover your ass
Avoiding conflict
Turn over safety blanket
Alternatives
Documentation isn’t bad
Communication trumps documentation
Trust helps prevent need for documentation
Siloing / Lack of cross functionality
Team members are people not widgets
Limiting communication pathways
Documentation as a wall to avoid interaction

Episode #21 – Is It Responsible to Not Test?

derek — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 12:00:11 +0000

Derek Neighbors, Jade Meskill, Clayton Lengel-Zigich and Chris Coneybeer have a conversation on when if ever it is responsible to not test.

Obie Blog Post
Crazy Bob Martin
Test everything all the time
To what degree
Not breaking things
Verifying value delivered
Market vs quality
What’s right level of coverage
BDD as a technique
How much risk can you tolerate
Prototyping
Technical debt
Whats your testing comfort level
Communities have different testing tool competency levels
Irresponsible?

Episode #20 – What’s Most Valuable in Agile?

derek — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 12:00:36 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Drew LeSueur, Roy van de Water, Chris Coneybeer talk about which practice in agile has the most initial value.

Retrospectives
Pairing
Continuous Integration
Warning Signs
What is effective
What is quickest
Deployments are a pain
Can haz confidence
XP & TDD
It depends

Episode #19 – Vision

derek — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:00:56 +0000

Jade Meskill, Roy van de Water, Derek Neighbors and Drew LeSueur talk about what vision means to the team.

There’s always money in the banana stand
Linked to purpose
Why it’s so important
Shared vision unifies the team
Decision making is easier with vision
Vision plus implementation is magic
Cost of misalignment

Episode #18 – Cost of Interruptions

derek — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:05:53 +0000

Jade Meskill, Roy van de Water, Chris Coneybeer and Derek Neighbors talk about the cost of interruptions to teams and organizations.

What is an interruption?
Culture of interruptions
How does it effect prioritization?
Planning impossibilities
It has to be on fire to get done
It kills teams
Poor decision making
It’s contagious
Loss of innovation
Balloons for everyone
Solutions

Episode #17 – The Cost of Change

derek — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:00:17 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Derek Neighbors, Roy van de Water, Michael Vizdos and Jade Meskill talk about the cost of change when implementing Agile in an organization.

Individual, Team, Organization
Human Resource priorities
Rate of change
Performance reviews
Emotional response
Personnel turnover
Conflict
Champions

Episode #16 – Multiple vs Single Product Owner

derek — Thu, 26 May 2011 12:00:55 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Derek Neighbors, Roy vandeWater and Drew LeSueur talk about the role of Product Owners.

Is it necessary (to have a single product owner)
Problems with multiple product owners
Priorities
Who determines done
Proxy product owners
Accountability issues
Delegation of authority
Dealing with multiple products and a single development team

Episode #15 – Estimates

derek — Thu, 19 May 2011 12:00:46 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Derek Neighbors, Roy van de Water and Jade Meskill talk about estimates.

Padding
Precision vs. accuracy
Hard conversations
Assurances
How to get better at estimates
Hours vs points
Story estimates vs estimated velocity

Episode #14 – Retrospectives

derek — Thu, 05 May 2011 12:00:52 +0000

Derek Neighbors, Jade Meskill and Clayton Lengel-Zigich discuss running retrospectives.

What are some smells?
Using same activities all the time.
Bad facilitating
Use the “F” word more
Why does it take so long to get peoples guard down?
Inspect and adapt applies to retrospectives too.
SMART goals crossfire style
Things to remove
Speaking on behalf of others
People not expressing themselves
Phrase questions to get the most out of participants
Tips and tricks
Read more (GameStorming, Agile Retrospectives, Thinkertoys, Coaching Agile Teams, Innovation Games)
Take a risk
Add alcohol

Episode #13 – Agile Certifications

derek — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:00:09 +0000

Jade Meskill, Alan Dayley, Mike Vizdos and Clayton Lengel-Zigich are in the studio talking about Agile Certifications.

Should we certify people?
The WOW factor
When does it jump the shark?
Broken hiring practices
HR vs real community
Who is doing the certification?
There is a demand…
Scalability
Certification mill problems
Why not in universities/schools
Certifications will evolve

Episode #12 – Step Away From The Tools

Jade Meskill — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:00:18 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Derek Neighbors and Jade Meskill talk about a blog post from Liz Keogh called Step Away From the Tools.

What does it mean to do BDD?
Agile as the Hope killer, the tools give you hope
Diving In vs Deliberate Discovery
Are we too focused on tools instead of the reason’s they exist?
Tactile Tools and their benefits over Digital in the Process
Tools as a blame catcher
Assuming you’re wrong

Episode #11 – Continuous Deployment and Project Management

derek — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:00:24 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Derek Neighbors and Jade Meskill talk about continuous deployment and what it means to project management. The by product being a change in organizations.

Historically products were projects
Release planning
Lean methodologies
Team management
Organizational changes
Overnight competitors
Things have to change

Episode #10 – Growing People on Agile Teams

derek — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:00:26 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Derek Neighbors and Elvis talk about growing people on agile teams.

Deliberate practice
Mentoring team members
Practice new skills
Mentorship
Openmind
What’s the motivation
Saturated market
Culture
Shared goal

Special Episode : Code Retreat

derek — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 12:00:58 +0000

Liz Keogh, Pat Maddox, Federico Soria, Greg Mack, Lynn Langit and Clayton Lengel-Zigich talk about a code retreat held at Gangplank.

What is a code retreat
Sometimes wrong is better
Mocking, flow and learning new languages
Microsoft cloud offerrings and exposure to new tools

Episode #09 – Design in Agile Software Development

derek — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:09:21 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich, Jade Meskill, Derek Neighbors and William Price III sit down to discuss design in agile software development.

Challenges of design in iterative development
Pace and lead time
Mutual respect
Everyone’s a designer
Design tools suck
Backlog overwhelms
Ship early and often
Crossfunctional teams
Style guides
Light weight wireframes

Notes:

Thoughtbot article on Everyone’s a Designer

The Mike Cohn’s “I’m always right card” is a joke from a training session with Mike.

Episode #08 – Done is Done

derek — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:42:41 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich and Derek Neighbors talk about what it means to be done with a story.

What is done?
Works on my machine.
Real data.
Workflow verification.
UI/UX completeness.
Responsibilities.
Whole product thinking.
Planning Meetings & Acceptance Criteria

Episode #07 – Everything You Wanted to Know About Pairing On a SCRUM Team

derek — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 12:00:48 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich and Derek Neighbors discuss numerous items around Pair Programming on a SCRUM team.

Is agile just for teams?
Pairing good traits
Pitfalls found while pairing
Good pairing habits
Pairing in a chaotic environment
Various pairing techniques
Physical pairing station setup
Remote pairing
Dealing with distractions

Episode #06 – Community Questions

derek — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 02:24:25 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich and Derek Neighbors field questions about SCRUM from Twitter.

Reading recommendations for SCRUM Basics.
How do I recognize a dysfunctional team?
How do I deal with team members with wildly different schedules?
What is the agile response for a Request for Proposal?
What happens when the team is agile but the company is not?

Episode #05 – Multi Team Retrospectives

derek — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 12:00:04 +0000

This episode was part of the original episodes recorded more than 18 months ago. Derek Neighbors and Chris Young discuss the difficulty in doing retrospectives when you have a several small teams.

Getting specific information
Dealing with multiple small teams (2-4 people)
Problems doing retrospectives using the lowest common denominator amongst teams

Special Episode : 2011 Predications for Agile

derek — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 01:36:55 +0000

In this episode Clayton Lengel-Zigich solicits predictions from Alan Dayley, Perry Reinert, Jade Meskill and Derek Neighbors about what 2011 has in store for Agile.

What is the most promising concept/idea?
What do we see in the way of Agile community?
Who will be the biggest winners/losers?
What are new things you plan on trying this year?

Episode #04 – Programming as a Craft

derek — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:21:45 +0000

Derek Neighbors, Jade Meskill and Clayton Lengel-Zigich discuss Dan North‘s article “Programming is not a Craft“.

Episode #03 – Agile Estimations

derek — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:00:56 +0000

Clayton Lengel-Zigich and Derek Neighbors discuss agile estimation.

Episode #02 – Human Driven Development

derek — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:52:00 +0000

Chris Young and Derek Neighbors discuss bringing a human element to agile software development.

Episode #01 – Single Retrospective w/ Multiple Teams

derek — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:44:27 +0000

Chris Young and Derek Neighbors reflect on the trouble of having many small teams working for the same company on different projects and handling retrospectives. We hope that you give us feed back or start sharing your stories with us.