Software Process and Measurement Cast

SPaMCAST 545 we have an interview with Cheryl Hammond, Jenny Tarwater, Faye Thompson, and Linda Podder.  We talk about Launching New Voices, Women in Agile, planned activities at Agile 2019 and more. There is a lot of good advice and ideas if you’re new to speaking or if you are a seasoned speaker. There is a call to action at the end of the interview.

SPaMCAST 544 features our interview with Jeppe Hedaa.  Mr. Hedaa and I discuss his new book, Nucleon: The Missing Formula That Measures Your IT Development Team's Performance. Our discussion centers on the book but also touches on meritocracy and why you want top performers on a team. This is a wide-ranging interview with thought-provoking ideas as we talk about Nucleon!

SPaMCAST 543 features our essay on value chains.  In this essay, we tackle the mixed up world of Value Chains, Values Streams and Process Maps. This isn’t a vocabulary test but mixing the words up can cause a mess. Let's solve the problem. In the SPAMCAST 543, Gene Hughson’s returns with a new entry in his Form Follows Function column. Today we begin by discussing just what the heck is a solution architect is and does!

SPaMCAST 542 features our interview with Kevin Rush. Mr. Rush has developed an innovative approach to facilitate sprint/iteration planning.  Kittens, exploding kittens, and fat cats are used to help teams probe whether the team understands the story and if the story is broken down well enough for the team to reduce the risk of failure. Way too many pet metaphors, but a great discussion.

In SPaMCAST 541 we discuss using guardrails in decision making. Guardrails are a tool to ensure alignment with the organization’s goals and objectives and to keep people on the right path. Well-formed guardrails conform to five attributes that help teams and individuals make decisions. Our second segment features Jon M Quigley and his Alpha and Omega of Product Development column. Jon discusses reciprocal agreements and their impact of on teams and products.

SPaMCAST 540 features our interview Mark Kilby and Johanna Rothman. Johanna, Mark, and I discussed their new book, From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams, Collaborate to Deliver (Buy your copy here: https://amzn.to/2Omur23). Distributed agile teams are a fact of life; Johanna and Mark provide an extraordinary amount of wisdom for making distributed teams exceptional.

SPaMCAST 539 features our essay titled, Assessment and Continuous Process Improvement. Assessments and continuous process improvement are intertwined. Assessments being both a source of ideas and a tool to validate change and other experiments. We will also have part 2 of Susan Parente’s discussions on distributed agile.  This week we will focus on tools. Susan reminds us that unless you spend time building trust and learning how to communicate, a tool won’t solve a communication problem.

SPaMCAST 538 features our interview with Ben Linders.  Ben and I talk about his new agile assessment game. Ben’s game and the book that supports the game provide teams and individuals with a tool for introspection and process improvement.  This is not Ben’s first visit to the podcast. Ben’s last visit was in November 2017 (SPaMCAST 470) to discuss what drives quality in software development.

SPaMCAST 537 features our essay on the use of assessments for agile efforts.  Assessments come under a wide variety of names: appraisals, health checks, audits or even assessments. These terms are commonly conflated.  Assessments are a tool to prove a point. The essay in the cast explores the myriad types and reasons for assessments. Rounding out the cast is the Software Sensei, Kim Pries.  Kim tackles physical security, including the wall (no politics included)!

SPaMCAST 536 features our interview with Dave Sohmer. Dave is an executive that has led two separate major agile transformations.  Mr. Sohmer provides an executive's perspective on the impact of adopting agile in two major financial institutions. The two very different companies took to two very different approaches to agile.

SPaMCAST 535 features our essay spawned when I was asked to help a Scrum Master who said: “I messed up a scrum team, should I do kanban?”  There is not a straightforward answer. Also in this podcast, we have a visit from Susan Parente and her ‘I am not a Scrumdamentalist’ column.  In this installment, Susan discusses distributed Agile. Agile on distributed teams is often discussed in hushed tones.  Susan brings the topic out into the open and provides excellent advice.

SPaMCAST 534 features our interview with Al Shalloway.   Al returns to the SPaMCAST after far too long. This week we discuss the trials and tribulations of scaling agile, and his passion about getting knowledge transfer right! I hope you have as good of a time listening to this interview as I had creating it.

SPaMCAST 533 features our essay titled, Can Agile (SAFe) Be Interfaced With Waterfall? The long answer is yes, but if you can’t avoid mixing and matching frameworks, there are paths to success you can leverage. This week we also have a quick visit from Tom Henricksen. Today he announces the DevOps Online Summit that will be held on April 8th through 11th. Jeremy Berriault brings a new installment of the QA Corner.  Jeremy leverages work by Simon Sinek and tackles the “why” of testing.

SPaMCAST features our interview with Julia Wester.  Julia returns to the cast to discuss spectrum thinking.  Specturn thinking is an important tool in system thinking and required to address complexity.  Even though using binary thinking is rarely the most effective path, it is rare to use spectrum thinking to address problems. Julia provides a path to more effective decision making.

SPaMCAST 531 features our essay on Balancing Control and Self-Organization to Avoid Heat Death.  Control and self-organization represent a classic Goldilocks and the Three Bears problem. We discuss whether there is a solution. Interested in more on this topic?   In the second spot this week we hear from Jon M Quigley who brings his Alpha and Omega of Product Development to the cast.  Jon discusses the impact of cognitive biases on product development. Fighting biases is an important role.