Lean-Agile Straight Talk

The Six Lean Transitions that Got Us to Where We Are At a recent meeting, Al Shalloway discussed the six key transitions in Lean that has led to where we are in the application of Lean to software development. We found it very helpful in understanding where we have come from, the advantages that each phase offered as well as the challenges inherent in them that needed to be addressed. Looking back helps to get a good perspective of how we got where we are and it helps in thinking about what may lie ahead. Al suggests there have been six major transitions or phases: Lean Manufacturing, Lean Thinking, Lean Product Development, Lean Software Development, Lean Flow, and Lean-Agile Software Development (the current state of the art). We can now say that for an approach to be Lean and useful to software development, it must include the following: Systems thinking, using management to improve system, attending to quality, emphasizing just in time, attending to time, attending to how people learn, driving from value, and maximizing feedback. Here is a book to help you go deeper: Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility You can use the forums on the Net Objectives Portal to ask questions about the webinar. Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: PodcastLog in or register to post comments

The Six Lean Transitions that Got Us to Where We Are At a recent meeting, Al Shalloway discussed the six key transitions in Lean that has led to where we are in the application of Lean to software development. We found it very helpful in understanding where we have come from, the advantages that each phase offered as well as the challenges inherent in them that needed to be addressed. Looking back helps to get a good perspective of how we got where we are and it helps in thinking about what may lie ahead. Al suggests there have been six major transitions or phases: Lean Manufacturing, Lean Thinking, Lean Product Development, Lean Software Development, Lean Flow, and Lean-Agile Software Development (the current state of the art). We can now say that for an approach to be Lean and useful to software development, it must include the following: Systems thinking, using management to improve system, attending to quality, emphasizing just in time, attending to time, attending to how people learn, driving from value, and maximizing feedback. Here is a book to help you go deeper: Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility You can use the forums on the Net Objectives Portal to ask questions about the webinar. Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: PodcastLog in or register to post comments

Acceptance Test-Driven Development: A Quick Introduction Ken Pugh and Jim Trott talk about ATDD: who is involved and who leads the effort, what is involved in writing acceptance tests, how ATDD compares with regular "analysis" you have done in the past, how ATDD compares with TDD, and the language of Acceptance Tests. Ken describes why he is so passionate about ATDD and the tangible benefits he has seen with his customers. They wrap up with some practical ways you can learn more about ATDD and what Ken has in store next. Here are helpful resources to learn more: Articles about ATDD White Papers on ATDD Ken Pugh's Book: Lean-Agile Acceptance Test-Driven Development, Better Software Through Collaboration, www.acceptancetestdrivendevelopment.com Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: PodcastLog in or register to post comments

Acceptance Test-Driven Development: A Quick Introduction Ken Pugh and Jim Trott talk about ATDD: who is involved and who leads the effort, what is involved in writing acceptance tests, how ATDD compares with regular "analysis" you have done in the past, how ATDD compares with TDD, and the language of Acceptance Tests. Ken describes why he is so passionate about ATDD and the tangible benefits he has seen with his customers. They wrap up with some practical ways you can learn more about ATDD and what Ken has in store next. Here are helpful resources to learn more: Articles about ATDD White Papers on ATDD Ken Pugh's Book: Lean-Agile Acceptance Test-Driven Development, Better Software Through Collaboration, www.acceptancetestdrivendevelopment.com Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: PodcastLog in or register to post comments

Bringing Your Internal Coaching to the Next Level Steve Thomas and Jim Trott talk about internal coaching in Lean-Agile transformations: why coaches are needed, what is involved, the difference between internal and external coaches, who makes good coaches, can manager make good coaches, how to develop internal coaches, coaching as a career, and metrics to use. This topic had a lot of interest and we could only cover some of the many questions we received. For more information, go to www.NetObjectives.com and search for "coaching academy" or use the forums on portal.netobjectives.com to ask questions.  Note, you will have to register on the portal to do so. Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: Podcast   Transcript Introduction Steve Thomas and Jim Trott talk about internal coaching in Lean-Agile transformations. View Full Transcript Jim Trott: It's October 18th, 2016, this show Bringing Your Internal Coaching to the Next Level. [background music] Jim: Hello and welcome to another edition of "Lean Agile Straight Talk," a regular podcast series from Net Objectives. I'm your host, Jim Trott. In this show Steve Thomas discusses what is involved in bringing internal coaching in a lean agile transformation up to the next level. Why coaches are needed? What's involved? The difference between internal and external coaches? Who makes good coaches? What's involved in developing internal coaches using matrics and so on? We had lots of questions from the audience, so clearly this is a topic of interest to many people who are engaged in a lean agile transformation. We need to visit this topic again. Before we get started, I want to remind you that you can explore more about this topic by jumping over to the resources section of www.netobjectives.com. I suggest you search for Coaching Academy. There's a lot of good resources on there about this topic area. At Net Objectives, we're committed to discovering effective software development methods so that we can assist organizations in becoming more successful. We combine our experience to continuously extend the capability of what is possible in creating effective software development organizations. We provide these approaches to our clients and the community in general so that we can assist people in achieving their goals in making their organizations more successful. We'd welcome the chance to work with you. We're always learning and invite you to join in. Visit us at www.netobjectives.com. Please subscribe to the Lean Agile Straight Talk Podcast on iTunes and rate the show. That really helps. Let's keep the conversation going. Today's presenter is Steve Thomas. Steve is a certified Scrum Master and product owner, and an Agile and Lean coach. He is an experienced facilitator of Agile transformations in large organizations and in all phases of the software development life cycle. In addition, he has been a CMMI authorized instructor. One of Steve's passions is to work with cross functional teams, managers and organizations to establish work environments where collaboration blossoms, and productivity and results sharply rise. He brings systems thinking, Lean and Agile principles in a pragmatic outlook to this work. The general topic today is on bringing your internal coaching to the next level. Let me set the stage. Almost all medium to large size organizations that are trying to make a Lean or Agile transformation must develop an internal coaching capability. Relying on external coaches is just too expensive and it's not tuned enough to the needs of the organization. Organizations have a clear need to leverage some of their internal talent and people to coach the organization through the transition and into the next stage of transformation. In most transformation journeys, we're going to start with bringing in some trainers or coaches to help the organization understand the basics. Once the transformation journey's

Bringing Your Internal Coaching to the Next Level Steve Thomas and Jim Trott talk about internal coaching in Lean-Agile transformations: why coaches are needed, what is involved, the difference between internal and external coaches, who makes good coaches, can manager make good coaches, how to develop internal coaches, coaching as a career, and metrics to use. This topic had a lot of interest and we could only cover some of the many questions we received. For more information, go to www.NetObjectives.com and search for "coaching academy" or use the forums on portal.netobjectives.com to ask questions.  Note, you will have to register on the portal to do so. Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: Podcast   Transcript Introduction Steve Thomas and Jim Trott talk about internal coaching in Lean-Agile transformations. View Full Transcript Jim Trott: It's October 18th, 2016, this show Bringing Your Internal Coaching to the Next Level. [background music] Jim: Hello and welcome to another edition of "Lean Agile Straight Talk," a regular podcast series from Net Objectives. I'm your host, Jim Trott. In this show Steve Thomas discusses what is involved in bringing internal coaching in a lean agile transformation up to the next level. Why coaches are needed? What's involved? The difference between internal and external coaches? Who makes good coaches? What's involved in developing internal coaches using matrics and so on? We had lots of questions from the audience, so clearly this is a topic of interest to many people who are engaged in a lean agile transformation. We need to visit this topic again. Before we get started, I want to remind you that you can explore more about this topic by jumping over to the resources section of www.netobjectives.com. I suggest you search for Coaching Academy. There's a lot of good resources on there about this topic area. At Net Objectives, we're committed to discovering effective software development methods so that we can assist organizations in becoming more successful. We combine our experience to continuously extend the capability of what is possible in creating effective software development organizations. We provide these approaches to our clients and the community in general so that we can assist people in achieving their goals in making their organizations more successful. We'd welcome the chance to work with you. We're always learning and invite you to join in. Visit us at www.netobjectives.com. Please subscribe to the Lean Agile Straight Talk Podcast on iTunes and rate the show. That really helps. Let's keep the conversation going. Today's presenter is Steve Thomas. Steve is a certified Scrum Master and product owner, and an Agile and Lean coach. He is an experienced facilitator of Agile transformations in large organizations and in all phases of the software development life cycle. In addition, he has been a CMMI authorized instructor. One of Steve's passions is to work with cross functional teams, managers and organizations to establish work environments where collaboration blossoms, and productivity and results sharply rise. He brings systems thinking, Lean and Agile principles in a pragmatic outlook to this work. The general topic today is on bringing your internal coaching to the next level. Let me set the stage. Almost all medium to large size organizations that are trying to make a Lean or Agile transformation must develop an internal coaching capability. Relying on external coaches is just too expensive and it's not tuned enough to the needs of the organization. Organizations have a clear need to leverage some of their internal talent and people to coach the organization through the transition and into the next stage of transformation. In most transformation journeys, we're going to start with bringing in some trainers or coaches to help the organization understand the basics. Once the transformation journey's

Skills that Developers Need to Acquire to Achieve an Agile Transformation Amir Kolsky, Rob Neppel, and Jim Trott talk about eight essential skills that developers need to acquire to work in an Agile transformation. Some of these skills are certainly taught in university; some are not as common... but are still essential. These are essential for any professional developer. The essential skills are: Programming. The programmer needs to know how to program. The act of taking a design and implementing it in a language and environment. Design. Creating a good Object-Oriented design based on design patterns. Depends on understanding the specification. The challenge in Agile is that the specification is always changing. You need to know how to create emergent design. TDD helps here. Refactoring. Pre-factoring (before you make changes to the code) and Post-factoring on legacy code to deal with the code smells. Analysis: Domain analysis and technical analysis. Working with stakeholders to understanding the specifications and to create specifications up front on what is necessary. ATDD is essential here. Communication is critical here because developers are actively engaged in every aspect of the process. ATDD and TDD helps to facilitate communication. Testing. This can be learned from the testers in the organization. Estimation. DevOps. Looking further down the value stream, extending the definition of done into deployment. Continuous Intergration is just the start of this. Process Improvement. This is a discipline that the entire team must embrace.. You can use the forums on the Net Objectives Portal to ask questions about the webinar.  Note, you will have to register on the portal to do so. Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: Podcast   Transcript Introduction In this show Amir Kolsky, Rob Neppel, and I talk about the eight essential skills that developers need to acquire in order to achieve an Agile transformation. Now, some of these skills are certainly taught in university and some are not as common, but they're all essential. They're essential for any professional developer to have. View Full Transcript Jim Trott:  It's September 27, 2016. This show, "Skills That Developers Need to Acquire to Achieve an Agile Transformation." [background music] Jim:  Hello and welcome to another edition of "Lean‑Agile Straight Talk," a regular podcast series from Net Objectives. I'm your host, Jim Trott. In this show Amir Kolsky, Rob Neppel, and I talk about the eight essential skills that developers need to acquire in order to achieve an Agile transformation. Now, some of these skills are certainly taught in university and some are not as common, but they're all essential. They're essential for any professional developer to have. In the course of this podcast, Amir Kolsky will describe these eight skills and I think it would be helpful to list them out right at the start just so they're fresh in your mind. Here are the eight skills that Amir says all developers need to know. First of all, how to program. How to design, creating a good object‑oriented design based on design patterns, emergent design. Refactoring, both before you start to make changes and dealing with legacy code to reduce code smells. Analysis, both domain analysis and technical analysis, and effective communication. Testing, one of those great skills that we can learn from our testers in our organization. Estimation, DevOps looking further down the value stream extending the definition of done into deployment, and the discipline of process improvement. Rob and Amir are going to talk a lot more about all of these in the podcast. Before we get started, I want to remind you that you can explore more about this topic by jumping over to the resources section of www.netobjectives.com or going to our portal, portal.netobjectives.com. At Net Objectives, we're committed to discovering effective software devel

Skills that Developers Need to Acquire to Achieve an Agile Transformation Amir Kolsky, Rob Neppel, and Jim Trott talk about eight essential skills that developers need to acquire to work in an Agile transformation. Some of these skills are certainly taught in university; some are not as common... but are still essential. These are essential for any professional developer. The essential skills are: Programming. The programmer needs to know how to program. The act of taking a design and implementing it in a language and environment. Design. Creating a good Object-Oriented design based on design patterns. Depends on understanding the specification. The challenge in Agile is that the specification is always changing. You need to know how to create emergent design. TDD helps here. Refactoring. Pre-factoring (before you make changes to the code) and Post-factoring on legacy code to deal with the code smells. Analysis: Domain analysis and technical analysis. Working with stakeholders to understanding the specifications and to create specifications up front on what is necessary. ATDD is essential here. Communication is critical here because developers are actively engaged in every aspect of the process. ATDD and TDD helps to facilitate communication. Testing. This can be learned from the testers in the organization. Estimation. DevOps. Looking further down the value stream, extending the definition of done into deployment. Continuous Intergration is just the start of this. Process Improvement. This is a discipline that the entire team must embrace.. You can use the forums on the Net Objectives Portal to ask questions about the webinar.  Note, you will have to register on the portal to do so. Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: Podcast   Transcript Introduction In this show Amir Kolsky, Rob Neppel, and I talk about the eight essential skills that developers need to acquire in order to achieve an Agile transformation. Now, some of these skills are certainly taught in university and some are not as common, but they're all essential. They're essential for any professional developer to have. View Full Transcript Jim Trott:  It's September 27, 2016. This show, "Skills That Developers Need to Acquire to Achieve an Agile Transformation." [background music] Jim:  Hello and welcome to another edition of "Lean‑Agile Straight Talk," a regular podcast series from Net Objectives. I'm your host, Jim Trott. In this show Amir Kolsky, Rob Neppel, and I talk about the eight essential skills that developers need to acquire in order to achieve an Agile transformation. Now, some of these skills are certainly taught in university and some are not as common, but they're all essential. They're essential for any professional developer to have. In the course of this podcast, Amir Kolsky will describe these eight skills and I think it would be helpful to list them out right at the start just so they're fresh in your mind. Here are the eight skills that Amir says all developers need to know. First of all, how to program. How to design, creating a good object‑oriented design based on design patterns, emergent design. Refactoring, both before you start to make changes and dealing with legacy code to reduce code smells. Analysis, both domain analysis and technical analysis, and effective communication. Testing, one of those great skills that we can learn from our testers in our organization. Estimation, DevOps looking further down the value stream extending the definition of done into deployment, and the discipline of process improvement. Rob and Amir are going to talk a lot more about all of these in the podcast. Before we get started, I want to remind you that you can explore more about this topic by jumping over to the resources section of www.netobjectives.com or going to our portal, portal.netobjectives.com. At Net Objectives, we're committed to discovering effective software devel

Start Stronger, Get Better, and Do More: A Conversation with James Sutton and Marc Danziger James Sutton, Marc Danziger, and Jim Trott talk about transformation, systems thinking, the borders that Agile erects that can inhibit scaling, coaching, and why Lean thinking requires you to start with understanding the existing culture. Jim Sutton summarizes this as "Start Stronger, Get Better, and Do More." Start Stronger involves "how to start with much-better value candidates"; Get Better focuses on how to walk into a transformation; and Do More is the Lean principle of Perfection. This comes from their long experience with Lean, systems, and helping organizations and programs both large and small scale and succeed. With Lean thinking and Agile practices. Because the reality is that Agile transitions do not always scale up. As Jim Sutton says, success in a little thing does not mean you will have success just by doing more and more of that little thing. Scale requires more approaches, different kinds of thinking. At first, I wondered if this would seem a little academic. But, as we got into it, it became apparent how helpful this is, especially to someone who is having to coach a transition in an organization. There is a lot to think about. You can use the forums on the Net Objectives Portal to ask questions about the webinar.  Note, you will have to register on the portal to do so. Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: Podcast   Transcript Introduction In this show, Jim Sutton, Marc Danziger, and I talk about transformation, systems thinking, the borders that Agile erects that can inhibit scaling, coaching and why Lean thinking requires you to start with understanding the existing culture. View Full Transcript Jim Trott:  It's September 8th, 2016. This show, "Start Stronger, Get Better, and Do More", with Jim Sutton and Marc Danziger. [background music] Jim:  Hello. Welcome to another addition of "Lean‑Agile Straight Talk", our regular podcast series from Net Objectives. I'm your host, Jim Trott. In this show, Jim Sutton, Marc Danziger, and I talk about transformation, systems thinking, the borders that Agile erects that can inhibit scaling, coaching and why Lean thinking requires you to start with understanding the existing culture. Jim Sutton summarizes this as, "Start Stronger, Get Better, and Do More." What he means is Start stronger ‑‑ how to start with much better value candidates. Getting better focuses on how to walk into a transformation. Do more is the Lean principle of perfection. This comes from their long experience with Lean systems thinking and helping organizations and programs, both large and small, scale and succeed with Lean thinking and Agile practices, because the reality is that Agile transitions do not always scale up. As Jim Sutton says, "Success in a little thing does not mean that you will have success just by doing more and more of that little thing. Scale requires more approaches, different kinds of thinking." At first, I wondered if this would seem a little academic, but as we got into it, it became apparent how helpful this is, especially for someone who is having to coach a transition in an organization. There's just a lot to think about. Before we get started, I want to remind you that you can explore more about this topic by jumping over to the resources section of www.netobjectives.com, or go into our new portal, portal.netobjectives.com. At Net Objectives we're committed to discover effective software development methods, so that we can assist organizations in becoming more successful. We combine our experience to continuously extend the capability of what is possible in creating effective software development organizations. We provide these approaches to our clients and the community in general so that we can assist people in achieving their goals and making their organizations more successful. We welcome the chance t

Start Stronger, Get Better, and Do More: A Conversation with James Sutton and Marc Danziger James Sutton, Marc Danziger, and Jim Trott talk about transformation, systems thinking, the borders that Agile erects that can inhibit scaling, coaching, and why Lean thinking requires you to start with understanding the existing culture. Jim Sutton summarizes this as "Start Stronger, Get Better, and Do More." Start Stronger involves "how to start with much-better value candidates"; Get Better focuses on how to walk into a transformation; and Do More is the Lean principle of Perfection. This comes from their long experience with Lean, systems, and helping organizations and programs both large and small scale and succeed. With Lean thinking and Agile practices. Because the reality is that Agile transitions do not always scale up. As Jim Sutton says, success in a little thing does not mean you will have success just by doing more and more of that little thing. Scale requires more approaches, different kinds of thinking. At first, I wondered if this would seem a little academic. But, as we got into it, it became apparent how helpful this is, especially to someone who is having to coach a transition in an organization. There is a lot to think about. You can use the forums on the Net Objectives Portal to ask questions about the webinar.  Note, you will have to register on the portal to do so. Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: Podcast   Transcript Introduction In this show, Jim Sutton, Marc Danziger, and I talk about transformation, systems thinking, the borders that Agile erects that can inhibit scaling, coaching and why Lean thinking requires you to start with understanding the existing culture. View Full Transcript Jim Trott:  It's September 8th, 2016. This show, "Start Stronger, Get Better, and Do More", with Jim Sutton and Marc Danziger. [background music] Jim:  Hello. Welcome to another addition of "Lean‑Agile Straight Talk", our regular podcast series from Net Objectives. I'm your host, Jim Trott. In this show, Jim Sutton, Marc Danziger, and I talk about transformation, systems thinking, the borders that Agile erects that can inhibit scaling, coaching and why Lean thinking requires you to start with understanding the existing culture. Jim Sutton summarizes this as, "Start Stronger, Get Better, and Do More." What he means is Start stronger ‑‑ how to start with much better value candidates. Getting better focuses on how to walk into a transformation. Do more is the Lean principle of perfection. This comes from their long experience with Lean systems thinking and helping organizations and programs, both large and small, scale and succeed with Lean thinking and Agile practices, because the reality is that Agile transitions do not always scale up. As Jim Sutton says, "Success in a little thing does not mean that you will have success just by doing more and more of that little thing. Scale requires more approaches, different kinds of thinking." At first, I wondered if this would seem a little academic, but as we got into it, it became apparent how helpful this is, especially for someone who is having to coach a transition in an organization. There's just a lot to think about. Before we get started, I want to remind you that you can explore more about this topic by jumping over to the resources section of www.netobjectives.com, or go into our new portal, portal.netobjectives.com. At Net Objectives we're committed to discover effective software development methods, so that we can assist organizations in becoming more successful. We combine our experience to continuously extend the capability of what is possible in creating effective software development organizations. We provide these approaches to our clients and the community in general so that we can assist people in achieving their goals and making their organizations more successful. We welcome the chance t

The Net Objectives Guardrails System: A Conversation with Al Shalloway Al Shalloway and Jim Trott talk about the Guardrails System, a holistic system of six agreements that people in an organization make that work together to keep all roles across the value stream aligned and on track in the transition to Lean-Agile. Here are the agreements. We agree to Work on items that will have us realize the greatest amount of Business value across the enterprise, Collaborate with each other in order to maximize the realization of Business value across the enterprise, Ensure that all work will be made visible, Take the necessary steps to sustain or increase predictability, Keep the work throughout the value stream within our capacity, and Encourage everyone to strive for continuous improvement   This show is part of an ongoing series of conversations with Net Objectives consultants and thought-leaders on a variety of topics. Recommendations - Reading and Sites Find the slides used in this session at http://www.netobjectives.net/podcasts/last20160831_slides.pdf or at the Net Objectives Portal: http://portal.netobjectives.com/pages/library/transformation/guardrails. You can use the forums on the Net Objectives Portal to ask questions about the webinar.  Note, you will have to register on the portal to do so. Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: Podcast   Transcript Introduction The Net Objectives Guardrails System is a holistic system of six agreements that people in an organization make together. These agreements work together to keep all roles across the value stream aligned and on track in the transition to Lean Agile. View Full Transcript In fact, if you started noticing the business ‑‑ how you collaborate ‑‑ these almost sound like they're tied to each other, and they are. You can't collaborate without visibility. You need visibility to get the next one, predictability. Take the necessary steps to sustain an increased predictability. Predictability is not just knowing what you're working on, this implies quality. [inaudible 5:56] will not allow you to have predictability. Then how do you keep the work throughout the value stream within our capacity? This is where managing working process comes in. That's quite useful. Then encourage everyone to strive for continuous improvement. Of course, because we're trying to learn, part of the system is, how do we use this not only to get our work done but how do we use this to actually improve learning as we go? This is a key point that the Guardrails System actually fits into a bigger system. What does this mean and how do you actually relate them? If you step back and think about it, if we're going to work on the most business side, it means we have to have a sequence list of some sort up at the front. These are what's important. It forces that, have it be visible and yet manage it so we don't work on everything at once but we have to limit our working process to the capacity of the system. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Scaled Agile Framework, you'll notice these are all reflected in that agreement of the portfolio, a frontend to a program that says, "We're only going to work on these things in this order and across the teams. These are actually things we have found to be pragmatic and useful. They often get incorporated into other systems that are out there working together, some of the defined systems that are there. This is the basis of, "How do we do improvement and guide people working together?" Jim:  Al, one question is, where can I go to get more information about the Guardrails? Are there papers, are there sites and things like that? Al:  We have actually right now both the paper and a recording of a webinar. The paper is actually right there. You can see portal.netobjectives.com. Portal.netobjectives.com is a new site we've had up for about three or four weeks. It's still a little bit in be

The Net Objectives Guardrails System: A Conversation with Al Shalloway Al Shalloway and Jim Trott talk about the Guardrails System, a holistic system of six agreements that people in an organization make that work together to keep all roles across the value stream aligned and on track in the transition to Lean-Agile. Here are the agreements. We agree to Work on items that will have us realize the greatest amount of Business value across the enterprise, Collaborate with each other in order to maximize the realization of Business value across the enterprise, Ensure that all work will be made visible, Take the necessary steps to sustain or increase predictability, Keep the work throughout the value stream within our capacity, and Encourage everyone to strive for continuous improvement   This show is part of an ongoing series of conversations with Net Objectives consultants and thought-leaders on a variety of topics. Recommendations - Reading and Sites Find the slides used in this session at http://www.netobjectives.net/podcasts/last20160831_slides.pdf or at the Net Objectives Portal: http://portal.netobjectives.com/pages/library/transformation/guardrails. You can use the forums on the Net Objectives Portal to ask questions about the webinar.  Note, you will have to register on the portal to do so. Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: Podcast   Transcript Introduction The Net Objectives Guardrails System is a holistic system of six agreements that people in an organization make together. These agreements work together to keep all roles across the value stream aligned and on track in the transition to Lean Agile. View Full Transcript In fact, if you started noticing the business ‑‑ how you collaborate ‑‑ these almost sound like they're tied to each other, and they are. You can't collaborate without visibility. You need visibility to get the next one, predictability. Take the necessary steps to sustain an increased predictability. Predictability is not just knowing what you're working on, this implies quality. [inaudible 5:56] will not allow you to have predictability. Then how do you keep the work throughout the value stream within our capacity? This is where managing working process comes in. That's quite useful. Then encourage everyone to strive for continuous improvement. Of course, because we're trying to learn, part of the system is, how do we use this not only to get our work done but how do we use this to actually improve learning as we go? This is a key point that the Guardrails System actually fits into a bigger system. What does this mean and how do you actually relate them? If you step back and think about it, if we're going to work on the most business side, it means we have to have a sequence list of some sort up at the front. These are what's important. It forces that, have it be visible and yet manage it so we don't work on everything at once but we have to limit our working process to the capacity of the system. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Scaled Agile Framework, you'll notice these are all reflected in that agreement of the portfolio, a frontend to a program that says, "We're only going to work on these things in this order and across the teams. These are actually things we have found to be pragmatic and useful. They often get incorporated into other systems that are out there working together, some of the defined systems that are there. This is the basis of, "How do we do improvement and guide people working together?" Jim:  Al, one question is, where can I go to get more information about the Guardrails? Are there papers, are there sites and things like that? Al:  We have actually right now both the paper and a recording of a webinar. The paper is actually right there. You can see portal.netobjectives.com. Portal.netobjectives.com is a new site we've had up for about three or four weeks. It's still a little bit in be

Groupthink and Fear as Team Killers: A Conversation with Marc Danziger Marc Dangizer and Jim Trott talk about the problems teams often face when no one on the team is willing to acknowledge the challenge if others don’t (groupthink) or because they are afraid of what the consequences might be if they do (fear). In either case, the team is far worse off because issues get addressed only when they are unavoidable – rather than early when it might have been easy.   Lean and Agile teams are not immune to this but Lean-Agile practices can make it less likely. And a true Lean-Agile culture can make it never happen.   We cover questions such as: Why it is helpful to a coach to focus on groupthink and fear. And why it is not always bad. As a manager, team member, or senior leader, how top spot groupthink and fear Whether and how Lean-Agile helps to address groupthink and fear. How to address this when you have mixed cultures, some that are happy to challenge and some that seek to preserve group identity. If you are a coach or are engaged in Lean-Agile transformation, I am sure these questions have occurred to you. Recommendations - Reading and Sites You can use the forums on the Net Objectives Portal to ask questions about the webinar.  Note, you will have to register on the portal to do so. The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Some aphorisms on software development methodology The Art of Action: : How Leaders Close the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results by Stephen Bungay Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: Podcast   Transcript Introduction The focus of our discussion is on the problems teams often face when no one on the team is willing to acknowledge the challenge if others don't, which we call groupthink, or because they are afraid of what the consequences might be if they do, which is fear. View Full Transcript [background music] Jim Trott:  It's August 18th, 2016. This show, "A Conversation on Groupthink and Fear as Team Killers" with Marc Danziger. [background music] Jim:  Hello and welcome to another edition of "Lean‑Agile Straight Talk," a regular podcast series from Net Objectives. I'm your host, Jim Trott. In this show, Marc Danziger and I talk about groupthink and fear as team killers. The focus of our discussion is on the problems teams often face when no one on the team is willing to acknowledge the challenge if others don't, which we call groupthink, or because they are afraid of what the consequences might be if they do, which is fear. In either case, the team is far worse off because issues get addressed only when they are unavoidable, rather than earlier when it might have been easier to address. Lean and Agile teams are not immune to this, but we believe practices in Lean and Agile can make it less likely to occur, and a true Lean‑Agile culture can make it never happen. We're going to cover questions such as, "Why it's helpful to have coached a focus on groupthink and fear, and why it's not always bad? As a manager, a team member or a senior leader, how to spot groupthink and fear. Whether and how Lean‑Agile helps to address groupthink and fear, and how to address this when you have mixed cultures. Some that are happy to challenge and some that seek to preserve group identity. What do you do?" If you are a coach or engaged in Lean‑Agile transformation, I'm sure, these questions have occurred to you. Before we get started, I want to remind you that you can explore more about this topic by jumping over to the resources section of www.netobjectives.com. At Net Objectives, we are committed to discovering effective software development methods so that we can assist organizations in becoming more successful. We combine our experience to continuously extend the capability of what is possible and creating effective software development organizations. We provide these approaches to our clients and the community in general so that we can assist peop

Groupthink and Fear as Team Killers: A Conversation with Marc Danziger Marc Dangizer and Jim Trott talk about the problems teams often face when no one on the team is willing to acknowledge the challenge if others don’t (groupthink) or because they are afraid of what the consequences might be if they do (fear). In either case, the team is far worse off because issues get addressed only when they are unavoidable – rather than early when it might have been easy.   Lean and Agile teams are not immune to this but Lean-Agile practices can make it less likely. And a true Lean-Agile culture can make it never happen.   We cover questions such as: Why it is helpful to a coach to focus on groupthink and fear. And why it is not always bad. As a manager, team member, or senior leader, how top spot groupthink and fear Whether and how Lean-Agile helps to address groupthink and fear. How to address this when you have mixed cultures, some that are happy to challenge and some that seek to preserve group identity. If you are a coach or are engaged in Lean-Agile transformation, I am sure these questions have occurred to you. Recommendations - Reading and Sites You can use the forums on the Net Objectives Portal to ask questions about the webinar.  Note, you will have to register on the portal to do so. The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Some aphorisms on software development methodology The Art of Action: : How Leaders Close the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results by Stephen Bungay Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: Podcast   Transcript Introduction The focus of our discussion is on the problems teams often face when no one on the team is willing to acknowledge the challenge if others don't, which we call groupthink, or because they are afraid of what the consequences might be if they do, which is fear. View Full Transcript [background music] Jim Trott:  It's August 18th, 2016. This show, "A Conversation on Groupthink and Fear as Team Killers" with Marc Danziger. [background music] Jim:  Hello and welcome to another edition of "Lean‑Agile Straight Talk," a regular podcast series from Net Objectives. I'm your host, Jim Trott. In this show, Marc Danziger and I talk about groupthink and fear as team killers. The focus of our discussion is on the problems teams often face when no one on the team is willing to acknowledge the challenge if others don't, which we call groupthink, or because they are afraid of what the consequences might be if they do, which is fear. In either case, the team is far worse off because issues get addressed only when they are unavoidable, rather than earlier when it might have been easier to address. Lean and Agile teams are not immune to this, but we believe practices in Lean and Agile can make it less likely to occur, and a true Lean‑Agile culture can make it never happen. We're going to cover questions such as, "Why it's helpful to have coached a focus on groupthink and fear, and why it's not always bad? As a manager, a team member or a senior leader, how to spot groupthink and fear. Whether and how Lean‑Agile helps to address groupthink and fear, and how to address this when you have mixed cultures. Some that are happy to challenge and some that seek to preserve group identity. What do you do?" If you are a coach or engaged in Lean‑Agile transformation, I'm sure, these questions have occurred to you. Before we get started, I want to remind you that you can explore more about this topic by jumping over to the resources section of www.netobjectives.com. At Net Objectives, we are committed to discovering effective software development methods so that we can assist organizations in becoming more successful. We combine our experience to continuously extend the capability of what is possible and creating effective software development organizations. We provide these approaches to our clients and the community in general so that we can assist peop

Justifying TDD: A Conversation with Scott Bain Scott Bain and Jim Trott talk about overcoming the challenges people often have to adopting Test-Driven Development in their organization. A big part of doing TDD effectively is coming to an agreement as to what it is, why we want to do it, and how to do it. We cover quesions such as: The return on the investment in TDD... for everyone Developers already have a full-time job.  Why should we give them another one? Won’t TDD slow down the development process? If the developers write tests, won’t they simply be doing the same work as testers, and if so isn’t this wasteful? How does TDD help distributed teams? As the test suite grows in size, won’t this become a massive burden? What are situations where TDD does not work?   In addition, Scott points us to helpful resources such as his excellent website, www.sustainabletdd.com. This show is part of an ongoing series of conversations with Net Objectives consultants and thought-leaders on a variety of topics. We call this series, "The Doctor Is In!" Recommendations - Reading and Sites You can use the forums on the Net Objectives Portal to ask questions about the webinar.  Note, you will have to register on the portal to do so. www.SustainableTDD.com Net Objectives TDD page Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: Podcast   Transcript Introduction In this show, Scott Bain and I talk about overcoming the challenges people often have to adopting test driven development in their organization. A big part of doing TDD effectively, is coming to an agreement as to what it is, why we want to do it, and how to do it. View Full Transcript Jim Trott:  It's August 8th, 2016. This show, "A Conversation on Justifying TDD with Scott Bain." [background music] Jim:  Hello. Welcome to another addition of "Lean‑Agile Straight Talk," a regular podcast series from Net Objectives. I'm your host, Jim Trott. In this show, Scott Bain and I talk about overcoming the challenges people often have to adopting test‑driven development in their organization. A big part of doing TDD effectively, is coming to an agreement as to what it is, why we want to do it, and how to do it. We're going to cover questions such as, what's the return on investment in TDD? Why should we be giving developers yet another job to do? Does TDD slow down the development process? Are we really making developers do the same kind of work that testers are doing, and isn't that wasteful? Does TDD apply in distributed team environments? What do you do as the test size grows in size? Doesn't that become a massive burden? What situations are there where TDD just doesn't work, and what are resources for learning more about TDD? The hint is, go to Scott's website, sustainabletdd.com. I'm sure if you've been thinking about TDD, some of these questions have occurred to you. I think you're going to enjoy this show. Before we get started, I want to remind you that you can explore more about this topic by jumping over to the resources section of www.netobjectives.com. At Net Objectives, we're committed to discovering effective software development methods so that we can assist organizations in becoming more successful. We combine our experience to continuously extend the capability of what is possible in creating effective software development organizations. We provide these approaches to our clients, and the community in general, so that we can assist people in achieving their goals and making their organizations more successful. We'd welcome the chance to work with you, and we're always learning. We invite you to join in. Visit us at www.netobjectives.com, and let's keep the conversation going. Scott is one of my favorite presenters. He's a gifted trainer. He's an author of several books, including "Emergent Design ‑ The Evolutionary Nature of Professional Software Development" and of "Essential Skills for the Agile Developer". Sco