LeadingAgile SoundNotes: an Agile Podcast

One of the best parts of working at LeadingAgile is the continual focus on helping the brilliant people who work here amplify their ability to deliver value for customers. We have a weekly call where we focus on different aspects of the work we do and how we can get better at delivering on the LeadingAgile approach so that our customers can achieve their goals. In a recent call Mike Cottmeyer walked through the Trust Influence Loop, which explains the way we interact with our clients in order to develop the safety and trust we need to be able to help them achieve the outcomes they are looking for. The model had a huge impact on me and I asked Mike if he’d be willing to do an interview on it so that we could share it with others.  While this podcast is a little on the long side, the whole conversation is incredibly valuable. SHOW NOTES 00:08 Interview Begins 00:30 How LeadingAgile syncs up in the morning 02:47 The Tuesday Night Calls 04:17 The Trust Influence Loop Model - Part 1: Influence 08:55 Getting Access… then what” 11:12 The importance of continually creating safety and earning the right to have influence 13:25 Demonstrating empathy, listening and learning 17:43 Why it is so important to hear the client’s explanation of the problem 19:18 The girl with the nail in her head 20:34 The difference between thinking everything is a nail and asserting a position you believe in 23:31 The Trust Influence Loop Model - Part 2: Trust 26:45 Integrity in context  - are you going to do what you said you are going to do 28:04 Developing integrity from the promise through the delivery 30:13 Integrity and maintaining a shared understanding with the client throughout execution 36:28 It’s not about artifacts, it is about demonstrating integrity, building consensus and reaching shared understanding 37:52 You have to understand who the client is and what problem you are trying to solve 43:13 How the Trust-Influence loop applies outside of work 46:19 Why LeadingAgile writes SOWs that take one trip through the loop at a time 49:06 Mike’s journey of unpacking what’s he’s learned and sharing it with other people 50:17 Random Question for Mike: What was the last album you downloaded and listened to that wasn’t Collective Soul? 51:29 Nothing but peace and martinis LINKS FROM THE PODCAST Trust Influence Loop Graphic You can download a copy of the Trust Influence Loop here If you want to watch the video of the girl with the nail in her head, you can find it here: It’s Not About The Nail The Slash album Mike refers to during the interview is: Slash (2010) CONTACTING MIKE If you’d like to reach Mike, here is how you can contact him: Email: mike@leadingagile.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/mcottmeyer

For this episode of SoundNotes, we reached out to some of the students who have taken CSM and CSPO classes over the last few months. We got a lot of great questions and will be responding to them over the next few weeks. This week, Derek Huether and Dave Prior respond to these two questions: Question 1: My team seems to have a problem with estimating and understanding the estimating concepts.  The team members are accustomed to traditional waterfall projects and estimating everything in units of time.  How can I help them understand estimating, but continue to complete the sprints with no pbis rolling over to the next sprint? Question 2: I have a team lead who is skeptical of scrum, especially metrics related to the process. He doesn’t think carryover matters from sprint to sprint as long as we’re “creating value” and getting the program priorities completed. Any advice on how to convince him that metrics can be a tool for good, and that the sanctity of the sprint commitment matters? Links from the Podcast If you’d like to check out the Multiple Team Throughput Forecasting Tool that Troy Magennis has created for use with multiple teams who have different ways of estimating work, you can find it (and his other tools) here: http://focusedobjective.com/free-tools-resources/ For an audio only version of the podcast click here. Contacting Derek If you’d like to contact Derek you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekhuether/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/derekhuether Email: derek@leadingagile.com Contacting Dave If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com And if you are interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

If you have ever considered moving into consulting, this podcast is for you.In this podcast, In this interview, Rick Austin, John Tanner and Dave Prior talk about what it is like working as a traveling consultant for LeadingAgile. They discuss how it changes the focus of your work, what it takes to be good at it, how it impacts your personal life and some of the things you have to do to maintain your sanity when you spend most of your life on the road. SHOW NOTES 1:13 Podcast Begins - Overview of Topic 2:35 What consulting did to Rick’s world when he started at LeadingAgile 3:08 How John got started with consulting and then got back into it 3:31 How being a traveling consultant impacts your personal and professional life 4:52 Shaping your life around how you work 5:23 Being intentional about your life when you are back home 6:10 How long each of us can spend on the road before having to take a break 7:11 Building relationships and maintaining objectivity on site 9:29 The importance of gaining permission to consult and coach 11:34 How do you entice people to invite you to coach once you get onsite 13:30 Learning how to get people to want you to be there 14:40 Why you should not immediately try to solve the problem 15;51 Developing better communication skills 17:42 How Dave coped with being introverted when building connections 18:27 When you meet people you just can’t connect with no matter how hard you try 19:46 Taking responsibility for the communication issues you face (It’s on the sender/communicator) 22:26 Things you should know about consulting before they start 23:57 Taking ownership of the room and holding your space 26:36 Engaging with authority 27:10 Developing mastery of the subject  and never being caught off guard 29:09 Being humble and maintaining confidence 30:10 The value of hard knocks 30:49 Finding the right people to partner with 31:18 Why you need to find a mentor to help you when you are learning how to work this way 32:29 What makes consulting difficult and the importance of maintaining personal connections outside of work 33:21 When you leave the house time stops for you, but not for the other people in your life 33:47 Creating clear space between work and non work 34:59 Finding the right company to consult for 35:26 How LeadingAgile makes it easy for us to work as consultants 36:18 Finding the things you need to do to recharge when you get burnt out from work 38:38 Getting in touch with John and Rick LINKS FROM THE PODCAST Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help  CONTACTING JOHN Email: john.tanner@leadingagile.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/tannerjs Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tannerjs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tannerjs/ CONTACTING RICK Email: rick@leadingagile.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/rickaustin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdaustin/  

This is a explaination of the new tool I introduced at the 2017 Digital PM Summit. The session I led was called Hacking Agile for Digital Agencies and the canvas tool I built for the session is intended to help Digital Agencies understand more about why they want to use Agile practices in the first place, how they are expected to help and what they are willing to risk in order to achieve some level of agility.   If you'd like to check out the slides from the actual presentation, you can find them here. If you'd like to download a PDF of the DPM Agility Canvas you can find that here. And if you have any feedback or questions, please email me at dave.prior@leadingagile.com

Scott Sehlhorst, SVP and Executive Consultant at Leading Agile, goes deep on Personas in this episode of SoundNotes. During the interview Scott and Dave discuss the difference between Proto-Personas and actual Personas, the importance of empathy maps and how to help management understand that making the investment in developing personas is a great way to reduce risk.This is the first of several podcasts we are going to be posting on Personas, how to create them and why they are so valuable. Show Notes 00:08 Podcast begins 00:56 Scott’s background 03:00 Why Scott is so focused on understanding the customer 07:10 Scott explains what a proto-persona is 10:51 Why we need to understand the customer’s problem at a deeper level than they do 13:00 The difference between a proto-persona and an actual persona 19:08 Making the case for taking the time to do personas 20:20 Why we start by making assumptions 24:35 Using empathy maps as a tool to help us test our assumptions 26:48 Personas are an investment in understanding the customer and reducing risk 28:52 Helping executives understand why they need to make this investment 30:34 “You put together a plan and you remove risk and uncertainty from that plan” 31:54 Can you stop at the empathy map and how do you move past it into something more data driven 36:00 Getting the data we need to get to actual personas 39:25 Accepting the risk of not moving all the way to actual personas 43:54 What are the most effective ways to collect the data we need 49:39 Once you have all the data, then what? 52:36 What we’ll focus on in future podcasts about personas 53:25 Contacting ScottLinks from the InterviewScott’s article (which includes some examples)Progressively Elaborated Users http://tynerblain.com/blog/2017/09/10/progressively-elaborated-users/ Dave Gray’s updated Empathy Maphttps://medium.com/the-xplane-collection/updated-empathy-map-canvas-46df22df3c8aContacting ScottTwitter: https://twitter.com/sehlhorstLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sehlhorst/LeadingAgile site: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/scott-sehlhorst/

When you think of the annual Agile conference, you usually think about speakers and content. However, Paul Hammond wants to augment the content at the conference with the answers to your questions and one-on-one time with experts from around the industry. That’s why, this year, the conference includes Agile Therapy. Learn more in this video with Paul and Chris Li.

Tricia is the Agile2017 conference Chair and in this video, she discusses how the conference has grown and changed over the years. Also, she speaks about how the speakers are chosen and how the organizers try to provide a variety of things to do for attendees to self-care and stay fresh. Midway through the podcast, Tricia switches gears and talks about her personal ascension to the role of an Agile leader and how she tries to pay it forward to the Agile community.

In this – all LeadingAgile – edition of SoundNotes, Rick Austin and Paul Argiry discuss each of their talks. The talks focus on portfolio management and capitalizing software in an Agile world. In the video the guys discuss the new definition of portfolio management, road mapping, and capacity management as well as how to avoid common accounting pitfalls when trying to fund your Agile initiative.

In this short video, Jesse Fewell and Kim Brainard discuss their talk that they delivered at Agile2017: The PMO Paradox. The talk centers around what to do with the PMO when your organization is in the middle of an Agile initiative. Often, the answer is fire them but Jesse and Kim have a different suggestion. What if you could collaborate with the PMO in an Agile environment to ensure that they are an asset?

We received a question from someone who has been working as a Scrum Master for awhile and is considering moving into coaching. They just weren’t sure how to tel if it was the correct next step and had a lot of questions about what the job involved, what skills were needed, etc. In this week’s podcast, Tim Wise and Dave Prior discuss the role of an Agile Coach, what it involves, the day to day work, what skills are needed and, if you are in that role, some important things to watch out for.Show Notes0:08 Interview Begins00:25 How Tim ended up working in Agile Coaching03:32 What skills do you need to be an Agile Coach06:12 What is the job of a coach - at the team and enterprise level?09:08 What you need to move from being a ScrumMaster (coaching one team) to being a coach of multiple teams12:33 Is it better to work as a consultant, moving from team to team and seeing lots of ways of making Agile work (and not) or is it better to stick with one team and get them to a high performing state?14:30 What areas Tim had to focus on to become effective at providing coaching for multiple teams16:11 Mentoring, school or hard knocks, or surrounding yourself with brilliant people?18:53 Be wary of “EXPERTS”19:28 Moving past imposter syndrome 22:05 Knockaround Guys… 500 fights to consider yourself a legitimate tough guy23:32 Will coaching camp or certification make you a good coach?26:07 Always be the student27:57 Understanding your own coaching shortcomings… and how they may somtimes be strengths31:00 Practice the skills you need to take risks and be vulnerable32:00 Avoiding the addiction to pontificating after the team fails35:15 What does a coach do all day39:20 How the day breaks down if you are doing team level coaching40:04 Working with the Executives and using Social Engineering for good41:41 Two additional skills to work on43:12 Understanding your own capacity45:55 How much selling is an Agile Coach required/expected to do48:28 Building the desire for change51:54 What does Tim with he had been told about coaching before he got started down the path53:11  You never know when the seeds will germinate55:30 Keeping it fresh for yourself56:38  Getting in touch with Tim56:57 Scrum Atlanta User Group events57:41 Interview Ends - Knockaround GuysLinks Mentioned In This PodcastAgile Coaching Institute http://agilecoachinginstitute.comScrum Alliance Certified Team Coach https://www.scrumalliance.org/certifications/ctc-certificationScrum Alliance Certified Enterprise Coach https://www.scrumalliance.org/certifications/cec-certificatioScrum Atlanta User Group https://www.meetup.com/agile-38/Contacting TimEmail: tim@leadingagile.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timwise/Twitter: https://twitter.com/timswise

Mike Vizdos is a busy guy. He’s someone whose passion for helping agile change lives extends well beyond coaching traditional organizations and teaching classes. At Agile 2017, Mike stopped by to provide an update on Agile In Education and the work he and others are doing to bring agile to schools and transform the way we learn. This work is taking place e at every level of education - from grade school up through university. It is an inspiring and impressive thing.Mike also talks about the work he’s been doing with Ron Jeffries to create an online community that provides mentoring and support for Agile practitioners and coaches. Here are some of the links mentioned in the interview:AgileMentoring.com http://www.agilementoring.com/Agile in Education: http://www.agileineducation.orgScrum In School http://www.scruminschool.orgThe VCU daVinci Center http://www.davincicenter.vcu.eduAnd if you’d like to learn more about Mike, check out:Web: http://www.michaelvizdos.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/mvizdosLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mvizdos/

During a recent LeadingAgile offsite Jeff Vogelsang and Tom Churchwell sat down with Dave Prior to break down the TIES approach of Agile planning that they have bee using with clients. This approach been used to help organizations who need a way to manage long term strategy planning that creates visibility all the way down to the execution level. TIES addresses planning at 4 levels: Themes – Strategic long term goals broken down into time boxes of 1 to 3 quarters. Initiatives – Themes are broken down into elements that collectively address the theme. These are broken down into time boxes of 1 to 3 months. Epics – Initiatives are broken down into Epics which would take between 1 to 3 sprints to deliver. Stories – Epics are broken down into User Stories that are small enough to be completed by a Team within a Sprint, ideally within 1 to 3 days. In this interview Jeff and Tom explain the different level of planning TIES, how they work and how they can be used to help management understand their capacity to introduce more work. Contact Info for Jeff Vogelsang Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeffvogelsang LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffvogelsang/ Email: jeff.vogelsang@leadingagile.com Contact Info for Tom Churchwell Twitter: https://twitter.com/tchurchwell LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomchurchwell/ Email: Tom.Churchwell@leadingagile.com The TIES podcast Tom Churchwell and Dave did previously https://www.leadingagile.com/podcast/agile-planning-ties-tom-churchwell/ Certified Scrum Master class in Las Vegas https://www.leadingagile.com/event/certified-scrummaster-training-nevada-10-14-17/ For information on the special CSM training discount available to attendees of the Digital PM Summit Email: training@leadingagile.com 2017 Digital PM Summit http://bureauofdigital.com/summits/digital-pm-2017/

In this Agile 2017 interview Johanna Rothman talks with Dave about her new book “Create Your Successful Agile Project Collaborate, Measure, Estimate and Deliver” and how teams that are struggling to make Scrum work may want to adopt an approach that focuses on continuous flow in order to deliver value for their customers with greater frequency. The interview includes a conversation about working with User Stories that are sized to only take the team a single day to complete, how this can help teams that are struggling with estimation, and how Johanna’s approach to writing (she averages about 1 book a year in addition to posting to her blog every few days) involves writing for just 15 minutes a day. For more on Johanna:Web: https://www.jrothman.comBooks: https://www.jrothman.com/books/Twitter: https://twitter.com/johannarothman?lang=enLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannarothman/

Radtac Co-CEO Laura Powers took some time out of her busy schedule at Agile 2017 to talk with Dave Prior about the benefits an organization can gain from introducing play into the workplace. In this interview she explains how it can help unlock creativity within the team. Laura led an additional session at Agile 2017 called “It’s Not Just About Culture: Co-creating an Awesome Agile Climate in an Imperfect World”. During their conversation Laura explains how to create a working climate that supports safety for knowledge workers. If you work in an environment that does not have a supportive climate, there are tips in her for how to cope with that as well. If you’d like to get in touch with Laura: Radtac: https://www.radtac.com/about-us/page/3/Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurapowersLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurampowers/ Laura’s session descriptions from Agile 2017It’s Not Just About Culture: Co-creating an Awesome Agile Climate in an Imperfect World - http://sched.co/ATWvThe Power of Play - Coaching Teams to Play at Work - http://sched.co/ATXu

At Agile 2017 Diana Larsen sat down with Dave Prior to talk about the Agile Fluency model. In this interview she explains what it is (a way of thinking about what benefits an organization needs to get from it’s teams) and how she and James Shore co-founded the Agile Fluency Project with the hope of moving past the question of whether or not a given team, practice, etc. was Agile or not. They wanted to shift the focus to a more positive approach that would help teams develop routine, skillful ease as they move further down the path of adopting agile practices with the ultimate goal of providing enough benefit to the organization so that they, in turn, receive the organizational support for continuous improvement. If you’d like to learn more about Agile Fluency, please check out the following:Your Path through Agile Fluency https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/agileFluency.htmlThe Agile Fluency Project http://agilefluency.orgAnd if you’d like to learn more about Diana Larsen check out:FutureWorks Consulting - https://www.futureworksconsulting.comHer books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Diana-Larsen/e/B002BM7U7QDiana on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DianaOfPortland