The Burn Up - Agile Software Delivery

This episode is a follow-on from our previous episode about the Apollo space program. Marcel and Todd talk about the failures surrounding the Challenger Disaster as a cautionary tail for today’s leaders to consider to avoid the same pitfalls. Please listen to “The Challenger Disaster: You’re wrong about - The Challenger Disaster” - 3rd Jan 2019 by Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes for full context: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-challenger-disaster/id1380008439?i=1000465289942 Please also listen to our previous podcast about the Apollo program as this is a follow-on discussion: https://burnupmedia.com/2020/04/13/ep23-learnings-from-the-space-industry-part-1of2-apollo-11/ The following topics are covered: The impact the challenger disaster had on NASA and our recollection of events The findings of the rogers commission Importance of listening to expertise Preventing a silo effect, where the procedures put in place box in taking logical action Designing for safety and understanding safe parameters, risk and probability The importance of communication unfiltered by middle managers Findings of the house of representatives committee report Dian Vaughn’s (sociologist) 1996 analysis of the disaster Government contracting and its role in the disaster High turnover at NASA and its role in the disaster A discussion about SpaceX and how they are approaching spaceship development is a more Agile way We hope you enjoy this episode. As always please feel free to give us feedback and share. Show Notes The Challenger Disaster: You’re wrong about - The Challenger Disaster - 3rd Jan 2019 by Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-challenger-disaster/id1380008439?i=1000465289942 Challenger Disaster footage with radio loop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hqOdAi_t2c Radio communication transcript: https://history.nasa.gov/transcript.html Rogers Commission report https://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/genindex.htm https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/outreach/SignificantIncidents/assets/rogers_commission_report.pdf Richard Feynman at commission hearing demonstrates the o-ring issues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raMmRKGkGD4 House of representatives report https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRPT-99hrpt1016/pdf/GPO-CRPT-99hrpt1016.pdf Controversial Edward Tuft diagram analysis https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11520001_Representation_and_Misrepresentation_Tufte_and_the_Morton_Thiokol_Engineers_on_the_Challenger Dian Vaughn’s (sociologist) 1996 analysis of all 200k documents (by then the incident is a full fledged field of research, most based only on the exec summaries) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Vaughan Expanded show notes and leave questions or comments for this episode at: https://burnupmedia.com/2020/04/18/ep24-learnings-from-the-space-industry-part2-of-2-the-challenger-disaster-and-on/ Subscribe to the podcast at: http://theburnup.com/ Follow The Burn Up on Twitter: @burnupmedia Connect with us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/burnupmedia Email us: podcasts@burnupmedia.com Read Marcel's Blog at www.thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk More interesting stuff on our reading list: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4905904-m?shelf=software-consulting This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Further Information at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

In this episode Marcel and Todd talk about management lessons learned during the Apollo era space program and how they can still apply in today’s management environment. Please listen to “Management Lessons of the Moon” by Andrew Chaikin YouTube video for full context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaskWhy5pYE The following topics are covered: - The legacy of the Apollo era management - The importance of a clear goal from the top - Having sufficient resources to achieve your goals - Using a Systems thinking approach - Configuration management - Ensuring optimum solutions can win - Designing for simplicity and redundancy - Testing under realistic conditions - The importance of what-if thinking and mentality - Team accountability and trust - Luck We hope you enjoyed this episode. As always please feel free to give us feedback and share. Show Notes Discussion on Apollo 11: Management Lessons of the Moon by Andrew Chaikin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaskWhy5pYE The Challenger Disaster: You’re wrong about - The Challenger Disaster - 3rd Jan 2019 by Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-challenger-disaster/id1380008439?i=1000465289942 Other, material of interest Apollo 1 fire radio transmission (be warned, it’s not a comfortable file to listen to): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=274lQSbpkRg Highly Recommended! Epic Apollo 11 documentary made solely of original material on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81078076 Expanded show notes and leave questions or comments for this episode at: https://burnupmedia.com/2019/02/23/ep23-learnings-from-the-space-industry-part-1of2-apollo-11/ Subscribe to the podcast at: http://theburnup.com/ Follow The Burn Up on Twitter: @burnupmedia Connect with us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/burnupmedia Email us: podcasts@burnupmedia.com Read Marcel's Blog at www.thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk More interesting stuff on our reading list: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4905904-m?shelf=software-consulting This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Further Information at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

We strongly believe that organisations with a successful future are those that embrace remote working practices. Not only does this address some of the challenges posed by the current Covid-19 crisis, but overall, allows organisations tap into a wider talent pool, work with a wider client base and most importantly make for better work life balance. In this episode we discuss remote interviewing with 5 super interesting guests…. We have recently co-written a blog-post on remote interviewing and my business partners at Equal Experts have extensively discussed remote working practices in their free remote working playbook. But writing about it, is one thing, hearing it from the horse’s mouth is different altogether. In this Burn Up Episode, we chat with 5 guests, all with extensive experience in remote interviewing. We talk about whether remote interviewing works, whether it’s a stop-gap measure or there to stay, and how to be successful at it, as interviewer and candidate alike. Our Guests We’ve got an excellent cast of guests on this episode. Please feel free to get in touch with any of them if you are looking for an engagement, want to know more about remote working, work with an organisation that is interested in improving their remote working practices or simply want to say hello… In this episode you’ll meet; Becky Smith (https://www.linkedin.com/in/beckysmith2/) recruiter and people manager, and Neha Datt who works as product consultant, has co-written the remote working playbook (https://remote-working.playbook.ee/) and runs a webinar on remote working best practices. She can best be reached via her company Mercurial Phoenix (https://mercp.com/) or via twitter @oliphantism. You will also hear from Nuno Sillva Peirera (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nunosilvapereira/) who works as a Delivery Lead in Portugal and with whom we have remote interviewed many times. Nuno blogs, tweets @nunoaspereira, xxx and has recently released a Metal Album (https://open.spotify.com/artist/5VmHEyh21vclFmhysESorO?si=QXEkfIfARWW34_sObmMVwg) which we highly recommend you check out. Nuno also has a most excellent youtube video on remote working (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q5PpYdpxzc). We also speak with Werner Smit (https://www.linkedin.com/in/werner-smit-16203533/) who is a Delivery Lead in South Africa and has extensive experience working across country boundaries, Rajesh Kumar Thiagaran (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajeshthiagarajan/) who is a Product Consultant in Pune, India, with experience in the recruitment industry and with whom we have recently run a major multi-day remote training session across London, Bangalore and Pune. And of course, there is also Dave Hewett (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-hewett-b97609/) whom you’ll have met in Episode 8. Dave has a keen interest in team working practices (remote or other) and has been instrumental in making the remote (and other) playbooks happen.  If you want to work with Equal Experts you can get in touch with them via their website (https://www.equalexperts.com/join-us/) or any of us via linkedin or any other channel. Things you may want to check out: https://www.equalexperts.com/blog/our-thinking/new-to-running-interviews-remotely-this-is-how-we-are-doing-it/ https://remote-working.playbook.ee/ Interested in more Agile thinking, want to get in touch, share thoughts, collaborate with us in an episode or work with us? Subscribe to the podcast at: http://theburnup.com/ Follow The Burn Up on Twitter: @burnupmedia Connect with us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/burnupmedia Email us: podcasts@burnupmedia.com Read Marcel's Blog at www.thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk More interesting stuff on our reading list: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4905904-m?shelf=software-consulting This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Further Information at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

In this episode Swathi Poddar - who you’ll know from last season — and I catch up on Lean Inceptions. As you know we have written the Inception Playbook which is a quite chunky piece, providing in-depth guidance on how to kick off projects well and set initiatives up for success. While this is still very helpful, we found that the more experienced teams are looking for something a bit more light-weight, to incept not major initiatives, but smaller projects, feature delivery or additional workstreams. In fact, these days we are running more and more super short, highly focused Inceptions that may be as short as 2–3 days, or only 3–4 hours, even… In this episode we discuss when such Lean Inceptions are valuable and feasible and talk through the mechanics of running them. You may want to view this diagram https://miro.medium.com/max/5000/1*NIAb5Xkd-8woskn0DHv4DA.png while listening to this podcast. Show Notes You can find Swathi here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/swathi-poddar/ More information on Lean Inceptions: https://thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk/lightweight-inceptions-82bb8bd8932b Free Inception Playbook Download: https://thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk/inception-playbook-1-0-e1e7e12512db Free Core Tools Playbook Download: https://burnupmedia.com/playbooks/ Subscribe to the podcast at: http://theburnup.com/ Follow The Burn Up on Twitter: @burnupmedia Connect with us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/burnupmedia Email us: podcasts@burnupmedia.com Read Marcel's Blog at www.thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk More interesting stuff on our reading list: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4905904-m?shelf=software-consulting This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Further Information at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

In this episode we introduce our new Core Tools Playbook and how these tools can help a team work more effectively and achieve better outcomes easier. TheThe Core Tools Playbook is a collection of the tools a team can use during kick-off of an initiative or at any point initiative delivery. In fact, some tools are so versatile they can be used outside of initiative or even IT context. This playbook introduces 18 tools, explains their benefit and when to use them, and provides step by step instructions on how to use them as well as supporting templates and examples. The Core Tools Playbook covers tools such as Affinity Mapping, Story mapping, Context Modelling, Wardley Maps, and many others… The Core Tools Inception Playbook (free download): https://burnupmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/InceptionPlaybook-InteractivePages-v2.1.pdf

It’s been a while, mainly my fault. I have been travelling a lot and just didn’t find the time. And Todd’s been busy too, and doing new interesting things… So we have super exciting things to talk about in Season 2: We want to finish our discussion of roles We want to share thoughts on organisational dysfunction mainly based on both of us listening independently to podcasts about Apollo11 and the Challenger disaster We’ll finally do an entire series on discoveries and inceptions We’ll chat Infosec/Opsec with one of the EE practice leads and product with one of EE’s principles. And of course many many more things we’ve always wanted to talk about re all things lean, agile and software delivery As the first episode in this season we’ll introduce you to yet another playbook, this time about tools and techniques, which we’ve recently written. Yes, yes, we are also super excited… So tune in, and join the fun, because the future is agile…

In this episode Todd talks about the practicalities of Risk/Issue Management, including what risks and issues are, how to gather them, how to log them and how to review them. The following topics are covered: What’s a Risk/Issue? How are Assumptions and dependencies different? What’s different in Agile risk management vs. other methodologies? Risk data gather and S.W.O.T analysis Risk register breakdown ALWAYS HAVE AN OWNER FOR EVERY RISK!!! Risk review sessions AddING items into the development backlog to address risks and prioritise appropriately USING metrics to understand when to act on risks, such as performance testing, etc. As always, please let us know if you have any questions. Show Notes An example risk register can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QLTb8NwePp2tkejIW-N9GJ7eseK2FfuMA5-S8A5zWko/edit?usp=sharing Expanded show notes and leave questions or comments for this episode at: https://burnupmedia.com/2019/07/15/ep18-tldr-risk-issue-management/ Subscribe to the podcast at: http://theburnup.com/ Follow The Burn Up on Twitter: @burnupmedia Connect with us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/burnupmedia Email us: podcasts@burnupmedia.com Read Marcel's Blog at www.thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk More interesting stuff on our reading list: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4905904-m?shelf=software-consulting This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Further Information at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Dependency management, despite its importance, does not get the attention it deserves and is often a bit haphazard and less structured than it could be. In this playbook, we suggest a lightweight way to identify and manage dependencies. We explain why to do it, how to do it, what good looks like, and the most important dos and don’ts. Detailed discussion here: https://thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk/how-to-manage-dependencies-1551355b9025. Show Notes Example and Template here: https://thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk/how-to-manage-dependencies-1551355b9025 Expanded show notes and leave questions or comments for this episode at: https://burnupmedia.com/2019/06/26/ep16-tldr-dependency-management/ Subscribe to the podcast at: http://theburnup.com/ Follow The Burn Up on Twitter: @burnupmedia Connect with us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/burnupmedia Email us: podcasts@burnupmedia.com Read Marcel's Blog at www.thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk More interesting stuff on our reading list: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4905904-m?shelf=software-consulting This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Further Information at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

In this Team Roles episode, Marcel and Todd talk about the role of the Delivery Manager and Scrum Master. We talk about the difference between delivery roles and give practical advice on how to help teams reduce risks, remove blockers and… Deliver! We touch on the importance of 1-on-1 relationships with team members, the importance of servant leadership, project awareness, project management tooling, risk management, good project hygiene and how to become a delivery manager. In this episode we talk in more detail about the following topics: - What is a Delivery Manager anyway? - The difference between Delivery Lead, Delivery Manager, Programme Manager and Scrum Master. Have we got you confused yet? Don’t worry, we’ll explain.... - Delivery mindset within the team - Balance between shielding the team and exposure to clients - The importance of 1-on-1 relationships with team members - Avoiding being a 'box ticker' Delivery Manager - The importance of servant leadership - Being aware of what you DO know, not what you THINK you know - Being organised and prioritising time - Documenting everything - Project management tools - The importance of building good teams - Todd’s number 1 tip: scheduling 1-on-1s and the importance of listening - Risk and blocker management - Good project hygiene and project ceremonies - How to get into project management - Project management certifications and continuous learning Show Notes Getting Things Done® by David Allen https://gettingthingsdone.com/ Inbox Zero https://www.fastcompany.com/40507663/the-7-step-guide-to-achieving-inbox-zero-and-staying-there-in-2018 Expanded show notes and leave questions or comments for this episode at: https://burnupmedia.com/2019/06/10/ep16-team-roles-delivery-manager-scrum-master/ Subscribe to the podcast at: http://theburnup.com/ Follow The Burn Up on Twitter: @burnupmedia Connect with us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/burnupmedia Email us: podcasts@burnupmedia.com Read Marcel's Blog at www.thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk More interesting stuff on our reading list: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4905904-m?shelf=software-consulting This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Further Information at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

In this episode Swathi Poddar and I are talking about a thing we used to fight about: Should we or Shouldn’t we allow frontend and backend specific user stories? Surely, stories should describe features, something that delivers value? But what, if there was a public API? And if it turns out that API also fed a GUI frontend? And what if your team simply demanded it as it made their lives easier? Show Notes Link to illustration which provides context for this episode: https://burnupmedia.com/2019/05/15/ep15-assigning-teams-to-features-or-services/ Sam Newman’s book Building Microservices we mention (again) in this epiode: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22512931-building-microservices Expanded show notes and leave questions or comments for this episode at: https://burnupmedia.com/2019/05/15/ep15-assigning-teams-to-features-or-services/ Our guest in this episode is Swathi Poddar, Business Analyst, Product Owner and Software Consultant. She can be ‘found’ and contacted here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/swathi-poddar/ Subscribe to the podcast at: http://theburnup.com/ Follow The Burn Up on Twitter: @burnupmedia Connect with us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/burnupmedia Email us: podcasts@burnupmedia.com Read Marcel's Blog at www.thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk More interesting stuff on our reading list: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4905904-m?shelf=software-consulting This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Further Information at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

In this episode Swathi Poddar and I are talking about a topic very close to our heart: how do we best assign work to our teams? Do we have clear ownership of features or services, and if so, what do we do with the ‘shared’ service we’ll invariably encounter? Are such services commonly owned, can anyone mess with them, or are we keeping them under tight guard, and we ask: ‘Who owns the frontend?’ Expect an interesting, possibly controversial discussion... For context please view these charts and illustrations while listening to this episode: https://burnupmedia.com/2019/05/13/ep14-assigning-teams-to-features-or-services/ Books we touch on in this episode, and which are highly recommended to ready are Sam Newman’s Building Microservices https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22512931-building-microservices Eric Evan’s Domain Driven Design https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/179143.Domain_Driven_Design\ Expanded show notes and leave questions or comments for this episode at: https://burnupmedia.com/2019/05/13/ep14-assigning-teams-to-features-or-services/ Our guest in this episode is Swathi Poddar, Business Analyst, Product Owner and Software Consultant. She can be ‘found’ and contacted here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/swathi-poddar/ Subscribe to the podcast at: http://theburnup.com/ Follow The Burn Up on Twitter: @burnupmedia Connect with us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/burnupmedia Email us: podcasts@burnupmedia.com Read Marcel's Blog at www.thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk More interesting stuff on our reading list: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4905904-m?shelf=software-consulting This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Further Information at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

In this episode Swathi Poddar and I are talking about a thing we used to fight about: Should we or Shouldn’t we allow frontend and backend specific user stories? Surely, stories should describe features, something that delivers value? But what, if there was a public API? And if it turns out that API also fed a GUI frontend? And what if your team simply demanded it as it made their lives easier? Show Notes Link to illustration which provides context for this episode: https://burnupmedia.com/2019/05/15/ep15-assigning-teams-to-features-or-services/(opens in a new tab) Sam Newman’s book Building Microservices we mention (again) in this epiode: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22512931-building-microservices Expanded show notes and leave questions or comments for this episode at: https://burnupmedia.com/2019/05/15/ep15-assigning-teams-to-features-or-services/(opens in a new tab) Our guest in this episode is Swathi Poddar, Business Analyst, Product Owner and Software Consultant. She can be ‘found’ and contacted here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/swathi-poddar/ Subscribe to the podcast at: http://theburnup.com/ Follow The Burn Up on Twitter: @burnupmedia Connect with us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/burnupmedia Email us: podcasts@burnupmedia.com Read Marcel's Blog at www.thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk More interesting stuff on our reading list: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4905904-m?shelf=software-consulting This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Further Information at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

In our continued exploration into Team Roles, in this episode we talk to Erica Kucharczyk about the role of User Research. This is a role that is frequently overlooked, but can pay off huge dividends in the long run if quality research is incorporated into your development cycle. We discuss how research helps teams validate their value proposition, the value of user research, the process of designing, running and analyzing tests, Qualitative vs Quantitative, how to get into user research and what good looks like. So, get out there and do some research! We start by talking about how User Research validates value propositions; needs, gains and pains. Next, we talk about how the User Research role differs from, and overlaps with, the Design and UX roles. We discuss why you should pay for User Research and what good looks like when user research is incorporated fully into the development cycle. We briefly touch on some tools for remote testing and talk about different testing environments, such as a more formal lab setting vs. more natural settings. We talk about the importance of researcher demeanor and attitude, especially the mindset of not leading the user and not helping the user too much. We touch on low-fi testing methods for low budget situations or to simply get started doing user research with your team. We revisit the Qualitative vs Quantitative discussion and talk about how they compliment each other and how different insights can be gained by both approaches. We go through the process of designing tests, running the tests, analysing the results and playing back the findings. We talk about recording users and privacy concerns, including GDPR. Erica talks about her interest in this area and the article she co-wrote on this subject (see link in the show notes below). We discuss how people can get into research and what good looks like. Good researchers must be good communicators, they should like people, be persuasive, and be able to think on their feet. Finally, we talk about how to get started with research on your project and to ensure you don’t forget about the User Research role when planning teams. Erica Kucharczyk has been working as a researcher for about 12 years and started off in academia running research on projects in sleep technology and brain training games for older people with dementia. More recently she’s been working as a user experience researcher with Government clients and she’s interested in research ethics and research operations. Show Notes Erica Kucharczyk is a Brighton/London based User Researcher and can best be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erica-kucharczyk/ Erica’s article on GDPR and data protection with regard to User Research can be found here: https://medium.com/design-research-matters/general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr-and-user-research-e00a5b29338e Erica recommends the following book: Think Like a UX Researcher by David Travis https://www.amazon.co.uk/Think-Like-Researcher-David-Travis/dp/1138365297/ Erica mentioned the following tools in this episode: Appear.in - https://appear.in/ Morae - https://www.techsmith.com/morae.html Loopback - https://lookback.io/ Windows Game Bar - https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/game-bar/9nzkpstsnw4p Expanded show notes and leave questions or comments for this episode at: https://burnupmedia.com/2019/05/13/ep13-team-roles-user-research/ Subscribe to the podcast at: http://theburnup.com/ Follow The Burn Up on Twitter: @burnupmedia Connect with us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/burnupmedia Email us: podcasts@burnupmedia.com Read Marcel's Blog at www.thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk More interesting stuff on our reading list: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4905904-m?shelf=software-consulting This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Further Information at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

In our “If WE were the Client” series we engage in some wishful thinking, turning the situation on its head and talk about all the things we would do and change if we were looking for or working with software suppliers. In this first episode we discuss what Startups should think about when selecting and working with software suppliers. We discuss that good suppliers understand a startup’s constraints and situations, appreciate commercial and market pressures and bring a strategic view. We talk about, bootstrapping vs. 3rd party investment, build vs buy decisions, the right supplier size, whether on or offshoring is the better approach, and the challenge of working with partners and suppliers while still storming and forming internally. Ultimately, we conclude it is - as always - about building trusted relationships and close communication. Show Notes Wardley maps Introduction (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty6pOVEc3bA or this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnFeIt-uaEc Simon’s book / blog: https://medium.com/wardleymaps/on-being-lost-2ef5f05eb1ec Online course: https://www.wardleymaps.com/ The author and book Marcel butchered (also, he is not a fan: he thinks the approach in the book is ethically questionable and snake oil for the unhappy and gullible): Tim Ferris, The four hour week (no link here for obvious reasons). Expanded show notes and leave questions or comments for this episode at: https://burnupmedia.com/2019/04/29/ep12-what-if-we-were-the-client-selecting-software-suppliers-as-a-startup/ Subscribe to the podcast at: http://theburnup.com/ Follow The Burn Up on Twitter: @burnupmedia Connect with us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/burnupmedia Email us: podcasts@burnupmedia.com Read Marcel's Blog at www.thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk More interesting stuff on our reading list: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4905904-m?shelf=software-consulting This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Further Information at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Status reports… all Delivery Managers need to do them. Love them or hate them, this short TL;DR episode will give you practical tips on getting the most out of your status reports and turn the chore into a great communication tool if you focus on your audience and quality, concise content. Show Notes The main purpose of status reports is to report out the status of your project to the team and stakeholders. Things to include on a status report: - Team name and Date - Summary - RAG Status (optional) - Risks/Issues/Blockers - Current Progress… Graphs, burn up charts, stacked bar charts, cumulative flow diagrams - What’s coming next - Team Feedback (optional) - Team Changes (joiners/leavers, optional) It’s important to have use a matter-of-fact tone in status reports and not to be emotive. You need to let the audience decide about the status of the project based off the facts you present. Tone is important! Above all, be complete and concise and truthful, otherwise it will come back to bite you! Don’t omit information and make sure you highlight any issues up front. Further Reading: https://stayrelevant.globant.com/en/why-you-should-use-burn-up-chart-in-agile-instead/ http://blog.plataformatec.com.br/2016/03/why-we-love-metrics-cumulative-flow-diagrams/ Find detailed show notes on this episode page: https://burnupmedia.com/2019/04/08/ep11:-tl:dr:-status-reports/ Subscribe at: http://theburnup.com/ Follow The Burn Up on Twitter: @burnupmedia Connect with us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/burnupmedia Email us: podcasts@burnupmedia.com Read Marcel's Blog at www.thedigitalbusinessanalyst.co.uk More interesting stuff on our reading list: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4905904-m?shelf=software-consulting This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Further Information at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/