Using Scrum for a Greater Mission w/ Jon Horton from NewSpring Church




LeadingAgile SoundNotes: an Agile Podcast show

Summary: This episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes offers a case study of how the technology teams at NewSpring church have been using Agile practices to develop innovative products that will enable their members to stay engaged with NewSpring throughout the whole week. Jon Horton is the Web Director at NewSpring. A few weeks ago he and several members of his team attended a LeadingAgile CSM class. In the interview Jon explains how he introduced Scrum to the organization, how it is being adopted by the technology teams, how it impacts their ability to deliver value for NewSpring members and some of the challenges that they’ve faced along the way. This podcast offers a great case study of how Agile practices are extending beyond traditional software development teams and are being used to innovate and deliver value to all types of “customers”. Show Notes 00:08 Podcast Begins 00:55 Some background on Jon and his role at NewSpring Church 02:20 How technology help NewSpring Church meet people where they are 04:10 How Agile practices were introduced at NewSpring 05:25 The Agile practices that have proven to be the most valuable to Jon’s team 07:10 How work gets prioritized at NewSpring 09:00 The way teams are set up at NewSpring 09:24 The Sprint lengths used by different teams and why they’ve been selected 10:25 How Jon’s team got started with Scrum and how they’ve evolved their learning and adoption 11:10 Traditional practices that the team’s use to support their Agile practice 12:30 Challenges in introducing Agile at NewSpring 13:44 Jon’s plan to extend Agile beyond the technology group 14:37 Is there a difference in applying Agile within a religious organization than in a more traditional software group? 15:50 Jon’s advice for other religious organizations that are interested in trying to implement Agile 18:00 Getting in touch with Jon 18:37 Podcast end Links from this podcast NewSpring Church https://newspring.cc Essential Scrum by Kenny Rubin http://amzn.to/2mMA3Ux Contacting Jon Twitter: https://twitter.com/jonhorton Contacting Dave You can reach Dave on the LeadingAgile site at http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ On Twitter at https://twitter.com/mrsungo Or on his personal site at: http://drunkenpm.net Feedback/Questions If you have comments on the podcast, or have questions for the LeadingAgile coaches that you’d like to have addressed in a future episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, you can reach Dave at dave.prior@leadingagile.com LeadingAgile CSM and CSPO Classes For information on LeadingAgile’s upcoming public CSM and CSPO classes, please go to: http://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/ Use the discount code: LA_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class.