Troubleshooting Agile

How do you provide focus and drive for a team using kanban? There's no natural "sprint" unit to hang a goal on, it seems. Jeffrey and Squirrel answer this listener question and explain how to create a product narrative, avoid the feature factory, and start with "Why"? SHOW LINKS: - Kanban book: https://www.amazon.com/Kanban-Successful-Evolutionary-Technology-Business/dp/0984521402 - When Kanban Fa...

This week, Jeffrey and Squirrel address a common frustration: "With all these retrospectives and planning games, when do we actually get some work done?" They cover single and double loop learning, the mundanity of excellence, and how to avoid learning in two distinct ways. SHOW LINKS: - J-curve / Satir Change Model: https://stevenmsmith.com/ar-satir-change-model/ - Mundanity of Excellence: https:...

This week, Jeffrey and Squirrel answer a question from CruiseControl founder Paul Julius about what agile practises they've left behind. Surprising answers include iterations, predictability, and planning. SHOW LINKS: - PJ: http://www.pauljulius.com/ - Abnormally terminating a sprint - https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/making-the-decision-to-abnormally-terminate-a-sprint - Kanban: https://...

This week, Jeffrey and Squirrel help a listener with the role of design and architecture in an agile team. The answer involves arcane-sounding but fun concepts like elephant carpaccio, evolutionary design, and YAGNI. SHOW LINKS: - YAGNI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_aren%27t_gonna_need_it - Elephant Carpaccio: http://alistair.cockburn.us/elephant+carpaccio - Evolutionary Design: https://marti...

This week, Jeffrey and Squirrel look at how to learn new skills in your agile team or elsewhere, and recommend frequent failure as a useful heuristic. SHOW LINKS: - Graham Lee blog post: https://www.sicpers.info/2018/02/to-become-a-beginner-first-become-an-expert/ - No True Scotsman fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman - TDD (Test-Driven Development): https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

This week, Jeffrey and Squirrel describe some of the methods they used to improve their own skills in implementing and troubleshooting agile methods. They describe techniques from rubber ducking to doppelgängers. Enjoy! SHOW LINKS: - CITCON: http://citconf.com - Breakfast with Squirrel: http://douglassquirrel.com - Communities of Needs and Solutions: https://theitriskmanager.wordpress.com/2015/04/...

This week, Jeffrey and Squirrel discuss how to avoid blame - adopting a frame of ownership or problem-solving is a useful concrete action to try to achieve this - and tell a story about replacing one problem with a much bigger one to achieve team improvement. SHOW LINKS: - The 12 Agile Principles: http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html - Alex Hudson blog post on blame: https://www.alexhudson.co...

This week, Jeffrey and Squirrel each tell a story about how teams they've worked with handled deadlines. SHOW LINKS: - The 12 Agile Principles: http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html - Theory X and Theory Y: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y - Burndown charts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_down_chart *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas or feedback you have regarding...

This week, Jeffrey and Squirrel are on the road at CITCON Vienna, interviewing Lydia Tripp about her journey through a wide variety of agile software development teams and her evolving approach to improving delivery and quality. SHOW LINKS: -The 12 Agile Principles: http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html -CITCON: http://citconf.com/ -Extreme Programming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_pr...

This week, Jeffrey and Squirrel are on the road at CITCON Vienna, interviewing participants about how they use agile techniques and principles outside development. SHOW LINKS: -The 12 Agile Principles: http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html -CITCON: http://citconf.com/ -London Organisational Learning Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/London-Action-Science-Meetup/ *** We'd love to hear any th...

In this week's podcast we move on to the final Agile Principle, number 12: "At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly." The hard truth is that learning is horrible. It means coming face to face with your own inadequacies, and challenging them. Consequently, mustering up the motivation to learn is too easily and too oft...

This week we take a short break from the Agile Principles to discuss The Squirrel Test - 12 questions to help founders improve their scale-up company's performance. We also find out if Squirrel, in creating the test, has practiced what he's preached regarding the agile principles. Has he produced working software? Sought early feedback? Kept it simple? Made the most of face-to-face communication?...

In this week's Podcast we're on to the penultimate Agile Principle, number 11: 'The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.' Amongst much more, we discuss: -How what should actually constitute a team is the sharing of a problem, not a manager. -The importance of employing a dynamic team approach, rather than a static one, to solving problems. -How the uniqu...

We're on to Agile Principle 10 this week: "Simplicity - the art of maximizing the amount of work not done - is essential." In comparison to the dark old days when the Agile Manifesto was written, the way projects are simplified and broken down seems a huge improvement. But simplicity plays an essential role in achieving the all-important first Agile Principle of "satisfying the customer through ea...

This week on the Troubleshooting Agile podcast it's Agile Principle 9: "Continued attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility." The dark old days of big up-front design may send shivers down the spine, but the Lean Startup 'move fast and break things' approach of scrapping design altogether goes too far. Jeffrey and Squirrel ask how principle #9 can be used to find balance b...

In this week's episode of Troubleshooting Agile we are on to Agile Principle 8: "Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely." Drawing on sport psychology, Al Pacino movies and their years of consulting experience, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss and troubleshoot a number of fascinating issues surrounding...

It's Episode 9 of the Troubleshooting Agile podcast! This week we're discussing Agile Principle 7: "Working software is the primary measure of progress." Some of the topics we cover are: -The importance of "moving past the 'phase model' or the 'percent-of-budget model'" in measuring progress. -How Burn-Up/Down Charts simplify and optimise the process of measuring progress by assigning value only t...

In Episode 8 of Troubleshooting Agile it's Agile Principle 6: "The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation." A few of the things we discuss: -The pros and cons of different communication channels. -Looking at Alistair Cockburn's book "Agile Software Development", why micro-gestures and physical interaction make face...

This week, in Episode 7 of Troubleshooting Agile, we discuss Agile Principle Number 5: "Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done." Talking points this week include: -Why perceptions of this principle differ immensely depending on whether your adopt Theory X or Theory Y. -Directed Opportunism - and who used it b...

In Episode 6 of Troubleshooting agile we talk about the Fourth Agile Principle: 'Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.' Some of the topics discussed are: -Why this is the only principle containing the word MUST. -How to easily overcome a principle which at first sight can appear impractical to implement. -What business people can do that developers can't....

In episode 5 of Troubleshooting Agile we discuss the Third Agile Principle: 'Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.' Evolution in our thinking, since the Agile Manifesto was written back in 2001, makes what was once considered 'shorter timescales' seem laughable now, but, when retrospecting, 'working software f...

In this episode Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss the Second Agile Principle: ‘Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.’ We hear how the principle is closely related to Lean Startup and Minimal Viable Product, and how, at its core, it is about understanding and learning from one’s environment as quickly and as ofte...

In this third episode of Troubleshooting Agile, Squirrel and Jeffrey take a look at the first of the 12 Agile Principles: "Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.” As Jeffrey point out, this principle contains so much that it "could have been an agile manifesto in itself.” Squirrel and Jeffrey both tell stories about previous cons...

In episode 2 of Troubleshooting Agile, Squirrel and Jeffrey look at what to do when you've adopted good agile practices but are not seeing good business outcomes; how the most beautiful kanban board on earth doesn't necessarily mean results; and why the 12 agile principles work as a form of feedback and a great guide. Shownotes: - Jeffrey's 2008 blog post – https://blog.jeffreyfredrick.com/2008/11...

In this week's podcast Jeffrey tells us a story about the dangers of blaming human error in the workplace, and we discuss root cause analysis, the blameless postmortem approach and how these are essential components in building productive systems and a great agile team. Normal Accidents – http://bit.ly/2CtawMg http://troubleshootingagile.com/