Agile and Project Management - DrunkenPM Radio

Summary In this episode, Jimi Fosdick joins Dave for a conversation about his journey from traditional project management to agile. They discuss the challenges of applying traditional project management to software development, the importance of understanding the context and problem domain when choosing project management approaches, and the misuse of the term 'agile' in the consulting industry. T...

In this conversation, Dave Prior and Richard Chang discuss the challenges that product owners face when they don't receive the support and direction they need from their leadership. They explore strategies for product owners to navigate these situations, including having open and honest conversations with leadership, running experiments to validate assumptions, and finding mentors or support netwo...

Summary In this conversation, Si Alhir discusses the concepts of agility, resilience, and anti-fragility and how they relate to navigating stress and achieving growth. He emphasizes the importance of embracing stress and using it as a tool for adaptation and evolution. Si also highlights the need for balance between order and disorder, and the dangers of too much of either. The conversation touche...

Summary In this conversation, Dave Prior and Colleen Johnson discuss the concept of cumulative flow diagrams (CFDs) and their practical application in Agile methodologies. They explore the significance of CFDs in understanding work in progress, cycle time, and throughput. Colleen provides insights into the interpretation of CFDs and the implications for team performance and workflow management. Th...

Summary In this conversation, Si Alhir and Dave discuss the Art of War, its application in transformation work, and the naturalness and unity found within its wisdom. They explore the concept of taking whole, the relationship with the environment, and the role of the Sage Commander. Si shares personal experiences and insights, emphasizing the transformative power of the Art of War. The conversatio...

Summary In this conversation, Dave Prior is joined by Jeff Leach and Sandra Cain to discuss the question of whether coaching has killed Agile. They explore the role of coaching in Agile transformations and the challenges that arise when underqualified coaches are thrust into coaching roles. They also discuss the difference between coaching and consulting, the importance of understanding one's plac...

Summary The conversation explores the concept of being a hero or a villain in a team and how awareness of one's role can lead to more intentional actions. The guests, Jesse and Carl, share their perspectives on this topic. Jesse discusses his experience running an agency and how he developed a marketing approach for supervillains. Carl talks about his role at the Bureau and the challenges of being...

Summary In this conversation, Dave Prior interviews Chris Hadnagy and Dr. Abbie Maroño about social engineering and human hacking. They discuss the definition of social engineering and how it differs from human hacking. They emphasize the importance of intent in social engineering, with the goal being to influence someone's actions for their benefit rather than to cause harm. They also explore the...

I’m testing out the AI Generated Summary… In this conversation, Dave Prior and Scott Sehlhorst discuss the importance of improving the product plan while executing it. They explore the common problem of companies jumping straight into execution without considering what they should build and why. Scott emphasizes the need to shift from a mindset of control to one of influence, where product manager...

Alan Dayley is back to help me continue the quest of figuring out why so many companies are struggling with PI Planning or quarterly planning. During the interview, we discuss some of the reasons organizations struggle with this type of planning. We address the topic from the perspective of senior leadership, why they want it, how they often approach it, and the challenges that creates. We also ex...

You’ve decided to take a Scrum certification class. Now the question is, which one? If you are looking for something like Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner, there are so many options to choose from that it can be overwhelming. All of them should result in certification and price is certainly a concern. But there are a number of other factors to consider when trying to find th...

Keeping up with what is happening in AI is no small task. You probably know some folks who spend a lot of free time learning how to bend (insert AI flavor of the week) to their will, there are folks who are preaching to anyone who will listen about all the amazing things that are right around the corner, and then there are the folks who just periodically peek over their shoulder and say “Yeah, um…...

If you are on one of those teams that has made a habit of dragging unfinished work from one Sprint to the next... YOU NEED TO STOP!   When you get to the end of a Sprint and have work that isn't done, you can't show it to the stakeholders in the Sprint Review. If you don't show it to Stakeholders in the Sprint Review, you can't get feedback. And if you can't get feedback, you can't inspect and ada...

At the Modus Institute, Jim Benson and Mark Kilby have created a new offering called Successful Distributed Teams. This new course focuses on how to build strong remote teams, how to create a humane, healthy balance of productivity and accountability, and what tools you can use to make it all work. In this interview, Jim and Mark join me to discuss what happened when they combined the many years o...

A few weeks ago I interviewed Gil Broza about his new book, “Deliver Better Results: How to Unlock Your Organization's Potential". The book was designed to quickly provide actionable practices that organizations can utilize to improve their value delivery system. It focuses on understanding the fitness for purpose of your system of delivery, and how to employ his ten strategies to improve your lev...

Gil Broza joins me for a podcast about his new book, “Deliver Better Results: How to Unlock Your Organization's Potential". During the interview, Gil and I discuss how he designed the book to quickly provide actionable practices that organizations can utilize to improve their value delivery system. Our conversation includes details on how to understand the fitness for purpose of your system of del...

With the state of Agile as it is today, I find myself frequently wondering, “Is this the Darkest Agile Timeline”? Things have been getting a bit bleak lately in the Agile space. With the layoffs, the job market, and the fact that the business world has change fatigue and is tired of not getting what they expected from a way of working they’ve mostly only kinda half-done... Where’s the hope? For th...

There seems to be a current trend where organizations that say they are doing PI planning or quarterly planning are making a decision for the teams about what must be delivered in the time box. The teams just accept the commitment because they either feel they do not have the agency to push back and say no to some of it or are too busy trying to finish up their last overcommitment to look at new w...

What do you do when your Scrum Master’s understanding of their role seems to be less about acting as a servant leader to the Scrum Team and more about making the team to work in a way that is most convenient for them? In this episode of the podcast, Jeff Howey joins me to talk through the real-life case of a Scrum Master who seems to have lost their way. Here are some of the concerns shared in the...

For the video version of this podcast: https://youtu.be/pnmbdAxskXo When an organization has taken the decision to switch an Agile way of working, they often get so caught up in trying to adopt the various practices and processes that they forget to stop and ask the question, “Is this providing the business outcome we need?” Remembering to keep that question top of mind is important. Knowing what...

On Friday, December 8, The Agile Alliance is hosting a MiniCon on the Future of Artificial Intelligence. During the event, Mark Kilby will be hosting a roundtable discussion with the speakers to explore the ways AI is poised to impact how we work and what it will take to utilize it in an ethical and responsible way. Mark joins me in this episode of the podcast to discuss why he made a conscious de...

Agile is going through a lot of changes right now. The changes aren’t so much in what it is and how it works - that seems to be a bit stable at the moment. The changes stem more from how adopters feel about it, their ideas about much agile they need, what they need to achieve it, and what kind of support they want getting there. As the space works through these growing pains, many Agilists respond...

With each new round of layoffs, the existential crisis facing the agile coaching community deepens. Alan Dayley joins me to discuss how the community is retrospecting on this moment and whether or not it is asking the right questions. Over the past year, a number of high-profile organizations have made a decision to let go of their agile coaches. The impact of that choice on those organizations wi...

Louder Than Ten is a Vancouver-based Project Management Training and Consulting company. L>10 was founded by Rachel and Travis Gertz, and for the past 14 years, everything they have done has been centered around fostering healthy and humane ways of working together and managing projects. There aren’t many organizations in the digital agency space that have taken the time to develop their own proje...

As long as there have been agile teams there has been the challenge of putting people together and getting them to actually be agile. You can send them off to a class and teach them Scrum or Kanban, or bring in team coaches, and that helps, but it doesn’t address one fundamental issue. Most people have not taken (or been given) the time they need to learn how to be agile in how they manage themsel...