Agile and Project Management - DrunkenPM Radio

There is probably nothing in the last 20 years that has had as comprehensive an impact on how we work as Covid-19. Yes, there were team members who worked remote before or maybe your team was distributed around the globe, but we've never been in a situation where EVERYONE was working from home. That is a completely different thing. It comes with unique challenges that we are only starting to adjus...

This is the first part of a two part interview with Tony Johnson, Founder and CEO of Crosswind Learning. Crosswind is a PMI REP based in Carrolton, Texas, that has been providing instruction in project management for 20 years. In this part of the interview, we focus on the upcoming changes in the new edition of the PMBOK, including what that will mean for practitioners and especially how it will i...

“Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount 
of work not done--is essential.” ~From the 12 Principles of Agile Software https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html It is one of the most basic responsibilities of the Product Owner and one almost every PO struggles with... saying "No" to people who ask for things. A Product Owner who can't say No is going to end up with a Product Backlog jammed ful...

Towards the end of 2018, The Scrum Alliance restructured its organization around a new leadership model. Howard Sublett returned to the Scrum Alliance as Chief Product Owner and shortly after that, Melissa Boggs joined as Chief Scrum Master. In these new roles, they are truly leading an effort to change the world of work. In this episode of the podcast, I had a chance to check in with Melissa and...

Ryan Ripley wears many hats. He's a Professional Scrum Trainer, an Agile Coach, the creator of the Agile for Humans podcast, a blogger, a speaker, and now... author! Last month, Ryan and Todd Miller released Fixing Your Scrum (https://amzn.to/2Pi46En), a book chock full of real-life stories from two seasoned Agile coaches who spend their days helping organizations, teams, and individuals find a be...

Leadership is Language - L. David Marquet In 2013, David Marquet’s book Turn the Ship Around (https://amzn.to/3bbE2nk) was published, introducing intent based leadership to people all over the world. Since then David has worked with thousands of companies, teams, and individuals and helped them transform the way they think about and engage with others. His new book Leadership Is Language (https://...

Gil Broza is back with a brand new book that answers a question that is asked in every single class I teach. Can you use Agile outside of software? The simple answer is yes. Agile practices are applied in a wide range of fields that are not IT related. What Gil has put together in his new book "Agile for Non-Software Teams: A Practical Guide for Your Journey" is a step-by-step guide to help you be...

TLDR Regardless of whether you are a traditional PM or you are working in Agile, topics like emotional intelligence, creating safety and self-care are part of the current conversation about how we approach our work. This podcast presents another side of that discussion and focuses on how different experiences and events result in trauma that can leave lasting scars that we carry with us as we inte...

It’s the start of a brand new year! And one of the best things you can do for yourself and your career is to start volunteering for a professional organization. By offering a little of your time, you can find a path into a community of passionate PMs and Agilists who can provide support, coaching and mentoring to you as you progress in your career. In this episode of the podcast Agile Coach, Reese...

It has been 10 years since Jesse Fewell and I became Certified Scrum Trainers. We both came to it from backgrounds deeply rooted in traditional project management. We were both PMPs, which was something like a scarlet letter in the Agile community. Ten years… things have changed. In this episode of The Reluctant Agilist, Jesse Fewell and I close out 2019 with a retrospective of sorts, looking back...

When I am teaching CSM and CSPO classes I frequently get questions from students who have trouble understanding how work flows from the release level down through product backlog items like User Stories on down to the task level. I do cover this in class but for some, it is not so easy to see. 
In hopes of resolving this, I asked Judy Neher, a fellow Certified Scrum Trainer, to help me work throug...

This episode features a student question and a special appearance by Adam Weisbart. I recently had a student in class who was struggling to get her team to participate during retrospectives. This is a fairly common problem for teams that are either trying to get the hang of how to run a retro, or teams that may have stuck with a particular tactic for so long that it has stopped working. I invited...

Jessie Shternshus founded The Improv Effect (https://improveffect.com) to help businesses reach their full potential by means of interpersonal-communication skills training. Her work includes leveraging tools and practices from improv to help individuals and organizations improve the way they interact and problem solve. Jessie is also the author of the book CTRLShift: 50 Games For 50 ****ing Days...

This episode of the Reluctant Agilist features an interview with Melissa Watts. Melissa works for Major League Baseball as a Technical Project Manager and acts in the capacity of ScrumMaster for a Scrum Team. During the interview, Melissa shares some of the experiences she has had working as a ScrumMaster over the last two years. In this conversation, we explore things like how hard it can be to m...

"The state of our attention determines the state of our life" ~ Chris Bailey This summer at Agile 2019, author Chris Bailey kicked off the conference with his keynote session “How to Manage Your Attention In a World of Distraction.” Chris has invested years of his life exploring productivity, distraction, and how to find the best possible use of the one thing no one has enough of—time. Chris share...

In August of 2019, The Project Management Institute announced that it had acquired Disciplined Agile. According to Mark Lines, who together with Scott Ambler created Disciplined Agile, " The Disciplined Agile approach recognizes that every organization is different, and within each organization, there are different ways of working. The Disciplined Agile approach meets you where you are and allows...

For a long time now I have held strongly to the opinion that there is no such thing as an Agile Project Manager. There are Project Managers and there are ScrumMasters but the value systems they serve are different and at odds. I am comfortable playing either role, but I cannot do them both at once. (That is based on personal experience as well as observation.) When I saw that the PMI NY Chapter wa...

Scrum Inc, CEO, JJ Sutherland’s new book The Scrum Fieldbook: A Master Class on Accelerating Performance, Getting Results and Defining the Future offers a compelling collection of stories breaking down what makes Scrum (and other forms of Agile) succeed or struggle in organizations. Drawing on his personal experience, as well as that of his colleagues at Scrum Inc., JJ offers a wide range of case...

Esther Derby has been helping individuals, teams, and organizations understand how to introduce and embrace change since she got her start as a software developer four decades ago. While she is possibly best known for the book “Agile Retrospectives,” which she co-authored with Diana Larsen, her list of accomplishments extends well beyond that. In her words, she draws on “four decades of experience...

Zach Stone is an agile coach with a background that includes organizational change management, conflict transformation, and behavioral science. He leverages these experiences in his work helping organizations, teams, and individuals adopt an agile approach to work. One of the primary techniques in Zach’s toolbox is Motivational Interviewing. In this episode of the podcast, Zach explains what motiv...

Urs Reupke is a Certified Scrum Trainer and Agile Coach who works for the Hamburg-based Agile Consultancy It-Agile. A lot of Urs’s time and attention is focused on the work he does coaching management and providing leadership consulting as they move towards adopting a more Agile approach to work. One specific area Urs is passionate about is the Core Cycle of Agile Product Development. In this inte...

Many teams practicing Scrum adopt a mid-Sprint Review as a practice to help them ensure they are on track to deliver on their forecast by the end of the Sprint. For some teams, this involves holding an informal demo halfway through the Sprint to get feedback on the work they are doing. For other teams, the mid-Sprint review works differently and is used to provide transparency around a different s...

One of the things a Project Manager and a ScrumMaster have in common is that at times, they are both called upon to act as a coach and act as a mentor. For anyone in a leadership role, creating clarity around the difference between the two can be challenging. And even for seasoned pros, knowing when to act as a mentor and when to act as a coach is not always easy. This podcast is about on mentorin...

What kind of projects don’t fit with Agile? This is a very common question in the CSM and CSPO classes that I teach. My answer is always that while there are some types of work that are better suited to an Agile approach than others, it really comes down to the organization and the people involved. With the right mindset, an iterative approach that is focused on inspect and adapt can be valuable i...

Nic Sementa is man of many skills. He’s an Agilist, a Marketing Consultant, an Entrepreneur… he does Business Development, he’s a sales ninja, and he’s someone who spends a lot of time honing his skills in listening and communicating. This podcast began at the 2019 Scrum Gathering in Austin. Nic and I were talking and ended up on the topic of nonviolent communication. The conversation we had in Au...