Arguing Agile: Product Management, Business Leadership, & Org Design

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel sit down with our favorite Surprise Mystery Guest! Today, we are talking about Sprint Reviews in addition to a dizzying array of other topics including the victim mentality, biases, more effective push-back, a different take on diversity, and muse on why management is so often under-skilled. 0:00 Product Gets What Product Wants 2:31 Effect of Org Placeme...

In this Episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel talk about why Brian is done with being a Scrum Master. We discuss the skills Scrum Masters need to gain and grow to be effective and how teams can use Scrum Masters effectively to help them succeed. 0:00 Done Being a Scrum Master 3:09 Middle Managers in Sprint Reviews 4:13 Get Ready to Deal with This... 8:42 Things Scrum Masters Do 10:31 Assumed Coachin...

On this episode, Brian Orlando sits down with Scrum Master Jamie Leatherman to talk about what we've learned from some of the more negative experiences in our careers so that you can hopefully avoid them and maybe even learn from our mistakes! 0:00 Intro 0:30 Victimhood, Authority, & the Scrum Master 3:06 Project Management in Disguise as other Roles 4:25 Story of Undermining Product Mana...

What can agile software development teams learn from Air Disasters? On this special "what can we learn" episode, Brian Orlando looks at the history of the research done to increase the safety of modern commercial aviation through training air crews to better work together. 0:00 Intro 0:19 Poor Decisions 1:02 Effectiveness vs. Efficiency 1:49 Some Background 2:22 Concepts 3:13 Theories of...

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss splitting teams in Agile Software Development. When should you split, how to split the team, when you may not want to split and times when you may want to un-split. Un-split isn't even a real word... 0:00 Intro 0:24 Should we Split? 2:54 Length of the Team Stand-Up 6:25 Ideal Team Sizing 9:01 Real Story of a Team Split 11:12 Team Split - the...

In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel review and react to the GOTO 2015 talk by Dave Thomas: Agile is Dead. Agile is Dead - Pragmatic Dave Thomas - GOTO 2015 https://youtu.be/a-BOSpxYJ9M 0:00 Intro 0:36 Agile Is Dead - Opening 0:58 Agile is Dead - Rational Unified Process & History 2:54 Agile is Dead - Point 1: Agile is an Adjective 4:33 Discussing Point 1 5:17 Agile is Dead - Point 2: N...

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel sit down with Senior Test Engineer Michael Iglesias to discuss QA Engineering.  0:00 Intro 0:11 QA Engineering vs QA Testing 2:23 QA Engineering Value vs Development Management's Ego 4:48 The Value of QA Automation 7:13 How Creativity Happens? 9:23 Collaboration & Creativity 11:51 Pragmatic Planning Approaches 15:20 Spike Work 18:16 Spike Work -...

In this episode, Brian Orlando talks Product Management as he walks through and reacts to two articles from Marty Cagan - the CSPO Pathology and the MBA Pathology. CSPO Pathology:  https://svpg.com/the-cspo-pathology/ MBA Pathology:  https://svpg.com/the-mba-pathology/ 0:00 Topic Intro 0:20 First Product Manager 0:56 CSPO Pathology: Different Types of Software Teams 3:27 CSPO Pathology: PO vs PM 5...

In this Agile Podcast, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss User Acceptance Testing. Is it necessary in Agile Software Development and if it is, what should it look like in Agile Software Development? 0:00 Topic Intro 0:28 Is it Needed? 5:52 Exploratory Testing for Confidence 7:53 Typical Testers "Owned" by Development 10:23 Who is Involved? 12:15 Responsibility/Accountability for the UAT...

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss work cultures where Projects are prevalent, such as in the traditional PMO (Project Management Office). The discussion begins with a healthy round of what it takes to change cultures and progresses toward the intent and design of most project-based cultures. 0:00 Topic Intro 0:29 Project-Based Cultures 2:58 Change and Culture 4:12 Changing Organi...

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel review real job descriptions in the agile Software Development space. We've chosen a selection of current job roles to review in order to identify red flags, raise questions to ask in an interview, or to point out what we think are good or bad jobs. 0:00 Topic Intro 1:04 How Companies Write Job Descriptions 2:09 Process for this Podcast 3:06 Scrum M...

Also available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/52JsdZf0yec Agile Podcast E28 - How to Spot a Good or Terrible Lead

Agile Podcast E27 - All About Agile Coaching, Part 2

In this episode of the Agile Podcast, Brian Orlando and Om Patel walk through the basics of Agile Coaching including the path to becoming an Agile Coach, the difference between Scrum Masters or Team Coaches and Enterprise Agile Coaches, and where Agile Coaches should be aligned within an organization. 0:00 Intro 0:14 Topic Intro 2:52 Paths to being an Agile Coach (or SM) 4:23 Scrum Masters from Ou...

In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel are joined by a Special Mystery Guest to talk about Challenging the Status Quo. We discuss typical issues Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches experience in their role as Change-Agent including out-of-control Systems, working with Vendors, and the burden of redundant reports and meetings. 0:00 Intro 0:14 Contracting-to-Perm 3:10 Ignoring Expertise (that You&a...

On this episode, Brian Orlando interviews co-host Om Patel about his storied career, starting from his first job to his big break into business agility. 0:00 Intro 0:15 Tell Me About Yourself (Career Summary) 3:15 First Job 10:20 Entrance to Agility 17:41 Agile Principles 18:40 Enterprise Agile Coaching 24:10 Working at the Big-Four 31:23 Another Agile Transformation (Sweden/Australia) 33:52 Caree...

On this episode of the Agile Podcast, Director of Agile Product Owners: Mike Miller graces us with his presence. Mike discusses the ins and outs of Roadmaps, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), building and/or transitioning to Agile cultures, and a host of other related Product Management topics. 0:00 Introduction 0:29 Roadmap from Scratch 3:30 MVP 7:06 Business Value 10:45 Production Metrics & Alig...

In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel sit down with Certified Scrum Trainer: Fred Mastropasqua. 0:00 Intro 0:17 Scrum Guide Change Process 3:32 Different Orgs Using the Scrum Guide 4:57 Infinite Customization of Scrum 7:29 Segue about Podcast Editing 10:56 Agile Podcast Market 13:24 Agile Purists 16:17 Agile Budgeting (It's Important) 18:51 Issues - When it's Project not Product 22...

In this episode, Brian Orlando talks with Curtis Lembke. Curtis is a Scrum Master at a Big Four Financial Firm with experience ranging both small and large organizations across several different business domains. We discuss the nature of Business Analysts and their relationships with Product Owners, different metrics that leadership and managers may ask for (and what they should be asking for), an...

In this episode, Brian Orlando strips the normal conversations around Agility back to the basics by walking through each of the 12 Principles of the Agile Manifesto. If you are in an organization and are finding dedication to agility (from team members or leadership) lacking, this podcast may be helpful to you! Use it to help create a more concrete list of items you can use to help start those cri...

In this episode of the Agile Podcast, Brian Orlando talks about the different types of metrics that software development organizations use. 0:00 Topic Intro 1:21 Flow Rate/Velocity/Forecast 3:16 Percent Committed vs. Delivered 5:28 Team Satisfaction 9:01 Customer Satisfaction 10:11 Prompting for NPS 14:08 Percent of Healthy Accounts 16:08 Transaction Length & Abandoned Transactions 21:43 Backl...

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss one of the main threats to not only Agility and Agile Transformations, but general business ventures - ego. This episode was also an experiment in (bad) lighting and cityscape background; we plan to be back in our normal space next week. 0:00 Introductory Banter 0:33 Topic Intro 2:10 Why have Project Managers 5:10 Transformation Challenges 8:06 S...

In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss Communities of Practice and how they can benefit you and your organization.  0:00 Differences: COI/COP/PMO 3:34 The What (Definitions) 7:03 The Why (the Benefits) 10:03 How to Start 14:50 Challenging the Detractors 16:45 Community Outreach 18:51 COP vs. COI 23:01 Break for #noestimates 27:34 Work Item Sizing & Flow 32:45 COP Example Topic 39:...

In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel explore the Scrum Master's role in Software Releases. This includes both Release Planning and the actual Software Release Deployments. 0:00 Topic Introduction 2:05 Facilitating Release Planning 5:47 Team's Role in Release Planning 9:50 Scrum Master in Deployments 12:58 Working from your Email 14:27 Tell the Story of Progress (or not) 17:24 Back...

On this episode, Brian talks with Om Patel about when companies customize their implementation of Agile. We discuss our observations and share our experiences with companies that began as Agile organizations and then sub-optimized their agility and also companies that were never Agile to begin with who have customized their implementations of waterfall in order to appear Agile. 0:00 Banter on Cons...