Definitely, Maybe Agile

Nowadays, training in the Agile space, in some ways, has had a bad rep. It has left a bit of a stigma around what training we need. However, people generally agree there is significant value, so can we change how we approach training? When is training valuable? In this week's episode of the Definitely, Maybe Agile podcast, Peter and Dave discuss how to make your training program effective.  T...

In this week's episode of the Definitely, Maybe Agile podcast, Peter and Dave talk about Nested Value Streams. They explain how to take a value stream concept that works well with a single product or service, and scale it up to an organization with hundreds of teams working on multiple products and services. This week's takeaways: How value stream thinking helps to scale up our developme...

In episode 62 of the Definitely, Maybe Agile podcast, Peter and Dave uncover what they mean by value streams.  This week's takeaways: Understand how your organization does things, so you can learn how to improve. Identify where to focus and how to prioritize by identifying constraints in your value streams. Optimize your organization to be able to deliver more effectively and faster. We love...

The Definitely, Maybe Agile podcast is back this week with an episode all about plans. In today's episode, Peter and Dave continue their series on the Value Management Office by talking about the importance of planning. They discuss how planning is critical to successfully executing a project and how having a structure rather than starting from a blank sheet of paper can aid the planning proc...

This week on the Definitely, Maybe Agile podcast, Peter and Dave talk about VMO/ Product Office ways of working. They share their thoughts on the importance of understanding how the ways of working around a Value Management Office differ from those that we might associate with a project management office. This week's takeaways: Shift to dedicated teams (no need for resource management) Outcom...

In episode 59 of the Definitely, Maybe Agile podcast, Peter and Dave discuss the different models of governing delivery. They talk about how project management offices and value management offices approach the same problem of transparency and governance differently. This week's takeaways: Differences between models for governing delivery When and why a central office would be valuable Intensi...

In this week's episode, Dave Sharrock and Peter Maddison share their insights about the decisions within an organization with technology and how we spend money from a technology perspective.  This week's takeaways: Cost of doing business in a VUCA world. The unintended consequence of strategy. Technology is a strategic partner of the organization. We love to hear feedback! If you have qu...

This week Peter and Dave debate about constantly evolving technology and what that means for the business. This week's takeaways: Let IT take care of it (it's part of your cost) Nothing is as permanent as a temporary change. Systems, assumptions, and changes cost more than you think Challenge your assumptions around TCO (e.g., depreciation) We love to hear feedback! If you have questions...

If all you care about is rushing around, you'll miss learning opportunities that might make you more effective in your delivery. This week Peter and Dave talk about the impacts of innovation as a department. This week's takeaways: Think of innovation as a culture across the organization. Innovation is everywhere. The psychological safety of making mistakes and learning from them is a fou...

This week Peter and Dave will deconstruct a quote from Tom DeMarco. "Quality takes time and reduces the quantity, so it makes you, in a sense, less efficient. The organization that optimizes efficiency recognizes quality as its enemy. That's why many corporate quality programs are actually quality reduction programs in disguise." This week's takeaways: Technology is cheap today...

Some projects never seem to end. Big upfront design results in long execution phases and eventually it becomes difficult to believe it will ever be delivered. This week, Peter and Dave discuss how to approach these seemingly never-ending projects once they are well underway. Having started this way, how can you bring it under control and apply what we know of business agility to move forwards agai...

 Learning from failure is an essential part of building your resilience. In this week's episode, Peter and Dave discuss how failure gives us the ability to improve and continually create more resilient systems. This week's takeaways: The importance of understanding the resiliency of each part of our system in context of the whole system. Failure allows us to learn, and then we can rebuil...

We're so happy to have made it to episode 52! This year has been full of guests and conversations about agility. We've also had the opportunity to share our expertise, so thank you for joining us on these journeys together—it's not going unnoticed. This week's episode is about addressing your team's needs and not just forcing agile processes on them. You'll learn what...

In this episode of the Definitely, Maybe Agile podcast, Dave and Peter have a special guest, Rob Hirschfeld, co-founder, and CEO of RackN, a collaborative platform for teams automating infrastructure as code. This time we'll have a slightly longer episode than normal as we dive into different aspects of complexity. This isn't one you'll want to miss. We had a lot of fun recording it...

What do you think of our services, and has it had the impact you were hoping to see? In today's episode of the Definitely Maybe Agile podcast, Peter and Dave talk about the importance of asking for feedback from our customers to prevent business agility from failing. This week takeaways: Validate emergent needs with your customers Build a system that can respond to that. We love to hear feedb...

 Now we are going to talk about our second antipattern that came up in episode 43, being unable to say "no". This often presents itself as confusing speed with focus. This week takeaways: Reducing delivery costs starts with saying no. Prioritize and concentrate efforts in one place. Limit work in progress Automation is essential.   We love to hear feedback! If you have questions, would l...

 In the last 5 episodes of the Definitely, Maybe Agile podcast, we presented 5 ways Business Agility can impact your bottom line. In today's episode, we start our 5-episode series of exploring antipatterns that prevent us from achieving these benefits. The first antipattern we're going to explore is one from our discussion in episode 44 on How business agility increases revenue. While bu...

In today's episode of the Definitely Maybe Agile podcast, Peter and Dave talk about how resilient systems prevent you from losing money when things go awry. This week takeaways: Risk management is the responsibility of the entire organization. Build a stronger system capable of learning and recovering. We love to hear feedback! If you have questions, would like to propose a topic, or even joi...

In today's episode of the Definitely Maybe Agile podcast, Peter and Dave talk about Retention. It can be expensive to hire, but building a culture where people focus on great work does wonders for your company’s bottom line! This week takeaways: Understanding why culture is so important Bring people into the conversation Have the right people in the right fit We love to hear feedback! If you...

 This week on the Definitely, Maybe Agile podcast with Peter and Dave, we continue our series about how business agility impacts your bottom line. By creating alignment to common goals in the organization, business agility increases efficiency and subsequently, profitability. This week takeaways: The role user centricity plays Creating stronger alignment with who you are as an organization, and wi...

Today we're going to talk about increasing revenue. What's the potential impact we can have on the bottom line by focusing on revenue growth. One of the clearest ways in which business agility helps us there is by helping us get high-quality products into the market faster. This week takeaways: Put high-quality products into market faster Create rapid feedback loops Capture the opportuni...

 In today's episode of the Definitely Maybe Agile podcast, we're trying out a new, bite-sized, format. Here is the first in our series on Business Agility for your Bottom Line. Let's discuss how you can deliver more, with less, by saying no. This week takeaways:  Reduce wasted effort  Automate your processes Reduce multitasking We love to hear feedback! If you have questions, would...

 Peter and Dave talk about the importance of managing SPOF (Single Point Of Failure) this week. This issue can have a negative effect on an organization if not handled correctly, so stay tuned!   This week takeaways:  A single point of failure in an organization does not mean that organization has failed.  Identify them.  Build redundancy or slack into the system  Encourage the habit of continuous...

This week, Peter and Dave talk about how we can explain complicated topics to inexperienced audiences. This week's takeaway: Use analogy and metaphor to help convey ideas in a way that transcends language. Make sure you are understood. Make things visible.  References in this episode: Barbara Oakley https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/36647421-learning-how-to-learn We love to hear feedback...

This week, Peter and Dave talk about the difference between taking simple approaches to solve problems in complex systems.   This week takeaways: Stop chasing efficiency and talk more about effectiveness. Measure more Don't think of the system as a factory. Don't jump into a solution too quickly, and experiment more.   We love to hear feedback! If you have questions, would like to propos...