Get Agile Podcast

In this episode, Tomasz Wykowski talks with Terry Yin, a seasoned software product developer specializing in helping large-scale software development organizations. They discuss what Continuous Integration really means and why most teams that claim to be doing CI are, in fact, only running a CI server. Terry explains why integration tests can hide the lack of real integration, and how deterministi...

In this episode, Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita talks with Simon Wardley - creator of Wardley Mapping - about how mapping helps leaders make sense of rapid change, why AI won't replace developers, and what strategic mistakes organizations are already making. Simon explains how mapping strategy reveals patterns of technological evolution, why efficiency often creates more complexity, and how AI wi...

In this episode, Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita talks with Rowan Bunning, Scrum trainer and long-time Agile practitioner, about designing organizations for real adaptability instead of copy-pasting "big framework" solutions. Drawing on experiences from Australia, New Zealand, and the UK, Rowan explains how to align org design with strategy, choose clear optimization goals, and avoid the Spotify/S...

In this episode, Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita talks with Paul Klipp – coach, entrepreneur, and organizer of the ACE! Conference – about one of the most challenging topics in corporate life: one-on-ones and annual performance reviews. With more than two decades of experience in small startups as well as large corporations, Paul shares insights from both sides of the table – as a manager running...

Alex Sloley, Agile Coach, sits with Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita to discuss how Scrum teams can learn the 'whys' of Scrum. They examine three pillars and five values, and how these can be applied to enhance events, accountabilities, and artifacts. Analyzing examples from their experience, they check how organizations can avoid 'Robotic Scrum', where people follow mechanics, but don't see any va...

Todd Little, chairman of the Kanban University, calls himself an 'accidental agilist'. He joins Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita to discuss why the Agile movement is failing in a lot of companies, which often leads to 'Agile is dead' statements. They start by looking at how agile courses make people happy, but don't deliver what they promise. Then they check why comparing Scrum to Kanban doesn't ma...

"No one wants to review PR that took one week or more to develop," says Dragan Stepanovic, Principal Engineer who helps companies and teams evolve their engineering culture. In this episode of the Get Agile Podcast, Tomasz Wykowski from Procognita meets with Dragan to deep dive into the unrealized consequences of async code reviews. Dragan shows how developers are often forced to work in isolation...

"The longer you put off talking to your colleagues, the more likely it is, that you're going to have integration problems", says Jim Benson in his conversation with Tomasz Wykowski. They start their conversation with The Collaboration Equation, which is "Individuals x Teams = Value. Jim explains that teams are covered by the Agile movement, and Value is discussed in Lean, but the individuals are s...

"CI is developers' behavior, it has nothing to do with running Jenkins," says Tim Ottinger, XP coach from Industrial Logic.  Join Tomasz Wykowski, from ProCognita as he interviews Tim Ottinger about the ongoing relevance of Extreme Programming in modern software development. They look at the state of different XP practices, including TDD, CI/CD, User Stories, Swarming, Pairing, and Teaming. Tim ex...

Join Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita as he sits down with Alexey Kryvitsky, Certified Scrum Trainer, Certified LeSS Trainer, and co-creator of Org Topologies. Together they discuss how to avoid making the implementation of the Agile framework as an organizational goal. Alexey introduces the concept of Org Topologies as a mapping technique to help companies discover where they are, where they want...

Intent-Based Leadership is a way of leading when we give control based on technical competencies and organizational clarity. Created by David Marquet, author of "Turn the Ship Around" it was popularized in the Agile community by Jenni Jepsen. Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita interviews Jenni, on why Intent-Based Leadership works, and how to apply it. Jenni starts with David's story on how he learne...

"You need to make a distinction between which direction you're going and what you're going to do as a first step," says Viktor Grgic, Certified LeSS Trainer.  In this episode of the Get Agile podcast Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita talks with Viktor about his approach to LeSS transformations. He shares his experience in finding people responsible for organizational structure, with whom he starts c...

Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita meets with Pete Behrens, a Leadership Coach and Founder of the Agile Leadership Journey (ALJ), a community devoted to improving leaders and their organizations. Together they discuss how the Agile Leadership Journey provides its members with a pragmatic approach to leadership and how leaders can think, behave, and make better decisions using different models from AL...

"Leadership is a state of mind, so everyone is a leader," says Zuzi Sohova, Certified Scrum Trainer in her conversation with Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita. Together they discuss the role of a leader in modern organizations and how they need to change from the position of power to the position of influence. Zuzi shares her story of becoming Scrum Master, what was her greatest challenge, and the b...

How often your organization fails to deliver on the promise? How many deadlines were not met, or the goals not achieved? "The biggest responsibility of leadership is to ensure that promises keep on working on time," says Angel Diaz-Maroto, Certified Enterprise Coach, and Certified Scrum Trainer. During his recent visit to Warsaw, Poland, he joined Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita to discuss the ele...

"Time is your most valuable currency," says Peter Stevens, co-author of the "Personal Agility" book. "How you choose to spend this currency says a lot about what you care about." In this episode of the Get Agile Podcast, Peter joins Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita to discover the patterns behind Personal Agility. Peter explains how to discover things that really matter and how to navigate between...

The Agile movement led to the creation of customer-focused, independent teams. In many cases, however "independence" means "we don't need to talk to each other" and "don't touch our code" rather than "we're not blocked by another team". During the LeSS Conference in Warsaw, Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita interviewed Bas Vodde, co-creator of LeSS. They discuss the consequences of defining the prod...

"Agile has crossed the chasm," said Lyssa Adkins during the conversation with Tomasz Wykowski in Dublin. It was almost five years ago so they're returning to this conversation to define Agile's landscape and see how it evolved over the last few years. Lyssa, the co-founder of Agile Coaching Institute, currently focuses on helping leaders understand the changes happening around them. Listen to thei...

The war in Ukraine often leads to frustration and feeling of powerlessness. This special episode of the Get Agile podcast was recorded less than 48h after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita discusses with Christopher Avery how the Responsibility Process can be applied to address anxiety caused by a conflict between what we want and what we have. Listen to their conver...

Menlo Innovations has created a unique culture of teamwork, collaboration, communication, and relationship. This led to specific practices, such as the whole company working only in pairs, having one stand-up for 50-60 people that last 13 minutes, high-tech anthropologists observing users, visual planning, and extreme interviewing. But in March 2020 everything changed, as the whole company was mov...

Many managers hold assumptions that stop their companies from changing the way they operate. The pandemic, climate change, and other recent disruptions have challenged these assumptions, making supply chains fragile, introducing chaos in stable environments, and forcing companies to question their core business practices. Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita discusses with Robin Dymond, Certified Scrum...

How do we change organizations? How do we change ourselves? Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita and Linda Rising, author, lecturer, and independent consultant discuss why change is hard, how companies can introduce it by running small experiments and why they can't create a schedule for transformation. Listen to their conversation to understand why running around with checklists won't help you much, w...

Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita and Scott Dunn, Certified Scrum Trainer discuss company culture and why it often leads to failure of Agile adoption. Learn what you need to know about the culture as a leader, how to understand where you currently are using the Competing Values Framework, how to create a vision of where you want to be, and finally, how to design the experiments that will help in the...

In this episode Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita interviews Jurgen Appelo, creator of the Management 3.0 movement. Join them to hear ideas behind the versatile organization and how organizations can thrive in the post-covid world. Learn why companies should abandon the product approach and focus on designing a consistent experience for their users, how to ensure collaboration between organizational...

Join Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita and Angela Johnson, Certified Scrum Trainer from Collaborative Leadership Team. Find out why Scrum is missing many Agile practices like User Stories, Velocity, or Definition of Ready, why Scrum courses are more about unlearning than learning, and why starting using Scrum can be Scary. Finally, learn what A-word and Project Management Hangover are. Learn more ab...