LiminalArc SoundNotes

This week in SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Founder and CEO Mike Cottmeyer joins Dave to explore the ways in which Executive Leadership plays the role of Product Owner in an organization. During the conversation, Mike reflects back on how his understanding of what it means to be an organizational product owner has evolved as LeadingAgile has grown over the last ten years. Mike shares some of the ways he...

If you're confused about the difference between Epics, Features, and Stories—you're not alone. Most of us use these terms to describe different types of items we’d put into a Product Backlog. The challenge is that each organization defines them differently and uses them to mean different things. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile SVP and Senior Consultant Scott Sehlhorst joins Dave Prior...

It can be easy to get swept up in discussions centered around making sure that the work being done by development teams is in sync with what the stakeholders identified as the highest priority. While this is definitely an important factor to consider, it is also critical to make sure that we have identified and prioritized the issues and problems we need to solve to achieve the organization’s stra...

HAPPY NEW YEAR! In this episode, LeadingAgile Senior Consultant, Ross Buermann shares an approach that involves bifurcating the work of creating the documentation so that we can create and deliver in smaller increments. Those smaller pieces can be modified and maintained in a more efficient manner than they would be in a traditional approach. In the same way that we want to break development work...

Safety is a popular topic in the Agile space that comes up when we have conversations about what it takes to create an environment where Agile can take root and thrive. When we talk about transforming organizations, we talk about things like creating a safe environment where people feel that they have the agency and support to run experiments in order to get better at working together and deliveri...

When large enterprises make the decision to invest in Agile Transformation they often do so with the expectation that it will have some positive impact on their ability to deliver. In theory, if we can deliver more of the right things in shorter time frames at a higher quality level, that should provide some kind of quantifiable return on investment. When the conversation turns to the question of...

Lee Wiesehuegel is a Managing Consultant at LeadingAgile where he helps organizations incorporate an Agile approach by transforming how they work. One of Lee’s primary areas of focus is working with leaders to help them understand how critical their support is at the team level. In this episode of SoundNotes, Lee and Dave discuss some of the things that leadership can do to enable Coaches and Scru...

At Elevate Agile 2019, LeadingAgile Chief Methodologist, Dennis Stevens gave a presentation called "What Every Agile Organization Has In Common" (link below). In this episode of SoundNotes, Dennis and Dave go deeper on some key themes from the presentation. The interview focuses on how Senior Leadership can create an organizational system that supports Business Agility. This work goes beyond simpl...

At ElevateAgile, LeadingAgile Principal Consultant, Marty Bradley, led a session called "The Business Value of Agility." The talk focused on the question of how organizations measure and understand the business benefits of adopting an Agile approach. All too often, organizations make a decision to "go agile" without defining the outcome they hope/want/expect from changing their approach to work. W...

When it comes to Agile Transformation, every organization struggles with managing risks and dealing with dependencies. Identifying the most critical dependencies and finding a way to break them can be challenging. But, depending on your organization’s goals for transformation, there may also be dependencies that just aren’t worth decoupling.  In this episode of SoundNotes LeadingAgile Senior Consu...

The dilemma of what to do if you don’t have a Product Owner is one of the more commonly recurring questions that I get in the CSM and CSPO classes. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile’s Sara McClintock and Jeff Streitmatter join me to talk through the challenges of not having anyone acting as a dedicated PO. During the discussion, we explore why the role is so critical, how not having one...

On October 7th, 2019 LeadingAgile will hold its first-ever conference—Elevate Agile. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile CEO and Founder, Mike Cottmeyer explains why Elevate Agile exists and how we hope it will shape the conversation around business and organizational Agility moving forward. The event is sold out, but you can check out the live stream from the conference on Elevate Agile's...

Feedback is tricky. We all want it, we all need it, but sometimes getting it can be kinda tough. Giving feedback is challenging as well because it can be hard to tell when were are offering it from a place that is truly centered on helping the recipient grow, rather than just helping them be what we want them to be. In this episode of SoundNotes, LeadingAgile Staff Consultant, Sarah Smith, joins D...

In this live keynote episode of SoundNotes live, we talk with Portia Tung about her thoughts on making transformational change fun by embedding play science into your work.

In this SoundNotes live, we talk with Andy Cleff about the process of prioritizing and learning backlog and his thoughts on how to deliver the learnings optimally.

In this SoundNotes live with Natalie Solomon, we discuss the steps Natalie takes and key focus areas she considers when building successful teams that are created to enable a truly Agile workplace.

In this episode of SoundNotes live with Olaf Lewitz, we talk about the importance of self-reflection, self-awareness—and magic. When magic happens on a team, how do we unlock that process and replicate it so it can happen on cue? And how can self-reflection enhance how we lead and function at work?

In this SoundNotes live with Heidi Musser of LeadingAgile, we cover the key highlights of her Agile Alliance Board panel on diversity and inclusion in the Agile world, including the current state of diversity and inclusion in the tech community, and why diversity in this community is a particularly important topic.

In this SoundNotes live with Lynne Cazaly, we’ll discuss the war of perfectionism and how it’s affecting us. We’ll dig into why it's important to reframe our mindsets and work toward an end goal rather than toward an artificial concept of perfection.

In this SoundNotes live with Diana Larsen, co-founder of The Agile Fluency Project. We’ll chat about The Agile Fluency Project’s mission to help organizations measure how or if their Agile teams are achieving the outcomes they need, and how they can get insight on additional ways to invest to get the benefits they want.

In this SoundNotes live, we chat with Christopher Avery of The Responsibility Company about his work on how our psychology can keep us stuck—or propel us forward. He shares how we can change our usual programming to make better choices and be better leaders.

In this SoundNotes live with Christina Hartikainen, Chair of Agile 2019, we’ll chat about the conference, what’s new this year, and how you can get involved next year

In this SoundNotes live we’ll chat with Shannon Ewan and Ahmed Sidky of ICAgile. They’ll share some exciting new Business Agility training initiatives they’re working on for non-technical sectors—and how ICAgile is helping non-technical sectors, like HR and marketing, understand and apply Agile.

In this SoundNotes live with Mark Kilby, we talk about social tokens. What’s a social token? We’ll define them and expand on how they can be a shared way to create trust and create connections in distributed teams.

In this SoundNotes live with Melissa Boggs, Chief Scrum Master, and Howard Sublett, Chief Product Owner, both of the Scrum Alliance, we chat about their new roles, and what they’ve learned from co-leading the organization together.