Troubleshooting Agile

Taking iterative development to heart, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss a learning loop topic, Summer Shorts and Learning Loops: OKRs, in five minutes or fewer. Take just a few minutes with us to improve your team's learning and speed! --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love t...

Taking iterative development to heart, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss a learning loop topic, Summer Shorts and Learning Loops: Retrospectives, in five minutes or fewer. Take just a few minutes with us to improve your team's learning and speed! --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! W...

Taking iterative development to heart, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss a learning loop topic, Summer Shorts and Learning Loops: Walking the board, in five minutes or fewer. Take just a few minutes with us to improve your team's learning and speed! --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list...

Taking iterative development to heart, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss a learning loop topic, Summer Shorts and Learning Loops: Elephant carpaccio, in five minutes or fewer. Take just a few minutes with us to improve your team's learning and speed! --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing lis...

Taking iterative development to heart, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss a learning loop topic, Summer Shorts and Learning Loops: Weekly planning, in five minutes or fewer. Take just a few minutes with us to improve your team's learning and speed! --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailin...

Taking iterative development to heart, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss a learning loop topic, Basic daily learning loop, in five minutes or fewer. Take just a few minutes with us to improve your team's learning and speed! --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hea...

Squirrel and Jeffrey trade stories about tech organisations who are effectively improving incrementally -- and examples of those who are just doing and not learning. Rother's Coaching Kata and Torres's Opportunity Solution Tree prove helpful in illustrating how to shift to this mindset. SHOW LINKS: - What is kaizen? : https://www.kaizen.com/what-is-kaizen - Plan-Do-Check-Act: https://deming.org/ex...

“We may disagree but that doesn’t mean we’re going to have another meeting”. Jeffrey and Squirrel discuss what happens when you run out of difficult conversations and consensus isn't going to happen--and what to do next. SHOW LINKS: - Advice process: https://reinventingorganizationswiki.com/en/theory/decision-making/ --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com...

Jeffrey and Squirrel reflect on a tweet from Ken Kocienda about what worked for Apple in designing the iPhone, what they think is missing from this advice, and what it tells us about improving our own delivery. SHOW LINKS: - Ken Kocienda’s tweet https://twitter.com/kocienda/status/1526564985995857921 - Creative Selection: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/37638098-creative-selection --- Our b...

Squirrel and Jeffrey are both seeing faster results from coaching clients through the amazing technique of just asking them to go faster -- and explaining the reason. They explain why and how this works and how you can put it into practice too. SHOW LINKS: - Toyota Kata: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Kata - Near enemy: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jun/07/change-your-life-ne...

Squirrel advocates the radical view that data consistency is a shibboleth and an inadequate excuse. He and Jeffrey explore this position and wonder why companies are so obsessed with having a single source of truth. SHOW LINKS: - The Cuckoos’ Egg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg_(book) - Squirrel's sources of truth tweet: https://twitter.com/douglassquirrel/status/1525435952503693...

Jeffrey describes a new idea from Marquet, the division between "red work" (execution) and "blue work" (thinking and planning). He and Squirrel discuss how to balance these methods in agile teams, and when an imbalance might be useful. SHOW LINKS: - Leadership is Language: https://davidmarquet.com/leadership-is-language-book/ - Inno-Versity Presents: "Greatness" by David Marquet : https://www.yout...

Squirrel notices a pattern among his coaching clients: some prefer to work themselves and their teams much harder, rather than questioning a requirement or discussing trust issues. He and Jeffrey describe ways you can detect and overcome this habit or "twitch". SHOW LINKS: - Agile Conversations Dojo: https://www.meetup.com/Agile-Conversations-Dojo/ - Agile Conversations Book: https://agileconversa...

Description: Squirrel and Jeffrey ponder the seemingly forgot lore of their younger days and ask how those lessons will make it to the next generation. Or does such a fast moving industry have no time to learn from the past? SHOW LINKS: - Livestream: https://squirrelsquadron.com/events/2022/04-21-continuous-integration.html - Doing the impossible 50 times a day: http://timothyfitz.com/2009/02/10/c...

Squirrel and Jeffrey develop a metaphor describing effective product alignment, and suggest some ways to apply and misapply it. SHOW LINKS: - Getting To Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_to_Yes --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts,...

Jeffrey defines "product-led" organisations and contrasts with "commercially-led", "project-led", and "technology-led" organisations. Squirrel disagreed with the verb "led" as it could leave out important opportunities to bring everyone in on a product-minded culture, and we settle on "product-aligned" as a better way of describing an effective end state. SHOW LINKS: - Project to Product: https://...

We describe Marquet's "Psychological Ownership" and how it goes beyond the "turn signal" we've advocated before when building trust with stakeholders. Then we go into applications to our clients, Microsoft Excel date formats, and the candy preferences of heavy metal bands. SHOW LINKS: - Inno-Versity Presents: "Greatness" by David Marquet : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqmdLcyES_Q&t=260s - https...

Squirrel notices that when a client starts by telling him how great her relationship is with someone, it almost always signals a lack of true collaboration and productive conflict. Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss the difference between friendly and effective and the common confusion between being liked and being successful. SHOW LINKS: - Matt Parker on collaboration: https://twitter.com/realMattKPark...

Squirrel relates the tale of a sad client who refined their MVP so much all the business value was lost. Squirrel and Jeffrey reflect on the true meaning of "viable" and how boredom can be a sign your team has lost sight of delivering customer value. SHOW LINKS: - Elephant Carpaccio: https://blog.crisp.se/2013/07/25/henrikkniberg/elephant-carpaccio-facilitation-guide - Walking Skeleton: https://wi...

Squirrel and Jeffrey meditate on Brian Marick's announcement that he will no longer accept talk invitations on agile development, and the (different) reasons that both of them still use term "agile". Topics include joy at work, how it leads to profit, and the "near enemy" of that joy, which can lead to disillusionment. SHOW LINKS: - Listener Poll Results: https://twitter.com/TShootingAgile/status/...

Dragan returns to talk with us about why small batch sizes are valuable, and how to apply this idea way beyond just release frequency, to pull requests, co-creation, and more. Transcript: https://agileconversations.com/blog/smallest-batch-is-pair-dragan-pt2/ SHOW LINKS: - Dragan: - draganstepanovic.com - https://twitter.com/d_stepanovic - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dstepanovic/ - Systems Thinking...

Dragan Stepanović joins us to discuss emotions as system signals, why intervening at the emotional level has less value, and why you should get back on the horse. Transcript: https://agileconversations.com/blog/monitoring-intervening-pairing-mobbing-pt1/ SHOW LINKS: - Dragan: - draganstepanovic.com - https://twitter.com/d_stepanovic - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dstepanovic/ - Mobbing for Safety e...

We're joined once again by Jim Euchner, author of Lean Startup in Large Organizations. This week we discuss how the pioneers/settlers/town-planners model applies to large organisations and how to involve all three types to ensure you combine product experimentation with financial stability and avoid cannibalising your existing business. Transcript: https://agileconversations.com/blog/lean-startup-...

We're joined by Jim Euchner, author of Lean Startup in Large Organizations, and discuss how to overcome the "antibodies" that big companies have against experimentation (and why those antibodies are actually healthy). Transcript: https://agileconversations.com/blog/lean-startup-large-organization-pt1/ SHOW LINKS: - Jim’s website: https://jimeuchner.com - Book url: https://leanstartup.biz - Lean St...

We are once again joined by Matt Parker, author of the new book A Radical Enterprise, this time discussing specific examples of organisations operating as Matt describes (and discover along the way that everything is evolving toward the shape of a crab). Transcript: https://agileconversations.com/blog/radical-enterprise-pt2/ SHOW LINKS: - Matt's website: http://mattkparker.com - A Radical Enterpri...