Troubleshooting Agile

Is your tech team falling for the illusion of control? In this week’s episode, we sit down (again!) with authors of “Signals and Levers,” Elisabeth Hendrickson and Joel Tosi to talk about the events that led up to writing their book. Tune in to the third of our three-part episode where we cover 30-minute exercises you can run TODAY, from listening to non-dashboard "signals" to dissecting organizat...

Are you trying to fix "bad estimates" when you actually have a broken system? In this week’s episode, we sit down with authors of “Signals and Levers,” Elisabeth Hendrickson and Joel Tosi to talk about the events that led up to writing their book. Tune in to the second of our three-part episode to get our discussion on Shewhart charts, cycle time, and why aiming directly for predictability always...

Are you trying to fix "bad estimates" when you actually have a broken system? In this week’s episode, we sit down with authors of “Signals and Levers,” Elisabeth Hendrickson and Joel Tosi to talk about the events that led up to writing their book. Tune in to the first of our three-part episode to get our discussion on Shewhart charts, cycle time, and why aiming directly for predictability always b...

Ever felt like you’re the only person in a meeting moving at the "right" speed? Well everyone else is probably thinking that too! On this episode, Squirrel uses his example of driving on one of England’s many one-lane roads to make the point of fast and slow communication. Join us to learn his ice-cream incentivised “secret word” strategy to get teams being curious again! -------------------------...

Are you suffering from bug blindness? This week, we dive into Dan Luu's article on how entire teams grow blind to obvious software bugs, Squirrel shares how their brilliant QA broke their system with a simple negative number, and Jeffrey ponders the reality that bug blindness isn't an accident; it's a cultural choice you make upstream. Links: - Dan Luu: https://danluu.com/bug-blind/ - Steve Jobs o...

Are your teams quietly cheating your software controls to get their actual job done? In this episode of Troubleshooting Agile, Jeffrey and Squirrel tackle the "normalization of deviance," rogue AI agents sharing cheat sheets, and why human (and bot) workarounds reveal your real systemic problems. Links: - Dianne Vaughn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance - Open AI / HuggingFac...

Do you want to be right or do you want to be helpful? Choose carefully, because insisting on being "right" usually just makes you poor! On this week’s episode, Squirrel and Jeffrey tackle the classic consultancy challenge: dealing with boneheaded clients. Join us to learn how to use the LEAP method (Listen, Empathize, Agree, Partner) to find common ground, ship workable results and keep your consu...

Terrified of taking on your first management role? Don't be. Join us on the week’s episode to learn how you can avoid the biggest trap that new leaders get into, why you need to keep your team moving rather than doing the work for them, and hear our essential reading list for new managers, with your hosts, Squirrel and Jeffrey. Links: - Behind Closed Doors: https://www.jrothman.com/books/behind-cl...

Is it ever okay to manipulate your colleagues? On this episode, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss Verbal Aikido - a defensive technique borrowed from a Supermax prison doctor. Join us to discover how to redirect manipulative office requests using strategic questions without crossing the line into toxic control. Links: - Verbal Aikido: https://www.jailmedicine.com/verbal-aikido-a-guest-column-by-dr-bill...

ChatGPT is (a little too) good at having difficult conversations, but use it with caution! On this episode of Troubleshooting Agile, we revisit a previous conversation, first recorded at the beginning of 2024, where Squirrel and Jeffrey share their thoughts on how you can use AI language models to learn how to have difficult conversations with colleagues and disappoint them helpfully. Links: Roger...

Are your top leaders arguing over basic status data? In this episode, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss the executive trap of arguing over facts that can be easily settled. Join us to learn why you should be agreeing on a “single source of lies” not chasing a "single source of truth." -------------------------------------------------- You'll find free videos and practice material, plus our book Agile C...

Are you committing massive resources before testing reality? In this episode, Squirrel is joined by guest, technical program manager, Krunal Patel, who explains how he developed an exciting new car feature in less than a third of the time of a typical waterfall cycle, using cheap prototyping and rapid feedback loops. Join us to learn how you can use “soft-tooling” for your software. Links: Krunal...

Are your daily software demos an absolute snore-fest? Good. That’s exactly why you should be holding them! In this week's episode, Squirrel and Jeffrey react to listener feedback on the fear of daily demos. We explore how exposing raw back-end outputs can act as an "unfreezing event" that forces middle management to get out of the way and lets you build true team cohesion. Links: - Our slack chann...

Are you using AI to avoid difficult conversations, or to prompt better ones? In this episode, Squirrel and Jeffrey are joined by Misha Globerman, who tells us about the WorryBot he built to spot and prevent weaknesses in his systems, track missed accountability and guide real conversation with his team. Links: - Previous episode on LLMs: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/llms-writing-for...

Are you token maxing or actually learning? Squirrel and Jeffrey have observed a wild new trend where AIs write specs, AIs summarize them for engineers, and AIs write the code. Nobody is actually talking to each other! Join us as we make the case for human-to-human collaboration, not just bots collating text for other bots, on this week’s episode of Troubleshooting Agile. Links - Our book, Agile Co...

Is your tech team reluctant to show you daily progress? It’s because they’re scared of failure! Listen to this episode of Troubleshooting Agile to learn how leaders can use emotional intelligence and universal demoing to break down the "status report" paranoia and unlock rapid delivery, with your hosts Squirrel and Jeffrey. -------------------------------------------------- You'll find free videos...

Are your software tests a beautiful work of fiction? In this episode of Troubleshooting Agile, Squirrel and Jeffrey question the obsession with "shift left" and instead make the case for shifting right i.e. testing right in production where the real world happens. Join us for a discussion on AI logging, Etsy's continuous real-world tests, and why keeping your code in a sterile sandbox is costing y...

Are you treating your AI like an expert consultant or an overly enthusiastic intern? In this week’s episode of Troubleshooting Agile, we’re Live from CITCON:AI in Helsinki, Finland, unpacking the critical boundaries of AI ownership and risk. Join us to learn why AI doesn't create new problems, it just accelerates our old ones, and why you need human "centaurs" to maintain accountability when real...

Are you answering questions instead of questioning assumptions? Because you might be missing your biggest product wins! In this episode, Squirrel and Jefrey discuss why the best response to a client or user question is sometimes mu - unasking the question entirely. Join us to hear about Gojko Adzic's "lizard optimization" (and what 4% of the population believing in lizardmen has to do with your so...

Do you find yourself covering the same agile lessons over and over again? Back in CITCON 2021, a special guest brought up how he’s been talking about the same problems for 20 years. And five years later, we imagine not much has changed! Listen to this re-run episode for our thoughts on this topic with Squirrel’s analogy on how teaching long division turns out to be surprisingly helpful. LINKS: - C...

Is your chatbot helping your customers or putting them off? In this episode, Squirrel is wound up about the chat-first interface trend in software, which hinders more than it helps. Tune in to get Squirrel and Jeffrey’s thoughts on how you can use “book smarts” vs “street smarts” to determine whether you need a chatbot, and what you should be offering instead. LINKS: - The Dimensionality Problem:...

Why can’t you ship today? In the run-up to the next CITCON:AI in Helsinki, we re-live this previous episode from CITCON in Ghent, back in 2019, where Squirrel and Jeffrey we’re re-telling three interesting stories from the event, all starting with different answers to Jeffrey's question, "Why can't we ship that today?" LINKS: - Value stream mapping: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-stream_mappi...

Is "noisy politeness" slowing your tech team down? In this episode, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss Crocker’s Rules, which is essentially just the one rule - get to the point. Join us to learn how you and your colleagues can skip the social overhead and get to the data that actually matters. LINKS: - Crocker's Rules: http://sl4.org/crocker.html - Sergei Parajanov's article about the rules: https://lr...

What’s got Jeffrey - the Founder of CITCON:AI - ruffled about AI?! In this episode, Jeffrey talks about his frustrations with how organisations approach AI rollouts without learning any lessons from the change-management initiatives that have gone before. Join us to get our take on when to hand over reporting to LLMs, when not to, and how to use ‘agentic validation.’ LINKS: - Alistair Cockburn art...

Are you starting from the bottom of the ladder? In the second episode of a two-part series on the practice of disagree and commit, Squirrel uses the ladder of inference to quiz Jeffrey on the reasoning behind his involvement in the sport of deer hunting, with the aim to demonstrate how two people with opposed beliefs can still find common ground on which they can move forward. LINKS: - Disagree an...