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Real Agile forecasting runs on math, not magic. Brian and Lance dive into Monte Carlo methods, DORA metrics, and how AI is shifting the future of project management. All with a human-first approach that builds better teams, not bigger spreadsheets. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner and Lance Dacy unpack why Agile teams need to rethink how they forecast work—and why math, not magic, is the real secret. From the roots of Taylorism to today's Monte Carlo simulations, they explore how to navigate uncertainty with data-driven tools like DORA metrics, flow metrics, and probability theory, while keeping the heart of Agile leadership focused on trust, transparency, and better decision-making. References and resources mentioned in the show: Lance Dacy Free Chapters of Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn Join the Agile Mentors Community Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Lance Dacy is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant's heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away.

Curious about the future of Agile in 2025? Join Brian and Lance Dacy as they dive into the rise of AI, hyper-personalization, and how teams can balance innovation with customer focus. Plus, discover actionable insights to navigate a rapidly evolving landscape—don’t miss this forward-looking discussion! Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian and Lance set their sights on 2025, exploring how AI is transforming Agile practices and reshaping customer engagement. They discuss the shift from output to outcome metrics, the expansion of Agile beyond IT, and the critical role of leadership agility. With practical takeaways on fostering continuous learning and delivering real value, this episode equips teams and leaders to stay ahead in a fast-changing world. References and resources mentioned in the show: Lance Dacy Accurate Agile Planning Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Lance Dacy is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant's heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Happy New Year's Agile Mentors. We are back and a very happy New Year's to everyone who's listening. Welcome back for another episode and another new year of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner, and we have our friend of the show for our annual kind of tradition now. We have Mr. Lance Dacey back with us. Welcome in, Lance. Lance Dacy (00:23) Thank you, Brian. Happy New Year to all of y'all. Happy to be setting this tradition. think it's two times now, so we'll just call it a tradition, but I love it. Thank you for having me. Brian (00:32) Very glad to have you here. The tradition we're referring to is that we like to take the first episode of the new year and just take a pause and kind of look ahead a little bit. What do we see coming up? What do we think this new year is going to be like? Obviously, it's a year of change. Here in the US, we'll have a new president that comes in. I'm not going to get into whether you like that or not, but it's new. It's going to be a change. There's going to be differences that take place. And I know there's a lot of differences and changes going on just in the way businesses operate and how things are run and lots of new technologies, lots of new trends. So we just thought we'd take a pause and kind of scan the horizon and maybe give you our take at least on what we're hearing and what we're seeing. And you can see if you agree with these or not. We'd love to hear from you in our discussion forum on the Agile Mentors Community afterwards if you have other thoughts or opinions on this. let's get into it. Let's start to talk about this. So Lance, I guess I'll start. I'll just turn it over to you and ask you that generalized question. Give me one point or one thing that you've been reading or seeing recently that you think is going to be a really important thing for us to kind of be prepared for or look out for here in 2025. Lance Dacy (01:44) Great question, Brian. There's so many things out there, and I thought we could start by looking back a little bit. if we're okay with that, just let's summarize, you what did we see happen in 2024? You mentioned, you know, 2025 is a year of change, absolutely, but 2024 was definitely a different kind of year as far as my experience is concerned and seeing a lot of industry trends that are just popping up out of nowhere. Now we are fans of agility, which means we embrace quick, efficient changes, but there's things going on in 2024 I never predicted Brian (01:52) Yeah, yeah. Lance Dacy (02:19) fast. And so I think we've got to reshape the way that we're thinking about these things. I think the topic of mind, one of the biggest shifts that I saw in 2024 that I think will continue in 2025 is AI. So that artificial intelligence is a big word that we keep lumping into a lot of things. And I just wanted to take a pause a little bit and say, I know everybody's got a little bit different experience about AI, but in particular, as it relates to product development and agile delivery, which is what this show is basically focused on, I thought we could look at some insights of what happened in 2024 with that. And so I think I call us babies at it right now. And I know that may be a bad term, but I have a lot of experience with AI and machine learning and things like that. But as far as the use of it, I feel like we're all a little bit more of babies on how to use it in the day-to-day work that we're trying to accomplish. And I think that comes with learning something. I embrace that. I don't mean that as a downplay, by the way, but that we're all babies. I'm just saying we're less mature about it. We're experimenting with a lot of things. And I don't think that some of the AI is all good. I I embrace it as a thing that's going to help us later on, but... I thought we could just share our experiences of how we've seen this thing manifest itself. I think tools like AI driven, I'm going to use the bad word JIRA, but in place of that, just use any product backlog management tool that you see. And I've seen a lot of organizations not just talk the game of, we use AI for our backlog management, but I'm talking about backlog prioritization, sprint planning capacity. And I believe what's happening is it frees teams up to do more of the... value driven work that we're going to see a lot more of in 2025. So what I mean by that is when we got automated testing and development, if you remember those days, it freed the developers up or the testers, should say, from doing less of the does this thing work to more of how does it feel using it as a human being, you know, automating that. So I've seen things like JIRA, with AI with JIRA and GitHub co-pilots, you know, reshaping the value creation in the teams and eliminating the need of having to do very low level tasks. So what is your thoughts on that and do you have any experiences of that as well? Brian (04:36) Yeah, for sure. There's a couple of things I've found that just kind of some stats I found from some different places. you know, listeners know I'm kind of like a data geek here. want to know where the data comes from and want to make sure it's a, yeah. Yeah. You want to make sure it's a solid source and it's not some questionable, you know, sketchy kind of, well, I asked 10 of my friends and here's the answer, you Right, right. Exactly. Lance Dacy (04:48) Good hand. I love that. or a FBI. Brian (05:02) But so there's a couple of things that came back. One was, I think Forrester is probably a pretty good source of information. They have some pretty good rigor to their process. And they have a thing that they put out every year. This one's just called the Developer Survey. And this is the one that they put out for 2024 that I'm quoting here. But a couple of stats from that that I found interesting. One was, 49 % of developers are expecting to use or are already using general AI assistance in their coding phase of software development, which, you know, maybe higher than most people might think. But it doesn't surprise me too much. I think that's probably kind of what I'm used to it. Understand saying, you know, an assistant co-pilot, that kind of thing. They're not saying 49 % have been replaced. They're saying 49 % are being assisted. by that and that seems about right. Maybe again, maybe a little higher than some might expect, but that seems like not too big of a shocker. Lance Dacy (06:04) Well, the animation too. So when you talk about assistance versus letting it run it, I saw a gentleman on LinkedIn, which is also a good. I wish we could interact more with our users on this call, because I'd love to hear their perspective. But I heard somebody say, let AI write my code. No, thank you. Code is like poetry. It has to be refined over time. It has humanistic qualities. And I was like, man, that's a really good point. But when I try to show my kids how to create a Ruby on Rails app to do an e-commerce site and I type it into chat GPT or whatever tool you use, I was amazed at how quickly it was able to put together. mean, you got to still know the file structures and things like that. But I don't know that developers are just going to say, I was going to write the whole thing. think they're, I think it's saving us keystrokes. I think we talked about that last time as well, but that's an interesting, interesting take. Brian (06:50) Yeah. Yeah. So I thought, I thought that was interesting. There was another, you know, I'm kind of, I'll move around between these two sources basically, but there's another source that I saw where there was a Harvard Business Review article. posted this on LinkedIn a while back, but it was a kind of the source of it was about a survey that they did to try to determine the impact on the job market. And one of the things they did was now their data was from July, 2021 to July, 2023. So this is a little bit older data, right? The survey was trying to say in analyzing the job postings on freelancer job sites specifically, and they tried to identify ones that might be affected by the advent of chat GPT, because that's the period where chat GPT really started to come onto the scene and started to become prevalent. And what they found was about a 21 % decrease in the weekly number of posts and what they call automation prone. Lance Dacy (07:35) Yeah. Brian (07:47) jobs compared to manually intensive jobs. They said riding jobs were affected the most 30.37 % decrease, followed up by software app and web development 20.62 % decrease and engineering 10.42 % decrease. But the interesting kind of thing is they found it kind of towards the end of that there was some increases and their kind of conclusion was that there was actually an increase in demand of the kinds of work that required human judgment and decision-making. And so that kind of ties back into what you were saying about let AI write my code whole, completely no, there's still a requirement for that human judgment and decision-making. I think this is why I'm not afraid of it, right? This is kind of, I don't want to make this an AI show, it's about the future in 2025, but when we had a... Lance Dacy (08:17) All right. Right. Brian (08:40) When we've had AI shows, that's one of the things I've said to the audience here is that I'm not so afraid of AI being sort of the doom and gloom of it's going to destroy profession or destroy. It's going to change it. But I don't think that's any different than any other. A great kind of analogy I make is when we started to have testing automation. It didn't do away with testers. This is just another tool that's going to be in our tool belt. Lance Dacy (08:51) Guy net. Brian (09:05) And I think our challenge is not to, you know, we're agilist, not to resist change, but to try to adapt, try to find ways that we can align and incorporate and get the most out of it. So, yeah. Lance Dacy (09:17) I think the most part of that though is, Brian, too, what most people fear. And I agree with you, we won't make it an AI show. just, we got a couple of points to make on this. But for the first time ever in human history, we now have something that might be more intelligent than us. And that is scary because there's some AI neural network engines that people can't explain how it's working anymore. They put it in place. And then it's like, we're not quite sure how it's doing all of this. And that's a scary thing, obviously, that can get out of control. We've never really had to face that. So we do have to be aware of that, but you know, let's go back and peel it back. Hey, we're, trying to plan a backlog with AI and we're trying to write a few Ruby on Rails code. I'm not letting it run my life yet. And one day it may already be doing that. I just don't even know it. I don't know. We won't get into that debate, but I think the thing is that we need to take pause of in the agile industry. is we embrace new technology as long as it's helping us deliver faster to our customers and save us time and efficiency. You know, I tell teams all the time, Agile is about delivering the highest business value items as early as possible with the least amount of cost friction, know, whatever word you want to use for that. Well, AI might help us do that, but I want to caution that. I think you and I were just talking about this. I wanted you to bring up that news story element that we were talking about. where people are just pushing content out there and kind of desensitizing us to is that important information or not? And I think AI needs to tag onto that. So I didn't know if you could share that real quick and then I want to share some metrics that I've seen some teams capture. There's a lot of teams now adopting these things called Dora metrics, which was created by a DevOps engineering group. And it's amazing to me now that we have real data to see, well, we have embraced AI. Brian (10:45) Sure. Lance Dacy (10:59) does do some things or not, I'd like to balance the good with the bad on that. But can you go over that new stuff that you were sharing with me? Brian (11:05) Yeah, no, it's just a conversation I've been having recently with people, they're friends of mine and kind of, you're probably feeling the same way about this in certain places, but the breaking news alerts that you get on your phone, you get those things all the time and I've had friends and I have discussions about maybe it's time to just turn them off. There's just so many breaking news alerts and that's kind of the issue, right? Is that there are so many that are now classified as Lance Dacy (11:23) Yeah. Brian (11:31) breaking news that you kind of look at that and say, this isn't really breaking news. You know, like if something really major happens, yeah, I want to know about that. I'd like to get an alert about something that's truly breaking news. the, you know, have major news sources, apps on my phone and get those breaking news alerts all the time. And some of them are just things that are minor, minor news that I would be much better served seeing in a summary and like a daily summary or even a weekly summary on some of the things. Right. Lance Dacy (11:50) Yeah. Or if at all, like you don't care about the sub undersecretary of Parks and Lighting in Minnetoca. You know, I don't know. It's just like, thank you for that information. But I totally agree that I feel like we're getting desensitized to a lot of these words, buzzwords, if you will. And we as humans are going to have to learn in this environment. And I'm trying to teach this with my kids as well, because they're the ones suffering the most from it. Brian (12:04) Right. Yeah. Lance Dacy (12:22) It's just inane information out there and you're filling your brains with the main things. So AI is great because it's allowing people to deliver more content, but is that content of substance or they just trying to market to you and get you, I forget the word you use for it, but, you know, keep you on a leash. Is that what you said? A small. Brian (12:42) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's, yeah, that's kind of what we were saying about this is that I think that the kind of conclusion that led me to is that I and I've seen this trend, I think in other areas as well, as I sort of feel like maybe with bigger companies, more than others in today's world, there seems to be a shift a little bit that, you know, for example, that that breaking news thing, it's not it's not something that benefits the customer, right? As the customer, I don't think there's a customer out there that says, I really love all these minor news stories appearing in my breaking newsfeed. But what it benefits is the company. It benefits the source because it keeps you engaged. It keeps you coming back and it keeps that ping to keep you engaged. And that's what they're trying to promote. That's good for the... Yeah, that's good for the company, but it's not good for the customer. I think that there may be, we may see some real kind of shifts I think happen in... Lance Dacy (13:21) Or me, it keeps me frustrated and I leave them. Brian (13:34) Some of those big companies maybe have moved too far in that way to favor their company's interest over the customer. And that leaves a door of opportunity, I think, for smaller companies to say, well, we're going to be all in on just what's best for the customer. And I think customers will appreciate that and will reward that because it's annoying otherwise. Lance Dacy (13:54) That's what I want to focus on because the last part of this AI conversation I want to have is I like a lot of what Gary Hamill, he's a management professor at a lot of different schools recently. He visits a lot of companies as well, but I really like the way he delivers his content and how he's more innovative and thought. I mean, I tell people all the time that management and leadership has not seen any innovation in 150 years. It's about time. that we start learning how to create cultures for human beings that are bringing gifts and talents every day to make things better for our customers. And Gary Hamill is a really good source if you're interested in those kinds of things. And so he emphasizes how AI has reshaped value creation by eliminating those low-level tasks that I think we all can embrace and are allowing agile teams to achieve unprecedented efficiency. Now... We are babies immature with this technology. So maybe these news organizations and the ones that we're going to kind of say, you're not doing a good job at it. It's not because they're bad. It's just we're learning how to use a new tool and hopefully customer feedback will change that. But I wanted to hit on these Dora metrics. Dora metrics are, I think they were created by DevOps research and assessment. That's what they kind of stand for. And there's four major categories. that Dora metrics measure as it relates to more of an engineering benchmark. Like how well are we, if you're an agile software development product company, Dora metrics are really good for you to look at. know, metrics can be misused, so be careful, but they're measuring outcomes. You know, what is our deployment frequency, which could be an output metric, because who knows if you're releasing the right things, but let's not get into that conversation. deployment frequency, lead time for changes, the change failure rate of your changes, and the meantime to recovery of those changes. I think those are really four good performance benchmarks. And they're starting to surface a lot in organizations that I work with. So you kind of use tools like Jellyfish or something to overlay over Jira. And all these tools are great, but these teams are using AI. And I found that we finally get some real data that says, how well is AI affecting those core metrics if you were measuring performance benchmarks of the software that you're delivering. And so this report that was created by the 2024 Accelerate State of DevOps report, they categorize organizations and performance clusters like elite, high, medium, and low. And based on their performance across these metrics that I just mentioned earlier, they're evaluating and guiding their software delivery practices. And so the impact of AI adoption was really cool to see on the DevOps Launchpad was a site that I saw this on, that the integration of AI into the development processes, as we were just talking about, has mixed effects on those door metrics. Can you believe that? So a 25 % increase in AI adoption correlated with a one and a half percent decrease in team throughput and a 72 % decrease in the stability of the product. Now these suggest that while AI, you know, offers productivity benefits maybe for the individuals or the teams, it has a, you know, it's introducing complexities that are affecting the software delivery performance. So I want our audience to pay attention to that. Brian (16:59) Wow. Wow. Lance Dacy (17:21) and start using some of these maybe to push back on managers and leaders that are just embracing this new tool and say, let's just push this on the teams. So that's the impact of AI adoption. And then if you look at platform engineering, so if you look at the implementation of an internal developer platforms, you know, that are helping developers deploy code faster, the adoption of AI led to an 8 % increase in individual productivity. and a 10 % increase at the team level. Now that's fantastic. But these gains were accompanied by an 8 % decrease in change throughput. So while the teams may be able to make changes, what I interpret that to mean is the customer is not seeing the changes. There's an 8 % decrease in the throughput all the way as a cycle time, if you will, all the way to the customer and a 14 % decrease in the stability of the product. So that indicates trade-offs. that we all need to be aware of that AI might be helping us performance wise, but it's not helping the customer a whole lot if we're destabilizing the platform. So I haven't dug into those metrics a lot, but I wanted to share that with the audience because if you do find yourself in a position where people are pushing this, you can try to go reference those and maybe give them some, I always call it pros and cons, right? There's no really right or wrong when you're an agile team trying to make a decision. You got to look at the pros and the cons and Brian (18:23) Yeah. Lance Dacy (18:40) We might accept a pro, multiple pros that come with some cons, but we all look at each other and say, that's the better decision for our customer. And we live with those cons, whatever they may be. So I wanted to talk about that because it centers on what you were just thinking with the news organization. just push, we got more productive at pushing content, but was it the right content or is it destabilizing what people are using? And you just have to be careful of that. Brian (18:57) Yeah. Yeah, no, I think those are excellent points. I think that's one of the things I see kind of for 2025 as well is that we're still so much in the empathy of how AI really plays into how a team operates and how development works that I don't think we can really say ultimately what's the right way or wrong way to do anything yet. I think it's good for teams to experiment. I don't think you should be afraid of experimenting and trying things. But it all comes back to the basic principle we say over and over as Agilist, inspect and adapt on it. Try something and identify what works about it and what doesn't work. And if that means that, we're using it too much and it's causing too much errors, we'll back off, find the right point, and move forward with that. Lance Dacy (19:41) Yeah. Or where companies are using it bad. Like I have a story that we won't get into here where a CEO or an executive of the company was mandating that they use AI to do something not so good for the customers. And you want to be able to push on that as well. So I'm sorry to interrupt you on that, but I was just like, man, that's something. Brian (20:07) Right. No. Lance Dacy (20:11) Sometimes, like we want to self-organize around the experimentation. We don't want it pushed in like management saying, need to use this because I want you more productive and managers be careful of doing that. Make sure you understand the pros and cons as much as you can before you dictate. Brian (20:26) Yeah. Something else you kind of said triggered something to me. I know the, I think that, well, not in a bad way, but it just, you know, the metrics I think that you mentioned were really good metrics. I liked the idea of kind of measuring, you know, things like, you know, the failure, the bug rate, you know, like how many defects and those kinds of things I think are good metrics. But they kind of, Lance Dacy (20:31) What? Okay. Brian (20:49) point out a certain difference that I think that's out there that I think the business community is wrestling with. And I hear these questions all the times in class, so I know it's prevalent out there. But we talk about building high performing teams. And just the difference between that word performing and productivity. There's sometimes I think confusion or false equivalency. between those two, that performance equals productivity. And I think a lot of the metrics sometimes we see that get measured or that we try to measure even, kind of expose that, as that's what's really the issue here, is that we're really trying to make that false equivalency between the two. It's not saying that performance has nothing to do with it, but Lance Dacy (21:15) Right. Brian (21:32) You know, this is the simplicity, the art of maximizing the amount of work not done is essential. You know, I'd rather have low productivity, but what we produce is high performing, is highly valuable, is something that matters, right? And I think that's kind of those kinds of statistics like you were bringing up, you know, what is our failure rate of things we put out there? Lance Dacy (21:44) Yeah. Brian (21:54) That is, I think, a performance metric to say, the old phrase, slow down to go faster. Right, right. Maybe the reason that our failure rate goes up and we're having problems with this is that we're trying to go too fast. And if we could back off, it ultimately makes you go faster if you have less bugs that you then have to go back and fix. Lance Dacy (22:00) Yeah, make hate, totally. Yeah. Brian (22:19) So it may be counterintuitive to certain organizations. Let's push them. Let's try to get everyone to go faster. But I think these new kind of metrics that you mentioned that we're trying to measure more and more, I think are starting to open people's eyes a little bit to the difference between those two words. Lance Dacy (22:22) I mean Well, in like the CrowdStrike situation, you know, that took down a lot of the airline systems, you know, I'm not saying they make, they didn't do a good job deploying and everything. All of us are victim of that kind of thing. But, know, to get us back on track a little bit, because you asked me the question, then I felt like I got us off on a tangent. know, 2024, obviously the rise of AI integration into Brian (22:48) Sure. Lance Dacy (22:54) the workflows that we experienced with Agile. And I just wanted to highlight, yeah, those are some great things, experiment with it. We're in our infancy. So there are a lot of things to discover that may not be so good. So start trying to put metrics in place. And I thought the Dora metrics, you know, as I've started discovering those, I'm a data guy and I'm like, yeah, as long as those are being tracked correctly, I think that's a good benchmark to kind of look at, hey, we're making a lot of changes in our software, but it's crashing the system. So change is good, crashing is bad. there's pros and cons, so we have to delegate that or figure that out. Now, the other one that you just mentioned, I thought I saw a great shift in 2024 from output related metrics to outcome oriented metrics. So the Scrum Alliance has a report, which we're all probably familiar with, especially you and I being certified Scrum trainers with, and we get a lot of data from them. But teams moved away from feature counts to measuring outcomes like Brian (23:35) Yeah. Yeah. Lance Dacy (23:49) customer satisfaction, user retention. You we teach this in our advanced certified Scrum Master workshops, the difference between output versus outcome metrics. And we've been doing that for five years. And I think it's really starting to take hold that management and leadership and maybe even teams are measuring the wrong thing. And I really saw the needle move in 2024 that people's eyes are opening that let's measure the outcomes of what we're doing. Sometimes that sacrifices individual productivity and performance for a greater outcome achieved at the organization or customer level. And we've been trying to articulate that for many years. And so I've seen a shift in that. And then also the rise of Agile beyond what I would generalize as IT. So Agile Alliance produced some information that I thought was interesting that Agile has expanded into health care or sectors like health care. education, human resources, HR, and those are typically what we would see the laggards, you know, back in the day, banking and healthcare and all those were the last people to adopt this progressive planning approach because of the way that they budget and finance and rightfully so. But those agile principles have been proven out far beyond software unpredictable type work and is going more into, you know, the different types of work environments and I think onto that is how it's getting involved more in leadership. So I don't know about you, but I've also seen people focusing more on building a culture of, I would like to call it leadership agility. So John Maxwell, you know, is a vocal person in the industry about leadership. And he underscored this idea that agile leadership. in driving transformation across non-technical domains. So not just a digital transformation, but non-technical domains is really taking hold in this idea of empowering cross-functional teams. You we've been saying this in technology for years, that the siloed development method is not good. Well, organizations are starting to see that not only in the tech sector, but why don't we put a marketing cross-functional team together with this other team? And that's what they talked about in 86. you know, in the new, new product development game. And I think I started to see the needle move a little bit more with leaders being more fascinated about leadership agility and driving culture change to meet the demands of cross-functional teams. And it could just be a by-product that technology has gotten easier to make these and focus on these things now, but psychological safety, know, sustainability and agile with, people having real goals and integrating. Brian (25:59) You Lance Dacy (26:23) What you see now is a lot of these eco-conscious practices coming in to product development, like the environmental, social, government's commitments as well, are making their way in there. So I want to just reflect on 2024. I don't know what you think. I'd love to interact with the audience too, but those are kind of the main things that I saw. And that will lead us into a good discussion of how we see that helping us in 2025. So what do you think about those? Brian (26:49) I One of the things I think that kind of stood out to me from what you talked about was the concept of how that plays in leadership. And I think you're absolutely right. think that is, I am hearing more of that in classes, people talking about that when they ask questions. You know, we've talked about for years that the fact that there can be sort of I don't know a better word to say but a glass ceiling sometimes in the organization for agile and how it spreads across and that leaders are often You know overlooked as far as getting trained in this kind of stuff and understanding it and I do see a rise in leaders trying to understand a little bit more about how can we You know incorporate this or even better, you know, how do we support? and nurture and foster this culture in our organization. So I think you're absolutely right. I think that is sort of a hidden or kind of a cheat code, if you will, for organizations to try to be more successful with the stuff we talk about is if you can have, it's not a top-down approach, but if you don't have the top on board, then they can really start to become a hindrance or a roadblock to the teams actually being successful with it. And so I agree. think that, you know, I'm hopeful that that shift is occurring. I'm seeing signs of that, you know, it's kind of always a little bit of a back and forth, you know, is it moving in that direction? Then I start to hear people say, no, we're having trouble. And the anecdotal little stories you hear makes you kind of not sure what the prevalence is, you know? Lance Dacy (27:54) Yeah Lose hope. You lose hope. I think, you know, the big takeaway for me for this as we talk about 2025 is it's going to be increasingly difficult and it has been increasingly difficult for any one individual company, product, service, whatever you want to call it, to differentiate yourself from other people. I've been telling my kids this forever. Brian (28:18) Right, right, exactly. Lance Dacy (28:38) that I feel I've seen a big shift from when I was back in early 90s, know, writing spreadsheets for people, they thought it was just unbelievable the work that I was doing because not everybody could do that. Well, everybody can do that now. So what I mean about differentiating yourself is, you know, AI is one of those things that you have to start prioritizing AI literacy because we've just talked about how immature we might be in some cases with this. But if we can ensure that our team members understand how to work effectively with those AI powered tools and letting AI be an active team participant, then I think we're going to start seeing even a greater problem with being able to differentiate yourself. So the main point I want to make for 2025 that I believe is going to be a real big focus is a is a hyper personalization of customer products. So there's a lot of companies out there that are really good. You just mentioned it with the news, right? Hey, I'm building your content, I'm keeping you engaged, but am I really serving you? Am I giving you your needs? And maybe it's okay if news organizations do that if you have a way to filter it and customize it. But really what I'm talking about is, and I'll go back to what Gary Hamill says about this. He says, the markets are crowded. And when you have the rise of AI and tools like Trello, Monday, and things like that, those are project management tools, right? Used to, you could be a better product company just if you would manage your work better. You know, you were using Scrum or Agile, you had an edge on everybody else. You could deploy faster and that was your secret sauce, right? But now that most people can do that now, what's your next up level in game? And he thinks it's going to be this hyper personalized customer solution and engagement. Brian (30:06) Right. Lance Dacy (30:23) where we need to invest in more customer discovery processes. You know how hard that is in teaching tech teams to do that? All we focus on is building the features, but how about we get better at customer discovery and really understand the tools that provide deep insights into their behavior so we can recognize that? know, several companies that I think are on the forefront of that, for those of you who are like, yeah, I'm concerned about that too. Where can we get better at that? I mean, go look at Amazon. Brian (30:30) Yeah. Lance Dacy (30:51) You know, Amazon uses highly sophisticated algorithms to analyze customer behavior, which enables them to produce product recommendations and help you buy things you didn't even know. You remember when we would teach like Kano analysis in a product owner class and they had six categories of features and one of those feature categories was an exciter or delighter feature. You know, the key to being a good differentiator is providing product and features that people didn't even know they needed. That's why customers are not always right, you know, on what they need. They're thinking about their reactive sense. And so how can we get better at predicting their behavior even more than they can and use AI and machine learning that allow for real-time adjustments? Because that used to take forever. You you think about Benjamin Graham's book on investing in the 1940s and 50s, trying to predict what the stock market is going to do is nearly impossible now. But can you imagine how he differentiated himself by doing all these algorithms by hand? Brian (31:20) Yeah. Lance Dacy (31:48) And so what I mean by that is we need to use AI and these tools to help do more predictive customer experiences. So Amazon does a good job. Netflix employs a lot of data analytics to help understand viewing habits. Starbucks does this. Spotify does it. So I really feel like in 2025, if you want something to focus on and you're a software product development company practicing agile, build literacy of AI tools with your team. Make sure we're using them the right way. Track the right. data, but more importantly, let's discover what our customers are doing and behaving and use the AI to help us decipher that information a lot easier so that we as humans can make a decision on where we spend the great scarce capacity of our teams building great products for them. And so there's a lot of things that go into that, but I feel like that's going to be the focus in 2025. That's what's going to separate the people that succeed even individually. How are you going to differentiate yourself from a market pool of people out there? You need to start learning how to use these tools and differentiate yourself. That's the for 2025. Brian (32:52) Yeah. No, that's a great point. I'll tag on and say that I know there's this, people probably have heard of this, there's a social media kind of trend of if you use chat GPT or something like that a lot to go to it and say, tell me some insights about myself that I may not know, just based on all my interactions with you. And that was a trend for a while for people to ask that and then. they were shocked in some of the things that would come out from chat GPT. Well, what I found in taking a couple of courses and things about AI is, it's really good at taking a large amount of data and then pulling out things that you may not be aware of. I think that's going to be something, the more data driven we are, obviously the better because we have facts behind it. And as you said, it has to be the right, we have to collect the right kind of data. you can take a big... Lance Dacy (33:19) Yep. Yes. Brian (33:43) source of data and feed it into an AI like ChatGPT and say, give me five hidden insights from this data. Yeah. Lance Dacy (33:50) Yeah, stuff you thought about, right? I think insights, that's the way to put it. And I used to have a saying being a data analytics guy for 20 years. Most people and organizations are data rich, but information poor. And I would like to change that word nowadays to insights poor because Brian (34:09) Yeah. Lance Dacy (34:09) We may have all the data and tracking data, there's no harm in that, know, storage is cheap these days. So go ahead and track it all. You can report on it infinite number of ways. And that's the secret sauce. And I think you just hit it on the head that, just go ahead and start tracking stuff. Let AI, you can't ever read that amount of data as a human being and decipher it. Let the machine do that. But then you can test it. You can say, do I really believe that or not? Because you have a humanistic experience that AI doesn't have. So we should embrace that. Brian (34:40) Yeah, I agree. Well, I mean, I hope people are hopeful. I'm hopeful. I know when I start a new year, I generally am hopeful because that's just the way I try to start new years. But I'm hopeful for some of these changes. think the tools that we have are just making things, some things that might have been more mundane, a little easier for us to do. And maybe that allows us to focus. Well, like the data I brought about at the very beginning, you the fact that there's a rise in, you know, postings and companies needing jobs that require human judgment and decision-making. I think that's where we're headed is, you know, that rise in human judgment and decision-making skill. And that's something that's at least at the moment, you know, our computers can't do for us. And it really does require, just like you talked about, understanding our customers. I can't put an AI out there to try to interview all my customers and get deep. Well, but not and get the kind of deep insights I want, right? Not to find out what the real problems are. It wouldn't know how to question it enough and dig deeper into different ways to truly figure those out. So it requires huge human judgment and decision-making. And I think that's where we... Lance Dacy (35:35) you could. Right. Brian (35:51) now bring the value is in that area. Lance Dacy (35:53) Well, and people hate change, right? So let's just end with this. know, most people, customers, you change things on the product. You put a new car design. We usually don't like it. So you want to hang in there and not get too distracted by noise with that. mean, remember when the first iPhone came out, you know, older generations like this is too complicated. I don't want to use it. And there is something to say for that. But eventually that's what we use and we learn how to adapt to it. So stay hyper competitive in 2025. Foster continuous learning for your team. So stay updated on industry trends. It'll lead time to experiment and invest in your team's learning. Prioritize collaboration and innovation. None of us are smarter than all of us together. Break down the silos. Encourage the cross-functional collaboration. And experimentation is going to be key. Leaders and managers in particular. must foster an environment where it's safe to not do so well. I tried something, it didn't work, and I'm sorry about that, but I learned from it and I'm going to try it this way next time. That's not a huge thing right now. We need to foster that. The last one, focus on delivering value. Keep the customer at the center of everything. Use metrics to measure your real world impact, not just the outputs. And I think that's how we can summarize everything that we talked about. Those are the three things if we had to take away. continuous learning, collaboration and innovation, and focus on delivering value. Good luck in 2025, right, Brian? Brian (37:19) Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's awesome. Well, I hope this has been beneficial to folks. And Lance, I appreciate you keeping our tradition and helping us look forward into the new year. obviously, a very happy new year to you and your family. And thank you for coming back and joining us. Lance Dacy (37:35) Yeah, likewise to you, Brian. Glad to do it. Hope to see you all soon. Thank you all.

In this episode, Brian Milner and Lance Dacy dive into the evolving world of software development, exploring how AI and automation are reshaping the landscape. They discuss the essential skills developers need in this new era, from embracing AI as a tool to mastering emotional intelligence and continuous learning. Overview Brian and Lance discuss the transformative impact AI and automation are having on the software industry. They explore the importance of adaptability, continuous learning, and cross-functional expertise, emphasizing how developers can thrive by embracing AI as a tool rather than a threat. The conversation highlights the growing need for soft skills like emotional intelligence, curiosity, and collaborative leadership, and encourages developers to be open to new technologies and ways of working to stay competitive in the ever-evolving tech landscape. References and resources mentioned in the show: Lance Dacy Big Agile “Be curious, not judgemental” – Walt Whitman #54: Unlocking Agile’s Power in the World of Data Science with Lance Dacy #63: The Interplay Between Data Science and Agile with Lance Dacy #82: The Intersection of AI and Agile with Emilia Breton #99: AI & Agile Learning with Hunter Hillegas Accurate Agile Planning Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Lance Dacy is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant's heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. How's your week going? I hope everyone's week is going well. Yeah, I'm switching things up. I'm not saying things exactly as I did the past 100 episodes. But welcome in. I hope you guys are having a great week. We are back with you here at the Agile Mentors Podcast. And I have one of our favorites back with us. I have one of our repeat visitors, Lance Dacys with us. Welcome back, Lance. Lance Dacy (00:28) Thank you, Brian. Great to be here. Brian (00:30) Always excited to have Lance with us because we always have such great conversations. And I wanted to have Lance back because we were talking about something recently that I think might be a good topic for us, might be on a lot of people's minds. And that is really kind of getting into this, what we've loosely termed the new age of development. With the new tools and new kind of the way that AI has worked its way into things and automation. How is this going to change and affect our teams? How is it going to change and affect how we develop? How is it going to change and affect the software industry? Lance, I know you had some thoughts on this. I'm going to just open the floor for you and let you take it from there. Lance Dacy (01:15) That's great, Brian. My heart is always with organizations and developers, just trying to help people get better. You and I shared that vision that I remember a long time ago, even at DFW Scrum, one of our vision statements was just trying to help you to do better today than you did yesterday. It's like, what are the things that we can help teams and organizations? And something's real heavy on my mind lately as I work with these teams. You know, we have these notions out there like Agile is dead and, you know, where is Agile headed? And that's not really what this is about here because I think what's happening, as a lot of people have already said, it's just become more of the mainstream. Let's quit labeling it. You know, like Mike always tells us, object -oriented programming won. We don't really call it that anymore. Objects won and off we went. So I'm not really focused so much on the agile type scenario, but we do work in Scrum and agile teams and I see plenty of organizations that need help with that. And I still encounter to this day, developers who are lagging behind on their skills, right? We get so focused in the day -to -day feature development of our roadmap and things like that. that I just fear that developers aren't setting enough time aside or not challenging the organization to help them do that, to learn new skills. And I started compiling this list of like, if I go in and start teaching teams how to do scrum and how to manage your backlog and how to do that, it doesn't matter if they don't have the skills because everything we talk about in Agile is based on reducing waste and the more of these skills gaps that we have. then I find the more handoffs and the more bottlenecks and you know that's one of the eight waste, you know, of lean. And so that's what I wanted to talk about today. And I love the topic like the new age of development. I'm not going to sit here in a spouse to claim to say, here's all the skills you're going to need. But as you and I work, I think we can find plenty of examples to help guide some of these people, even Scrum Masters that are coaching teams or agile coaches, you know, just kind of put some thoughts in their mind about. know, these skills and I have about a short list of five that I've seen growing and then thought we'd go from there. Brian (03:30) That sounds great. I want to dive into one that I know is on your list and it's one we kind of talked about here beforehand, but that is kind of how AI is affecting teams and the skills needed to be relevant with that. Now, I want to preface this by just saying my own personal opinion here on this. I'm not a doom and gloom person when it comes to AI. don't really see it much different than... Lance Dacy (03:34) Thank So, I'll see you. Brian (03:59) how automation really changed things like testing. When automation entered the testing realm, we didn't lose all our testers. We still needed testing. It just was a tool that enhanced the way we did testing. And I think AI is sort of going to be that for how we program. don't think we're at a place where, or I don't know, things could change quickly, obviously, but I don't feel like we're within 10 years. of it completely replacing developers. I think we're still going to need to have expertise. We're still going to need to have that guidance. Maybe 10 years is too big of a window. don't know. Maybe five years? I don't know. Lance Dacy (04:42) These days you don't know. I just thought yesterday something changed. No, I'm just kidding. Brian (04:46) Right, right. But I don't see that happening in the near term window for sure, just because it does a lot of things well, but it doesn't create. It can do things based on what's already been done, but it can't really then go through and create something entirely new itself. So I think you still need human beings for that component of it. Lance Dacy (05:04) Done. Brian (05:15) And I think for developers, learning how to integrate that kind of tool set to help you reduce your errors, define bugs, AI is great at looking over a huge chunk of your code and finding potential issues that you can go back and look at. That can save you enormous amounts of time. So I think there's skill involved there for for the developers segment that I think is embracing it rather than kind of holding it at arm's length and saying, that's the enemy, that's gonna somehow replace me. No, think of it like automation. It's not to replace you, it's just another tool to enhance and give you time to do other things. Lance Dacy (06:02) I think, you know, you mentioned, don't think you and I either would be convicted of being doom and gloom people. think we're pretty well optimistic, right? It is scary. mean, obviously these things that are changing, you're like, my gosh, I have to, the main word I keep thinking about is adaptability. You know, I've got four kids. I keep telling them the best skill they can do is learn how to learn, you know, and I think you just used a perfect example in development about test automation. Brian (06:10) Yeah. Lance Dacy (06:30) We weren't scared of that. The testers might have been because they're like, well, what do I do now? Well, you got to go learn a new skill, right? But it freed us up. Can you imagine still doing, there's companies out there that still do manual testing, and they have to wait until all the changes are in until they do testing, and you will never compete. in a good hyper competitive marketplace doing things like this. So the test automation freed us up and actually what I used to tell my teams is it gives you more confidence, right? So developers can make more radical changes in the code without feeling like, know, you. You blow on something and then it breaks. know, y 'all ever seen code like that before? And it's like, I think it builds their confidence that test automation helped them to be more efficient and more productive because they can experiment more. think that's the goal is I write this code and I can quickly test to see what happens. And I start building my confidence and I can make more radical changes to the system instead of tiptoeing or walking on eggshells. So I'll date myself a little bit. Your example is probably much better than mine. But can you believe I don't use a Maps Go anymore? Y 'all remember the days of trying to navigate a street address with a Maps Go or a real map? I mean, I'm kind of at that bridge where we started having online maps, but you still had to know where you're going and print it out before you left and then take it in your car. You're still trying to read it as you're driving. I mean, who does that anymore, right? So I get in my car these days and now I don't even have to plug CarPlay or Android or whatever you have. It's wireless. You just get in and I'm now a co -pilot in my car. And we kind of laughed about that. think the last episode we're on and I can just drive around in it. I just do what it tells me to do. But it'll never replace my experience, my opinions, and my knowledge of the world. So I can. Brian (08:05) Right. Lance Dacy (08:20) you know, sidestep any suggestions it has, but it helps me be more productive. It knows where traffic is. I don't know that. You know, I know the city I live in and I know five different ways to get somewhere, but I don't know if there's a road closed or anything like that. So I feel like with developers, we need to start embracing some of these tools to help you be more confident, help you. mean, goal of agility, right, is to go faster, go faster than our competitors. So I feel like that's the premise of what we're trying to accomplish here is optimism with these tools. AI is just one of them. But we all have that in our day -to -day lives. test automation is good. I've got the driving. What's another one you got, Brian, that's made you more efficient with AI? Brian (09:01) Well, just before we move on, one thing I wanted to kind of throw out there because I heard this example recently for AI and I thought this was a kind of a really good practical example. If you've been a developer for any amount of time or if you've ever developed in the past, you've unlikely encountered a situation where you've had to go into somebody else's code. And when you do that and you have to enter, especially if it's like a rat's nest of code that you can't really make it out, it's been there for a long time. and it's fragile, no one wants to delve into it. Well, I read this article from a guy who basically had used this legacy code base and entered into AI and had AI go through and comment and help them learn what the different sections of the code did and how it was structured and organized. And it just saved them an enormous amount of time in trying to understand what had come before. Because you know, Like I said, we've all entered those places where we've had to come in behind someone else that is no longer there and try to figure out where we get started, even if it's not code, right? Even if it's something else, but we've all had to come behind someone else. And if we can take a folder full of documents, feed it into AI and then say, help me understand blah, blah, blah. Yeah, summarize this. Help me understand where would I go for this? That's just an enormous time saver. And that's what I think is really great about it is Lance Dacy (10:17) you summarize this. Brian (10:27) So as far as skills are concerned, think prompt engineering is a good one. think coding, interacting with code with an AI agent so that you can create your own AI agents so that you can programmatically call that information. If you're a coder and you can do that, man, to me it's like it just exploded. And now the possibilities are endless of what you can do with that kind of stuff. Lance Dacy (10:57) just dated myself with Cliff Notes too, right? Just think of it like on the fly Cliff Notes. And I heard Alastair Coburn, one of the thought leaders in our industry, been around for a very long time trying to help humans and machines interact better. And he kind of summarized really well about what it's doing in his life is saving him keystrokes. Brian (11:03) Right! Lance Dacy (11:19) And that's kind of like what I wanted to focus on with developers. Can you imagine if you got to spend more time being creative and less time writing on a keyboard to the computer, like you just talk to it. I'm getting to the point now, I used to text all the time and I used to laugh at people that hold the phone up to their voice and they talk into it. I fat finger things and misspelled things so much, all I do is just talk into it anymore. So I feel like coding, that's what it's, you're not even going to tell it the code to write. You're going to have to be... more problem solving design engineer, you less code writing, more problem solving and understanding the domain in which you're trying to automate and algorithm design and ethical considerations that go along with that. But the computer won't be able to do that, but it'll save you keystrokes. It'll save you time. And I think Alistair summed that up pretty good that way. Brian (12:07) Yeah, it's architecture, right? We have to be better architects at what it is we're trying to develop. that way we can give the rough architecture and let AI do the dirty work of the small details to fill in. Lance Dacy (12:21) Well, you mentioned something too about boundaries, right? So AI has to operate within boundaries of what you feed it to learn off of. It's very, I'm not going to say never always really, that's a hard thing to say these days, but it's going to be very surprising if AI can just generate new ideas. It'll probably generate new ideas, but from what? I was working with a client yesterday that comes from more of the manufacturing world and he's really struggling with leadership agility. Like how do I lead and build a culture in a world for people who do the kind of work that we normally focus on with software engineering and development? He said he's a mechanical engineer and I kept using the word knowledge work, right? So the people who do our kind of work, the reason it's so complex, risky, uncertain, unpredictable and all those things is because it's kind of like knowledge and critical thinking and creative work. And he goes, but how is that different? I'm a mechanical engineer. How does that differ from software engineer? And I said, you know, it's a really good point. It's nothing about who's smarter than who, right? So I'm not trying to put anybody down on that. But in the world of mechanical engineering, you are bound by physics. are like you work in the space industry. Yeah, you're doing some cool things and you got to come up with new ways of doing things, but you still have to operate with. physics and astrophysics within those boundaries that we know about with space. But in software, and I sit down and start writing something, there's no boundaries. Like I can use any technology I want, can come up with any, I'm limited by my own skills and abilities. So why not let AI go help me get ideas? I'm not saying you got to write it all for you, because hey, I told one of the AI tools to write me an e -commerce site in Ruby on Rails. and it gave me all the scaffolding and if I would have taken that and start putting it in, then I can start elaborate. But how much time does that save me? How am gonna construct the file? So it kind of handles that architecture, but then I gotta put my critical thinking on it. I just feel like it's gonna make us, if we embrace it correctly, it's just gonna make us more efficient in that way. Brian (14:22) I agree. So what was one of the other skills that you had down that you thought of as being a new era kind of skill? Lance Dacy (14:29) So I'll just go through the four left real quick. I was thinking about cross -functional expertise and we can dive into some of those a little bit. Most Scrum teams we say, hey, you got to have cross -functional teams. And that doesn't mean everybody knows everything. It just means we have all the skills on the team to bring something usable by the end of the iteration. But I feel like cross -functional these days is no longer about coding. Like I know a front -end developer, back -end developer, database person, tester, UI, UX, architecture. These are more like understanding what we call now DevOps, cloud infrastructure, hardware, software integration, particularly in fields like, I work with some defense people, some aerospace engineering, writing code is like bare minimum anymore. So if you can do that, celebrate that, but you've got to move beyond that and start understanding these machines hardware, which leads me to my next one, which is continuous learning and adaptability. because the rate of change in software frameworks and tools we just talked about has accelerated. And if we're not keeping up with that and learning from that, you're gonna be left behind. So be agile in that regard. The last two I had on my list, one I'm just gonna brand it as cybersecurity. Brian (15:47) Yeah. Lance Dacy (15:47) cryptography, like I got a, went to school and for data science, you know, got my master's degree when just after COVID started, I had no idea what I was thinking, but it actually was pretty good because it was all online anyway. But I had to take a lot of cryptography classes way over my head, but at least I understand the terminology and the nomenclature, but that's going to be the key. is, and I've read somewhere, I can't remember the article, but there's like a shortage of 79 ,000 jobs in cryptography. So if you're looking and you're scared for the future, go start learning cryptography and security because these, you know, specifically zero trust architecture, these things that a lot of blockchains have been pioneering in the last couple of years, we're going to have to start locking these things down because every time we find a better way to do security, a hacker undoes that. And this was the cat and mouse game forever and ever. I don't think that will go away. So cybersecurity and more like risk management, you need to understand coding practices for that, as well as how the hardware, the protocols, how do these things talk to one another? And then the last one I just branded is more like... collaborative leadership and communication. need a stronger, you know, used to we would think of software coders sitting in a dark basement, just leave them alone and let them code. And I think we're getting to the direct opposite of that. They need to be leaders out talking to the people who need these systems, going back to that cross -functional expertise. you need to do better communication to the non -technical people so you understand what you're trying to accomplish and automate for those people in the world of cybersecurity and how software tools are changing. People get tired of the buzzwords, right? The technology jargon. So you're going to have to learn how to do that. And I think data scientists are going to be, they're kind of the first group that I've seen this happen. Like when we talk about data science and analytics and AI and Scrum, We've done a couple of podcasts on that. The issue is not just, I'm going to demonstrate what I've shown you, but now I'm going to partner with you and say what I think we should do next. Like I can model a data system ad infinitum, but my theory is I think I've done the best we can do. You can spend two more million dollars and we'll get this much or spend a thousand dollars. do this. And you have to partner with them on that. So those are kind of the five here. You mentioned the first one. So AI and automation, integration, things like that, cross -functional expertise. continuous learning and adaptability, the cryptography, cybersecurity realm, whatever you want to call it, and then collaborative, more collaborative leadership and communication. So those were the five gaps that I think if developers are scared and want to shore up their skills, those are kind of the five that I'm telling my teams to go look for. Brian (18:38) That's a great list. I throw a couple, I don't have a full list like you brought, but there's a couple of things that just popped in my head that I would throw into that list as well. One is what I'm just going to call teaming. Because I think there's a need, there's a real need in the marketplace today of people understanding how to do work in a team. Because regardless of what the work is, regardless of what the industry is or the Lance Dacy (18:51) Yeah. Brian (19:07) backdrop is, you know, most, most jobs, you work together with a group of people to accomplish something in some way, shape or form. That's part of the reasons why shows like The Office or movies like Office Space are so funny is because it's so bad in so many places that people don't really, we laugh at it because we all painfully are aware of how bad it is. Right? Right. Lance Dacy (19:35) It's real. We get it the mark. Brian (19:38) So being able to understand how a group of people actually do work together well to accomplish something. And I'm not talking about hokey kind of motivational, hey everybody, let's make sure we put on our happy faces today. Right, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about just, we all go, know, the way I explained it in classes, do we think of teaming as sort of the way you would do golf on a team? where everybody goes and shoots their own 18 holes and then we total up the score? Or do you think of teaming more like it would be in football or basketball or soccer or something like that where everyone's on the field at the same time, we all have the same goal, we're all moving towards the same goal and we do whatever is needed to accomplish that goal. We have to work together. If you go to any youth sport in the world that's a team, what's the one thing that you'll hear people say, from a sideline over and over the coaches say to the team, you got to talk to each other. Right, communicate, talk to each other, call for the ball, right? And that's such an essential teaming kind of component of that, that I think that's one of the big things there is just being able to understand how to team. Lance Dacy (20:37) Communicate, yeah. Well, and if you don't know what you're supposed to do, ask somebody. So that's the, you know, I'm not going into psychological safety, but how many people feel safe in an organization going, I don't know how to do this because then you're like, my gosh, if I don't know how to do it, I'll get fired. I lose my job. do this. so cultures have to change as well. I don't have that on my list because this was more specific to contributing it as a team. But I think that's a really important call out. know, professional sports get a bad rap when we use analogies. I love them. because I love sports and I know some people don't play sports and I get that, but you at least have seen them. But that's a great example of five people, 11 people, eight people, whoever it is on the field together with one goal. How important is that? And how often do organizations do a good job at centering people around a one goal? Terrible. We do a terrible job at that. But that's out of the, developers, when I say collaborative leadership, they need to start pushing on those things. So that's, I guess we could call those soft skills. What would you call those, Brian? Brian (21:53) Well, actually that was gonna be my next thing was kind of more of these soft skills that I know a lot of people really hate that term and you can use whatever term you wanna. Right, I mean, that's one of them, right? But I mean, just being able to navigate conflict on a team. Lance Dacy (22:01) emotional intelligence. I've heard that. Yeah, fill in gaps when you don't have a skill. Go learn it. Solve, work the problem. You know, remember Apollo 13 is like one of my favorite movies. It was a really well done one. And Ed Harris is a great example in that, as he plays Gene Crantz, know, as Apollo 13 was having its issues. Brian (22:17) Yeah. Lance Dacy (22:27) and work the problem people, they don't know what they're doing. They're all smart people getting together, but they need something. They have to talk and collaborate. So I think that's a huge one. how do you learn to do that? You gotta go do it. You can't read a book and say, how do I get more collaborative? You gotta have, I call it attitude, aptitude, and drive. If you don't have the right attitude or tone when you work with people, They're going to shy away from you and not tell you everything you think. So you want to be approachable. You want to be, hey, bring me any problem you have. Let's talk about it. Like you want to be, that's what I call the right attitude to succeed. Aptitude obviously is your ability to learn something new and get up to speed. And then the drive to succeed. How many people have you worked with where they just do the bare minimum getting by just collecting their paycheck, you know? developers face that, right? So if you're one of those people, if you really want to shore up your skill, go figure out how to change your attitude or maybe you're in the wrong business. But how would you, you know, that's a good one to think about. How would you help fine tune those as a person? What could you go do to shore up your attitude, aptitude and drive? I'll put you on the spot, Brian. I'm sorry. you've done a lot of good talks recently on the neurodivergent and I know you've Brian (23:38) What? Lance Dacy (23:44) you know, the research that you've done on that, that's more of what I'm talking about here is finding your place in the world of every, you know, bring your gift and talent in whatever state it is, but how could you train yourself to be more approachable and have a better drive? What do you think? Brian (23:59) Yeah, well, so my biggest advice there is, I'll quote Ted Lasso who's quoting someone else, but right, be curious, not judgmental, right? That old phrase, which is not his, I forget where it comes from, I think it was, I don't wanna get it wrong. Right, right. Lance Dacy (24:10) We all knew something from Ted Lasso, right? You'll put it in the notes, I guess, later. Brian (24:27) But that phrase I think should be kind of a hallmark for how we approach things is with curiosity. Like why is it this way? Why is it working this way? And what's behind that rather than that's wrong or that's bad or that's whatever. Right, right. You know, someone does things a different way. Well, that's curious. I wonder why they do that that way. Is that the best way to do things? Let's discuss it. Let's analyze it. Lance Dacy (24:42) Or what are you making? Brian (24:56) I just want to briefly say too, when you mentioned the sports analogies things and how we get in trouble sometimes for using sports analogies, I say this in my classes, at its core, I can't really completely get away from sports analogies because Scrum is a sports analogy. Lance Dacy (25:17) In 1986, they used a professional example, team example, of how products were succeeding in 86. Sony, know, Honda, Canon, all of them, and that's what spawned that article for it, right? Brian (25:23) Right. And that article says, you know, the relay race approach to doing things is not the right way. That's a sports analogy, right? It's talking about relay races and handing the baton off between one runner and the other runner. And, you know, that's a sports analogy. And think in teaming, there's an inherent kind of, all right, we don't have to get into all the rules and regulations of the different sports. You don't have to follow them. But I think we can, like you said, I think we can all understand. that when you have a team on the field at the same time, there's a big difference between that and, like I said, golf, where I'm just gonna go shoot my 18 holes, right? But what somebody else is doing doesn't affect me, right? I mean, it affects me at the end of the day with the score, but it doesn't affect, if I'm on the fifth hole, I don't really need to even know what anybody else is doing because I'm just, I'm shooting the best 18 holes I can shoot, right? Lance Dacy (26:08) Do the best I can in my one skill. Yeah. And you do have a shared goal, right? We're trying to get the best score, but you're more limited. You can't help other people. Like what is the, it's the attitude I really think, I wish I had a better word for it, but when you walk out on the field, you either are there to do whatever you can to succeed within your capacity and have an attitude of, let's pick each other up. Everybody's going to have good and bad days. We know that. So somebody's going to show up on the team and be like, man, I'm sick or. I'm moving and I'm scattered all over the place and I'm going to be a little flighty this week. People pick each other up. Like, how do we learn to do that, Brian? How do we, how do we, how can we teach people, especially developers to contribute on their teams in that way? It's not about your skills. It's about your attitude, your aptitude and drive. Brian (27:12) Yeah, and I think what's at the core of that for a lot of teams and I had several conversations with the different agile conferences I went to this year with people about this. There's this cultural aspect that is so much more important than any of the details that we get into as far as meeting length and who attends and all that. It's just at its core, do you inspect and adapt? Right? Do you actually take time when you... Lance Dacy (27:21) Yep. Brian (27:42) And it sounds so simple, right? But how many times have you been involved with something at work where everyone knows it's the wrong way to do it, right? Everyone knows that's a terrible thing that's happening in our work. And we all can just kind of shrug our shoulders and say, well, I guess that's the way it has to be. Why? Why don't we inspect and say, why are we doing it that way? Is there another way we could do things? And then we try something different. Lance Dacy (28:07) Well, and pull it up because the other problem is the hierarchy of a traditional management driven organization is do I have the courage, you know, one of the scrum values courage to raise that flag and stand up for what's right or our fear of losing my job. And I'm going to encourage you developers out there. If you really want to do a great job, you're a great developer and you're not just trying to get by. I would challenge you like I had to learn a long time ago and say, if I do those things and I get fired, I don't want to work at that organization anyway. But that takes a lot more courage because you got a family and you got all this stuff. But you might have your answer if you start raising the flag. don't be an ass about it. Be an attitude, aptitude, and drive. But that's why I said number three on my list here was continuous learning and adaptability. You have to learn that. Brian (28:54) Yeah. Yeah. And I'll give you kind of a practical example here. So if you're working on a team and let's say that you need to get approval to do something, okay? If you have to get that approval and you know that approval is going to cause a delay because I've got to go get approval to do this. Well, be curious, ask the question, why do I need to have this approval? What's the purpose behind getting this approval? And if the answer, if there is a good answer, right? Well, we have to do that because compliance is really important with us and our safety or whatever. And if we don't do that, then we can have a catastrophic event. All right, there's a good reason to get approval. But if the reason comes back, well, because that's the way it always has been, we've always had to ask four layers of approval to get something done. Maybe then question it and say, hey, is there a... Can you help me understand the purpose of getting these four layers of approval? Is there really a need to get four layers of approval for this? What's the downside if I don't get approval for this? Is it catastrophic if I make a decision that maybe one of those four layers of approval disagrees with? Can it still be changed later? What I try to tell people is the speed you get from not having to go through those four layers of approval is far outweighing any kind of small mistake that that person might make. So that's kind of a practical example to say, be curious about it. Try to inspect and adapt. Why is it this way? Does it need to be this way? Is there a reason why we're doing it this way? And if there's not a good answer as to why, then I think it's not bad to question it. Lance Dacy (30:39) Yeah. And they're never going to say, well, we like ossified and calcified processes. Every time we have a problem, we add more checks and balances to them. We never remove them. And that's one of the bane of the team's existences these days is, yeah, we got to mitigate risk and we can't be haphazard, but that's why you got to shore up your skills on this automation and get better at problem solving, less coding and more problem solving. And I tell you what, Brian, we were going to wrap up at the end of the podcast with what I wanted to talk about is don't be scared about AI because I don't think, like I said, I don't want to use the word never or always, but I really think it's going to be hard for AI to learn and take our place in number one, emotional intelligence and empathy. you know, AI can certainly analyze patterns of what it's been for, but truly understanding emotions, nuance, and the complexities of human relationships, which is what we're talking about here. Tone AI don't, I don't think it'll ever really learn how to do that or well. All right. on top of that, be the ethical side of it, right? The cultural things and ethical, know, you could put boundaries on it. can give it rules. But I think humans have a really good, well, most humans have a good sense of that. So I think emotional intelligence and empathy, I creative problem solving and artistry. I kind of use the word artistry for developers as well, like writing code and architecting code and the hardware infrastructure and all that that goes into that. AI can generate the beginning, like AI can generate art. It can generate music if you heard some of these things. I mean, they're good. I see the art, I see the music, but it's all based on patterns. It lacks the ability to produce truly original works that stem from like live experiences and personal insights. So celebrate that and bring that to your job. And I think alongside that is complex thinking, know, strategic thinking, leadership, critical thinking, things like that. know, AI is effective at optimizing and analyzing data and helps us, you know, like COBOL used to read and write data faster than any other system. Humans can't keep up with that. Our processor is the bottleneck. So use that, offload that to something else. But your leadership requires abstract thinking and foresight and the ability to motivate people is something that AI really is not going to be able to do. So start shifting your focus from, you know, the things of data and analyzing. let the computer summarize that and then you put your critical thinking on it. And I think that's where you're going to find a better place for yourself as developers. You're going to be and need to be technologists, but that blurring of the line between DevOps and coding is coming and coming and coming. So you have to start learning the hardware that's running all this stuff and make higher level decisions and less of the lower level. So celebrate your emotional intelligence. your empathy, build those skills up, never lose sight of critical problem solving and artistry that you bring to the table and complex thinking and adaptability. Those are the things that you need to focus on, I think, as developers and embrace this AI to make you more efficient. That's my opinion. Brian (33:59) Yeah. And I'd say, you know, I just tag one last thing on that and it's to say, you know, with the new tools, with the new kind of AI stuff and things that come along, be curious, not judgmental. Ask about how I could use that to my advantage. You you mentioned the music kind of software. I think I know musicians who are using that kind of software to help them, but they see it more as a tool, not as, and now it'll do the job for me. just like I wouldn't go and put in into chat GBT, write me a whole book on something, right? Right, right. I'm not gonna go, if I'm a musician, I'm not gonna go say write a whole song and I'm gonna just take that lock, second barrel, here's everything that that put out and I'm not gonna alter their change. No, but I can get an idea, I can get a melody or a hook or something that I could use and then I can build upon that. So. Lance Dacy (34:34) And then just spin that over. Yeah. And those are always patterns, like every music you hear somebody, it could sound like another song. So you're not really violating ethics there. Like I used AI one time, you my son's learning how to do guitar and I play piano, but I was like, give me eight chord structures that are sad. I mean, there's a certain number of combinations and you listen to them and you're like, okay, now I can add a song under that. But I didn't have to sit around and pick forever and ever like they did, you know, in the old days, which I celebrate that. I think that's great. But why not have eight of them there? And I say, I like that one or don't give me eight more, you know, give me eight more. Brian (35:13) Sure. Right, right, right. So think of it more as a tool, right? Well, this has been great. think this is, hopefully we've given everyone a lot to think about here. And if there's one thing I kind of sum up, I hope that people look at it, maybe we're a little too Pollyanna about this, if that's a dated reference too, but naive. But I would say, Lance Dacy (35:32) Yeah. Brian (35:57) try to be more hopeful about these tools and say, can I use them to my advantage rather than how can I, how is it going to destroy it? Lance Dacy (36:04) Attitude, aptitude and drive. Have a great attitude, right? Say, hey, I'm going to embrace this stuff and not so much doom and gloom. Go figure out how you can use it to your advantage and you're going to separate yourself from everybody else. Totally agree with that. Brian (36:07) There we go. Love it. Well, Lance, thanks for coming on again. I appreciate you taking time. Lance Dacy (36:21) My pleasure. As always, I look forward to our next one, Brian. Y 'all have a great week.

In this podcast episode, Amir Bormand interviews John Cottongim, Co-Founder and CTO at Roots Automation, discussing the impact of process automation and generative AI in the insurance industry. John shares his extensive industry background and insights into how advanced technologies, mainly digital co-workers powered by generative AI, transform legacy systems and optimize processes in insurance companies. The conversation touches on data quality issues, simplifying complex business processes, and the future potential of narrow AI models tailored specifically for insurance. John emphasizes practical strategies for successful automation while maintaining data integrity and enhancing efficiency. The episode concludes with reflections on the evolving landscape of insurance and the promising role of technology. Highlights: 01:50 Challenges of Legacy Systems in Insurance 03:03 John's Background and Insights from AIG 05:29 Data Quality and Process Automation 09:51 Identifying and Automating Key Processes 13:03 Simplifying Complex Processes and User Adoption 22:16 The Future of Gen AI in Insurance Guest: John Cottongim is the Co-Founder and CTO of Roots Automation Inc., an Insurtech startup focused on delivering Digital Coworkers to the insurance industry, leveraging Roots' industry-leading insurGPT AI capabilities. Previously, John headed the Enterprise Automation Hub at Mars Incorporated and AIG's Automation program for Life, Retirement, and Global Business Services. Before his work in automation, John led Lean Transformation initiatives, working with teams across the globe to deliver customer value through process excellence and cultural change. John is a CFA® charter holder, Certified Scrum Product Owner®, and holds a Lean Competency System - Level 2a certificate from Cardiff University. He also holds an MBA from New York University and BS degrees in Finance and Accounting from Villanova University. https://linkedin.com/in/john-cottongim ---- Thank you so much for checking out this episode of The Tech Trek. We would appreciate it if you would take a minute to rate and review us on your favorite podcast player. Want to learn more about us? Head over at https://www.elevano.com Have questions or want to cover specific topics with our future guests? Please message me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirbormand (Amir Bormand)

Discover how recognizing and accommodating different collaboration styles can transform your Agile team dynamics. Join Brian Milner and Jessica Guistolise as they delve into the key to effective and inclusive collaboration. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian interviews Jessica Guistolise about the diverse collaboration styles that impact team dynamics. They explore the importance of recognizing and accommodating different collaboration styles—relational, expressive, and introspective—to create effective and inclusive collaborative environments. Jessica provides practical tips for Scrum Masters and facilitators to cater to these styles during meetings and retrospectives. The discussion emphasizes the value of diversity in collaboration styles, which brings different perspectives and ideas to the table, fostering creativity and innovation. References and resources mentioned in the show: Jessica Guistolise Lucid The Collaboration Style Quiz & Report The Global Scrum Gathering Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training Join the Agile Mentors Community Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Jessica Guistolise is an Agile Evangelist and coach at Lucid who excels in helping organizations deliver continuous value to their customers. With a passion for people over process, she specializes in change adoption, gaining critical buy-in, and establishing trust in Agile methodologies across various industries. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We are back for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have a special guest with us. have Jessica Gastolis with us. Did I say that correctly? Jessica Guistolise (00:14) You did. Thank you so much. It's a mouthful. I am so happy to be here. Thank you so much for inviting Brian (00:21) Absolutely, incredibly excited to have you here. For those who aren't familiar with Jessica, she is an evangelist at Lucid. So I'm sure we'll hear a little bit about that as we talk. She is an agile coach and she has the credentials to back that up. She has from the Coaches Training Institute, a professional coach certification and also she's an ORSC coach, if you are familiar with that. I'm familiar with that. I know there's a lot that goes into getting those. So it's not just, you know, filling out a, sending in some box stops and, you know, getting it back in the mail. and, so the reason I wanted to have Jessica on is because she was speaking at, or she did speak at the scrum gathering that just took place, back in May. And, she had a couple of talks actually that she did with, Brian Stallings there. but one of them really caught my And I thought it would be interesting here to the audience. And that's about collaboration styles. So let's dive into that topic. When we talk about collaboration styles, Jessica, don't we all collaborate the same? Jessica Guistolise (01:33) You know, it's funny, we don't actually. Though, although there is a kind of a misconception that we do because we collaborate in the way that we collaborate, but not everybody collaborates in the same way. And so for us to create really amazing collaborative environments, it's helpful to have an awareness of those different styles. And if we facilitate in such a way that cares to each one of those styles, you're gonna get so much more in the room than you would if you only stick with, well, here's how I collaborate. So obviously this is the way to do it. Brian (02:09) Right. Yeah, I think this is such an important topic because I know one of the questions I'll get a lot in classes or just even in Q &A sessions when we talk about retrospectives is, I'm having a hard time facilitating my retrospective and my team doesn't want to talk or my team's quiet and shy. And to me, this is all kind of indicative of this concept of you're probably not recognizing that they have different collaboration styles than you do. Jessica Guistolise (02:41) Yeah, absolutely. And it's so amazing because I think as Scrum Masters, as Agile Coaches, this is a really important piece to recognize because as the facilitator, you're really building the container. think of these events as like the containers and the folks who are doing the work, they're all the content. But if you build a container that's going to allow for that content to emerge in a healthy way, you just, I mean, Anything's possible. Brian (03:10) Right, right. And you know, one of the things I love to say in classes is just that, you know, that facilitation, that's the root goes back to this phrase, it means to make easy. And you know, that's our job is to make whatever that thing is easy. And if we are, if we're not aware of our own personal preference and style and how we collaborate, then it's harder for us to even be empathetic or recognize that other people have different styles and much less how to accommodate them and be inclusive of them in those environments. So I just think it's a really important Jessica Guistolise (03:51) Well, and the interesting thing too, besides easy, there's also an element of safety. Because if you're asking me to collaborate in a way that makes me really uncomfortable, then I'm spending all of that time in my discomfort and trying to put forth ideas. Those two things are so, they clash. And so there's also an element of just creating an environment of not just easy because this is the way that I collaborate, but I feel safe in collaborating in a that make sense to me. In fact, there's some, there are a couple of styles that are almost opposites. So if you're asking me to collaborate in that way, ooh, I am not sharing anything with you. Brian (04:31) Right, right, you have that amygdala hijack going on. You're kind of, you're in that fight or flight mode of just, my gosh, I'm panicked. I don't want to do this. I feel highly uncomfortable. you know, it's, can, you know, literally it's blocking those neural pathways of actually being able to collaborate and access, you know, the parts of your brain that would allow you to, to contribute in that kind of environment. Jessica Guistolise (04:59) Yeah, it's fascinating actually, right before the study that was done came out, I was in a collaboration with a group of people who were collaborating in a way that was wildly uncomfortable. And I came out of that meeting feeling dumb. Like I really was like, wow, I didn't, I just gave nothing. But then, you know, a little while later I was like, well, but I have this idea and this idea and this, wait a minute. I was just stuck because this isn't a way that's very comfortable for me. Brian (05:28) Yeah. Well, you know, I know you probably know this, but for anyone else listening out there as well, I have definitely felt that way as well in sessions that were kind of contrary to, you know, opposite of what I prefer. And, you know, the way I always describe it is I don't, I'm not a person who thinks out loud. I think internally, I think quietly and then express it later. I need time to process and work through things. But I recognize there are others who are verbal processors who need to speak out loud and and You know if you're in a meeting with a bunch of those Types of people who have that collaboration style and and yours is a quiet one Then you know I've walked out of those rooms before feeling like gosh I'm the dumb one in this meeting because I didn't have anything to contribute Jessica Guistolise (06:12) Yeah, I didn't provide any value in that, but there is, there's so important to recognize that. And I think there's, there's, there are ways to create these containers and to create these collaboration sales that really help to make it so that everyone can feel comfortable collaborating in the way that is going to be comfortable for them. And it just, it's, you know, it's the facilitator work of being prepared. Brian (06:16) Right, right. Jessica Guistolise (06:38) preparing for the meeting or the event, creating the container in a way that's going to be safe, comfortable, and easy for everyone. Brian (06:45) Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, let's get to the meat of that then, because I know there are a few, you kind of delineated these in the presentation that you had. So walk us through, what are the differences in these different kinds of collaboration styles? Jessica Guistolise (06:59) Yeah, so the study was done, Lucid did a really interesting study. I was so excited by this. And what they found was over half of knowledge workers identify with one of three collaboration styles. And the other part of that is you may not land fully in one of the three and you may have kind of a blend of them, but these are the ones that we see most often. And one of the things that I always like to point out too is that none of these are Like it's just the way that you feel comfortable. They're all really helpful and healthy and really great ways of coming together. So I'll start with the one that I most identify with because it makes the most sense to me. That's we normally create collaboration is we see how do I collaborate and I'll collaborate with you. So the first is relational. And so relational collaborators really want that human connection. Like they want to be, they want to spend some time. How was your weekend? Or just if it's a brand new person, let's get to know each other a little bit before we dive into trying to solve problems. there's it's, it's almost like, for me, I just feel like I need to be in relation with, in relationship with someone before I'm comfortable collaborating. It's like, the metaphor I like to use is, is like baking bread. If I'm in relationship with you, I'm gonna bring you ingredients and recipes and stuff that I'm playing with and trying to figure out. But if I'm not in relationship with you, I will have that entire thing baked and then bring it out and see if you like it. But that's not collaboration, right? That's me by myself and how much better is the bread gonna be if somebody says, well, let's try this and let's try this and let's try this. So that's a relational Brian (08:49) So that sounds like that one in particular needs just a tremendous amount of trust to be effective. Jessica Guistolise (08:55) It does. really does. And I actually, I'll tell you a story about this because, so I, I was working with, an individual who had an interesting problem to solve another agile coach. and he'd come up to me and he was like, I have this interesting problem. Do you have anything in your coaching toolbox or knapsack that you can pull out for me really quickly? And I was like, Hmm, you know what? actually don't. but let me think about And so I went, was doing some other things and sort of in the back of my brain. And then I had just an absolutely ridiculous idea. I mean, it was like, I, I felt silly even thinking it, let alone saying it out loud, but I was in really great relationship with this other individual. So I ran across the hall and I said, okay, I have a really dumb idea. And he goes, okay, let's hear it. And I told him, and he goes, wow, that's really dumb. Let's play with it. And so we played with it and got it into something and he took it back to the team and it worked spectacularly. And I think he's still using it today as an exercise that'll help with the team's collaboration. but if I hadn't been in relationship with him, I would have had that dumb idea and then I would have let it go. Brian (10:10) Right, right, because you know, you don't want to get made fun of or you don't want to be made to feel dumb or anything. So yeah, absolutely. You got to have that trust and sense of safety with them to be able to bring it up. That's a great Jessica Guistolise (10:23) Yeah. The second one is one that I wish I had more of and I just don't. So some people identify as expressives. If you're an expressive collaborator, you are ready to dive in at any moment. Like somebody can throw out a topic and you've got, you're the first voice in the room. You love using visuals and drawing out your ideas and throwing up sticky notes and emojis. You're one of those people that's I'm ready to, I'm just ready to share. I really wish I had more of that. Sometimes I think of them as blerters. Like they're just willing to blurt it out. Whatever is there on top of mind and a brainstorm. And I just, think that's so admirable and it's just not a skill that I have. Brian (11:09) So less of that filter then. mean, it sounds like they don't necessarily need to have that basis of trust. They're just sort of always willing to say what's on the top of their mind and get it out in the open. Jessica Guistolise (11:22) Yeah, yeah, I think it's a great way of expressing themselves. And they also have maybe a harder time spending that time getting into relationship and all of that ooey gooey stuff. And they're like, let's get to the work, you know. But if we have an awareness that I as an expressive am working with a relational collaborator, some of the work is getting into relationship. So now I feel more comfortable spending that time because I know that the work we're going to do after that is going to be greatly Brian (11:57) And correct me here if I'm wrong, because I'm just trying to make sure that we're understanding all speaking the same terminology here, but it sounds like the way you describe this, that expressives are not necessarily verbal expressives. Like you mentioned, someone who's more sketch note based or anything like that. So they may not feel comfortable speaking, but they're very comfortable with the concept of getting an idea out of their head quickly in one way, or Jessica Guistolise (12:26) Yes, exactly. It could be in visual form. think of like people who always have memes or GIFs at their fingertips. Like they're just ready to go and send out these their ideas into the world and not hold on to them tightly. know, they hold them on, hold on to them, Lucy, please, because they're coming out in the world. Brian (12:44) Hold on loosely, but don't let go. Awesome, I love that. Okay, and then was there another one? Jessica Guistolise (12:52) There is. So the last one is introspective. So an introspective collaborator, I dip my toe in introspective collaboration as well. Deep work is really, you love deep work. Spending time really processing, thinking through, chewing on an idea, tossing, playing with it a little bit yourself before beginning to share. It's the opportunity to do some research, do some brain writing, spend some time in ideation. And you might even feel comfortable having a conversation with one person rather than if you have a giant group of people sending them into breakouts to have individual conversations. sending out thoughts about what's going to happen before the meeting or the event so that they've got that time to themselves to say, here's what I'm thinking about this topic. before throwing them into a room with a whole bunch of people and expect them to just go. Brian (13:57) Right, right. Yeah, no, I mean, of these three, yeah, that one sounds very close to what I would identify with for sure. And yeah, I mean, I think one of the characteristics I would kind of try to relay that home to everybody is I love when a collaboration session spills over across days because I love having the ability to go home and sleep on it Jessica Guistolise (14:18) Yes. Brian (14:24) you know, when I'm walking my dog or getting ready in the morning and the shower or something that that's when the brilliant idea will strike is when my brain is actually distracted and thinking of something else. That's when I can really think about things. And I, I feel like I need that time to sort of let it percolate and kind of, you know, seep in a little bit before I can come back and really contribute. Jessica Guistolise (14:46) Totally. One of the things that I really appreciate that we do at Lucid. So that meeting that I was talking about where I walked out and I went, I provided zero value in that meeting. We've got an open board for that for after. And there's an expectation that if you have ideas afterwards that you have the opportunity to come back to it the next day or the day after that. It's not, okay, we collaborated, close this. That's it, we're done. but you actually get the chance to do some of that asynchronous follow on day, day after kind of collaboration. Brian (15:20) Love that. Well, and two, Scrum Masters out there, hear that, listen to that, right? Think about that from that kind of a meeting. This is just a normal meeting, right? But we sometimes can get so structured into the idea of a retrospective being only at this time and this confines, and we have our time boxes and everything else. But yeah, if we can have some spillover time as well, pre or post, right? Just having that ability Jessica Guistolise (15:30) Hm. Brian (15:49) let people think through and contribute after the fact, that can really deliver some great results and allow you to include all these different collaboration styles. So then relational, expressive, introspective, these are kind of the three styles that you guys highlighted in your talk. All right. So let's say I'm a Scrum Master and I might identify with one of these. How does that help me? How does that help me to do my work with my Jessica Guistolise (16:23) Yeah, fantastic. So Brian, you immediately recognize your own sort of tendencies or collaborative tendencies, collaboration styles. But if you think about those you work with, do think you could kind of identify what different styles other people you work with on a regular basis might have? Brian (16:43) Yeah, I think so. mean, most people who are listening to this know my boss. I would, it's kind of funny. If I was going to try to pin Mike Cohn down in one of these three. Gosh, you know what's funny is I'm not sure because he sort of has a blend of all three. Jessica Guistolise (17:08) Well, that's absolutely like I mentioned, I'm sort of I'm a relational with an introspective kind of toe in introspection. And so I think there's a lot of people who are a little bit of a mix. And so the easiest thing to way to find out is to ask, share what these styles are, and ask what find out what's going on with your team, if they were to self identify, because it's easier to self identify, obviously, And then now you've got a great understanding of what's going on with the rest of your group. It was so fascinating to me when we did the conference talk, we had everybody self -identify and then collect in your self -identified group. So all of the expressives were together, all of the relationals were together and all of the introspectives were together. And then we had them do some work together and they were describing what helps them. to collaborate best. And the expressives were loud and they were right away writing all over the sheets of paper that we had for them. were, you I mean, it was like, it was a boisterous part of the room. The relationals immediately, hi, I don't think we've met yet. Let's get to know one another very quickly. You know, what do you love about your collaboration style? I mean, they really spent that time getting to know one another. And they were kind of coming to consensus before, Brian (18:23) Hahaha Jessica Guistolise (18:35) before writing anything on their page, because they were making sure that everyone was relating and getting their voice in. The introspectives, quiet, quiet, quiet part of the room, and they all had sticky notes and they were writing their ideas and then they were putting the ideas next to each other that might be similar, and then they started having conversations. So as a scrum master, as a facilitator, to know what your team's style is, is again, going to help you create the experience of inviting each one of those styles to collaborate in ways that best work for them. I mentioned introspectives, send out the agenda beforehand, make sure that they know the topics, have some silent brain writing time, because expressives are going to start putting their stickies out anyway, but allow that quiet moment to be there to accommodate those styles. You may put them into breakout rooms or have them meet with one other person. Especially if you've got like a larger collaborative of that, where you've got a bunch of people together, one -on -one first, then maybe four -on -one, know, one, two, four -all kinds of experiences are going to help those introspectives be able to bring their voice forward. You'll also have a moment of connection. Nobody likes icebreakers, so I think of them more as like relationship activities. If we're going to have a relationship activity, that feels way better than an icebreaker. Brian (19:52) Ha Jessica Guistolise (20:00) And spending time really allowing for, how are we feeling today? Let's bring some awareness to what's going on collectively as a group. All of that is helpful because then your relations, they've gotten their relationship moment. They feel connected to the people that they're working with, which means they're going to feel connected to the work that they're doing. So that connection before content allows the contact to be significantly improved. and expressives, give them the space to do it. mean, really allow them to be that voice in the room that jumps in and gets everyone excited. They bring people along. So building your events in ways that allow people to bring, be their best collaborative self is so helpful. The other thing that I think is really helpful trying to make sure you've got diversity of collaboration styles on your team. I'm a huge proponent of DEI and diversity and bringing together wildly different perspectives and ideas. And I just think that all of these interesting and complicated human problems that we're trying to solve need interesting, complicated humans and interesting, complicated teams. Brian (21:20) Hahaha Jessica Guistolise (21:22) And if you've only got introspectives on your team, there's going to be these relation, relationship type thoughts that are going to be missed and same with expressives. And so I think as you're building out a team, or if you have a team, just thinking about like, Ooh, do we have a diversity of collaboration on our team? And am I making sure that each one of those styles are cared Brian (21:44) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like we, I know we talked about this quite a bit on our podcast. know, there are different neuro types, people think in different ways, people have different preferences and you're absolutely right. You know, what, what we need is people who see things from different angles. you know, if we all see things from the same perspective, then we're, don't have anything really to share. We all can just observe one thing and give our own perspective on it. But how much better is it if you have someone who's standing on the opposite side and says, wait a minute. There's actually another dimension to this that you guys aren't really able to see and bringing that to the table can make all the difference in the Jessica Guistolise (22:20) complete difference. And isn't it more fun? Everybody thought the same things that I did. Boy, the whole, it would just be boring. And it's a delight to see the ways in which other people see things and to go wander over and see their perspective. like you said, it brings more dimension to the things that we're working on. Brian (22:45) Yeah, and at the end of the day, we need some of that conflict. It's not all conflict is bad conflict, If I have a different viewpoint than you, then you're challenging my way of thinking and I'm challenging yours. And hopefully we end up at an endpoint that is a better endpoint because it's been challenged, because we haven't just accepted as rote what somebody thought. Jessica Guistolise (23:14) Absolutely. I'm totally agree. I think healthy conflict, healthy conflict and collaboration is, is helpful. I collab. I should have said in that moment, I don't collaborate like this. Can we get to know one another? And I probably would have met some folks in the organization that I, because it was, it was not people that I spend a lot of time with on a regular basis, I would have met people across the organization that I would have. Brian (23:28) Right. Jessica Guistolise (23:43) would have liked a number. Brian (23:45) Well, and I think it's amazing how powerful it is to have a name for something and be able to just kind of say, hey, this is what this means and this is what this is behind this. And if I know I am relational, then I know kind of what I need to be successful. I know what's gonna set me off. I know what's gonna be difficult for me. And I have a much higher likelihood of being productive in that kind of environment because I'm aware of those sorts of things. I think I know the way that you guys started was to try to get people to understand a little bit about where they were first before thinking about others. And I think that that was a genius way to approach that because I think you're right. You kind of know where you are on the map a little So yeah, we've talked about this a little bit when I kind of did my research and work on neurodiversity and different neuro types and stuff and how these different things relate. yeah, it's just like we were saying, right? You need different perspectives. You need different kind of approaches to problems if you're going to solve them and think in different ways when you approach issues. All right. If we understand there's relational, there's expressive, there's introspective, we kind of can pin where we are. We're starting to see where others are. How do I put this into practice? If I'm designing a retrospective, let's just say, and I know my team is made up of, I got five people, I got, you know, of three introspectives and two relationals on my team and no expressives. How's that gonna change how I prepare my Jessica Guistolise (25:36) yeah. Well, probably don't just have them start talking about it. I mean, so, you know, as you're thinking through the as you're thinking through the five stages of a retrospective, what you might do is like, okay, so if I'm going to open the retrospective, how might I open the retrospective in a way that's going to cater to my relational? That's an easy one to grab on to, right? Let's let's talk about Brian (25:41) No open discussion, Jessica Guistolise (26:04) What's something interesting that's in your wallet or your purse or just something that's gonna help the group begin to be in relationship with one another? You'll wanna have some quiet time. Allow them to spend some time on their own thinking about what happened over the course of the last week before you even start throwing things up. You might have just a five minute, close your eyes walk yourself through the last sprint and think about what were the big things that happened before even going into the writing. There's some really nice introspective time to chew on what happened, what's going on. You may put them, like I said, in small groups of two or three instead of having them come together to try to come up with experiments as a whole wide group right off the bat. So when When you figure out, here's the things that we want, here's the topics, here's what the data is telling us, and here's what we want to run an experiment on. Again, allow for that time to go back and really chew on. So we have this thing that we want to work on in the next iteration. So I'm going to spend some time thinking about maybe 10 different ways that we might experiment on that instead of having the whole group have that conversation right off the bat. So there's a whole bunch of different things you could do. to kind of unlock the collaboration in all of your team members. Brian (27:37) Yeah. Yeah. We were talking a little bit before our podcast about how we're music nuts and, you know, really get into that world. you know, the ideas crossed my mind. It's sort of like, you know, when you think about composing music or you think about a piece of music, right? If everything wasn't a major key, that would get boring. You know, we like to have minor keys on occasion or sometimes augments. augmented keys or different time signatures and different rhythms and things that kind of come to play in a piece of music. And sometimes we'll even shift those in the course of a single song. So if you think about a retrospective kind of in that or a facilitation session even larger than a retrospective, but just any facilitation session, right? You don't want it to get boring. You don't want to just cater to one thing. You want to be able to have some variety and that makes it interesting that keeps people's attention. Jessica Guistolise (28:32) Please. It does. mean, think about just even how you might shift things up in a daily scrum. Every day come to it, okay, so today we're gonna do an expressive scrum. Warn your introspectives that that's coming. Today we're gonna do a relational scrum, daily scrum. Think about how you might add these elements into your planning session, because that's a deeply collaborative session, and you wanna make sure that there's space for each one of your collaborative. collaboration style team members to have the ability to you I think everybody would be surprised how much more information comes when we feel comfortable collaborating in these different styles and There's edges in each of us right so helping to kind of Walk those edges I've I have been working really hard on trying to be more expressive I asked expressives. How do you do that? And really a lot of it is I don't hold my expresses, the things that I express tightly. They're just ideas and I'm willing to just throw them out. And so for me, that's an edge for me that I can walk up to. And so you can help your team members because they're not always gonna be on a team that has an understanding all of these styles exist. Although as a team member, I might say, hey, let's all talk about our collaboration styles real quick as a part of our working agreement. But you may find yourself on a team that doesn't have that same understanding of the collaboration styles. And so if you work on kind of moving that edge further and further, you're stepping into it a bit, then you're going to be more comfortable collaborating in multitudes of environments. And ladies and gentlemen, and all of those in between, We want to hear your voice. so doing the self work in some of that I think is also really important. Brian (30:37) Absolutely, yeah, I couldn't agree more. Well, I can't thank you enough, Jessica. Thank you for taking time out and coming in and explaining this to us. It's just, one of the joys of getting to do this kind of thing that I get to have these kinds of conversations with the Agile community and different members of our community. So thank you for making time and sharing your wisdom on this with everyone. Jessica Guistolise (31:00) Yeah, thanks, Brian. This has been an absolutely delightful conversation. And if people want more information on the collaboration styles, there is a report out there. And with the report, there is also a quiz you could take that says, wait a minute, what is my collaboration style? And you could have your whole team take the collaboration style quiz. And then you'd really have an understanding of where is everybody at? And how can we make sure that their voice is in the system? Brian (31:22) That's an awesome suggestion. We'll definitely put that in our show notes, too. So we'll make sure everyone can just find that in our show notes and not have to hunt for it or anything. But that's an awesome suggestion. Well, again, thanks, Jessica. I appreciate you coming on and speaking with us. Jessica Guistolise (31:39) Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's been a delight.

Join Brian and Bernie Maloney as they explore the transformative power of mental models, emphasizing the shift from a mechanistic to an organic mindset in Agile organizations. Overview In this episode, Brian and Bernie Maloney discuss the profound impact of mental models on organizational culture. Bernie delves into how our beliefs and assumptions shape our thinking and behavior, particularly within Agile environments. He discusses the importance of transitioning from a mechanistic to an organic mindset, focusing on problem-solving rather than merely delivering solutions. The conversation also highlights the role of psychological safety in fostering a culture of experimentation and learning. Bernie shares valuable resources, including Amy Edmondson's 'The Right Kind of Wrong,' to further explore these concepts. Tune in for insightful strategies for enhancing your organization's agility and effectiveness. Listen Now to Discover: [1:03] - Brian welcomes Certified Scrum Trainer® and Principal at Power By Teams, Bernie Maloney, to the show. [2:15] - Bernie delves into the concept of mental models, sharing the origins of his philosophy of "making new mistakes" developed during his time at Hewlett Packard. [5:55] - Bernie illustrates the power of mental models and belief by sharing a compelling example that brings these concepts to life. [13:46] - Join us for a Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training, where a year of coaching and development with Mike Cohn, Brian, and the Agile Mentors Community of Agile leaders is included with your training. [14:39] - Bernie discusses how applying mental models can enhance the effectiveness of Agile transformations, creating a naturally adaptive and innovative climate. [18:12] - Bernie offers language as a powerful tool to support the shift to a new Mental Model. [23:30] - Bernie demonstrates the use of mental models for product owners through the Mobius Loop, providing actionable guidance and examples [26:27] - Brian shares a big thank you to Bernie for joining him on the show. [26:59] - If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend, and like and subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast so you never miss a new episode. [27:27] - If you’d like to continue this discussion, join the Agile Mentors Community. You get a year of free membership to that site by taking any class with Mountain Goat Software, such as CSM, CSPO, or Mike Cohn’s Better User Stories Course. We'd love to see you in one of Mountain Goat Software's classes. You can find the schedule here. References and resources mentioned in the show: Bernie Maloney Power By Teams Mobius Loop The Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well by Amy Edmondson Agile Teams Learn From Spikes: Time Boxed Research Activities by Mike Cohn Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification Mike Cohn’s Better User Stories Course Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Bernie Maloney is an Agile leadership coach and international speaker, leverages his 25 years of engineering and leadership experience to help teams and organizations unlock their full potential. Known for his engaging workshops and impactful coaching, Bernie believes in making performance breakthroughs both achievable and enjoyable. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We are back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I am with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have a very special guest with me. I have Mr. Bernie Maloney with me. Welcome in, Bernie. I am. Bernie Maloney (00:14) Thanks, Brian. Happy to be here. Brian (00:16) Great. I'm so excited to have Bernie here. Bernie and I have touched base for years over conferences. We've run into each other and had chats and shared our shared passion for Hawaii and other things. But Bernie was speaking at the recent conference and we've gotten into some conversations. I wanted him to come on because I wanted him to, first of all, if you're not familiar with Bernie, sorry, I see, I just want to jump right into it. If you're not familiar with Bernie, Bernie is a CST. He works at a company called Powered by Teams. He teaches classes, Scrum Master product owner classes and leadership classes and other things as well. But he is a principal at Powered by Teams. So just wanted to give you the basics there before we dive into anything. But the topic that we started to talk about that just as a jumping off place for us is a topic. the topic of mental models. So Bernie, why don't you explain to everyone how you define that, mental models. Bernie Maloney (01:23) So, Brian, this is a great topic. I find myself talking about it all the time. And y 'all, I warned Brian, like, he can press play on this, and it might be 15 minutes before he gets a word in edgewise here. It touches on mindset. It touches on a lot of topics. My talk that Brian was referencing at the recent Scrum gathering in New Orleans was make new mistakes, leadership lessons from an Agile success. which goes back to where I really kind of cut my teeth in Agile at Hewlett Packard. See, I'm a mechanical engineer by training. And I cut my teeth in Agile in the consumer PC division at HP about, this is scary to say y 'all, okay, about 27 years ago starting at this point. And some of the fun stuff, it was a bang up enterprise. It was the fastest business in HP's history to hit a billion dollars. And it was just... Brian (02:05) Yeah. Bernie Maloney (02:18) a great proving ground. We had hardware, we had software, we had distributed teams where volume manufacturing was in Asia, engineering was here where I am in Silicon Valley. Go -to -market for Europe was in Grenoble, France. We had high volume. Some of our products had 100 ,000 units in a single model run, with like 200 models in Europe on a quarterly basis at times. So high volume, high mix, tight margins from a business perspective. A lot of technology products want to have 20 % to 30 % gross margins. That's before you start taking off deductions like expenses and salaries and things like that. On a good day, we had 8 % gross margins for Christmas products, maybe 2 % gross margins. We used to refer to it as we were shipping rotting bananas. And like I said, I was there. When I started, we were shipping six products a quarter. We grew to 20. By the time I left after eight years, we were doing 200 products a quarter in Europe alone. Brian (03:04) Ha ha. Bernie Maloney (03:16) hardware, software, distributed teams, high volume, high mix. And we did all that with weekly iterations of a plan. At one point in my career, I was tactically responsible for the delivery of 2 % of HP's top line revenue with zero direct reports. And part of the secret sauce of success in that organization was really that mental model of make new mistakes. So that's where the talk title comes from. And in fact, makenewmistakes .com will point to poweredbyteams .com because I own that domain too. But that mental model really helped the organization thrive and not just survive. We went from like a number one to a number five share. Sorry, from a number five to a number one the other way around. Because the founding executives recognized that in that tide of a market, mistakes were probably going to happen. And so what they did is they established the psychological safety. Wow, look, there's another great topic. Make new mistakes. You knew that if it was an honest mistake, it would be forgiven. Just don't make it again. Get the lesson is one of the things that they said. I can even tell you the story about the weekend I blew a million dollars of HP's money and I was forgiven, but you'll have to come to a conference talk for that. So that was just like a great experience. And... Brian (04:32) Wow. Bernie Maloney (04:39) After that experience, I went on to TVs. Another part of my background is I shipped the very first internet connected TVs. Look it up, the Media Smart 3760 from HP. It shipped even before Apple TV. It bombed. Okay, it was way ahead of its time. But I recognized that that had been such a joyride. And then I recognized some other stuff that really gets into the psychological, the mental aspects of leadership, high performing teams. And I could, Brian, I could talk about that too, but okay. But that kind of got me to recognize that with those skills, the success that I had experienced at HP could probably be replicated. That's kind of been the path that I've been on for the past 15 years is really helping organizations go along that path. So mental models can be really big. Let me give everybody here an example. And so Brian, I'm going to speak to you as a way of illustrating mental models. So imagine you are physically where you are right now. Brian (05:24) Yeah. Bernie Maloney (05:37) but it is 150 years ago, okay? Imagine you're physically where you are right now, but it's 150 years ago. Now, Brian, let me ask you, can man fly? Brian (05:47) boy, you're testing my history knowledge. Bernie Maloney (05:52) Okay, make it 200 years ago, okay? That makes it easier. Okay, cool. Great, now fast forward to the present. Brian, let me ask you, can man fly? Brian (05:54) No, yeah, no. Yes. Bernie Maloney (06:02) What changed? Nothing about the laws of physical reality. It was just your mental model of what for man to fly means. That's the power of belief, okay? And belief limits a whole bunch of stuff in the way that people behave. So you'll hear Agilent talk all the time about, this is all about changing mindset. I'm probably, Brian, gonna give your listeners some ways of. Brian (06:06) invention. Bernie Maloney (06:30) changing mindset as we go through this, but that's going to illustrate the power of mental models. Now, a big one that I like to use that's specific to Agile comes from Gabby Benefield. She's an Agilist out of the UK, and it's called the Mobius Loop. And I think she's got the domain mobiusloop .com. So everybody can imagine a Mobius Loop. Okay. And what I really like about this model for her... Brian (06:32) Sure, yeah, please. Yeah. Bernie Maloney (06:56) i s the right -hand half is what a lot of organizations think Agile is. Build, measure, learn, build, measure, learn. The whole idea of the build trap that we talk about in Agile. It's all about the delivery of a solution. Okay? But the left -hand half is all about the discovery of the problem. Okay? And the discovery of the customer. And that's a part of Agile too that most organizations overlook. So you got to ask why. And it comes down to kind of mental models. So when I was at Persistent, if you go look me up on LinkedIn, you'll find some of my employment history. I was at Persistent for a while. They had a really good mental model. And it's something I still use when I go into a client. And they would talk about there's kind of three eras of a company culture. And so culture is really the environment that an organization lives within. And there's an era. where cultures were formed before the internet. So things like finance and government and mining and manufacturing and oil and gas field developed. I mean, I've had clients in all of these areas. And in that sort of an environment, okay, it was, well, an era. One of the things I'll ask, and Brian, I'll kind of like let you represent the audience. Would you say in general, the people that you work with, the markets that they serve, Are they moving faster and all up into a thumbs up, slower, thumbs down, or about the same, thumbs sideways? Are the markets moving faster, slower, or about the same as they were, say, five or 10 years ago? Brian (08:32) I think everything's moving faster, yeah. Bernie Maloney (08:34) Cool. Okay. Now, how about the technology that your clients use to solve problems for that market? You know, moving faster, thumbs up, slower, thumbs down, or about the same as it was, say, five or 10 years ago. Faster. Yeah, cool. Okay. Now, when things are moving faster, thumbs up for yes, thumbs down for no. Do they always move in a straight line? Brian (08:46) No, faster. No, not always. Bernie Maloney (08:56) Okay, cool. So now things are moving faster, but they're not moving in a straight line. So let me ask you, do most organizations try and plan and predict? Is it possible for you to plan and predict when things are moving faster and they're not moving in a straight line? Is it easier or harder to plan and predict? Brian (09:19) I think it's definitely harder. Bernie Maloney (09:21) Yeah, but organizations are trying to do that, aren't they? And it's because their mental model is as a machine. So organizations born before the internet have a mental model of the entire organizational system being a machine, the industrial age, which you can plan and predict. They treat people like cogs in a machine. In fact, the thing that us Agilists will say is, when you say resources, did you mean people? See, that's... Brian (09:35) Yeah. Bernie Maloney (09:50) That's kind of now we're starting to get into some of the culture aspects of this because language actually forms culture. And so you'll hear Angela say, did you mean people? Like when that whole word of resources comes up. But organizations born before the internet, they've got one culture. Okay, they were born in an era of plan and predict. They've got a mental model of the system being a machine. And your listeners would probably agree most of them struggle with Agile. Okay, now there's another era born in the internet but not the cloud. So some examples like here in Silicon Valley, Cisco, PayPal, okay, lots of us have had exposure to them and lots of us recognize they still struggle with agile because agile wasn't really fully formed and articulated. Then there are organizations that were born in the cloud and so places like Striper Square and I use payments because I've had... clients in finance across all three of these eras. So Stripe or Square, they were born in the cloud where things were almost natively agile because the Agile Manifesto had been published by that point. They just inherently get agile. So these mental models of your organizational system being a machine get reflected in the language. So things like people or resources, it turns them into objects. It enables something I've heard called pencil management. Wear them down to a nub, go get a new one. In fact, if you do the research on where the word resources was first applied to human beings, it might shock some people. So I don't talk about that openly. They'll have to find me privately. I'll be happy to point you out the reference. And once I do, it's like, ooh. But one of the jokes I'll crack. And this is one of the ways that you can start to shift the language. If people call you resources, because you know that turns you into an object, start calling them overhead. Brian (11:23) Yeah. Ha ha ha. Bernie Maloney (11:48) Okay, it can kind of make the difference there. Okay, so, but you know, if things are moving faster and they're harder to plan and predict, that mental model needs to shift. In fact, in agile, we talk about you need to move to sense and respond. When things are moving faster, it's kind of like Gretzky, skate to where the puck is going. You need to sense and respond to the situation. So a better mental model instead of a mechanism is an organism. Because think about organisms, like cut yourself, it heals, okay? It senses and responds. Or like a forest fire comes in, wipes things out, and nature always kind of fills things back in. Sense and respond. This gets reflected in the language. So Brian, do your clients talk about metrics? Brian (12:37) Of course, yes. Bernie Maloney (12:38) Okay, cool. So do they talk about efficiency? Brian (12:41) I would say a lot of businesses will talk about that. Yeah, sure. Bernie Maloney (12:44) Yeah, cool. That's the language of machines. Probably better language is diagnostics instead of metrics. That invokes some of the curiosity. And probably instead of efficiency is effectiveness. One of the things I'll say is scrum is not efficient. It's not about utilization of capacity. It's about the production of value, which is all about effectiveness. See, efficiency or effective. Do you go to your doctor for an efficient treatment? or ineffective treatment, Brian. Brian (13:16) Effective, hopefully. Bernie Maloney (13:17) Awesome. Do you go for blood metrics or blood diagnostics? Brian (13:21) Yeah, diagnostics for sure. Bernie Maloney (13:23) Yeah, so now you're starting to get some hints about how you can start to shift the mental model. What you're really doing with Agile, y 'all, is you're shifting the culture, and culture is hard because it's not visible. The tools, the processes, the practices that folks like Brian and I will teach and coach, they're super visible, they're super valuable, but they're often not enough to start to change things. So, Brian, would you say most of your listeners are familiar? familiar with the language of Tuchman of forming, storming, norming, and performing. Brian (13:56) I'd say there's probably a good percentage, yeah. Bernie Maloney (13:58) Cool. I actually like to draw a Satir curve. So Bruce Tuckman, Virginia Satir, they were contemporaries. They were both just researching human systems. So Virginia did a performance axis on the vertical and a time axis on the horizontal. And the way Virginia described it is you're kind of going along in a certain status quo. And so you're kind of along that baseline. And then a foreign element enters and some change. And then you descend into chaos. And you can't see it. like your performance goes down until you have a transformative idea and then through some practice and integration, you rise to a new status quo. This happens to people all the time when they introduce changes in their life like New Year's resolutions. I'm going to get fit and healthy this year. You know, it's a beach body time. And you start doing it and it's like, this is so hard. You're in chaos. And what human beings want to do is they want to go back to the way things were instead of moving through. OK, this happens when you introduce agile into your organization. You'll hear Agilist talk about this as the Agile antibodies. You introduce it, this is so hard, and people want to go back to the way things were instead of kind of moving through. So the tools, the processes, the practices, they're really good, but they're not powerful enough. You got to start changing the culture. Culture is like what we all swim in, but climate is something that you can start to affect. So climate is a little bit closer in to your team, and you can start talking about these mental models. Like when I was at TiVo, I was hired into TiVo to bring Agile in because I had shipped TVs, I knew about Agile. And I was hired in on, I think I can say this now because we're more than a decade past. Have you all ever streamed anything? Yeah, okay. So TiVo was working on that in like 2009, 2010. I got to see that stuff and I was like, really wish I had taken off for them. But that program... Brian (15:42) yeah. Bernie Maloney (15:54) disbanded, okay, and the culture kind of spread in the organization. And I knew that this was a possibility, so when I brought it in, I made sure I didn't just work with my team that was doing a Skunk Works project, where we were just kind of doing some internal development that we weren't, you know, or stealth is probably a better word these days. So a stealth program inside of TiVo that you couldn't talk about. I knew that... when Agile would spread, it would hit some of this resistance, these antibodies. And so I made a case for bringing in people from outside my team so that it was familiar. And when that program disbanded, it organically spread on the cloud side of TiVo because of some of this stuff. So within your own team, you can kind of create a climate. And then when you start to see results like that, that's going to start attracting kind of the rest of the culture that's there. But these mental models, like shifting from mechanism to organism can really help an organization recognize where their limiting beliefs are about how things go. And it's going to be reflected in language. So if you like dive into anthropology a little bit, you're going to recognize that it's really well established. You can change a culture by starting to change the language. And all of us, okay, if you're observing what's going on in Eastern Ukraine here in 2024, that's what's going on. with the Russian occupation, they're changing the language because that's going to change the culture. That's why they're doing stuff like that. So, and even language starts to shape the mental models that you've got. A good example of something like that was when European, you know, when European explorers is the language I'll use, came to the Americas, the natives didn't really have a language for ship. And so they saw these people coming in floating on the water. And that was the way that they could describe it. So even language kind of gets into a cultural sort of a thing. So these are techniques that you can put into your toolkit. Start shifting the language to start shifting the culture, which can kind of help with the mental models. When you got the mental models, that's where the language starts to come from. If you don't have the mental models, you're probably not going to have the language. And I encourage all the folks I work with, start shifting from the whole idea of mechanism to organism. Okay, Brian, was that 15 minutes? Did I go on for as long as I predicted I would? Brian (18:27) About 15 minutes. Yeah. No, but I think that's a good point. There's a thing that I'll talk about a lot of times in my classes where I would all say, you know, the waterfall paradigm is one that's based on manufacturing. And there's a false understanding of what we're doing as manufacturing and it's not. It's more research and development. So you have to kind of shift the process to be one that's more conducive. to research and development. So that's very much in line with what you're talking about here. I love that. Bernie Maloney (19:01) Yeah. Do you think people would appreciate some book references that can kind of like help you? Okay. So specifically on that whole ethos of experimentalism that you just touched on, Brian, I'm currently going through Amy Edmondson's The Right Kind of Wrong. Really good book. Now, Amy is well known because she helped establish psychological safety as a super important topic in organizations. Brian (19:07) absolutely. Absolutely. Bernie Maloney (19:30) So she was coupled, I think, with Project Aristotle at Google. And in this book, she unpacked some really interesting stuff. She talks about failure, and there's types of failures. There's basic, there's complex, and there's intelligent failures. OK, intelligent failures, they're just native to science. You know things are going to go wrong. You're going to have Thomas Edison, the I Found 1 ,000 Ways. to do a light bulb wrong, sort of. That's like intelligent failure. Basic failure, she breaks down into, let's see, neglect and inattention. And those are the things that you really want to start to squeeze out of a system. With that mental model of a mechanism, I would say a lot of, call it management, tends to think of a lot of failures as basic failures. And that's where blame starts to come into a system. Okay, so now we're back into psychological safety. Okay, where you want to establish, you know, that was an honest mistake. Hence the talk title of make new mistakes. Okay, so you can have processes and procedures that can kind of squeeze out some of those basic failures. Complex in the middle is really interesting to talk about. As I'm getting into the material, she unpacks... Now, complex failures are those chain of events, you know, Brian (20:30) Yeah. Yeah. Bernie Maloney (20:54) This thing and this thing and this thing all had to line up and go wrong at the same time for this catastrophic failure to go on. And in medicine, which is where her original research was, they talk about it as Swiss cheese. And she says, if you go into a lot of medical administrators' offices, you're going to find some model of Swiss cheese there. Because they talk about it's like all the holes have to line up for something to go sideways on you. So complex failures. It's a chain of events, a bunch of little things. And she points out that in the research, these often happen when you have an over -constrained system where there's no slack, where you're trying to operate with, get this, Brian, 100 % efficiency. You're trying to load everybody up. So that is just like, it's not just juice on psychological safety, but like, looking at the whole idea of intelligent failures that we want to encourage versus constraining out basic failures versus working to reduce those complex failures and not just thinking complex failures are basic failures, but they're systemic failures that then might be part of the system, might be part of the mental model that's going on that's there. So super juicy stuff. Brian (22:11) Yeah, yeah, that's really good stuff. I've always loved Amy's work and I feel, you know, silly calling her Amy. But Amy Edmondson's work has always been great. Yeah, Professor Edmondson. She, the work on psychological safety, I think was just amazing. And the examples she used in her research are amazing. And, you know, all the stuff with Project Aristotle. Bernie Maloney (22:20) Okay, Professor Edmondson, yeah. Brian (22:36) I love the concept of psychological. I mean, again, not to make this the topic of our podcast, but, you know, I love the idea that they, they, they found that psychological safety was, so foundational that nothing else mattered. That if you didn't have that, that not no matter what else you layered on top of it, it would not fix the problem that you didn't have psychological safety. Bernie Maloney (22:58) Yep. And that's one of the reasons why I say Agile is actually a social technology more than anything else. I mean, that's why it's people and people over processes and tools. This is really a social technology that we deal in. Brian (23:10) That's a great way to put it. I love that social technology. Awesome. I love that. Bernie Maloney (23:14) So kind of talking about Amy and psychological safety and kind of all these systems that we're talking about, another mental model that I like to give particularly my product owners, going back to that Mobius loop. and like on the right hand side is all about delivery, okay, that's where you give team solutions to build. That's what a lot of organizations do. Versus on the left hand side with discovery, it's all about problems to solve. So I like to encourage my clients to instead of just giving people solutions to build, give them problems to solve. Now, for product owners, if you imagine like an onion that's kind of stretched out left to right, so kind of an odd long little onion. Brian (23:41) Yeah. Bernie Maloney (23:58) and on the far right is your sprint. And then as you go to the left, you're at a release, and further out to the left, you're in roadmap, and way further out into the left, you're into these vague things like vision. So product owners kind of deal with this whole span of things. And in between, product and sprint goals start to make things a little bit more concrete. Okay, and... One of the things I'll do for my product owners is I'll take that Mobius loop and I'll overlay it on a planning onion like that and go, do you get to see how, like what we're talking about here, you're starting out way vague in discovery and you're getting way more concrete as you get into delivery and into the sprint. And really the job of Agile and Scrum is both. It's not just about turn the crank on the machine. In fact, I think it's unfortunate that there's a book title out there of twice. the work in half the time. I actually like to pitch this as more it's about twice the value with half the stress. Okay, now as you imagine that Mobius loop kind of overlaid, one of the things I'll unpack for folks is when you're way out in that vision area, there's a lot of uncertainty that's there, okay? And you're actually going to have to do discovery. You may have to run some experiments. Brian (24:58) Yeah. Bernie Maloney (25:24) Okay, and it's only as you get closer into delivery that you want to get closer to certainty. And really, that's kind of the job of a product owner is squeezing uncertainty out of the system. Initially through discovery of the problem to solve, who to solve it for, what the market is, but it's the job of the whole team in Agile to squeeze that uncertainty out of the system. Brian, I'm sure you've had folks like talk about spikes. You ever have people get wrapped around the axle about like including spikes in their product backlog? Brian (25:48) Yeah, for sure. yeah, for sure. Bernie Maloney (25:54) Cool, the way that I frame that up, okay, so here's a mental model. That's just technical uncertainty that you've uncovered. Great, okay, so now we've got to go squeeze that uncertainty out of the system. So stop getting wrapped around the axle on stuff like this. Just like stop trying to plan and predict things. Instead, kind of get into sense and respond on all of them. And there, I've kind of brought it around full circle for you, Brian, for where we started. Brian (26:09) Yeah, no. No, that's great. That's great stuff. And I love the fact that we can bring it back full circle. Well, this is fascinating. And like you said, we could press play and go on this for another half hour very easily. But we'll be respectful of people's time here and keep it to our normal time length. Bernie, I can't thank you enough for coming on. I really appreciate you sharing your experience with us. And... what you've learned over your years of working in this profession. Bernie Maloney (26:50) Thank you so much for asking me, Brian

Join Brian for the 100th episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast as he dives into the future of Agile with fan favorites Scott Dunn and Lance Dacy. Listen in as they explore the evolving role of AI, the continuous need for leadership innovation, and the Agile community's journey towards greater accountability and effectiveness. Overview In the 100th episode, our expert panel celebrates by examining the latest trends and enduring challenges in the Agile industry. They discuss the critical need for organizations to adapt and innovate, particularly through leadership and management strategies that foster high-performing teams. This episode is a deep dive into how embracing change and technological advancement can propel the Agile industry forward, ensuring that organizations not only survive but thrive in an ever-evolving business landscape. Listen Now to Discover: [1:10] - Join Brian in a special celebration of the 100th episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, featuring a look forward to future innovations in Agile! [1:43] - Brian kicks off the landmark 100th episode with a forward-looking panel on Agile and Scrum's future, featuring experts Scott Dunn and Lance Dacy. [4:01] - Listen in as Brian asks the panel to share their insights on emerging trends within Agile and Scrum, setting the stage for a thought-provoking conversation. [4:15] - Lance highlights key trends including solutions for scaling challenges, the integration of AI in Scrum, and innovations in leadership and management. [6:54] - Scott emphasizes the enduring impact of Agile and Scrum in driving organizational enhancements. [11:36] - Lance underscores the critical need for leadership and management to adopt innovative approaches and acknowledge generational changes to effectively engage and support their teams. [13:30] - Addressing the provocative statement that 'Agile is dead,' Brian explores its implications on the real-world demand for Agile compared to its perceived necessity. [14:50] - Brian, along with Scott and Lance, urges the Agile community to recognize its shortcomings and learning experiences, which they believe may be contributing to negative perceptions of Agile, and how the community could approach it differently. [24:10] - Brian encourages you to try out Goat Bot, Mountain Goat software’s Scrum & Agile AI tool. This free tool is trained to handle all your Agile and Scrum queries—start asking your questions today! [25:58] - The panel explores the impact of AI on enhancing agility in organizational practices in estimating, development, and so much more. [32:20] - Brian stresses the importance of using AI as a tool to support, not supplant, discussing ways it can improve rather than replace human efforts. [43:23] - Brian shares a big thank you to Scott and Lance for joining him on the 100th episode of the show. [43:44] - Brian thanks you, the listeners, for your support and shares his excitement for the future of the show, inviting you to send us your feedback or share your great ideas for episodes of the show. Just send us an email. [44:57] - We invite you to like and subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast. [45:16] - If you’d like to continue this discussion, join the Agile Mentors Community. You get a year of free membership into that site by taking any class with Mountain Goat Software, such as CSM, or CSPO, or Better User Stories Course. We also have Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® and Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner®, where we get right into the good stuff and have some deep discussions. We'd love to see you in one of Mountain Goat Software's classes, you can find the schedule here. References and resources mentioned in the show: Scott Dunn Lance Dacy Goat Bot Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Mike Cohn’s Better User Stories Course Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Scott Dunn is a Certified Enterprise Coach and Scrum Trainer with over 20 years of experience coaching and training companies like NASA, EMC/Dell Technologies, Yahoo!, Technicolor, and eBay to transition to an agile approach using Scrum. Lance Dacy is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant's heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Agile Mentors, welcome. This is our 100th episode. Can you believe it? We've been doing this for 100 episodes now. So first, before we even get into today's episode, I just wanna say huge, huge thank you to you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for giving us feedback. Thank you for giving us suggestions. We would not have made it to 100 without you, so. Huge thanks to you. And to celebrate, we're trying to do something different here for the 100th and not just let it go by and not mark this occasion. So what I wanted to do was to have some of our regulars, our favorites on together so that we could really kind of look ahead. So let me introduce our panel for today. First of all, I've got Mr. Scott done with us. So Scott, welcome. Scott Dunn (01:00) Thank you, Brian. Glad to be here. This is awesome. Congratulations. That's so cool. Brian (01:04) That, thank you, thank you, thank you very much. And then another favorite that we have on quite frequently is Lance Dacey is with us as well. Lance Dacy (01:13) Hey Brian, congratulations once again. I remember us just talking about this when you were starting out with podcasts and you look at 100. You do this every week, right? Is it a, has it been a hundred weeks? Wow. Brian (01:22) Yeah. Yeah, we do this every week. We missed a couple. Our listeners probably know there's been a couple of times in there we've taken some small breaks around holidays and other things. But yeah, this is going on just about every week since then. Lance Dacy (01:38) Well, congratulations. That's amazing. Brian (01:40) Thank you, thank you. Yeah, I'm amazed and as I said, very, very grateful. And it really hit home to me when I went to my first conference after doing this and people would come up and say, hey, I listen. That was really a cool moment. And I always tell people, hey, I'm speaking to other conferences, come and say hi. Come and say hi to me this year. So as I said, I wanted to have a panel so that we could talk about, we've been... Scott Dunn (01:40) Amazing. Brian (02:10) doing this for 100 episodes and lots has changed, lots have changed over the past year and a half, almost two years now that we've been doing this. We kicked off on, I think it was May 18th, 2022. So we're coming up on two years of doing this. And my thought was, what's gonna happen over the next 100 episodes? Like, where are we gonna be in the next two years? Where are we gonna be in the next five years? What kind of things are changing? What are we going to think about stuff over that time period? So I wanted to have a panel to kind of comment and discuss this with us and Where I wanted to start is maybe not where I think most people are going to think I'm going to go But I want to start with kind of the agile industry kind of the way things are going now for Coaches consultants scrum masters product owners So I'm gonna throw this as an open question and whichever of you wants to go first, go first. But what do you think we're seeing right now? What kind of trends are you seeing in that realm? And where do you think it's gonna, where do you think it's going? Scott Dunn (03:26) I nominate Lance to go first. Lance Dacy (03:28) Okay, here, obviously they're thinking about Scott. It looks like he's got something to say. Okay, well, that's a tough question because I think it still depends on the industry and the organization. It's all made up of people still. So there's still a lot of variables, I think, that affect the way that we do our jobs as transition coaches or business agility coaches or agile coaches, whatever you wanna call us. I think... Brian (03:29) Hahaha Lance Dacy (03:59) You know, I think there's still plenty of organizations out there that are struggling to bring their people together to deliver great products. And it's not because they don't want to, it's just lacking the skills and the frameworks and things to do that. So I still think that there's some organizations out there that benefit from saying, hey, let's just start from what we know and start doing this and then adapt to it as it changes. But I think a lot of times organizations, I think scaling is one of those big. problem child out there that people have kind of learned how to do this with smaller teams and smaller parts of the organization, but getting the whole organization to collaborate together. And of course, they look to another framework for that. And I'm kind of framework agnostic, especially when it comes to scaling, because I think at the end of the day, if you can't do it well in the small environment, it's going to be very difficult to do it well in the large environment. So the best thing you can do is kind of analyze your own situation. with like value stream mappings and cross-functional teams and things like that, and try to make sure that you're organizing yourselves and preventing waste as much as possible, I think is one of the big things. But I've also seen a kind of an uptick in, of course, these practices in agile being distributed over non-software domains. We've seen that for a long time, that's not necessarily a new thing, but I think it's gravitating more. to that. But I think the biggest one is really what we're talking about today is how is this AI stuff or what we have been talking about, how is that affecting this? And I think it's here quicker than we really think, or already here. And so trying to figure out how to handle, you know, data driven decision making based on that and, you know, using these tools to integrate. And then I think the last one that I would talk about is leadership and management. I think There's a specific type of environment and culture required for these people to thrive and collaborate and leadership and management has not seen a lot of innovation in the last 150 years. So, I find myself spending a lot of time coaching executives and mid-level managers on how to foster an environment that we can know how we practice psychological safety, empowering people and making it a great place to work, especially in this remote distributed environment. So I don't know if it's... All that's fairly new, but I think it's more prevalent than it was in the past. So I don't know, Scott, go ahead. Scott Dunn (06:28) No, that's good stuff. And I've only got 35 points I want to walk through. So one, I think we had all agreed that this idea of agile seems to be the common experience we're seeing as we're still coaching out there in organizations. They think that they've already done that. That's in the past. What's next? Or they settled in like, we're just hybrid. And it's not a. So help us move forward. It's like, no, we weren't done that. Here's this other thing. But the other things they're needing. And I like it, Lance. You kind of mentioned a couple of other words that people use, like organizational improvement, organizational chiasm, these ideas, like, hey, we're trying to get better. And I almost rather use those words because if I use a word they think they know, then we've kind of lost the fact that, you know, we're there. It strikes me, it's a little bit like marketing. They're just like, nope, marketing's done. And now we're doing this. And like, no, marketing's always learning, moving forward, growing. And I think we're gonna see this idea they realize, like, oh. Agile wasn't like a destination we check the boxes now they're on Scrum team. So that's one thing we're continuing to see. And the reason I'm saying that is the problems are still the same problems. We're talking earlier about capacity management, visibility, clear, you know, can execs see where we are in these larger initiatives? And the answer is like, no, they're still not doing those well. That speaks to whole org. And two quick stories on that is one, we're working with a company that decided like, yes, we're going to take this whole org approach. Lance Dacy (07:27) Yeah. Scott Dunn (07:45) And once they, within a few months, they'd gone from cycle time of 100 days down to 10. They had tripled their productivity. They went from one release every two weeks to seven in a day, right? But that's because the whole org is represented as they're rolling out, actually holistically. Let's contract that with a company we're just talking to this week. I was trying to describe getting a group together, it's representatives across other departments who have people who have authority, who have influence, finances, et cetera. they could not grasp the idea that there'd be a team working on improvement items across the org. It took several explanations, like I'm not talking at the team level. I'm talking about the team that's working across the org level. And what part of this comes back to is I think of the idea of I'm a manager. This is my own like awakening recently. If I'm a manager, let's say I'm the software engineering manager, I'm the director, my concern, this is my mistake earlier, my concern is not, are we doing ads all right? My concern is, is my boss getting what they want? If my boss wants clear reporting on where we're at the features, I don't care if it's Agile, waterfall hybrid doesn't matter. Did you show me a nice pretty report that gives them what they need? That's what I, that's what I do not wanna be called into her office on Friday about, right? So I keep mistaken, like they wanna do Agile, right? No, they wanna check the box and what they're accountable for and meet those expectations. And I know the higher up the or we go, the less they probably understand about Agile. At least that's the surveys that I'm running is like a... a 20, 30, 50% gap between what these people say their managers think they understand about Agile and what the people actually do in the work know that they understand Agile or not, which is always a large gap. A good example of that is remote. I'm not trying to kick a dead horse when it's down or whatever the saying is, but we've talked about remote a lot, but here's what we're seeing is, I think the basis of a lot of this return to office is simply, I don't know my people are working or not, I just need to see them. Brian (09:30) Hahaha. Scott Dunn (09:41) I can't tell, and I can't see them, I can't tell, and I get nervous, which really means I don't really have an understanding of fundamental aspects of how work is done using transparency, inspect and adapt, all that, right? And because I can't really, I don't really have mastery over that, I'm gonna need you in the office at least three times a week. Because I don't, I'm not really watching the work anyways, but at least I know you're showing up, and I'm accountable to make sure people are busy and working. That's, you know, I draw it down to its most rudimentary level. To me, it's a reflection of the capability of management. You mentioned that, Lance, about leadership. I think we're starting to see Lance Dacy (09:41) Right. Brian (09:52) Yeah. Scott Dunn (10:11) What we probably will see is this real cutting line of those who get it and trust their people and they work. And we've seen, you know, 10X, 100X on, on experts really let loose to do their best work and those who are simply like, you know, managed in that traditional sense and all the drawbacks and your loss of talent, all that. I think the companies will have to pay the price eventually. Thinking back to the time when people didn't really want to go ad drug because they thought it was a fad. And it didn't take but a few years, like, um, I could be wrong. Brian (10:35) Yep. Scott Dunn (10:38) maybe that is a thing we need to do, right? And then everyone gets on board, but there was a lot of kicking and screaming and doubting the early years. I think we're gonna see that with remote work is made like the proving ground of do you really work this way or not as a manager? Do you get this or not? So those are some of the trends I see. I still see a lot of people still in the very fundamentals because they think these things are already understood and known and we're moving on to something next. There is no next. I think the pace of change out there is if you're not working this way as an organization, you're losing ground already. Like... while they're listening to the podcast. Lance Dacy (11:08) It's like the remote, you know, what you were just saying is like the remote is the automated test for your operating system at work is like, if it works like that, then we're likely doing some really good things. But you know, I remember, um, I'm going to show my age here though, but prior to my technology career, I worked at FedEx and I was in leadership and management, managing their third largest hub here in Fort Worth, Texas, uh, the air hub, you know, and FedEx did a great job teaching leadership and management and all that kind of stuff. Brian (11:08) Yeah. Scott Dunn (11:14) Thank you. Lance Dacy (11:36) And I remember them focusing on the idea that you cannot lead and manage people currently how you are going to in the future because they were talking about how the new generation is coming on board and they just won't tolerate certain things. And I think you hit it on the head with that, Scott, that if these managers don't learn how to lead and manage with this newer generation, two or three removed from what I'm talking about. you're not going to have any employees because they will not tolerate it. They do not work that way. They work radically different. You know, I'm going to categorize money as a gen X person. And I'm going to say we were taught to be very individualistic, climb the corporate ladder, you know, keep your pain to yourself, just grin and bear it, fight through it, do the best you can and be autonomous and don't rely on a lot of people. And, you know, don't trust anybody. You know, the latchkey kids, we just were independent. We learned how to do it all. And that's not necessarily bad. We needed to be managed a different way than these people now. I, and I've got four kids, so I see it. It's like, they're not going to tolerate this stuff. So you hit it on the head with that leadership. I mean, coverage, a broad spectrum, but, um, Mike gave a talk in Oh nine. I'll never forget this. When I first went to the scrum gathering in Orlando and Oh nine, and he was on a panel and he said it really succinctly. He said, I hope we don't call it agile or scrum anymore. It's just the way that we work. Brian (12:36) Yeah. Lance Dacy (12:54) And he was referencing object oriented programming. You know, he said, we don't call it object oriented programming anymore, it's just programming, you know, object one. And so it's like, yeah, we're not going to, let's not have this debate. We want to build the highest business value things as early as possible with the least amount of costs who can argue that that's not the right way to run an organization. So let's not debate it. Let's not use the buzzwords. Let's just do it. Brian (13:01) Right. Scott Dunn (13:12) Yes. Brian (13:18) Yeah, I agree. And it's, you know, kind of back to what Scott said, too, there is a marketing issue here, right? There is this kind of idea of people are so saturated with the terms that they've experienced them and they feel like, hey, I know that I know what that is, I don't need to be I don't need to learn any more about that. And now I'm just kind of moving forward when they don't really. And that's what drives all the people out there that are saying Agile is dead and all the Agile is dead speakers and all that stuff. It's not dead. And if you listen to them, they don't say it's dead. They just say, people don't understand what it is. And so they're doing it wrong. I think there's kind of this interesting dynamic going on. Right, because on one hand, I think we're at a time when Scott Dunn (13:54) Mm-hmm. Brian (14:03) businesses could benefit the most from doing things like Agile because they're gonna get the most with less by doing these kinds of approaches. However, at the same time, we're hearing stories of entire Agile departments being let go in different organizations. And we're seeing people who struggle after coming through classes and stuff finding work as a scrum master, even though there's a demand. There's high demand still for these kinds of things. So there's sort of this dichotomy that's going on of, I think there's a slump going on in the agile demand when the need for it is high. And maybe that's a marketing, right. Maybe that's a marketing thing that we haven't done a good job, but I wanna propose one other thing here and I wanna get your guys take on this. Lance Dacy (14:51) than ever. Brian (15:02) The people who say Agile is dead and they say that, we shouldn't be doing this because we should call it something else. Because no one understands what it is anymore. And that's why they say it's dead. I have generally thought of those, and I think many of us sometimes fault the leadership a little bit in this to say, they didn't invest enough to understand it. They didn't really support it, right? Kind of that mentality. But I think that as an Agile community, that we need to own up. Like, I think we just need to step forward and say, you know what, we have not always done it right. And there's been plenty, you know, I talked about this in the Scrum Master class. There's plenty of Scrum Masters out there who think that the job of being a Scrum Master is to schedule meetings. And that is it. And... Scott Dunn (15:55) Oh. Brian (15:58) You know, those people, you can understand why a company would say, I don't need that person. I don't need a person to do that. And then all of a sudden they're letting go all of their Scrum Masters because they think that's what a Scrum Master is. So I think we have to own up a little bit to say, we're partly responsible for this, right? We're partly responsible for the bad impression that Agile has and we just gotta own it and say, yes, that's true, but that's because we've made mistakes as well and we're learning. Lance Dacy (16:17) Thank you. Brian (16:28) And now we know better, right? Now we know what we're supposed to do. But the pretense that we maybe came into it with, saying, hey, we know everything and we know how to do this stuff, was what caused the downfall, I think. What do you think? Scott Dunn (16:32) Hmm. Lance Dacy (16:44) It's like the overlay though of saying here, here's how you do it, right? I think what we got wrong or not necessarily wrong, just we didn't know any better at the time is, I've worked with 20 companies and this way work, let's try it. And then if it doesn't work, we'll adapt it. Cause I think it's always been about that. But you know, just like any approach, you know, the effectiveness of that approach depends a lot on how it's implemented, supported, adapted, taught. And I feel like what we should just start focusing on, you know, it's hard to put this in one term, Maybe it's just like helping and facilitating the creation of high performing teams. Like that's an unarguable thing that you would want to have. What's happening is the organizations either whether they misunderstand the role or have a bad experience in the past with it because you can't say their experience is invalid, right? Everybody has their different experience and opinion and what they went through. And I acknowledge that. But if you think of any professional sports teams, what's happening in the organizations in this world? Brian (17:20) Yeah. Lance Dacy (17:43) is they're getting rid of the coach of the team. And what we have to do is start recognizing what does the coach really do is trying to make the team high performing. You know, in professional sports, it's to score points and win the game, right? Well, kind of trying to do the same thing here, you would never get rid of the coaching position saying, well, all they do is watch film and tell the team what they're doing wrong. No, I mean, Andy Reid, you know, the Kansas City Chiefs, they won the Super Bowl, arguably the best football team in the world, if that's what you're using as a bar. And... Scott Dunn (17:46) Thank you. Brian (17:55) No. Scott Dunn (18:03) Thank you. Lance Dacy (18:12) And so they've arrived, they're the best. Do we get rid of Andy Reid? No, they need him even more because they get complacent and they get this idea that we don't need to change anything. And I see plenty of teams like that. It's like, no, the coach has one of the hardest jobs in the world is to tell the best performing team in the world they can get better. And the organization sometimes is the wet blanket and suffocating the environment for which that team can perform. Scott Dunn (18:16) Thank you. Lance Dacy (18:37) And I feel like, you know, instead of whether you want to call it a scrum master and agile codes or whatever, it's almost hard to use those terms. Some of these people anymore, because they'll just sit there and argue with you about it, but let's just say I'm trying to coach a high performing team and how can you argue with that, you know? Brian (18:50) Yeah. Yeah, I don't think you can. Scott, what do you think? Scott Dunn (18:53) If I was to ask you, well, if I was to ask both of you, do traditional management, whoever's making hiring decisions, do they know what an agile coach is and what's in telling them that they're doing well or not? And I would argue the most don't. And I think that's why we see a lot of people, I mean, in the end, people follow the money. I don't call people for work and their own self-interest. So if I can just update my LinkedIn profile and change it to agile coach. and whoever interviews me can't tell a difference. And that means I get a salary bump and of course, or let's just tell it like it is. And I think your listeners, I know you to be good with this. If I can just take a two day class and I'm gonna get a 25% salary increase, whether or not I get it or not, let's not even go there. Like I passed the test, I've got the certification. And unfortunately, I think that's more the dynamics of any given market is like, oh, it jumps to the solution, right? I just, you know. hire these scrum masters and I've done the agile thing. And even though any of us would say like, that's much bigger than that, this agile coaching involved is much more than the two day class that you need, et cetera. But think about that. I'd look at the people that I've trained, which, you know, is thousands. How many companies actually came back and said, we need help as an agile coach? 20, 22 dozen, right? That we actually went in and did real transformation work. So that's them not asking. That's them like, no, we got it. I think that simplicity of understanding Do I take a solution or do I go through a mindset change? Well, taking the solutions is going to be easier. So I'm going to jump to that rather than like reflect, like, I think we need to change. Change is hard, we agree. So back to the point of like, are we to blame? I see some of that market dynamics, but we do that with diets. We do that with the career. Also Greg, we wouldn't just grab something easier than actually go through the change. So I do agree with you, but I think it's a good point. How we try to re-message that when the world already thinks I understand it. I think we're watching this happen. When I look at companies in that space, Brian (20:30) Yep. Scott Dunn (20:42) They are using different terms and phrases. I think that moves us away from, maybe that's an aspect of like, where to blame. The other interesting thing, Lance, you mentioned about the coach and we don't fire the coach. And I think that's the best example I go to is, look, I'm a business owner of a professional sports team. I'm watching the dollars and I don't wanna have to pay Andy Reid millions, but I know it gets results. And I don't wanna coach for the offensive line. I don't wanna coach for defensive, but the results are clear whether that works or not. Brian (21:03) Yeah. Scott Dunn (21:08) The other thing that's interesting is you watch some of these coaches, like when it changed in college football with name engine, name engine and likeness in terms of attracting students for different reasons. Like I can make money during college. I don't have to hope I make the pros. And how that changed the game significantly to where some coaches like, forget it. I don't want to play this game where they're now empowered to make their own decisions on where they want to go and not just sit on the bench. If I want to sit on the bench, the transfer portal. So you're watching dynamics play out on what does that mean to bring that change in? I do think in the end, there's probably a simple split on, there's an organization that needs to continuously improve and look for ways to do that. Not as one-off projects of, hey, let's do an improvement project here. But as a feeder backlog, but simply there's always ways to improve and stuff's always coming in and we're always working that as a layer of the way the organization runs. When I see a chief agility officer, some of these other roles, I think they get it. I think manufacturing systems get that with like lean thinking and like, That's just what we do. We're always looking for that. I don't think software engineering. And this organization get it. And to be honest, my friends, you can tell me if I'm off. I don't know if they got sold that truth of this is always going. It is not put all your engineers on the teams, hire a scrum master, change someone's title of product owner and you're good, right? But I think that's what they kind of thought it was. And then they're done, but that's a team level. It's not organization level and it just sits there. So I guess there is someone with the blame because maybe that's what they were taught and not the bigger picture as well. Brian (22:25) Yeah. Yeah. Scott Dunn (22:35) Perhaps. Lance Dacy (22:36) The rebranding is interesting the way you said that. I don't, you know, let's call it something other than Agilent or Scrum, whatever you were talking about. And that's what organizations do when things are broken, is they reorg. We're gonna just change the name of it. It's like following a diet plan and going, well, I don't like that it doesn't let me have sugar, so I'm just gonna call it something different. The constraint. Brian (22:48) Hmm. Yep, you're right. Scott Dunn (22:50) Yes, yes Lance Dacy (23:02) You know, the constraint is there to make you better. And I think that's what a lot of people don't get about, let's say the Scrum framework has a lot of constraints built in not to make it harder to do your work. And I will argue it's harder. Like I tell people all the time, this is a harder way to work. It's not an easier way because it requires all of us to come together. But you just said it so eloquently, Scott, I just thought about that, that they just, who cares what we call it. Brian (23:03) Yeah. Scott Dunn (23:16) Yes, for sure. Lance Dacy (23:26) the organization and the leadership is stuck by saying that at their level, all they gotta do is call it something different and now it's solved. All I gotta do is change the org chart on a spreadsheet. And I can't tell you how many organizations I work with where I'll get a note and say, well, we're going through a reorg right now, so we gotta hold off on this training or do this or do that. It's like, well, you just went through one, I've worked with companies that have been their coach for a very long time. It's like, how many of these are we gonna go through? What's the purpose? When are we going to start realizing that it's not who reports to who, it's who's doing the work and what's the environment and culture we've created for them. And I feel like leadership and management, I don't even care if it's software. Like Scott, you're saying software, we really don't get it. I'm not sure any company really, there's a few out there that I would say their leadership and management's working really well, but the operating system for the culture is broken. And, you know, we know that for a long time as agile coaches, but it's like, there's some benefits to be gained even while that's happening. Brian (23:54) Yeah. Lance Dacy (24:24) that we can get some efficiencies going here and they're still better off. But we've hit that next level, the problems are more complex now. People and it's leadership and it's hard to change those because they've been doing it for 150 years this way. You know? Scott Dunn (24:34) Yes. Brian (24:34) Yeah. Scott Dunn (24:40) Yes. Yeah. Brian (24:41) Yeah. Well, we can't leave the episode without talking about AI, at least a little bit, because I know you brought that up already. But yeah, we definitely need to think about AI in the future. And yeah, yeah. Because I know we talked about that a little bit when we were meeting here before we started to record. But just curious. Scott Dunn (24:46) Hahaha! Lance Dacy (24:52) leaders and managers. Scott Dunn (24:54) Yes. Brian (25:06) Where do you think that whole thing is going? What I should say is, how do you think it's going to affect agility? That's the big question. Lance Dacy (25:17) You want me to go again first, Scott, or is he going to flip flop? Scott Dunn (25:20) No, no, we're not flip-flopping. It's you, man. You got it. I'm not changing. Brian (25:23) Hahaha Lance Dacy (25:23) Okay. He has some reason to do this. You know, I feel like I'm walking into a trap here. Um, the way he's going to trap me. Um, well, and you know, we were kind of talking before we even, you know, started the podcast, but I was mentioning, you know, project management wise, you know, that I believe AI can bring a lot to just helping teams become more efficient and productive just at a superficial level by simply Scott Dunn (25:28) With pretty... Brian (25:29) No, that's a wrong answer, Lance. Lance Dacy (25:50) if we're talking about Scrum, let's say, because a lot of us practice Scrum and we teach it, you think about a sprint planning exercise and how often it's very difficult to just simply explain how to come up with your capacity for the next two weeks, and based on your skillset and the work needing to be done, are we sure and confident that the work we've committed in this next one, two, three, or four week period that we can actually get it done? as a cross-functional team within the constraint of getting something usable to the end user. I think a lot of people forget that as well. So I feel like automating things like sprint planning where you can feed in a profile of all of your different skill sets and their capacity. We no longer languish over this big spreadsheet that I used to use back 10, 12 years ago. There's a lot of better ways to do it nowadays, but I think eventually you just say, based on this team and what they've given me, here's how much work we can do. feed in the work and say here's the best sequence of the work. You know, the harder part is fitting, you know, utilization is not really a topic I want to get into because I think it's always misunderstood. But once you account for all of the slack time that you need to, you want to be as utilized as possible. I think using AI to help figure out what's the best path. Like I do an exercise in my class where I give them 10 backlog items and based on the different skills, capacity, and things that need to be done, what's the best fit? Right, so in data science, we talk about fitting the model. Why not use AI to help us be the best sequencing of the work with the highest value and the best way to use our capacity? So automatic task assignment, just like we do with calendars now, where people can feed in the work they need to do and it'll create the best calendar fit to maximize your workload. Automated code is coming, you know, we're already here. You know, automated. backlog creation, chat bots, AI driven testing. I think all of that is, if not here already around the corner, that's gonna affect, hopefully in a good way, the way that teams do that. Now, we can have a whole nother topic of how that affects product and marketing, because I think the biggest issue we have is getting closer to the user, and understanding and having empathy for them, because too often we get caught up in our own world that we're just... Brian (28:03) Yep. Lance Dacy (28:10) languishing through trying to get the work out. Well, why are we doing the work is the real reason and what's the best way we can get that work to the user that solves their problem. So I'll pause there. There's a hundred things I could go in. I had 35 bullet points. I have about 110, because I love this stuff, AI and data science and all that stuff. But Scott, I'd like to hear you had some good ideas in our pre-talk as well. Scott Dunn (28:14) Thank you. Thank you. Well, I appreciate you inviting me out to the Lance Dacey podcast. I just want to say thank you for that. Right when he drank his water too. Brian (28:37) Hahaha! Weird. Lance Dacy (28:44) Right. I can't respond. Let me take a scotch now that I can respond. Brian (28:46) Yeah. Scott Dunn (28:49) Yeah, he just needs to take a drink. He's ready to go. I know I love it. I love all the ideas in the Thoughtsland. So on my particular view, when we look at the companies we're helping, so we're Atlassian partners, so I'm watching what they're doing. And I mentioned about the fact that it can automatically do like acceptance criteria, you can ask. Anything about, take all the, what we used to call it, the tribal knowledge. It's gonna do that for you. I don't need to track down who's Lucy whomever. I'm just gonna ask it and it knows. I can say, give me a spreadsheet of the people involved with this. What's the background of this project? Any of that tribal knowledge is like, it's already there now. All that data sitting in Confluence, and Jira, et cetera, ability to create tickets. I'm not going and manually creating tickets anymore. I just say, create a ticket for this thing. So all those add up to lots of saving, time savings, all the manual stuff, anything that you just already know. And everyone hates making the tickets and doing so. it's going to take care of that stuff for you automatically. On the dev and engineering side, I'm seeing a lot around what seems to be promising, impossible, certainly code reviews, like there's a template of things that you know you're checking for in code reviews, readiness to go to production. Can it create these models and things? I think we'll wait to see. We're talking about the case tools, but I believe it will because it's not limitless on when we're creating basic applications. If you take your simplest thing like hello world, you know. or a basic screen that's only got five things or a login screen, there's only so many permutations what's gonna happen with that. And it can learn those things and do those things. Software engineering is your biggest cost for software companies, these engineers, and they're hard to find, and you got time zone issues and all these other things. Everyone's looking for ways to reduce cost right now. We've got issues of just getting the talent and the source, and you got parts of these engineers' work that they do not wanna be doing anyways. So I think you're gonna see a lot of those things put pressure on figuring that stuff out. But between the computing power that we're talking about, how much can be handled by those graphics chips and how much information is out there, I think you're gonna see real wins of measurable significance that's gonna be proven out and certainly driven by the business leaders themselves trying to find where can we reduce the cost with the promise of some of these things. But those are some that I've already seen. We're definitely watching, as I mentioned, Brian (30:43) Yeah. Scott Dunn (31:12) on the Scrum developer side, just saying like, what's happening out there? And just take a look and see what we can do. But you're gonna start finding the simpler solutions that are gonna be chipped away at first. I think about the self-driving cars. I remember thinking there's no way the car can handle all these, you know, what felt like limitless situations. It really isn't. There's only so many things happening on the roads and they have slowly learned to do that. I think it's gonna be the same on the engineering side as well. Brian (31:31) Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I agree with both of you. I kind of think that I've taken a stance on it, like in the past, I just see it as a tool. It's a more advanced tool and it can do some things better than we can right now. There's some things that does really well and there's some things that right now it's not very good at. And I think it's important to try to understand that, right? I'm not gonna, you know. I think I've come to a place where I would never say, I don't think it could do X, Y, Z, because I think that eventually it can. I think that there's gonna be things it can do. And it's just a matter of time before it can do pretty much anything that we could be doing right now. Even right now, one of the things it's really, really bad at is having ideas. It doesn't really... Scott Dunn (32:10) Right. Brian (32:30) brainstorm or it can give you ways of, it can give you some little tidbits and things that you can build upon. But having used it to help try to write a blog post or anything like that, well, here's an experiment, right? Go to any, your favorite AI and ask it for 10 business ideas based on whatever, just, Uh... Lance Dacy (33:01) Of course it's not going to be good at that. Brian (33:03) Well, no, it'll give you, it'll give you 10. Scott Dunn (33:03) There's a creativity problem right there. We have a problem with creativity. I see it. Lance Dacy (33:07) I'm just kidding, bro. Brian (33:08) Yeah, it'll give you 10, but then go back and ask it and do a new chat, ask it again. Do a new chat, ask it a third time. Compare the answers you got across all three. And what you'll see is it's a lot of reused stuff, right? And the reason that it's recycling it, the reason it's reusing it is because this is a large language model. This is pulling from what it's been trained on, right? It doesn't invent a new thing itself. Lance Dacy (33:33) Mm-hmm. Create new you Brian (33:38) Right, now again, I'm not saying that it can't do that in the future, but what we have today is not a creative source in that way. It has to have the training data, even image, kind of AI image generators, that's built on what it's trained on. So you can't train it to a point to say, give me a picture of something that you haven't been trained on, right? weird picture that you have nothing in your database to go back to and use as a reference. It can't do that because it can't imagine, right? Yeah. Scott Dunn (34:18) Yes, that's the key. Lance Dacy (34:22) I was working with a company, they do ads, helping people come up with ads. So a lot of marketing spend money out there, right? You can tell it what kind of market you want to go into, what your competitors are doing, and very quickly feed it some images, feed it a few websites, and it'll give you 100 different ads with the words and everything you want to take on it, and already give it a conversion score. Like... Brian (34:44) Yeah. Lance Dacy (34:45) this ad should get this amount. And it was amazing to me, because I kind of struggle with that anyway, as a business owner, creatively coming up with content and ads and things like that. Like we were talking about earlier, I don't think on this podcast, but like being a co-pilot, having the AI stuff be a co-pilot where we kind of use it as a tool. I think eventually it'll be vice versa, ironically, where we'll be the co-pilots. I think... You like personalized user experience, creativity type things like, you know, how we do AB testing and stuff. Why not let AI do a lot of that user research and spin up the code very easily and figure out click patterns and things like that. Like I could say, I need nine different designs for this one screen. I mean, that used to take weeks, if not months for a designer to sit and attend, I'm not trying to bash their field. I love working with them. And. They're very creative people, but I feel like that's going to be the next step with this AI is, hey, give me nine options. And then that designer spends less time creatively. They get better ideas sometimes. Maybe some of them don't like that. I don't know. I'm not a creative person like that. But I can see that helping me in saying, hey, I don't have to hire these nine marketing people or five marketing people. I can just say, hey, let's look at those things. So I think that user, that creativity, Brian, is what you were hitting on imagining things. Brian (36:02) Yeah. Lance Dacy (36:03) Yeah, give it a lot of data can give you options and then you can take that and come up with the ideas as a human, but yeah, eventually that'll all be taken over too, I think it's all taken over the world. T1000, here we come. Brian (36:15) I think you've got to have one of the concepts that's out there is referring to these as agents and having multiple agents that will carry out a different task for you. And I really think that's when I think about the future of this kind of stuff and how this would affect a typical software development team, that's what I see. We have hierarchies in our organizations that exist. And those are essentially different layers of agents, right? Lance Dacy (36:23) Yeah. Brian (36:43) And I think that that's what we're going to see with software development teams and other things is we'll have a deployed network of agents and these, these AI agents will speak to each other and they'll, they'll refine what each other do. Uh, right. And it makes it easier for us, but again, we've got to have the idea to generate it, to start it, right? It just, it can't do that on its own right now. Lance Dacy (36:57) make it easier for us. Scott Dunn (37:03) Cheers. There's definitely a few things where I've just been popping in, where I had to do some legal docs and I just went there and had it write them. They were great. Just fill in the blanks. I was waiting to get content back from someone about a speaker, maybe somebody to go about Mark Kilby on remote and waiting and waiting. I'm like, dog gone. I just wouldn't ask, you know, chat GPT tell me about Mark Kilby, what he does and grab that. And it did a great job. Put that out there. I didn't need, I didn't need someone else to do it. I didn't need to wait for that. Brian (37:31) Yeah. Scott Dunn (37:34) And I don't even look for creative art anymore. I simply say, give me this art. I do it in Creative Cloud. Give me that, and then you know, good enough's good enough. I move, because it's like you're touching on the delays on some of the things that can be the killer of that. I think in the same way back in the day, Sudhnyalanshi said that you're dating yourself. And I remember when I was younger, we just had electricity for the first, I'm just kidding. But think about the first time when you're telling people like, no, the computer could do that for you. Lance Dacy (37:35) I'll see you later. Scott Dunn (38:02) I feel like we're becoming a lot of companies now like, no, AI could do that for you because they just don't know. If they're working a certain way and they've been in that company for 20 years, they think, no, my job is to create the new insurance for them and then send that, no, you don't have to do all that. So I think it'll be a redistribution because for all of us to see here right now and say, I've let go of thinking there's limits to this and that's where I've come to last few weeks. And we're, and we're. Lance Dacy (38:23) Yeah. Scott Dunn (38:26) Well, I'm going to, I feel, I feel we're cutting edge. Your audience may say differently, Brian, but I feel like we're cutting. I feel like we're cutting edge. And if we're just coming to realization, there's not limits. Think about your traditional worker who's not necessarily a knowledge worker, they're just in the office. They have a certain role. It's been not too different over the last 10, 20 years. They have no idea. I probably could cut that. You mentioned Lance about the ads and I was seeing something recently that said that those AI ads can cut, can cut the design time by 90%. Brian (38:31) Yeah Lance Dacy (38:46) Yeah. I would totally agree. I mean, I tried it and you just like you were saying, waiting on delays to me is my biggest thing. Like the best thing we can do for an organization is a value stream mapping of some sort and say, where does the cycle times killing us? There's so much low hanging fruit there that you could turn that into millions of dollars. And if we were just quit articulating words for that, let's just go do it. I feel like that's what AI is gonna do for us. We were talking about the, Mike's Brian (38:55) now. Lance Dacy (39:22) written a book on user stories and all that. So I'm going to use that as an example, as a product backlog entry point to getting work done. And I think we were talking about this before the podcast. And I feel like eventually we're just going to have a user say, as a user, I need to be able to pay by MasterCard on this screen and make sure the error message says this. And if it is successful, do that. And we won't need programmers. The computer will take that. And it'll write the code for that. It'll deploy the code and it'll say, what do you think about that? And so when you talk about this with agile, but I don't know what we're gonna have these, we're just gonna have users that can now have software created for them. Just like I can an ad, you know, it's like, I'm gonna have this design created, but I speak to it in natural language. Who cares if it's C++, COBOL or JavaScript or Python or whatever, it doesn't matter anymore. The computer will decide. and write it, deploy it, and manage it, and take all the complexity out of it. That's eventually where I think we're headed. Brian (40:23) OK, I just want to state this out there for all the listeners. Make sure you at the right person on this. It's Lance Dacey who said that all the programmers are losing their jobs. All right, just make sure you get it right. That's who said it. Uh. Lance Dacy (40:36) Oh my gosh. Scott Dunn (40:40) Here's to seeing you all again. Lance Dacy (40:41) Did I really say all? I just said it's going to be a disruptor. I thought, but you know, I'm sorry. So just like I think you like your next designers, I think software programmers are just highly creative and great people. So I mean, no, uh, you know, no, just be on the lookout, find a way to contribute to the fact that your job. Scott Dunn (40:45) I heard everyone within the year. I think that's what I heard. Brian (41:03) Yeah. No, I mean, all teasing aside, I think that the developers who are using it now within their IDEs and locked into some of these tools that are available to have AI help them with code, they're ahead of the game. And people who are afraid of that stuff and saying, no, I'm not going to keep that at arm's length, we've seen this movie a million times. Right. Scott Dunn (41:03) Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Lance Dacy (41:19) Yeah. Yeah, played out over and over. It's like, you know what, Brian, two weeks ago, I don't know what the time is, I'm just being facetious right now, but a while ago, I would say that not true about programs because I say you will always need somebody programming the computer, but I've since now changed my mind thinking because I'm highly agile and I learned in that space and I drink my own champagne. That's not really true because I can go into chat, you know, I took, I'm a programmer myself, so I mean, no disdain about that, I remember in school, the first program I had to write was C++ about calculating the Easter Sunday date for a given year. And I had to write code to do that. And I tested that with my son over my shoulder, saying, I'm going to show you what ChatGPT can do. I said, write me a C++ program that calculates Easter Sunday for a given year. And I swear to you, in under a minute, all the code was there. Now, it didn't run. I had to take it and put it into an IDE and compile it and do all that stuff. But it worked. And it took me months to do that. So all I'm trying to say is it can help us be better. The creative side will always be there, but can you imagine not having to worry about code anymore? And you do more of prompting the computer instead of coding. That's really what I mean. I don't want to say their jobs are going away. I just think their jobs are going to be changed. They're going to be the next disruptor, just like I was talking about real estate agents and banking and all of us have been disrupted. But we gotta welcome it. Take it. Brian (42:37) Yeah. Scott Dunn (42:40) Yes. Brian (42:49) Yep. Yeah, right. Welcome to the party, pal. Yeah, no, I agree. Lance Dacy (42:57) Right! Scott Dunn (42:59) I feel like saying at this point, we should let all the listeners know that actually this podcast is AI generated and these are not actual people here. Lance Dacy (43:07) I'm not really sure. Brian (43:10) Yeah, this was done with the approval of these three people, but written by written by AI agents. No, no, it's absolutely not. These are real human beings. Well, guys, this has been a really interesting discussion. And I know we've gone a little bit long. But hey, it's the hundredth episode. Come on, cut us some slack, right? We got three of us here. We obviously are going to kind of diverge a little bit. So Lance Dacy (43:15) Good. Brian (43:35) Thank you guys so much for coming on and helping us to celebrate this 100th episode. I really appreciate it. So just want, you know, Scott, thank you. Scott Dunn (43:45) Thank you. Brian (43:46) And Lance, thank you as well. Lance Dacy (43:48) I'm about to say Lance, no thanks. Thank you, Greg and Brian. I always love being on here and Scott, great to see you. It's been too long. Scott Dunn (43:49) Yeah. Hahaha. Good job. Brian (43:52) Right. Scott Dunn (43:56) These two, yes, really enjoyed it. Brian (43:57) Awesome.

Join Brian as he and Arlen Bankston unveil the secrets of Liquid Agility in this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. Dive into how this innovative framework revolutionizes product management and fills the gaps in traditional Agile methodologies Overview In this episode Brian and Arlen Bankston delve into the intricacies of Liquid Agility, a comprehensive framework designed to enhance agile practices with its unique focus on prioritization, preparation, and outcome evaluation. Arlen walks us through the JUICE framework, which categorizes work into distinct streams—innovation, iteration, and operation—and discusses strategies for refining projects and maximizing the impact of released features. Whether you're a product owner, Scrum practitioner, or Agile enthusiast, this episode offers valuable insights into making agile methodologies more effective and adaptable to your needs. Tune in to transform your approach to product management and Agile practices with cutting-edge insights from Liquid Agility. Listen Now to Discover: [1:15] - Brian welcomes Scrum veteran, Certified Scrum Trainer®, partner at Grow-Lean LLC, author of HR and the Agile Organization, and creator of Liquid Agility. [2:53] - Explore the concept of Liquid Agility with Arlen as he reveals how it enriches traditional Agile practices, adding layers of depth and adaptability to methodologies [4:59] - Arlen discusses how Liquid Agility transforms prioritization, making it simpler to categorize tasks and put user needs first for more effective project management. [7:45] - Brian sheds light on the elegant simplicity and balance that Liquid Agility brings to the table, streamlining processes without sacrificing depth. [10:05] - Arlen delves into the nuances of his prioritization framework, giving a detailed walkthrough of the JUICE framework and its strategic benefits. [14:30] - Deepen your understanding and work hands-on to practice and understand the craft of being a great product owner by taking a Certified Scrum Product Owner® (CSPO) or Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® with Mountain Goat Software. Plus, you’ll be automatically enrolled in Mike Cohn’s Agile Mentors Community, including twelve months of ongoing coaching and support. Find a complete list of our upcoming classes on the Mountain Goat Software's Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule. [24:55] - Arlen outlines effective strategies for teams to evaluate and select the tools that best align with their specific needs and goals. [27:59] - Arlen explains the essentials of readiness within the dynamic Liquid Agility framework, highlighting what true preparedness looks like in an Agile context. [31:30] - Brian shares a big thank you to Arlen for joining him on the show. [33:39] - If you’d like to continue this discussion, join the Agile Mentors Community. You get a year of free membership into that site by taking any class with Mountain Goat Software, such as CSM or CSPO. We also have Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® and Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner®, where we get right into the good stuff and have some deep discussions. We'd love to see you in one of Mountain Goat Software's classes. You can find the schedule here. [34:12] - If you liked the episode, share with any product owner you think might benefit from the discussion today, too! [34:30] - We invite you to subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast. Do you have feedback or a great idea for an episode of the show? Great! Send us an email. [34:46] - Catch Brian live and in person, and hear him speak at the upcoming 2024 Global Scrum Gathering in New Orleans and the Agile 2024 Conference in Dallas. References and resources mentioned in the show: Arlen Bankston Grow-Lean, LLC HR and the Agile Organization by Arlen Bankston Liquid Agility #3: What Makes a Great Product Owner? With Lance Dacy #14: What does it mean to be Product-Centric? With Scott Dunn #50: Exploring the Roles of Scrum Master and Product Owner with Lance Dacy Certified Scrum Product Owner® Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Mountain Goat Software Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast 2024 Global Scrum Gathering Agile2024 Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Arlen Bankston is one of the very first Certified Scrum Trainers®, a Scrum veteran, partner at Grow-Lean LLC, author of HR and the Agile Organization, and creator of Liquid Agility. Known for his thought leadership and dynamic, entertaining, and practical training style, Arlen has trained and mentored thousands of ScrumMasters, Product Owners, team members and executives.

You've decided to take a Scrum certification class. Now the question is, which one? If you are looking for something like Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner, there are so many options to choose from that it can be overwhelming. All of them should result in certification and price is certainly a concern. But there are a number of other factors to consider when trying to find the Scrum training that is right for you. When you take a certification class, whether its focus is on Scrum, Lean, Kanban, Project Management, whatever… you are investing in yourself and your future. In this podcast, Vic Bonacci and I talk through some of the key things you should consider when selecting a certification course. You are spending your time and money to obtain knowledge and validation (through certification) that you have a certain degree of expertise. Choose wisely… it's your future. Contacting Vic LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vbonacci/ AgileCoffee Podcast: https://agilecoffee.com Online Scrum Class: https://onlinescrumclass.com Contacting Dave Linktree: https://linktr.ee/mrsungo Dave's Classes listed on Scrum Alliance site: https://tinyurl.com/35pzsk5j

Join Brian and Stefan Wolpers as they explore the labyrinth of Scrum anti-patterns, shedding light on the crucial shifts needed in communication, event understanding, and organizational empowerment for Agile success. Overview Brian welcomes special guest Stefan Wolpers as they explore the maze of Scrum anti-patterns. Discover the art of tackling communication breakdowns, unravel the misunderstandings that plague Scrum events, confront the systemic issues of organizational anti-patterns, and challenge the rigidity of dogmatism in Agile practices. Whether you're a seasoned Scrum practitioner or new to the Agile philosophy, this conversation between Brian and Stefan will arm you with the insights needed to navigate the complexities of Scrum, enhance team collaboration, and drive successful Agile transformations. Tune in to transform your understanding and practice of Scrum, and take a step towards mastering the dynamic world of Agile. Listen Now to Discover: [1:06] - ​​Join Brian as he sits down with Stefan Wolpers, a seasoned Professional Scrum Trainer and the mastermind behind ‘The Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide,’ for a deep dive into the pitfalls to avoid for Scrum success. [2:33] - Discover the power of inversion with Stefan, as he elucidates this groundbreaking learning principle, challenging traditional methods and revolutionizing our approach to personal and professional development. [5:21] - Stefan delves into the critical issue of communication breakdown and assumptions among teams, revealing effective strategies to address and navigate these common pain points. [10:01] - Listen as Stefan highlights the transformative impact of trust building and team bonding, revealing their significance as key elements in bridging cultural differences and bringing remote teams closer together. [12:02] - Brought to you by Mountain Goat Software, the Agile Mentors Podcast invites you to enhance your Scrum skills through the Certified Scrum Product Owner® course. Explore a world of Agile learning opportunities by checking out Mountain Goat Software's extensive training schedule. [13:03] - Join Stefan as he delves into the Scrum framework, highlighting the Daily Scrum and Sprint Planning as events ripe with anti-patterns, and providing guidance on overcoming these obstacles for smoother sprints. [18:10] - Listen as Stefan illuminates the critical anti-pattern of lacking empowerment within organizations, emphasizing its widespread impact and proposing pathways to cultivate a more empowered workforce. [22:08] - Explore with Brian the significance of an anti-dogmatic stance, highlighting its role as a pivotal anti-pattern in fostering innovation and adaptability in Agile environments. [26:14] - Brian shares a big thank you to Stefan for joining him on the show. [29:01] - If you’d like to continue this discussion, join the Agile Mentors Community. [30:01] - We invite you to subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast. Do you have feedback, a question, or a great idea for an episode of the show? Great! Just send us an email. References and resources mentioned in the show: Stefan Wolpers The Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide by Stefan Wolpers Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Mike Cohn’s Letting Go of Knowing Join the Agile Mentors Community Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Stefan Wolpers is the author behind "The Scrum Anti-Pattern Guide" and a celebrated Professional Scrum Trainer known for his unparalleled expertise in Agile methodologies. Stefan has dedicated his career to empowering professionals around the globe.

Dive into an enlightening conversation with Brian Milner and HR innovator Pia Maria Thorén on the transformative power of Agile in HR and leadership. Discover a people-centric approach that champions attitude, growth, and empathy. Overview Join Brian Milner in this compelling episode as he sits down with Agile and HR expert Pia Maria Thorén, who shares her insights on revolutionizing Human Resources and leadership with Agile project management principles. Pia Maria delves into the critical shift from traditional hiring practices to prioritizing attitude and potential, fostering a nurturing candidate experience, and the vital role of team involvement in the hiring process. Through her advocacy for empathy and a people-centric approach, Pia Maria outlines how understanding and support can transform handling performance challenges and layoffs into opportunities for growth. Tune in to explore how these strategies not only enhance HR practices but also pave the way for more dynamic, resilient organizations. Listen Now to Discover: [01:13] - Dive into an enlightening conversation with Pia-Maria Thorén, the visionary author behind 'Agile People' and a leading expert in Agile human resources. [02:30] - Join Pia-Maria as she unfolds the compelling narrative of Agile's breakthrough into HR practices, crafting a more effective and adaptive approach to leadership and human resources management. [07:46] - Hear from Pia-Maria as she unveils the secrets behind Agile's innovative recruitment and hiring strategies, focused on creating an environment where candidates are eager to work and flourish. [09:44] - Brian explores the catalyst behind Agile hiring practices, pondering how organizations kick-start the recruitment process when their sights are set not on vacancies but on attracting the perfect fit. [10:55] - Shifting the focus from traditional job slots to dynamic team contributions, Pia-Maria introduces the transformative concept of 't-shaped' teams in recruitment, urging a reevaluation of how we define the ideal candidate in job descriptions and hiring processes. [13:08] - Brian draws upon Simon Sinek's insightful video, dissecting the intricate relationship between trust and performance in teams, and highlighting the importance of trust in the makeup of high-performing teams. [15:00] - The Agile Mentors Podcast is brought to you by Mountain Goat Software. Elevate your expertise with their Certified Scrum Product Owner® course and gain exclusive access to Mike Cohn’s Agile Mentors Community for a full year of continuous coaching and support. Explore the full spectrum of Certified Scrum and Agile Training on the Mountain Goat Software schedule. [16:44] - Pia-Maria introduces a groundbreaking perspective on measuring team success, steering away from individual performance metrics and static goals towards a more dynamic and holistic assessment strategy. [21:37] - Pia-Maria delves into the complex dynamics of employee departures and layoffs within the Agile HR framework, questioning how these principles reshape traditional approaches to such challenging situations. [28:11] - Pia-Maria raises compelling counterpoints to the general avoidance of specialization, inviting listeners to consider the circumstances under which honing in on specialized skills could be advantageous. [29:24] - Brian shares a big thank you to Pia-Maria for joining him on the show, inviting listeners to connect through Agile People or LinkedIn. [31:07] - If you’d like to continue this discussion, join the Agile Mentors Community. You get a year of free membership into that site by taking any class with Mountain Goat Software, such as CSM, CSPO, or Mike Cohn’s Live Online Better User Stories class, where we get right into the good stuff and have some deep discussions. We'd love to see you in one of Mountain Goat Software's classes, you can find the schedule here. [31:40] - We invite you to subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast. Do you have feedback or a great idea for an episode of the show? Great! Just send us an email. References and resources mentioned in the show: Agile People Agile People: A Radical Approach for HR & Managers by Pia-Maria Thorén Agile People Principles by Pia-Maria Thorén Agile People Picture Book by Pia-Maria Thorén et al. “How Do You Measure Success?” By Simon Sinek Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification Mike Cohn’s Better User Stories Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Scrum Gathering in New Orleans 2024 Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Pia-Maria Thorén is the founder of Agile People and author of ‘Agile People' and specializes in driving organizational agility through HR, leadership, and motivation. She creates workplaces where employees perform better and feel engaged, contributing to successful transformations from both financial and human perspectives

Today, I am blessed to have Bjoern Woltermann here with me. He began his career in 1995 as Woltermann Datentechnik's founder, providing IT infrastructure for small and medium enterprises. In 2006, he took on the role of Head of Social Media Services and Head of Product Management Holiday Real Estate at ImmobilienScout24. In 2009, he became the Head of Competence Centre Social Web at Scout24 Holding GmbH, where he created, collected, and shared knowledge in Social Media, Social Networks, Realtime Communication, and Personalization. In 2010, he joined Deutsche Telekom as Vice President Emerging Technologies and Project Owner of "Global Customer Platforms". He incubated emerging products and technologies and built the technological foundation to bring new and existing products and services to new customers and users globally. In 2015, he founded Katalyst Interactive Inc. and Katalyst Fitness OHG, where he combined the latest exercise science and tech to empower people to live healthier lives. Bjoern E. Woltermann attended Bessel Gymnasium Minden from 1987 to 1996, where he obtained a high school degree in Mathematics, History, English, and Biology. In 2002, he earned a Master's Degree in International Economics from Paderborn University. In 2010, he obtained a Certified Scrum Product Owner certification from the Scrum Alliance, and in 2011, he obtained a Certified Scrum Master certification from the same institution. Bjoern's journey from pain and sedentary living to strength through Electro Muscle Stimulation (EMS) training underscores the transformative power of exercise. Introduced to EMS technology, he experienced remarkable improvements in physical well-being, including relief from back pain and enhanced body awareness. Recognizing the broader benefits of exercise for aging and overall health, Bjoern advocates for proactive training with EMS, emphasizing its potential for optimizing performance. He challenges conventional fitness norms, promoting a user-friendly approach prioritizing tangible outcomes over struggle. Through innovative design and thoughtful care recommendations, Bjoern aims to revolutionize the fitness experience with Katalyst EMS technology, fostering convenience, longevity, and reliability.  Purchase your Katalyst here: www.katalyst.com/ketokamp Diabetes Method Program: https://diabetesmethod.com/ 

Join Brian and Avipaul Bhandari as they uncover a secret to transformative Agile teams. Discover how one-on-one conversations can redefine team dynamics and even scaled organizational culture. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Avipaul Bhandari, a seasoned Agile coach, takes us through the critical role of one-on-one meetings in nurturing agile teams. Avipaul sheds light on how such meetings are pivotal in building trust, understanding individual perspectives, and fostering a culture of empathy. By adopting a coaching mindset, Scrum Masters and coaches can empower team members to lead the conversation, encouraging them to uncover and propose their own solutions. Listen in as they explore the profound impact these meetings have on scaling agile principles and catalyzing cultural transformation within organizations. Through emphasizing individual strengths and ensuring a safe environment for honest dialogue, one-on-ones emerge as a key strategy for enhancing team performance and achieving agile excellence. Tune in to learn how you can leverage one-on-one meetings to unlock the full potential of your team and spearhead a shift in your organizational culture. Listen Now to Discover: [01:15] - Brian warmly welcomes Avipaul Bhandari, a distinguished Agile coach and musician, joining us by popular demand from our listener community. [02:26] - Avipaul unveils the secrets behind effective one-on-one interactions and their ripple effect on enhancing organizational culture. [05:54] - Avipaul heralds human connection as a key driver of positivity and cohesion within teams, advocating for its impact on team success. [07:14] - Discover how Avipaul successfully navigated resistance to one-on-one meetings, turning reluctance into productive conversations, even from those claiming to have nothing to say. [10:55] - Mountain Goat Software is the sponsor for this podcast. Whether you’re looking to get Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM) or Certified Scrum Product Owner® (CSPO) training or want to take an Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® (ACSM) class, click here to see what we have to offer. [12:00] - Brian discusses the profound impact of empathy and Simon Sinek's approach to nurturing a culture of psychological safety. [13:05] - Avipaul shares insights on enhancing empathy in the team members and yourself through the intimate dialogue of one-on-one meetings. [19:23] - Avipaul unpacks how one-on-ones within scaled teams can significantly boost processes and deeply motivate team members. [23:10] - Brian highlights how these interactions can embody and influence the broader company culture through demonstration, creating a ripple effect of positive change. [23:47] - Avipaul makes a compelling case for the power of respect in eliciting the best performance from everyone. [26:43] - Brian shares a big thank you to Avipaul for joining him on the show and the lister who suggested him! If you have a topic or person you would love to hear on the podcast, send your suggestions to podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com [27:41] - If you’d like to continue this discussion, join the Agile Mentors Community. You get a year of free membership into that site by taking any class with Mountain Goat Software, such as CSM or CSPO. We also have Advanced Certified ScrumMaster®, Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner®, and Mike Cohn’s Better User Stories Course, where we get right into the good stuff and have some deep discussions. We'd love to see you in one of Mountain Goat Software's classes; you can find the schedule here. [28:41] - We invite you to subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast. Do you have feedback or a great idea for an episode of the show? Great! Just send us an email. References and resources mentioned in the show: Avipaul Bhandari Listen to Avipaul’s music on Spotify Simon Sinek’s Books Mike Cohn’s Better User Stories Course Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Avipaul Bhandari is an established agile coach and musician with over 20 years of experience. He is an intuitive and knowledgeable change agent and has been instrumental in successful agile adoptions in companies such as Microsoft, the Financial Times, Allianz, and others.

Join Brian and his guest Lance Dacy as they dive into the trends and challenges awaiting the Agile community in 2024 and the importance of adapting Agile principles to the hyper-competitive world of product development. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian sits down with Lance Dacy to take a deep dive into the anticipated trends and challenges awaiting the Agile community in 2024. The duo explores the ongoing debate between remote and in-person work, the imperative need for innovation in leadership and management, and the intricacies of forward-thinking strategies as we work toward building organizations tailored for the future. Join Brian and Lance as they navigate the complex intersection of Agile principles, organizational leadership, and the ever-evolving landscape of the business world in 2024. Listen Now to Discover: [01:17] - Brian Milner has Lance Dacy on the show today for the traditional discussion of looking ahead at trends and upcoming developments in the Agile and Scrum space for 2024. [02:10] - Remote vs. in-person work—opening the discussion with this hot-button topic and the evolving debate. [03:31] - Lance offers his insights on organizations' adaptive strategies, what we learned during the pandemic, and the potential benefits and drawbacks of remote work. [05:58] - The loss of collaboration and learning when in a remote environment. [07:22] - The hybrid work solution. [07:36] - Brian shares a study favoring in-office productivity. [09:50] - Lance shares his personal work-at-home challenges and the importance of aligning work environments with individual personalities and preferences. [11:32] - The importance of accommodating individual preferences and working styles, and the need for organizations to match their environments to employees rather than requiring employees to adapt. [12:58] - The challenges faced by managers and leaders in making decisions about remote work, and the importance of flexibility in work hours. [15:20] - Brian raises concern about layoffs in the Agile area during tough economic times, questioning if it's the right strategy for long-term success. [16:23] - Lance emphasizes the need for understanding Agile rather than blindly applying it, suggesting the Agile industry may be bloated and encouraging a focus on culture and effective coaching. [17:23] - Mountain Goat Software, is the sponsor for this podcast. Whether you’re looking to get Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) or Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) training or want to take an Advanced Certified ScrumMaster (ACSM) class, click here to see what we have to offer. [19:33] - Leadership and management innovation—Brian and Lance discuss the need for organizations to prioritize human-centric management AND leadership innovation, citing Gary Hamel's concept of building organizations fit for the future. [23:25] - Lance discusses the devaluation of the human element in organizations. [24:31] - Brian and Lance share their insight into the devaluation of developers, and the need for discussion on the trajectory of Agile in the face of such challenges. [25:55] - Lance highlights the need to educate leaders and managers on the criticality of Agile budgeting alongside project management to align expectations. [27:40] - Lance addresses the challenge in achieving true Agility, and why coaches offer such a long-term ROI. [28:10] - The importance of educating leaders on the value of coaching, psychological safety, and the need for a neutral perspective in fostering organizational improvement. [29:15] - Brian predicts a continued emphasis on cost-cutting in 2024 due to economic uncertainty. [29:57] - Brian expresses his concern about the long-term negative impact of eliminating coaching roles. [31:34] - Lance anticipates a cultural shift that might make it difficult for companies to attract talent if they don’t embrace more human-focused values that empower individuals. [32:59] - Lance urges Agile coaches to adapt to a changing paradigm and discusses the challenge for leaders and managers to shed bureaucratic structures and implement an effective strategy for embracing these principles. [34:17] - Brian urges a reevaluation of Agile's focus, emphasizing transparency and adaptability over rigid structures and roles. [34:48] - Brian stresses Agile's strength in handling unexpected challenges and calls on Agilists to emphasize the fundamental principles to demonstrate Agile's value effectively. [35:40] - The need for new thought leaders in leadership, management, and organizational design to guide Agile practitioners in effectively leveraging data and scaling Agile practices. [36:30] - The importance of evolving beyond rigid practices to embrace Agile's adaptability. Lance uses the analogy of professional sports to illustrate the importance of adaptability, discipline, and rigor in responding to dynamic situations. [38:03] - Not doom and gloom but a chance for growth and adaptation—Brian expresses optimism and excitement for the upcoming year, seeing it as an opportunity for renewed focus and bringing value to organizations in the evolving world of product development. [40:20] - Brian extends his thanks to Lance Dacy for being on the show. And don’t forget to share your thoughts and ideas on upcoming trends in the Agile Mentors Community. [41:09] - Please send feedback and ideas for upcoming shows to podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com. And don’t forget to share and subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast on Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. [41:14] - Happy New Year to everyone, Brian expresses excitement for the journey ahead in 2024, meeting more listeners at in-person events, and sharing more insights on future episodes of the Agile Mentors Podcast. References and resources mentioned in the show: #63: The Interplay Between Data Science and Agile with Lance Dacy #30: How to Get the Best Out of the New Year with Lance Dacy #76: Navigating Neurodiversity for High-Performing Teams with Susan Fitzell Humanocracy Certified ScrumMaster Training and Scrum Certification Certified Scrum Product Owner Training Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® #4: The Developer Role in Scrum with Sherman Gomberg DFW Scrum (Dallas, TX) | Meetup Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast on Apple Podcasts Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Lance Dacy is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant's heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away.

Join Brian and his guest John Grant as they unveil how Agile methodologies are revolutionizing legal practices for improved client experiences and smarter workflow efficiency. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian sits down with John Grant to discuss using Agile methodologies and client-focused strategies in the legal profession. Listen in as John shares his unique perspective and innovative approach for reshaping legal workflows and enhancing client communication at the intersection of law and Agile practices. Listen Now to Discover: [01:00] - Brian introduces the podcast and guest, John Grant, a lawyer using Agile in the legal space. [01:19] - How legal use of Agile differs from other fields. [02:06] - John shares how clarity in communication is a challenge in legal work, similar to other fields. [03:00] - Brian compares legal work to building websites. [03:43] - John differentiates between "sheet music" (standardized work) and "jazz solos" (unique cases) in legal practice. [05:16] - The challenges of a high demand for legal services and a shortage of lawyers and how to ensure quality. [08:23] - John explains why the Kanban method is well-suited for legal practices. [09:27] - How to avoid overloading capacity and prioritize effectively. [11:39] - How the principles of Agile, Lean, and other methodologies, along with a focus on client value, are crucial even outside software development. [12:09] - The tendency to devalue the client's role in legal matters and the challenge of balancing technical work and customer care. [12:31] - The role of lawyers and discerning what clients genuinely want from legal services. [12:49] - The law is fundamentally a caregiving profession: John emphasizes the importance of caregiving and customer support in the legal profession. [13:31] - The need for effective communication and collaboration. [15:00] - John shares a case study involving a law firm specializing in estate planning and trust administration. [15:47] - John explains the creation of a multi-step client journey roadmap in the introduction letter, setting the tone for the client journey. [17:30] - The unique role of clients in legal work and how they contribute vital information to the legal team. [18:48] - This podcast is sponsored by Mountain Goat Software’s Certified Scrum Training classes. All certified classes include a twelve-month membership in the Agile Mentors Community. [19:36] - Brian draws parallels between capturing customer attitudes and feelings in personas in Certified Scrum Product Owner® classes and the importance of understanding clients' emotions in legal work. [20:21] - Daniel Katz's breakdown of clients seeking legal help to either mitigate risk or navigate complexity, and how this helps tailor the client journey. [21:35] - The frequent client complaint in the legal field. [23:09] - John explains how mapping workflows to the client journey introduces the concept of classes of service and enables smarter prioritization of work based on its urgency and importance. [23:32] - The key Agile concepts applied in the legal context: focusing on the customer, limiting work in progress, understanding customer journeys, and making work visible. [23:53] - Humans are naturally inclined to process information visually and the significance of visualizing work in knowledge work environments. [25:00] - The scalability of Kanban in law firms. [28:31] - John introduces the concept of the "help desk theory of lawyering," comparing lawyers' support roles to IT help desks and how Kanban systems can aid communication with clients. [31:22] - For more information on John’s Kanban training visit Agile Attorney. [32:00] - If you enjoyed the episode, the best way to support us is to share it with others and subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast on Apple Podcasts. If you have feedback or ideas for the show, just email podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com. [33:24] - For further discussion join the Agile Mentors Community where we discuss each podcast episode. References and resources mentioned in the show: Agile Attorney Certified Scrum Master Training and Scrum Certification Certified Scrum Product Owner Training Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast on Apple Podcasts Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. John Grant is a fourth-generation lawyer with a background spanning both technology and law. Drawing from his experience in the tech industry and legal sector, he offers a unique perspective on legal practice. He's passionate about facilitating positive change in legal practices and using the Kanban methodology to help legal teams unlock their full potential.

Join Brian and his guest Lance Dacy as they address the interplay (and the skepticism) of combining Agile and data science. Tune in as they explore the art of crafting Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) to create impactful and efficient solutions. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian sits down with Lance Dacy to delve into the nuances of aligning data science with the software development mold while dispelling the myths along the way. Listen in as Lance shares his wealth of experience and insights guiding listeners through the step-by-step process of building MVPs in data science projects and sharing how Agile principles seamlessly apply to both worlds. Listen Now to Discover: [01:13] - Brian introduces Lance Dacy on the Agile Mentors Podcast. Since listeners appreciated the previous data science and agile episode, Lance is here for Part Two, this time discussing how data science fits into the software development mold. [02:00] - Addressing the skepticism of combining agile and data science; Lance has both expertise and practical experience. [02:43] - Lance emphasizes that he understands the “naysayers” concerns but aims to help others comprehend the synergy. [03:05] - Waterfall might be better: sorting out the different perspectives on Agile development and data science. [04:45] - The importance of scoping and architecture in software development projects. [05:15] - Challenging the notion of perfectly defined objectives. [05:46] - Most software projects lack a completely predefined understanding. [06:39] - How Agile's empirical process and mindset of experimentation align with data science. [07:30] - Presenting a real-world MVP example combining business drivers and data science techniques. [08:04] - Clarifying what Agile is—a philosophy based on values, not a step-by-step process. [09:03] - The importance of sustainable pace and productivity in Agile. [10:10] - Introducing the concept of MVP and acknowledging the evolution of data science techniques. [11:00] - Discussing MVP in the context of data science, and aligning it with empirical approach. [11:38] - Highlighting the role of MVP in testing assumptions, mitigating risks, and user feedback. [12:00] - Exploring data science's practical relevance for consumers to forge a relatable discussion. [12:47] -Acknowledging familiarity with technology, uncertain about tactics. [13:00] - Highlighting how AI and data science are pervasive in everyday technology use. [13:29] - Examples of AI data science integration: search engines, online shopping recommendations, social media content, smart homes, and more. [14:42] - Introducing common uses of data science: customer segmentation and marketing techniques. [15:19] - Applying clustering techniques like K means for automated segmentation. [15:34] - Lance shares his paper on supply chain optimization, using an ant colony algorithm. [15:56] - The techniques and purpose of supply chain optimization. [16:23] - Exploring data science applications: collaborative filtering, matrix factorization, neural networks. [16:42] - Clarifying data scientists' approach: not a random process but based on problem-solving with models. [17:18] - Iterative development as a primary reason for MVP in data science. [17:57] - Using real-world performance data for model improvement. [18:21] - Risk mitigation as a critical aspect of MVP: linking risk mitigation to surviving challenges and learning from them. [19:51] - Starting with an MVP reduces risk by avoiding overly complex models without sufficient feedback. [20:19] - Setting stakeholder expectations with an MVP: providing tangible insight into data science trade-offs and early deliverables. [20:39] - Highlighting operational considerations of deploying and maintaining data models, addressing challenges in data pipelines, infrastructure, and monitoring. [22:17] - An MVP approach aligns with Agile principles for data science. [22:35] - Brian clarifies the misconception that MVP means sacrificing quality for speed. [23:30] - Lance agrees, addressing the misconception, and emphasizes MVP's importance in learning and improvement. [23:32] - Have you thought about training with Mountain Goat Software? With classes such as Mountain Goat Software, Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) developed by Mike Cohn, and team home software for better interactivity during classes you can’t go wrong. [24:00] - Brian suggests transitioning to walking through a model or example of creating an MVP. [24:07] -A tangible framework for mapping data science work to MVP steps, acknowledging the contextual nature of the process. [24:50] - Lance acknowledges the complexity of the steps, so they’ve been posted below under resources. [25:11] - The importance of problem definition and defining the scope of the MVP. [26:34] - The challenge of gathering and preprocessing data. [27:20] - Selecting a simple model that is easy to interpret and implement for faster training times, easier troubleshooting, and adherence to the principle of parsimony. [29:12] - Using feature engineering to select the most relevant features for the model. [29:33] - Choosing a manageable number of features for the model, rather than attempting to incorporate all available data and avoid overcomplicating or overfitting the model. [30:11] - Lance emphasizes the importance of selecting a simple model and conducting feature engineering based on the insights gained from that model. [30:36] - Training the chosen machine learning model using pre-processed data, typically by splitting the data into training and validation sets. [31:15] - The challenge of evaluating the model's performance and the importance of using the appropriate metrics. [31:34] - The goal: create a model that is good enough for gathering feedback that aligns with the concept of MVP. [31:53] - Lance describes the last step of building an MVP: deploying the MVP by integrating the model into a suitable platform or application. [32:26] - The importance of making the MVP accessible to end users. [33:00] - The crucial feedback loop for making improvements to the model and features, and refining, scaling, or reconsidering the approach. [34:09] - Why you might want to initially deploy a slightly higher-level model. [34:57] - The parallel between the steps of creating an MVP in data science and the principles of Agile. [35:18] - Brian adds that in data science, feedback not only comes from customers and users but also involves analyzing results and outcomes as a form of feedback to refine the model. [35:53] - The importance of relying on scientific expertise to analyze the results of the model and evaluate its accuracy and validity. [36:10] - In data science, the feedback loop also involves analyzing the outcomes and results, similar to the iterative process of receiving user feedback in software development. [37:00] - Lance draws parallels between software development and data science by comparing the process of building software features with the steps involved in creating an MVP for data science. [39:21] - Lance offers some practical examples, beginning with a recommendation system. [41:06] - The decision tree approach and its benefits for stakeholders. [43:00] - Lance talks about churn prediction to gradually incorporate more nuanced data. [43:55] - MVPs for chatbots and the benefits of starting with simple scripted responses in a chatbot MVP. [45:59] - Managing multiple projects. [46:24] - The effectiveness of using logistic regression and decision trees for MVPs. [47:00] - Lance emphasizes the importance of managing stakeholders' expectations. [47:53] - Lance discusses the need to consider the context when interpreting model performance metrics and involving stakeholders in these discussions. [49:16] - The importance of collaboration between data scientists and stakeholders for delivering valuable solutions. [50:11] - Lance draws a comparison between data science and software development in terms of the challenge of coordinating work across different specialized areas. [51:00] - Lance highlights the importance of feedback and iterative adjustments for success. [53:24] - Again, you can find Episode #54: Unlocking Agile's Power in the World of Data Science with Lance Dacy, here. [53:48] - We’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic and your suggestions for future topics. Just email podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com. If you enjoyed the episode, the best way to support us is to share it with others and subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast on Apple Podcasts. [55:00] - Don’t forget to check out the Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule, including, Certified Scrum Master (CSM) or a Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) and Advanced Certified Scrum Master (ACSM) and Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner (ACSPO) classes. I'd really love to see you in class! References and resources mentioned in the show: 6 Reasons Why I Think Agile Data Science Does Not Work | by Ilro Lee Why Data Science Doesn't Respond Well to Agile Methodologies Lance’s SMU Paper (Ant Colony Algorithm and Traveling Salesman Problem) #54: Unlocking Agile's Power in the World of Data Science with Lance Dacy Certified Scrum Master Training and Scrum Certification Certified Scrum Product Owner Training Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast on Apple Podcasts Reasons for Quick MVP in Data Science are to support: Iterative Development Feedback Loop Risk Mitigation Setting Expectations Operational Considerations Steps of the MVP: Problem Definition Gather and Preprocess the Data Select a simple model Feature engineering Train the model Evaluate the model Deploy the MVP Collect Feedback Iterate Decision Time Examples of MVP in Data Science (Logistic regression and decision trees are often used as initial models due to their simplicity, interpretability, and relatively quick development time.) Recommendation Systems: Instead of building a complex recommendation engine, a company might start with a simple rule-based system (e.g., recommending the most popular items) to gauge user interest and system engagement. Churn Prediction: An MVP might involve creating a basic model based on a few key features (like usage frequency and customer complaints) to predict which customers might churn. Later versions can incorporate more nuanced data and sophisticated algorithms. Natural Language Processing (NLP): For a chatbot, the MVP might involve scripted responses or basic keyword matching. Once deployed, user interactions can inform the development of more advanced NLP capabilities Conclusion With Rapid MVP, context is crucial with regard to our general benchmarks (F1-Score, ROC-AUC, MAE, RMSE). You should strive to always consider the context of those benchmarks with the problem being solved. In some medical diagnostic tests, even an F1-score of 0.95 might not be good enough due to the severe consequences of false negatives or false positives. We also likely need to compare the model's performance metrics with a simple baseline (e.g., random classifier, mean prediction) to determine how much value the model is adding. Always align the model's performance with business objectives. Even a model with a high ROC-AUC might not be suitable if it doesn't meet the specific precision or recall targets set by the business. Isn’t it better to find ways to know that earlier than later? Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Lance Dacy is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant's heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away.

Are you a project leader or an agilist looking to improve your team's meetings? Look no further than the book "Great Meetings Build Great Teams: A Guide for Project Leaders and Agilists." This resource is packed with practical tips and insights on how to run effective meetings that drive collaboration and results. Whether you're new to leading teams or a seasoned pro, you'll find valuable strategies to help you build stronger, more productive teams. In the book, you'll learn about the key elements of successful meetings, including setting clear objectives, creating an inclusive environment, and fostering open communication. The podcast episode features interviews with experts in the field, who share their own experiences and advice on how to make the most of your team's meetings. So why wait? Check out "Great Meetings Build Great Teams" today and start improving your team's meetings for better results and happier team members. Happy reading (and listening)! Enjoyed this conversation? Definitely reach out to Jim and Rich to chat more about their professional experiences and publications. Leave your thoughts in the comments section below! --- Follow Our Hosts on LinkedIn: Ann Campea, MSPM, MPH, PMP, CSM Host and Founder of The Everyday PM An authentic leader who is well-versed in the launching of product and physical retail spaces, data system implementation and upgrades, onboarding of new employees, training, championing new process improvement initiatives, and building a solid project management community. Jim Stewart, PMP, IC-Agile Coach Principal of JP Stewart Consulting LLC Jim is a certified PMP® and possesses multiple Agile certifications including IC-Agile coach and Certified Scrum Product Owner. Jim is a long-time member of the Project Management Institute (PMI®) and served for several years on the board of the local chapter. He has, for many years, taught and developed courseware for PMP® classes and co-developed an Agile 101 online course. Rich Maltzman, PMP Master Lecturer at Boston University, Co-Founder and Principal of EarthPM, LLC As a Master Lecturer at Boston University, Rich develops and delivers courses for graduate students that help them achieve positive change in their careers and in the world. He has over 40 years of industry experience 30 of which is in Project Leadership, including the global PMO of Nokia, with a PMP certification and a passion for sustainability integration. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theeverydaypm/support

In this episode of Agile Mentors, Brian sits down with Lance Dacy to discuss integrating Agile and Scrum practices into the world of data science. Overview In this episode of the "Agile Mentors" podcast, Brian sits down with Lance Dacy to discuss integrating Agile and Scrum practices in the world of data science. Tune in to gain insight into the importance of feedback, the stages of the SAS Enterprise Miner initiative, and how frameworks like OSEMN can enhance the data science process. Listen in to learn how to strike the right balance between technical knowledge and product ownership and why culture is crucial in successful Agile implementation within the data science domain. Listen Now to Discover: [01:16] - Brian introduces his guest Lance Dacy, referring to him as "our San Diego Zoo guy" and the topic of today's show using Agile or Scrum practices in a data science world. [02:27] - Lance shares his background in data science and how it fits into the world of Agile. [05:06] - The big reason so many people are against using Agile for data science and where the big rub is. [09:02] - Who cares if it’s Agile or not? Lance shares Jeff Salts's poll about data science and introduces CRISP-DM. [11:05] - The six steps of the cross-industry standard process for data mining. [14:18] - Adopting a Scrum-like approach and treating data science work as smaller phases makes it possible to classify and organize tasks effectively. [15:59] - Does anyone remember the Rational Unified Process? [17:57] - It’s up to you to come up with ideas—once you have them, here's how we get it done. [18:18] - In the world of data science, implementing frameworks like Scrum can lead to misconceptions and failures—the key lies in understanding the layers of data science, navigating the complexities of the work effectively, and making informed decisions. [23:06] - The vital importance of feedback. [23:45] - The stages of the SAS Enterprise Miner initiative. [27:25] Brian introduces the sponsor for the podcast, Mountain Goat Software, and their two-day Certified ScrumMaster Course that’s perfect for anyone who wants to understand Scrum and add value to any team. [28:23] - How the product owner fits in when discussing working with big data. [29:50] Lance introduces the OSEMN process and explains how to solve a problem like a data scientist. [30:47] - When it comes to the role of a product owner, the technical knowledge required depends on the nature of the product. [31:42] - While Scrum lacks explicit guidance on backlog construction, the OSEMN framework themes (obtain, scrub, explore, model, interpret) can be incorporated to align sprint goals with specific aspects of the data science process. [33:47] - The framework or the structure of how you carry it out is less important than the kind of agreement. [35:07] - It's a cultural rather than a process problem. Lance delves into the debate on applying Agile Scrum to research. [36:37] - A fundamental misunderstanding about daily scrums. [37:18] - None of us are smarter than all of us together. Agile and Scrum work well when you know how to solve the problem, and there's a relatively clear path to victory. [38:49] - Brian shares his biggest piece of advice to people considering this in the data science [39:28] - “Data science is just the work that we're trying to do, tailor your process for your team and your culture and always inspect and adapt to try to make it better.” [41:08] - If you have feedback for the show or topics for future episodes, email us by clicking here (if you have yet to get a response, send another one as something has gone wrong in the process). And don’t forget to subscribe to the “Agile Mentors” Podcast on Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. And if you are a data scientist or work in big data and found the information in this valuable, let one of your co-workers know about it. References and resources mentioned in the show: Data Science Process Alliance CRISP-DM OSEMN Scrum and Data Science Agile Mentors Blog Topic: Decision Science - What methodology fits best? Certified ScrumMaster Training and Scrum Certification Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast on Apple Podcasts Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is the SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Lance Dacy is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant's heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away.

Join Brian and his guest Lance Dacy as they explore the key differences, skill sets required, and the exciting opportunities in the roles of Scrum Master and Product Owner. Overview In this episode of the "Agile Mentors" podcast, Brian sits down with Lance Dacy to explore the dynamic roles of Scrum Master and Product Owner. They delve into the fundamental differences between these roles, highlighting the unique skill sets required for each. Lance shares his valuable insights and personal experiences, shedding light on the challenges and opportunities that arise in these pivotal positions. Whether you're considering a career in Agile or seeking to enhance your understanding of Scrum, listen in to this episode for practical advice and guidance for aspiring Scrum Masters and Product Owners and a deeper understanding of the crucial roles they play in driving successful projects and maximizing team productivity. Listen Now to Discover: [01:17] - Brian Milner has Lance Dacy on the show today to talk about a question emailed to the listener email address about the two different approaches to Scrum and which class would be a good fit for you, a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) or a Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO). [02:28] - Lance shares how he looks at the two different designations and what he looks at as the centerpiece of the process of Scrum. [03:24] - Things to consider when deciding whether the CSM or the CSPO is right for you. [04:34] - Where to start your Scrum journey as a beginner and when taking both the CSM and the Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) classes might be beneficial. [05:28] - You don't have to be a Scrum Master to benefit from the CSM class. [05:54] - The dual focus of the Product Owner roles and the diminishment of Scrum roles. [06:45] - The challenge of combining these roles effectively. [07:54] - The goal is to be agile rather than just doing Scrum-Lance shares the importance of delivering value efficiently and early. Relegating the Scrum Master to facilitation and metrics tasks yields minimal ROI. [08:28] - Do you ever see the coach playing the game? [09:10] - Scrum is a tool - you have to know the tools, how to apply them, and, more importantly, how to use them for the appropriate case. [10:16] - The distinction between programmers (those who code) and developers (anyone working to produce the product) and a look back at the developer role in Scrum. [11:34] - What confuses most people about the different classes and roles. [12:28] - The importance (and top challenges teams face) of capacity planning, Sprint planning, and daily work management in Scrum teams. Lance shares why addressing these aspects is valuable for software and product teams, including marketing and infrastructure teams. [13:44] - The value of certifications as a standard and an advantage in certain situations, but it's like learning to drive - experience is crucial. [15:42] - The importance of learning the values, principles, and tools associated with Agile methodologies to engage in experimentation and gain practical experience, whether a CSM, CSPO, or CSV. [16:25] - How active involvement in user groups and communities (such as the DFW Scrum user group) provides valuable insights and career benefits, fostering collective knowledge sharing and continuous learning in Scrum (and beyond). [17:23] - Mountain Goat Software, the sponsor for this podcast, offers certified LIVE online Scrum classes, including Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Advanced Certified Scrum Master (ACSM) and Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner (ACSPO) classes. Book more than three weeks in advance for an early bird discount of $100. [18:38] - Lance shares the three characteristics of a great product owner. [19:28] - Advice for what you should do if you’re starting from scratch and aiming to become a product owner to gain exposure and valuable experience in the field. [21:28] - The likelihood of moving from Scrum Master to product owner rather than vice versa. [22:47] - The four requirements of becoming a Scrum Master requires strong facilitation, teaching, mentoring, and coaching skills, and the demands of being a product owner that makes it a higher barrier for entry. [23:52] - The focus of a Scrum Master vs. a product owner. [24:48] - It's like being the Zamboni for a hockey team—as a Scrum Master, you have the opportunity to work in diverse industries, ranging from space science and astrophysics to finance and software development, without being an expert in those domains. [26:34] - A safer environment for experimentation and growth without the high stakes of individual accountability. [26:58] - Brian shares the primary determining factor in deciding between product owner or Scrum master. [27:51] - In the movie-making industry, like in software teams, there are distinct roles and responsibilities. You can choose to define the problem, manage the process, or contribute to building the product—pick your door and start running (and if you don't like it, you can always switch). [29:06] Real knowledge comes from doing, BUT a class can get you started on the right foot to understanding how to do things and getting your hands dirty to cement further what you want to do. [30:26] - Lance shares how obtaining a CSM or CSPO certification is like earning a black belt in karate—it's a pathway that empowers you to explore. [33:24] - Still on the fence? Send us a note, and we'll gladly help you find your path. [33:40] - Check out the Mountain Goat's training schedule to attend a class with Lance or Brian. [34:01] - Exciting news! We have introduced an Agile Professional Directory to our Agile Mentors community. As a member, you can now sign up and claim your certifications, allowing you to showcase your expertise when interacting with others on the site. [34:35] - Don’t forget, Mountain Goat Software offers a range of classes, including Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Advanced Certified Scrum Master (ACSM), and Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner (ACSPO). We love having podcast listeners join our classes to explore further the topics discussed on the show (click here to subscribe). References and resources mentioned in the show: Certified Scrum Master Training and Scrum Certification Certified Scrum Product Owner Training Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® #4: The Developer Role in Scrum with Sherman Gomberg DFW Scrum (Dallas, TX) | Meetup Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast on Apple Podcasts Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Lance Dacy is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant's heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away.

Teresa is an author, speaker, entrepreneur, and technology executive with over 15 years of overseeing global product and user experience teams. Teresa has diverse experience leading product management, product design, research, strategy, and innovation for digital solutions and as a consultant for startup technology firms. Teresa is the Director of Product, UX, and Design at TreviPay, where she drives vision, strategy, and UX for multiple FinTech products and teams. She is the Founder of Lucid Startup Consulting where she coaches startups and serves as an advisor for Central Exchange, a women's nonprofit, and DevStride, a project and portfolio management solution. Teresa is the instructor of the highest-rated and bestseller course for design sprints on Udemy, 2-Hour Design Sprints: Learn how to solve problems and design products in just 2 hours vs. 5 days using Figma FigJam. Her book Solving Problems in 2 Hours: How to Brainstorm and Create Solutions with Two-Hour Design Sprints released in April 2023 is a Best Seller and #1 New Release in Business Technology Innovation Books. Teresa regularly speaks at conferences on design thinking, customer experience, and product innovation. Teresa received a prestigious Emerging Scholar Award in 2023 from the International Conference on Design Principles and Practices including presenting her research "Putting Into Practice Evolving Design Thinking Methods at Technology Firms: The Evolution To 2-Hour Design Sprints.” She was also a 2022 Women in IT Summit & Award Series Finalist for Advocate of the Year. Teresa has completed many certifications during her career in product, customer experience, agile, project management, and process management including Pragmatic Marketing Certified III ©, Net Promoter Certified Associate, Certified Scrum Product Owner, Certified Scrum Master, Project Management Professional, and Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. She also completed Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management Executive Program for Product Strategy Methods, a program with a focus on discovering, developing, managing, and marketing products as a business.  Teresa earned a BS in Journalism from the William Allen White School of Journalism and a BA in English from the University of Kansas. She earned an Executive MBA from Rockhurst University and is studying for a second Master's degree in Integrated Innovation for Products and Services at Carnegie Mellon University, focusing on product and user experience design principles. Buy Teresa's book:  https://amzn.to/3zMMjM2 Udemy Course: Learn How to Solve Problems and Design Product in 2 Hours vs. 5 days using FIgma FigJam https://www.udemy.com/course/2hourdesignsprints/?referralCode=3D0350BD6C05D09D290F   Website: https://www.2hourdesignsprints.com   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cainteresa/  

Joining the TCZ stage are Gabe Abella and Stephen McDonnell. The Team Coaching Learning Conversations are livestreamed on LinkedIn and YouTube every Friday at 9:30 New York | 14:30 London | 21:30 Beijing and are made available for replay afterwards on your favorite podcast player (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Radio and more)! Gabe Abella is a Vice President of Global Payments at JPMorgan Chase & Co. He enables organizational agility at enterprise scale through leading, coaching, and teaching. Gabe is an Accredited Kanban Trainer for Kanban University, is a faculty member at 6 Team Conditions, and is an Okaloa Flowlab Facilitator. He holds additional certifications including: International Systemic Team Coaching Certificate, Certified ScrumMaster and Certified Scrum Product Owner. Stephen McDonnell is Founder and Global Managing Director at Live Unbound. He is a global leader in human and team performance. As an elite athlete and former lead engineer with vast experience leading teams, Stephen has an intimate knowledge of high performance in highly competitive contexts. The driving purpose of his work is to enable today's leaders, teams and organisations to accelerate their development, transformation, agility and performance in an increasingly VUCA world. Stephen enjoys building a competitive advantage and making a positive difference globally at organisations like Eli Lilly, PUNCH Engineers, Everseen AI, Cranstoun, VHI Healthcare and more. Stephen and his team know what it takes to transform performance in a fun and fully human way. Using neuroscience, leading-industry research, vast and diverse experience, and elite sports principles to catalyse leaders and teams into the optimal psychological state known as flow. Watch previous podcasts at https://team-coaching-zone.teachable.... And for ongoing dialogue about team coaching join us in the Team Coaching Learning Community group on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8227188/   

Welcome back to the Real Life Leadership Podcast! Today, we're releasing a special episode from the Grow & Scale Now summit with Tim Francis. He is an award-winning entrepreneur from Canada, and the founder of ProfitFactory.com and GreatAssistant.com.  He's a graduate of the University of Alberta, and a Certified Scrum Product Owner.   In 2010-2011 Tim was blindsided by a rare illness called Erythema Nodosum, leaving him unable to walk for 3 months.  Tim nearly went bankrupt and was forced to re-start.  He promised himself he'd “never be a burn-out entrepreneur again,” a driving motivation which led to the creation of Profit Factory.   Entrepreneurs chronically stuck working IN their business turn to Tim to achieve the Freedom and Control they've long sought.  Tim helps entrepreneurs transition from Business Operator to Business Owner, helping them successfully arrange, then delegate to a Production team around them.  Entrepreneurs appreciate their newfound freedom to work ON the business, take time off, travel, or start other ventures.  Employees appreciate how organized and clear the business is once Tim has intervened.   Tim's been a guest lecturer at NYU in New York City, at the University of Alberta in Canada, and has been a Masterclass teacher on Mixergy.  Sam Carpenter of Work the System says “One of the best, if not the best, is Tim Francis.  I support his work and coaching”, and past-client Ryan Levesque says: “Tim's help systemizing what we do across our company has set us up to go from seven to eight figures and beyond.”   Enjoy!   -   Connect with Tim:  Website: https://profitfactory.com/360delegation/      Order Chantel's Book, One Meal And A Tasting: https://chantelrayway.com/onemeal/    Join CanZell HERE: https://joincanzell.com/    Check out the CanZell Cloud HERE: https://canzellcloud.com/    Claim Your Free Ticket For The Grow And Scale Now Summit! https://growandscalenow.com/    Chantel: https://www.instagram.com/thechantelray/     For more resources, visit http://www.reallifeleaders.com/podcast    Have a leadership question you want answered? Email podcast@reallifeleaders.com and you might even be in an episode!  

Join Lance Dacy and Brian Milner as they discuss how to get the best out of the new year. Overview Something about that turn of the calendar from December to January makes us want to dig into planning, goal setting, and change. In this episode of the Agile Mentors podcast, Brian Milner and Lance Dacy discuss how to get the best out of the new year. They’ll walk through why personal retrospectives are the key to determining where to look for change. From 30-day challenges to building relationships with others in the Agile community, to fostering a fertile learning culture, listen in for insight into what might work for you to accomplish the change you seek to make this year your best. Listen now to discover: [01:15] - Welcome to our first podcast of 2023. [01:55] - How opening up our calendars to a new year sets us up for planning new things. [03:17] - Lance walks us through the two types of leaders, the visionary and the executor. [04:13] - Brian shares the benefit of personal retrospectives. [07:15] - How 30-day challenges catapult us to success by breaking things down into smaller chunks. [10:56] - Lance shares why New Year’s resolutions set us up for failure. [12:35] - How to plan goals using backlogs and the cyclical nature of organizations. [13:09] - How to use cross-training to challenge team members to broaden their horizons in the new year. [13:09] - Why you need to think about your intentions when trying to influence up. [14:03] - Why do 30-day challenges work well to engage in a new task, project, or skill with an experimental mindset. [15:29] - Lance shares why it’s critical for Scrum Masters to help leadership and management formulate career plans to help grow the people in the organization. [16:33] - If you’re doing the same thing you did last year, you’re not Agile. [17:16] - How plugging into a community can help you maintain your focus for growth. [19:48] - Why being a Scrum Master and a lone wolf don’t mix. [22:36] - How networking can help you take your career to the next level. [24:10] - Why it pays to keep an open mind (even to that which you don’t agree with), so you don’t miss out on vital information that can change your trajectory. [26:07] - Growing as a Scrum Master and as a person. References and resources mentioned in the show Agile Mentors Community Meetup #13: What Does Cross-Functional Really Mean? with Lance Dacy Mountain Goat Software Scrum Alliance Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast on Apple Podcasts Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we'd love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an agile subject you'd like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Please share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode's presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Lance Dacy is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away.

Join Lance Dacy and Brian Milner as they discuss how to get the best out of the new year. Overview Something about that turn of the calendar from December to January makes us want to dig into planning, goal setting, and change. In this episode of the Agile Mentors podcast, Brian Milner and Lance Dacy discuss how to get the best out of the new year. They’ll walk through why personal retrospectives are the key to determining where to look for change. From 30-day challenges to building relationships with others in the Agile community, to fostering a fertile learning culture, listen in for insight into what might work for you to accomplish the change you seek to make this year your best. Listen now to discover: [01:15] - Welcome to our first podcast of 2023. [01:55] - How opening up our calendars to a new year sets us up for planning new things. [03:17] - Lance walks us through the two types of leaders, the visionary and the executor. [04:13] - Brian shares the benefit of personal retrospectives. [07:15] - How 30-day challenges catapult us to success by breaking things down into smaller chunks. [10:56] - Lance shares why New Year’s resolutions set us up for failure. [12:35] - How to plan goals using backlogs and the cyclical nature of organizations. [13:09] - How to use cross-training to challenge team members to broaden their horizons in the new year. [13:09] - Why you need to think about your intentions when trying to influence up. [14:03] - Why do 30-day challenges work well to engage in a new task, project, or skill with an experimental mindset. [15:29] - Lance shares why it’s critical for Scrum Masters to help leadership and management formulate career plans to help grow the people in the organization. [16:33] - If you’re doing the same thing you did last year, you’re not Agile. [17:16] - How plugging into a community can help you maintain your focus for growth. [19:48] - Why being a Scrum Master and a lone wolf don’t mix. [22:36] - How networking can help you take your career to the next level. [24:10] - Why it pays to keep an open mind (even to that which you don’t agree with), so you don’t miss out on vital information that can change your trajectory. [26:07] - Growing as a Scrum Master and as a person. References and resources mentioned in the show Agile Mentors Community Meetup #13: What Does Cross-Functional Really Mean? with Lance Dacy Mountain Goat Software Scrum Alliance Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast on Apple Podcasts Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we'd love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an agile subject you'd like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Please share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode's presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Lance Dacy is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away.

In this episode of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge talks with Jonas Rinde, CEO and Founder of Nomono. Jonas shares the story behind Nomono, which they designed as a complete podcast workload solution: no wires, no levels to adjust - just great sound, no hassle. In addition to automatic downloading and the ability to easily sync to the cloud, Jonas says Nonomo is a ready tool for professional spatial audio - a way for humans to listen to audio the same way as sound is heard in real life. Discussing its features, uses, and benefits, Jonas shares what makes Nomono powerful and incredibly user-friendly, especially for podcasters. He puts it simply, "a podcast studio in a box".Key Points from the Episode:Overview of what Nomono isWhat is Spatial Audio?Nomono Features, Functions and BenefitsAbout Jonas Rinde:Jonas Rinde is the current CEO of Nomono. He holds an MSc in Embedded Product Design from KTH Royal Institute of Technology and a BSc in Product and Industrial Design from Kristianstad University. Jonas is also certified by Grow - Tomorrow's design leaders in Cross Company Full and Scrum Alliance in CSPO, Certified Scrum Product Owner.About Nomono:Nomono is a team of 33 (and growing) with expertise across signal processing, acoustics, consumer electronics and media production.The company was founded in 2019 by Audun Solvang, Jonas Rinde, and Sigurd Saue. While most of us work from our headquarters in Trondheim, Norway, a select few hang out in Oslo and New York (but secretly wish they lived in Trondheim.) They are working together to simplify the production process for podcasters and broadcast journalists. Their goal is to enable meaningful conversations and storytelling without technology getting in the way.Nomono builds hardware and software that is intuitive, collaborative and easy-to-use while delivering exceptional audio quality. They do it for the love of sound, stories, and human connection. From cave paintings to podcasting, great stories are what connects people. Nomono enables storytellers to be creative by freeing them from the complexity of audio production. We build technology that fades into the background and feels invisible, to make audio storytelling a human experience, not a technical challenge.Tweetable Moments:02:04 - "Special Audio is a way for humans to listen to audio, the way the audio is being heard in a realistic way."15:16 - "If you do recording the field, there are a lot of hours going and just fixing it all to make it sound good enough for your listeners."Apply to be a Guest on The Thoughtful Entrepreneur: https://go.upmyinfluence.com/podcast-guestLinks Mentioned in this Episode:Want to learn more? Check out Nomono's website at https://nomono.co/Check out Nomono on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/nomonosound/Check out Nomono on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/nomonosound/Check out Nomono on Twitter at

Ok, so you're a newly minted Certified Scrum Master (or Certified Scrum Product Owner), now what? How do you get started applying what you learned in class? What if the organization you work in is still primarily waterfall? What if you were the one person sent to take a 2-day class so you can transform the rest of the company and teach them to “do agile”? What if you went for the certification as your first step in trying to find your way out of the waterfall and into a healthier way of working? In this episode of the podcast, Jeff Howey joins me to talk about what happens when you get your CSM or CSPO certification, what it means for the newly certified, and what it says to the rest of the world of work. We talk about how to get started using what you learned in class including what to do if your day job doesn't offer you opportunities to begin experimenting with the things you learned about in Scrum training. If you are having trouble figuring out how to get started, this discussion should give you plenty of ideas and hope as you take the initial steps of putting into practice what you learned in class. If you'd like to contact Jeff Howey. LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jeffhowey/

In this episode Charles Humble talks to Silicon Valley Product Group partner Christian Idiodi about how he got started in product management, the Certified Scrum Product Owner and MBA pathologies,  how product management is badly taught, the skills you need, and how to improve.

This week's podcast was created as a response to a question we were recently asked by some of our CSM/CSPO course students. This one is for all the team members and Scrum Masters, the people on the ground who see why Agile could make a huge difference in their entire organization but just don't have the title or agency to sign the contracts to make it happen. What they wanted to know is: How does someone who isn't at contract-signing level create a conversation where they can get the leaders above them to be open to Agile Transformation?  Dave and Mike will unpack the answer, including discussion on how to hone in on what executives care about and value, and some important questions to ask yourself about the organization and its goals before you start the conversation. They'll share tips on how to craft the right kind of conversation to get leaders to understand why Agile Transformation is worth doing. Contacting Mike Cottmeyer If you'd like to contact Mike you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mcottmeyer Email: mike@leadingagile.com Contacting Dave Prior If you'd like to contact Dave you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com If you have a question you'd like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com And if you're interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified ScrumMaster or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

There is no one bigger game changer in the world than technology and its uptake in every aspect of our lives including our collective future. Cybersecurity has become the top priority across the board. There is need for informed cybersecurity investments that consider sustainability, responsible data usage, being prepared for any crisis and being resilient. We have to enable a culture of responsible innovation that takes holistic considerations for the people, process and technologies and drive a responsible mindset. We will talk about boundary considerations when it comes to data use, adversary threats, impact on environment, user behaviors and how we can help as cybersecurity professionals. The goal is to build the highways for the future with a holistic approach and principles that enables fearless harnessing of the global compute platform, enabling profound technological growth for the next generation. About the speaker: Abhilasha Bhargav-Spantzel is a Partner Security Architect at Microsoft. She is responsible for monitoring and coverage architecture for Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC). MSRC is the front-line defense for millions of customers around the world who use Microsoft platforms and products. Previously she was at Intel for 14 years, focusing on hardware-based security product architecture. She completed her doctorate from Purdue University, which focused on identity and privacy protection using cryptography and biometrics. Abhilasha drives thought leadership and the future evolution of cybersecurity platforms through innovation, architecture, and education. She has given numerous talks at conferences and universities as part of distinguished lecture series and workshops. She has written 5 book chapters and 30+ ACM and IEEE articles and has 35+ patents. Abhilasha leads multiple D&I and actively drives the retention and development of women in technology. She is passionate about STEM K-12 cybersecurity education initiatives, as well as co-organizes regular camps and workshops for the same. Sonnie Ebikwo is a Principal Program Manager at Microsoft where he works on strategies to deliver a high bar of security capabilities and productivity for Microsoft and Stakeholders. He is a highly knowledgeable professional, credited with over 27-years of progressive experiences in both the private and public sectors where he developed strong functional background in various industries ranging from Cybersecurity, Telecom, US Government, Real Estate, Transportation and the Service Industry. Prior to joining Microsoft, he served as a Senior Technical Program Manager and Availability Zone Owner of the largest cluster of Data Centers with the largest customer base within the AWS Data Center Supply Delivery Infrastructure. In this role, he led complex cross functional teams to deliver data center supply through shell, room and infill opportunities including direct responsibility for overall short- and longer-term health of the AZ. Sonnie holds a distinguished formal and extensive education with a master's in planning from the University of Texas at Arlington and completed the senior executive leadership development training at the UChicago Booth School of Business in 2013. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP-2003), Certified Scrum Master and a Certified Scrum Product Owner.

Lance Dacy joins Brian to dig into cross-functionality. Overview You will often hear people say that Scrum teams are cross-functional. But what do we mean when we say that? Are we talking about a jack of all trades but master of none? Do we want team members who can do anything? How does a cross-functional team actually work together and what should we do as agilists to support and nurture cross-functionality in our teams? Join as we discuss these and other aspects of cross-functional teams. Listen now to discover: 02:00 Lance tells us how he defines cross-functional teams 04:34 Brian compares cross-functional teams to the A-Team 08:58 Lance talks about generalists vs specialists 12:39 Brian talks about T-shaped individuals 18:05 Brian discusses the Equity Couch 24:10 Brian describes the Market of Skills tool 27:45 Lance talks about personality profiles 29:20 Brian asks Lance about how to handle cross-functionality on specialist teams Listen next time when we’ll be discussing… Scott Dunn joins us again to discuss the term ‘product-centric.’ References and resources mentioned in the show The A-Team Market of Skills by Lyssa Adkins OSEMN Process What does Scrum mean by Cross-functional? Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. ● Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. ● Got an agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He’s passionate about making a difference in people’s day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Lance Dacy is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away. Show edited by Rhett Gill.

Lance Dacy joins Brian to dig into cross-functionality. Overview You will often hear people say that Scrum teams are cross-functional. But what do we mean when we say that? Are we talking about a jack of all trades but master of none? Do we want team members who can do anything? How does a cross-functional team actually work together and what should we do as agilists to support and nurture cross-functionality in our teams? Join as we discuss these and other aspects of cross-functional teams. Listen now to discover: 02:00 Lance tells us how he defines cross-functional teams 04:34 Brian compares cross-functional teams to the A-Team 08:58 Lance talks about generalists vs specialists 12:39 Brian talks about T-shaped individuals 18:05 Brian discusses the Equity Couch 24:10 Brian describes the Market of Skills tool 27:45 Lance talks about personality profiles 29:20 Brian asks Lance about how to handle cross-functionality on specialist teams Listen next time when we’ll be discussing… Scott Dunn joins us again to discuss the term ‘product-centric.’ References and resources mentioned in the show The A-Team Market of Skills by Lyssa Adkins OSEMN Process What does Scrum mean by Cross-functional? Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. ● Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. ● Got an agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He’s passionate about making a difference in people’s day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Lance Dacy is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away. Show edited by Rhett Gill.

Join Brian Milner and guest co-host Lance Dacy to look at the key capabilities of the product owner, mistakes to avoid, and getting maximum business value from the resources available. In this episode, Brian Milner and guest co-host Lance Dacy take a detailed look at the role of the product owner. They discuss a common source of confusion about what a product owner is, or does: people try to boil down the role to its tactical processes—such as writing user stories. The product owner may be accountable for these processes, but providing direction for what the team is trying to accomplish is their forte. Product owners need to be great communicators and collaborators, with passion for solving problems with their product. Brian and Lance share their experiences of what makes a great product owner, the importance of protecting a team’s capacity, and why saying no is often essential to protecting the vision. Listen now to discover: 04:10 - What’s the difference between a product owner and a product manager? 07:25 - Henrick Kniberg’s criteria for successful product owners 08:57 - Why Scrum Masters focus on the how and product owners focus on the why 09:05 - What does ‘being passionate’ mean to a product owner? 12:48 - The mistake of trying to be too productive as a product owner 19:46 - Can you combine other roles with that of the product owner? 25:55 - What should you find out about a company before accepting a job offer as a product owner? 34:49 - Why one of the most important things you can do is act as a steward of the team’s capacity Listen next time when we’ll be discussing… A special bonus episode with details about Brian’s talks at the upcoming Scrum Gathering on June 6-8 References and resources mentioned in the show Agile Product Ownership in a Nutshell - Henrick Kniberg Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He’s passionate about making a difference in people’s day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Lance is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away. Show edited by Rhett Gill.

Join Brian Milner and guest co-host Lance Dacy to look at the key capabilities of the product owner, mistakes to avoid, and getting maximum business value from the resources available. In this episode, Brian Milner and guest co-host Lance Dacy take a detailed look at the role of the product owner. They discuss a common source of confusion about what a product owner is, or does: people try to boil down the role to its tactical processes—such as writing user stories. The product owner may be accountable for these processes, but providing direction for what the team is trying to accomplish is their forte. Product owners need to be great communicators and collaborators, with passion for solving problems with their product. Brian and Lance share their experiences of what makes a great product owner, the importance of protecting a team’s capacity, and why saying no is often essential to protecting the vision. Listen now to discover: 04:10 - What’s the difference between a product owner and a product manager? 07:25 - Henrick Kniberg’s criteria for successful product owners 08:57 - Why Scrum Masters focus on the how and product owners focus on the why 09:05 - What does ‘being passionate’ mean to a product owner? 12:48 - The mistake of trying to be too productive as a product owner 19:46 - Can you combine other roles with that of the product owner? 25:55 - What should you find out about a company before accepting a job offer as a product owner? 34:49 - Why one of the most important things you can do is act as a steward of the team’s capacity Listen next time when we’ll be discussing… A special bonus episode with details about Brian’s talks at the upcoming Scrum Gathering on June 6-8 References and resources mentioned in the show Agile Product Ownership in a Nutshell - Henrick Kniberg Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He’s passionate about making a difference in people’s day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Lance is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away. Show edited by Rhett Gill.

Join Brian Milner and guest co-host Lance Dacy to look at the key capabilities of the product owner, mistakes to avoid, and getting maximum business value from the resources available. In this episode, Brian Milner and guest co-host Lance Dacy take a detailed look at the role of the product owner. They discuss a common source of confusion about what a product owner is, or does: people try to boil down the role to its tactical processes—such as writing user stories. The product owner may be accountable for these processes, but providing direction for what the team is trying to accomplish is their forte. Product owners need to be great communicators and collaborators, with passion for solving problems with their product. Brian and Lance share their experiences of what makes a great product owner, the importance of protecting a team’s capacity, and why saying no is often essential to protecting the vision. Listen now to discover: 04:10 - What’s the difference between a product owner and a product manager? 07:25 - Henrick Kniberg’s criteria for successful product owners 08:57 - Why Scrum Masters focus on the how and product owners focus on the why 09:05 - What does ‘being passionate’ mean to a product owner? 12:48 - The mistake of trying to be too productive as a product owner 19:46 - Can you combine other roles with that of the product owner? 25:55 - What should you find out about a company before accepting a job offer as a product owner? 34:49 - Why one of the most important things you can do is act as a steward of the team’s capacity Listen next time when we’ll be discussing… A special bonus episode with details about Brian’s talks at the upcoming Scrum Gathering on June 6-8 References and resources mentioned in the show Agile Product Ownership in a Nutshell - Henrick Kniberg Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He’s passionate about making a difference in people’s day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Lance is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away. Show edited by Rhett Gill.

Brian Kornfeld starts every day thinking about how to make Florida the world's next great innovation community. The Tampa Bay native isCEO&Co-Founderof Synapse, a 501(c)(3)nonprofit that is the guidefor Florida's innovation communities. Through Synapse, Brian is creating the nexus for businesses to easily find what they need and share what they have to accelerate success and create thriving economiesin Florida.Brian'spassion for technology began at an early ageand continued through college,culminating in a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in aerospace engineering from The University of Michigan and the University of Florida, respectively, officially making Brian a rocket scientist.Early in his career, Brian worked on amazing technology projects from handheld encryption devices to fighter jets to cutting-edge satellites. Brian has managed global development teamswith project budgets over $25M, and worked on integrating a$1B acquisition.While completing his MBA, Brian's entrepreneurial endeavors began as he founded his first startup.As a first-time founder, Brian discovered learned from the school of hard knocks critical lessons to business in his late 20s, including building a team, discovering gaps, product/market fit, story telling, and efficient execution.To overcome many challenges Brian saw with early-stage founders, Brian launched Popkorn Apps, a mobile application development company and mini-incubator to help entrepreneurs turn their visions into reality. As CEO of PopKorn Apps,Brian clearly saw the connectivity issues of the Tampa Bay and Floridaregions.He later teamed up with Marc Blumenthal and Andy Hafer, along with the support of many others in the community, to formSynapse, the framework for connecting Florida's innovation communities. Brian quickly transformed his passion from enabling individuals with good ideas to empowering Florida's entire innovation community to become the best place to build and grow a business.Brian loves to be an enabler, helping others to innovate and understand possibilities when everybody is enabled to reach success.Brian isan accomplished keynote speaker, having spoken at multiple conferences, events, and commencements. Brian is the President of the USF Executive MBA Alumni Advisory Council and supports many local missions and companies as an advisor, board member, or partner. He is a Six-Sigma Black Belt, Lean Expert, and Certified Scrum Product Owner. Brian is a 2018recipient of the prestigious Tampa Bay Business Journal's40 Under 40:Business Up and Comers of Tampa Bay. He is also nationally recognized in The Business Journals'Influencers: Rising Starsas one of the top 100 business executives across the country who are having apositive impact relatively early in their careersand in Forbes'Next 1000as a rising entrepreneurial star.In his spare time, Brian enjoys having fun with his wife Marcy, his twin sons Jacob and Micah, his dog Brooks, and being an avid Tampa Bay sports fan.You can often find him coaching his kids at baseball, out to eat at a local restaurant, or cheering on his beloved Wolverines, Bucs, Lightning,or Rays.@synapseflwww.SynapseFL.com

Agility is more than just product development. It's the whole mindset, a paradigm shift in the way your organization works. Examples are abundant where empiricism is practiced, for instance in the way the world has to deal with a pandemic like the one that is going on right now.Speaker, author, trainer, consultant, and legend James Coplien joins Sander Dur in this episode of the Mastering Agility podcast to have a great discussion on where he sees business agility has evolved to, how science has taken a few big hits, and the influence of large players on the market.   What you'll discover in this show:-        Agility didn't start as agility -        Large players in the market don't necessarily have a good impact on the overall state of business -        Science has taken a big hit during the last couple of years  Speakers: James CoplienLean/Agile Process and Architecture CoachExecutive consultant in the areas of organizational development and software architecture with more than 40 years of experience. Extensive foundations, experience, and industry leadership in software patterns, organizational patterns, software architecture, and electronic design automation. Innovative integration of deep technical insights and concern for the human side of your business.  Specialties: Software architecture, organizational transformation, software patterns, EDA software, object-oriented design, Agile software development. Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified ScrumMaster, Certified Scrum Practitioner, Certified Scrum Product Owner. Contact James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coplien/ jcoplien@gmail.com Sander Dur (host)Scrum Master, Agile Coach, trainer, and podcast host for ‘Mastering Agility”Sander Dur is a business agility enthusiast, with a passion for people. Whether it's healthy product development, agile leadership, measurement, or psychological safety, Sander has the drive to enable organizations to the best of their abilities. He is an avid article writer, working on a book about Scrum Mastery from the Trenches, and is connecting listeners with the most influential people in the industry. Masteringagility.org https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanderdur/ https://agilitymasters.com/en https://sander-dur.medium.com/ Additional resources: Discord community: https://discord.gg/6YJamBJxUV Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/masteringagility)

Lisa Condon is the owner of Lisa Condon Enterprises, a company that sparks inspiration, innovation, and collaboration through gratitude. Lisa uses a combination of theory and practices from the Project Management Institute, Six Sigma, SCRUM, EQi, and Appreciative Inquiry. Lisa is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt, SCRUM Master, Certified Scrum Product Owner, and PMP. By combining her love of creativity and her passion for process, she is the founder and creator of GRATITUDE, a proprietary program designed to spark change. She is the author of the soon-to-be-released book, “Sparking Your Business, 9 Steps of Gratitude” Lisa has won awards in Public Relations, Event Development, and Business Solutions throughout the country. 00:00 - 00:44 Lisa's Bio 00:45 - 01:04 https://www.peppershock.com/product/coach-outlet-discount/ 01:05 - 04:56 Marketing Essentials Moment: We Don't Have Problems, We have Opportunities! 04:57 - 05:14 Welcome to Peppershock Media's Marketing Expedition Podcast 05:15 - 06:06 Welcome to the show, Lisa! 06:07 - 08:43 Success stories on Lisa's journey 08:44 - 11:03 “Sparking Your Business, 9 Steps of Gratitude” book 11:04 - 13:42 Lisa's goals & visions 13:43 - 17:55 Rhea's passion to interact with a live audience 17:56 - 19:50 Encouraging small businesses 19:51 - 27:37 Resources that can help market your own business 27:38 - 28:21 “You can either see other businesses as collaborators or you can see them as competitions.” – Lisa Condon 28:22 - 32:27 Challenges vs. Opportunities 32:28 - 37:14 Lisa is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt! 37:15 - 41:46 Running a values-based business 41:47 - 42:56 How to reach Lisa 42:57 - 43:19 Thank you so much, Lisa! Enjoy the journey! 43:20 - 44:05 Join https://themarketingexpedition.com today! Coach Outlet Discount. Get $100 off your first $100+ order of Coach Outlet products, courtesy of your friend, Rhea Allen. #marketing #business #marketingdigital #digitalmarketing #branding #socialmedia #entrepreneur #socialmediamarketing #advertising #branding #marketingstrategy #onlinemarketing #marketingtips #success #smallbusiness

This podcast is our third in a series of conversations focused on Fixed vs. Growth Mindset. Leveraging the work in Carol Dweck's book, Mindset, Mary Kaufman and Dave Prior explore the differences between having a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Each episode of this series focuses on how our mindset impacts the way we perceive and respond to different types of stimulus/events. This episode is focused on effort and the differences between how a fixed mindset and a growth mindset perceive the value we receive from applying ourselves at work. Do we see the effort spent as a waste of time, or a step towards achieving some level of mastery that can be a reward all by itself? Other Episodes in our Growth Mindset Series Episode 1: Embracing Challenges Episode 2 : Obstacles Links Mindset: The New Psychology of Success - by Carol Dweck https://amzn.to/3yYpyn3 Fixed vs Growth Mindset graphic referenced in the interview (created by Nigel Holmes) https://bit.ly/3vWO1Hh Contacting Mary LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mary-kaufmann/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-kaufmann-305b844/ Email: Mary.Kaufmann@leadingagile.com Contacting Dave Prior LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com If you have a question you'd like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com And if you're interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified ScrumMaster or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

Working with the Product folks at LeadingAgile is different than a lot of other Product Management gigs. In this interview, LeadingAgile's Andrew Young joins Dave to talk about what it's like working with the product group at LeadingAgile, why we focus so heavily on the product side of things, the difference between working “in” product and working “on” product, and why he's made the choice to work at LeadingAgile. Contacting Andrew Young LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/andrew-young/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/atyoung/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/exclamation101 Email: andrew.young@leadingagile.com Contacting Dave Prior If you'd like to contact Dave you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com If you have a question you'd like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com And if you're interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified ScrumMaster or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

Developers aren't the only people involved in making Drupal great. It takes the input of designers, writers, product managers, marketers, and end-users to help make the best software for the most people. In this Tag1 Team Talk celebrating https://tag1consulting.com/20years (20 years of Drupal), we have one of those non-developers: https://www.drupal.org/u/dawnborglund (Dawn Aly). Dawn has been an open-source proponent throughout her career, from her first use of Drupal to VP of digital strategy at Mediacurrent, and on to product manager for customer digital experience at Red Hat. Dawn's long experience exemplifies how non-developers are critical to the success of Drupal.  Tag1 Consulting Managing Director Michael Meyers interviews Dawn about her time in open source software as a non-developer, and how that has shaped her career path. Not only is Dawn a strategist and product manager, she is a Certified Scrum Product Owner. Join us today for this different perspective on Drupal, Drupal projects, and being part of the community.

Being strategic is about planning to reach our goals and deciding what to do with our limited capacity to achieve those aspirations and vision. But to do this, we have to first identify what's valuable to the organization and prioritize the things that will release the most value into it.  LeadingAgile Chief Methodologist, Dennis Stevens joins Dave prior this week to discuss why we should be prioritizing value and the importance of value density. Contacting Dennis Stevens Web: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dennis-stevens/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/dennisstevens Email: dennis@leadingagile.com Contacting Dave Prior If you'd like to contact Dave you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com If you have a question you'd like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com And if you're interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified ScrumMaster or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

Sohrab ist Founder & CEO der Scrum Academy GmbH mit Sitz in Köln. Zudem ist er Certified Scrum Trainer und Approved Certified Agile Leadership Educator der Scrum Alliance. Er hat mit großen und kleinen Organisationen auf der ganzen Welt und in verschiedenen Branchen gearbeitet, hauptsächlich in den Bereichen Pharma, Medtech, Automotive, IT, Telko und Finanzdienstleistungen. Bis Ende 2020 war Sohrab auch Mitglied des Scrum Alliance Board of Directors. Er ist der einzige Certified Scrum Trainer, der von Alexander Osterwalder und seinem Unternehmen als Strategyzer Coach akkreditiert wurde. Allein in den letzten fünf Jahren hat Sohrab mehr als 5.000 Menschen zum Certified ScrumMaster, Certified Scrum Product Owner und Certified Agile Leader ausgebildet. In dieser Zeit haben alle seine Kurse, sowohl online als auch persönlich, einen hervorragenden Net Promoter Score (NPS) von 95+ erhalten. Darüber hinaus hat Sohrab in eine Reihe von Startups investiert und ist Mentor für mehrere CEOs. Sein Hintergrund als Unternehmensberater bei Bain & Company, Chief Innovation Officer bei SE-Consulting und als einziger Mediziner, der die höchsten agilen Zertifizierungen besitzt, geben ihm eine ganzheitliche Perspektive, die von seinen Klienten sehr geschätzt wird.

If you're someone who is comfortable with the “business side” of projects, you are probably the right person to aspire to achieve a #Certified #Scrum #Product #Owner® (#CSPO®) #certification. While the #Certified #Scrum Master® (#CSM®) helps the #Scrum Team work together to learn and implement #Scrum, as a #CSPO, you create the product vision, order the Product Backlog, and make sure the best possible job is done to delight the customer. Benefits of a #Certified #Scrum #Product #Owner certification: Expand your career opportunities across all industry sectors adopting #Agile practices Demonstrate your attainment of core #Scrum knowledge Learn the foundation of #Scrum and the scope of the #Product #Owner role Engage with #Agile practitioners committed to continuous improvement In addition to fulfilling the role of #Product #Owner on a #Scrum Team, your #CSPO #certification gives you an initial two-year membership with #Scrum Alliance®. Join local user groups and online social networks, gain access to deep discounts on Gatherings, and more. REQUIREMENTS Attend an in-person, 16-hour course taught by a #Certified #Scrum #Trainer® (#CST®). After successfully completing the course, you will be asked to accept the #CSPO License Agreement and complete your #Scrum Alliance membership profile. #scrumorg #agile #scrummaster #scrum #productowner #scrumalliance #productmanagement #psm #agilecoach #scaledagileframework #devops #scrumtraining #productmanager #itbusinessanalyst #businessanalyst #agileproblems #itbusinessowner #developmentteam #scrumteam #agileprocess #scrummasters #scrumdotorg #agil #certificacaoscrum #retrospectivas #teambuilding #agiledevelopment --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/aleph-global-scrum-team/message

Profit from Legal Interview: Rabiah Coon In this interview, my guest and I discuss the overlap between project management and legal operations development. This is a surface-level discussion; so, don't worry about being overwhelmed. If you want to dive deeper, reach out to either the host, Noel Bagwell, or the guest, Rabiah Coon. Their info is in the show notes.Rabiah is a project manager, stand-up comic, activist, and non-profit volunteer. On her podcast, More Than Work, she talks with other professionals about shared passions, hobbies, work that reflects their lives, and more. Rabiah has extensive experience working as both an individual contributor to, and a manager of, both geographically local and geographically separated teams. As a project manager, she's worked with major hospitality, e-commerce, and pharmaceutical companies. She was the project manager for Fossil's website, ca. 2015, and was the project manager for Groundlink's website, ca. 2014. She has a Certified Scrum Product Owner certification, and studied Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. Guest Info:• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rabiahcoon/• Listen to the More Than Work Podcast with Rabiah Coon: https://cutt.ly/bmUrnK9 • More Than Work Podcast Website: https://www.rabiahsaid.com/podcast Host Info: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nbagwell3/ • Profit from Legal™ (Legal Ops setup service): https://profitfromlegal.com/ • ExecutiveLP™ (law firm): https://ExecutiveLP.com/ Music Credit: Artist: Avaren Album: For Others' Use Song: “Precipice” License: Creative Commons — Attribution LicenseThis podcast contains attorney advertisement material.

Michelle Suedel is currently the Chief Information Security Officer for Guaranty and Title Co. In the role of Chief Information Security Officer, Michelle is the master of the slide puzzle, moving infrastructure and systems into place in order to streamline and standardize the infrastructure and security for the organization. Guaranty and Title Co. is based in Bismarck, ND with offices spread across North Dakota and Minnesota, and a small presence in Montana and Wisconsin. Michelle's strongest skill, and biggest blind spot, is asking questions! She likes to have all of the facts to analyze the situation, draw a conclusion as to the best path forward, and execute. Her goals include providing the most seamless technology and security process for the team members on a day-to-day basis and keeping the company in a recoverable position from any attack. Michelle's 20 years of experience in Information Technology and Security include a 14-year career in the banking sector, where she grew a department from her alone to a team of 10, facilitated the first 3 bank merger in the state of ND, developed all of the information security and technology policy and function, and coached and developed a great team of people. Michelle earned an Associate's Degree in Microcomputer and Network Technology and a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Information Technology. She also attained and maintains the following certifications: Certified Information Security Manager, Project Management Professional, Certified ScrumMaster, Certified Scrum Product Owner. Michelle has served in many volunteer activities for a variety of nonprofits organizations and is currently on the Board for Arise! Communities, a recently formed nonprofit that believes in inclusive technology education and embracing diversity in our community. Arise is currently fundraising in order to fulfill the role of an Executive Director. The three founding females have found high value in finding a dedicated person to organizing and developing training topics and sessions. Arise is also looking for people who like to share their knowledge that would contribute as a course instructor. The website, https://www.arisecommunities.com/, provides more detail about the organization and goals. Find Michelle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellesuedel/ Check out Michelle's Website: https://msuedel.weebly.com/ Books Mentioned: - Blink by Malcolm Gladwell - Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain - Crucial Communication by Gary Peterson - Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein - Clifton StrengthsFinder® (StrengthsQuest) ✦ SUBSCRIBE so you don't miss more tech tutorials and tech career tips videos:: http://bit.ly/SlyGittensYouTubeChannel ✦ LinkedIn Profile ➜ https://www.linkedin.com/in/slygittens/ ✦ Instagram Profile ➜ https://www.instagram.com/sly_gittens/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

One of the things you need for Agile practices to deliver on their promise is a fully dedicated team of people working together to deliver value in a predictable manner. What we want is a high-performing, learning team that can consistently make and meet commitments. But what if that isn’t an option? What if you work in an organization that still believes in the power of multi-tasking, or you work in an agency whose whole business model is built around the idea that everyone is 100% utilized across however many teams/projects are needed to hit that number? In this episode of SoundNotes, Jeff Howey and Dave Prior take on the question of what to do if you don’t have dedicated teams. They explore the various forms this commonly takes, how it is likely to impact your ability to deliver value and they share some coping mechanisms as well as ideas on how to approach the conversation with the appropriate people when the time comes. Contacting Jeff Howey Email: Jeff.howey@leadingagile.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffhowey/ Contacting Dave Prior LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com And if you're interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified ScrumMaster or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

COVID has been one of the biggest challenges to face education and assessment in years. In this podcast, Simon Trevers, Chief Strategy Officer for the Surpass team at BTL, discusses the ongoing challenges faced by COVID and how there is now an opportunity for awarding organisations to make a positive step towards technology. Simon discusses formative and continuous summative assessment in detail and how, by undertaking a step-by-step transition to technology-based assessments, these forms of assessment can enhance the examination process. Doing so would mitigate the risk associated with 100% terminal assessment programmes and improve the value of the assessment experience for students, teachers, and education leaders. About Simon Trevers, Chief Strategy Officer Simon has worked in the educational and assessment technology industry for over 14 years and has a wealth of experience in designing and delivering a diverse range of interactive learning platforms, learning management systems and online assessment services for customers across the UK and overseas. Simon’s skills and experience encompass product management, product development, commercial management and solutions architecture. Simon’s role as Chief Strategy Officer at BTL involves working alongside clients and industry partners to understand business needs and operational challenges, and to identify future trends in assessment. Prior to working in educational and assessment technology, Simon was involved in healthcare communications technology for almost 10 years, delivering services to hospitals globally. Having graduated from The University of Reading with a degree in Geography, Simon’s more recent professional qualifications include an ITIL Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management and he is also a Certified Scrum Product Owner. simon.trevers@surpass.com

Your organization is awesome.But sometimes you want to be even awesomer!The Official Do Good Better Podcast is here to help!Each episode features (fundraising expert, speaker, event creator and author) Patrick Kirby interviewing leaders and champions of small and medium nonprofits share their successes, their impact, and what makes them a unicorn in a field of horses. Patrick will also answer a fundraising question, and most importantly, showcase how you can support these small nonprofits doing great big things!Listing her non-profit accomplishments alone could fill an hour-long show. (Get ready for an amazing guest.)Carolyne Akinyi Opinde is the Founder and CEO at The NGO Whisperer™. She is also the owner and editor-in-chief of The NGO Whisperer™ Magazine, the host and producer of The NGO Whisperer™ Show and the moderator of The NGO Whisperer™ Mastermind.Ms. Opinde is a respected Resource Mobilization Specialist, a Certified Project Management Professional (UK) and Certified Scrum Product Owner. She was named the Best Impact-Focused Social Development Female Leader of the Year, 2019 by British Award for African Development (BRAAD), and one of the Future Leaders in 2015/2016 by Resource Alliance.Ms. Opinde has over 15 years’ experience in the nonprofit sector. Her knowledge and expertise in international development has impacted communities across sub-Saharan Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Caribbean. She has raised over US$100 million and managed various projects of up to US$20 million.Contact Carolyne: Info@ngowhisperer.comNGO Whisperer Website: https://ngowhisperer.com/#Subscribe to NGO Whisperer Magazine: https://ngowhisperer.com/magazine/#ngowhisperer #carolyneopindeSupport This Podcast! Make a quick and easy donation here: https://www.patreon.com/dogoodbetterWant more great advice? Buy Patrick's book! Now also available as an e-book!Fundraise Awesomer! A Practical Guide to Staying Sane While Doing GoodAvailable through Amazon Here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1072070359Email Patrick: Patrick@dogoodbetterconsulting.com Listen to Abby's eBook: https://www.dogoodbetterconsulting.com/fundraising-therapyEmail Abby: Abby@dogoodbetterconsulting.com Follow On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoodBetterPodcast/Follow On Twitter: @consulting_do Follow Patrick On LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fundraisingdad/Follow Abby on LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abby-furchner-a32aab115/#fundraising #fundraiser #charity #nonprofit #donate #dogood #dogoodBETTER #fargo #fundraisingdadDonorDock.com: The #1 Nonprofit CRM Tool. Use the referral code “Do Good Better” to get your first month free!Want To Start Your Own Podcast? Small Town Labs can help you start and grow your new creative outlet! Begin with some free advice by emailing Lee at LeeFromFargo@gmail.com.

"Daddy, Where Do Product Backlog Items Come From?" by Chris Sims from https://agilelearninglabs.com/ In Episode 7 of the Agile Software Development podcast we're delving in to some of the concepts behind the "product back log" with a post from Chris Sims. Chris takes us back to some fundamentals as we talk about the Product Backlog. Now every Agile team will have their own, slightly different, approach to managing the back log. What I like about Chris' approach is the simplicity and the clarity. Managing the inbound requests with the Protobacklog and pushing the rejected items to the Icebox. For those lucky enough to make it to the backlog we're organising by order, work estimates, and value estimates. If topics like 'work estimates' and 'Business value estimates', intrigue you, you might be interested in learning more from Chris with one of his Certified Scrum Product Owner or Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner workshops.

Tim Francis is an entrepreneur from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He is the owner of Tim Francis Marketing and the founder of Profit Factory. Tim has a BPE degree from the University of Alberta, and a Certified Scrum Product Owner. Tim is a sought out consultant and speaker in entrepreneurship, marketing, and systems. Tim has been an entrepreneur for over 10 years now. His first business was in 2001 when he was a franchisee of College Pro Painters. In 2009 Tim was awarded one of Edmonton's coveted “Sizzling 20 Under 30” awards as one of his city's brightest up-and-coming business leaders. In March 2015, Tim was a guest lecturer at NYU in New York City. In July 2015, Tim spoke atop a mountain in Utah at the exclusive, invitation-only Baby Bathwater mastermind. A perfect storm of stressful events were major contributors to Tim falling dramatically ill in 2011 with a case of Erythema Nodosum. He was unable to walk or work for three full months. Amidst searing frustration, bitter disappointment and creeping self-doubt, Tim was forced to scrap everything and start from scratch. The soul-searching of those three months, and the businesses birthed from that crippling time have led to a business renaissance for Tim, enjoying greater success than ever before. Away from business, Tim's been a multi-award-winning athlete in both High School (ESSMY in St. Albert) and at Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton. Tim was selected to the prestigious House of Commons Page Program (Ottawa) in 2000. Tim obtained a Health Promotion degree from the University of Alberta in 2006. Tim has also spent time in the entertainment industry as a TV host (2005) and a touring rock drummer (2002 – 2008). In his final year as a drummer, Tim appeared at the Western Canadian Music Awards with his rock trio, Smoothride. Today Tim lives in Austin, TX, and celebrates his mobility 3-4 times per week participating in Crossfit. About The Project EGG Show: The Project EGG Show is a video talk show that introduces you to entrepreneurs from around the world. It is broadcast from studios in Metairie, Louisiana to online platforms including YouTube, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify and Stitcher, and hosted by Ben Gothard. Our goal is to give you a fresh, unscripted and unedited look into the lives of real entrepreneurs from around the globe. From billionaires to New York Times best selling authors to Emmy Award winners to Forbes 30 Under 30 recipients to TEDx speakers – we present their real stories – uncensored and uncut. Subscribe To The Show: https://projectegg.co/podcast/ Get Access To: 1. Resources: https://projectegg.co/resources/ 2. Financing Solutions: https://projectegg.co/epoch/ 3. Payment Solutions: https://projectegg.co/sempr/ 4. Services: https://projectegg.co/resources#services 5. Courses: https://projectegg.co/resources#courses 6. Software: https://projectegg.co/resources#software 7. Book: https://projectegg.co/resources#books --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/projectegg/support