Podcast appearances and mentions of vasco duarte

Debt might be the most misunderstood tool in wealth creation. While most Australians see debt as something to eliminate, the wealthy understand it's something to structure strategically.In this illuminating conversation with Vasco Duarte, a senior debt advisor with 28 years of industry experience, we explore the sophisticated approaches to debt management that separate ordinary investors from truly successful ones. Vasco breaks down how financial planning evolves through life stages – from getting your first foothold in property during your twenties, to maximizing borrowing capacity in your thirties, aggressively accumulating assets in your forties, and finally transitioning toward retirement planning in your fifties.The discussion delves deep into crucial considerations rarely addressed in mainstream financial advice: how to effectively separate business assets from personal investments, protect family wealth when helping children enter the property market, and maintain liquidity for future opportunities. Vasco reveals that what truly distinguishes high-net-worth families isn't just their goals or vision – it's their execution capability and foresight to plan 5-10 years ahead, surrounding themselves with trusted experts who bring specialized knowledge to the table.Perhaps most valuable is Vasco's perspective shift on what many borrowers experience as "mortgage prison." Rather than seeing lending limitations as constraints, he reframes them as potential opportunities through alternative lending sources – where slightly higher costs can be justified by the returns generated from new investment opportunities. Whether you're a business owner looking to de-risk your personal assets, a parent wanting to help your children without exposing your wealth, or simply someone seeking to optimize your financial structures, this episode provides rare insights into the strategies employed by Australia's most financially sophisticated families. Listen now to transform your approach to debt from a burden to a powerful wealth-building tool.

This is a special episode, where I introduce the "Big Agile Questions" survey and review some of the questions that you've already submitted! Thank you all who did! You can find the submission form here. Submit your questions, as we will be reviewing these in future episodes! To join 25,341 other Agilists on our Newsletter (˜1 post/week), visit this page, and join. The Power of Asking Better Questions At every major turning point in history, from the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution, progress has begun with asking better questions. The Agile movement itself started with the authors of the Agile Manifesto questioning traditional software development methods. Now, in 2025, with significant changes in the industry including PMI's acquisition of the Agile Alliance, the community faces a crucial moment to shape its future direction through thoughtful inquiry and reflection. "Throughout history, the biggest leaps forward have come from people willing to ask difficult, sometimes even quite challenging, questions." The Future Beyond Agile

#5amMesterScrum Lightning Talk 1,246 Live - Have Some Guts and Adjust Scope (4R Thursdays) - Today's topics: (1) Vasco Duarte from Scrum Master toolbox posted on X how estimates don't help us meet schedules or cost. I replied basically that only adjusting scope does, but program, managers, project managers and leaders are scared to do so.  Adjust scope is my secret to success. Please like and subscribe and share 5amMesterScrum.  Please send me your topics.   You are are doing Great Please Keep on Sharing. 5am Mester Scrum 5am Mester Scrum Lightning Talk 1,246 went live on Youtube, LinkedIn and Facebook 4R (Requirements, Reviews, Retros, Roles) Thursday 1/9/2025 from Philadelphia, PA  Happy Scrumming, Please Don't forget to sign up to our 5amMesterScrum newsletter for freebies.  Definitely a free copy of Change Volume 20 in PDF form.  Watch the video in our YouTube Library as well. Social Media: - search 5amMesterScrum or #5amMesterScrum  and you should find us and if not please let us know LinkedIn, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok     Podcasts: (search 5amMesterScrum)

Xmas Special: Investing in Software: Alternatives To Project Management For Software Businesses With Vasco Duarte In the grand finale of the “5 Wishes for 2025” series, Vasco Duarte tackles the chaotic nature of software development and why traditional project management just doesn't cut it. Drawing on lessons from weather models, butterflies, and Agile practices, Vasco presents a bold manifesto for how we can thrive in uncertainty. Chaos Theory and Software Development “Project management is like trying to predict where a butterfly will land after flying through a hurricane – good luck with that!” Vasco begins with the story of Edward Lorenz, the MIT meteorologist who discovered what was later called the “butterfly effect.” This concept illuminates and explains the unpredictability of software development, where tiny changes can lead to massive, unexpected consequences – like a simple tweak spiraling into a full system refactor. Why Traditional Project Management Falls Short “Planning your year's meals in January? That's about as realistic as predicting October's sushi cravings!” Vasco humorously dismantles the premise of project management, which assumes stability, predictability, and complete information upfront. While Agile provides a more flexible approach, it's often misused as “project management in disguise,” failing to unlock the true potential of adaptability. The 2025 Manifesto: A New Way to Invest in Software “Loving Gantt charts is like loving fax machines – there's a better way!” Vasco outlines his four-point manifesto for how organizations can thrive in uncertainty: Fund Software Incrementally: Treat funding like stock market investing – small, regular investments over time. Think Like an Investor: Focus on maximizing returns, not rigidly executing plans. Experiment by Default: Acknowledge that the best ideas come from testing and iterating. Give Teams End-to-End Ownership: Empower teams to own their work from idea to delivery, eliminating micromanagement. The Need for Agility at All Levels “Scrum teams in a project management organization are like race car drivers stuck in traffic jams – all that potential, nowhere to go!” Vasco emphasizes that agility must extend beyond individual teams. Organizations need to embrace Agile principles at every level to avoid stifling innovation and potential. And his approach to funding and managing software investments does exactly that: bring agility to the decision making forums in the organization, instead of keeping it at the team level. A Wish for 2025: Embrace the Chaos “Butterflies don't follow project plans, and neither does software development!” Vasco's final wish for 2025 is for organizations to stop forcing software into rigid project management frameworks. Instead, they should embrace the unpredictable nature of development, leveraging incremental funding, iterative experimentation, and team empowerment to thrive in uncertainty. See It in Action: Global Agile Summit 2025 “Want to see how real organizations are thriving in chaos? Join us in Tallinn!” Vasco invites listeners to the Global Agile Summit 2025 in Tallinn, Estonia, where forward-thinking organizations will share their stories of breaking free from traditional project management. Holiday listeners can grab a 75% discounted Super Early Bird ticket at GlobalAgileSummit.com. About Vasco Duarte Vasco Duarte is a thought leader in the Agile space, co-founder of Agile Finland, and host of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, which has over 10 million downloads. Author of NoEstimates: How To Measure Project Progress Without Estimating, Vasco is a sought-after speaker and consultant helping organizations embrace Agile practices to achieve business success. You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn.

Xmas Special: Keep Your Backlog Microscopic - The #NoBacklogs Revolution With Vasco Duarte In the fourth episode of the “5 Wishes for 2025” series, Vasco Duarte takes on a common yet overlooked productivity killer: the monster backlog. With humor, relatable analogies, and practical advice, Vasco shares how organizations can turn their overwhelming backlogs into powerful tools for focus and impact. The Backlog Problem: When More Becomes Too Much “Your backlog should be like your fridge, not your basement – keep only what you'll use soon, not what you might need someday!” Vasco opens by comparing bloated backlogs to storage boxes filled with old cables and chargers: seemingly useful but rarely touched. Sharing the story of Juha, a leader overwhelmed by a five-year backlog of epics, Vasco highlights how backlogs can grow out of control, becoming a source of stress rather than a tool for productivity. A #NoBacklogs Approach to Backlog Management “Your backlog should only contain work for the next 2-3 sprints. That's it!” Vasco introduces a game-changing rule of thumb: Short-Term Focus: Limit the backlog to items that can be completed within the next 2-3 sprints. Medium-Term Planning: Use a problem-centric roadmap to outline key issues to tackle in the next 6-9 months, and a technology strategy to align on longer term tech priorities (more on that in an upcoming episode) Long-Term Vision: Create a clear vision document to connect today's work to future goals. By managing backlogs with these three distinct timelines, teams can regain clarity and focus without sacrificing strategic alignment. The Problem-Centric Roadmap: A Tool for Clarity “Think of it as three zoom levels on your product map – focus on what you need today, tomorrow, and the distant future.” Vasco explains how a problem-centric roadmap helps teams prioritize medium-term goals by focusing on the most critical customer problems. Combined with a clear long-term vision, this roadmap empowers teams to align their efforts without being overwhelmed by irrelevant details. The Hidden Danger of Monster Backlogs “At conferences, I've met teams with 10-year-old backlog items – that's like keeping your Y2K plans ‘just in case'!” Vasco shares surprising stories of teams with decade-old backlog items. These “zombie tasks” highlight the need for a system to prevent backlogs from growing unchecked. Without proper management, backlogs can cause anxiety and hinder teams from delivering value. A Wish for 2025: Make Backlogs Short And Easy To Manage! “Let's turn our backlogs back into the focusing tools they were meant to be.” Vasco's fourth wish for 2025 is to see teams use backlogs as powerful prioritization tools, not bottomless pits of forgotten ideas. By embracing a short-term backlog, medium-term roadmap, and long-term vision, teams can stay focused, aligned, and productive. See It in Action: Global Agile Summit 2025 “Want to learn how real teams are taming their monster backlogs? Join us in Tallinn!” Vasco invites listeners to the Global Agile Summit 2025 in Tallinn, Estonia, where teams will share practical strategies for managing backlogs effectively. Holiday listeners can snag a 75% discounted Super Early Bird ticket at GlobalAgileSummit.com. About Vasco Duarte Vasco Duarte is a thought leader in the Agile space, co-founder of Agile Finland, and host of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, which has over 10 million downloads. Author of NoEstimates: How To Measure Project Progress Without Estimating, Vasco is a sought-after speaker and consultant helping organizations embrace Agile practices to achieve business success. You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn.

Xmas Special: Running Experiments Over Managing A Tasklist, aka The Backlog With Vasco Duarte In the third episode of the “5 Wishes for 2025” series, Vasco Duarte takes aim at one of the most common anti-patterns in software development: the obsession with managing tasks instead of discovering what truly works.  He calls on teams to shift their mindset from backlog management to running experiments, creating a culture of learning and rapid innovation. From Backlog Secretary to Product Scientist “Managing a backlog is like planning a road trip by focusing on the gas stops instead of the destination.” Vasco reflects on how teams often lose sight of their goals, becoming bogged down in task management instead of pursuing real customer value. He humorously compares this approach to being a “backlog secretary,” organizing tasks while forgetting why the project began in the first place. His solution? A radical shift from task obsession to a learning-first approach driven by rapid experiments. The Power of 24-Hour Experiments “Why wait for weeks to learn something you could test in a day?” Vasco shares real-world success stories of teams embracing a rapid experimentation mindset: • The Skeptical Client: In just 48 hours, this team launched two market experiments and gained actionable feedback. • The Experiment-First Startup: Meeting twice weekly to design and run experiments, this startup learns more in a week than most teams do in a month. These examples showcase how rapid testing leads to faster learning and greater customer impact. The Build-Measure-Learn Framework “Or as I like to call it, the ‘Question-Experiment-Insight' cycle – it's like having a GPS for product development.” Vasco introduces a three-step approach to running experiments: 1. Start with a Concrete Goal: Define measurable business targets using a Business Value Equation. 2. Create a Metrics Tree: Break down goals into daily metrics that track progress. 3. Experiment, Experiment, Experiment: Test new features, tweaks, and ideas quickly to gain insights and adjust course. He highlights a team's transformation from a “feature factory” to “experiment mode,” where the Product Owner posed questions and the team creatively solved them. This cycle drives meaningful insights instead of aimless task completion. A Wish for 2025: From Features to Insights “A backlog full of tasks is like a restaurant full of recipes – it means nothing until you know what your customers actually want to eat!” Vasco's third wish for 2025 is a world where teams prioritize learning over task management. By embracing the “Question-Experiment-Insight” cycle, teams can focus on solving customer problems and creating real value. This mindset shift transforms teams from task managers into product scientists, driving faster, smarter innovation. See It in Action: Global Agile Summit 2025 “Want to learn how real teams are running experiments and making an impact? Join us in Tallinn!” Vasco invites listeners to the Global Agile Summit 2025 in Tallinn, Estonia, where teams will share stories about adopting rapid experimentation. Holiday listeners can snag a special “White Wednesday” deal: a 75% discount on tickets. Visit GlobalAgileSummit.com to claim your Super Early Bird ticket. About Vasco Duarte Vasco Duarte is a thought leader in the Agile space, co-founder of Agile Finland, and host of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, which has over 10 million downloads. Author of NoEstimates: How To Measure Project Progress Without Estimating, Vasco is a sought-after speaker and consultant helping organizations embrace Agile practices to achieve business success. You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn.

Xmas Special: Breaking Down the Wall Between Product and Engineering With Vasco Duarte In the second episode of the “5 Wishes for 2025” series, Vasco Duarte tackles one of the most persistent and damaging divides in software development: the wall between Product and Engineering teams. Through stories, metaphors, and real-world examples, Vasco challenges the status quo and paints a vision for seamless collaboration that drives innovation and value. The Invisible Walls Holding Us Back “It's like having the ingredients and the recipe in separate rooms – how are you supposed to cook something amazing?” Vasco begins by highlighting the invisible barriers that still exist between Product and Engineering teams in many organizations. These divisions stifle innovation and slow progress. Drawing parallels to outdated structures, Vasco recounts the struggle to integrate Product Owners into Scrum teams and how that barely scratched the surface of the larger issue. He calls for a broader perspective: aligning the creative potential of engineering with the customer insights of product management to unlock real innovation. Lessons From the Field: Breaking Down Barriers 1. The Experiments-Only Team “Not the mad scientist kind, but real, product-focused experiments that bring technical innovation and product leadership together.” Vasco shares the success story of a client who created a dedicated experiments team. By combining technical expertise with clear product direction, they delivered rapid, value-driven results. This approach demonstrates the power of collaboration in turning ideas into impactful solutions. 2. Bottom-Up Product Planning “For the first time, Product and Engineering co-created a plan that aligned with strategic goals – no more top-down directives or forced OKRs!” Another client reimagined their product planning process after attending a workshop. Instead of cascading initiatives from the top, they worked collaboratively from the ground up. This innovative approach allowed them to align with company goals while fostering ownership and creativity across teams. The CTPO: A Glimpse Into the Future “It's like they turned the wall between Product and Engineering into a large living room where everyone works together.” Vasco highlights an inspiring case from Berlin, where a company merged technical and product leadership into a single CTPO (Chief Technical and Product Officer) role. This structure bridges the gap, ensuring that both technical possibilities and customer needs are seamlessly aligned. Catch Vasco's interview with this trailblazing CTPO in the show notes to explore how this innovative approach is reshaping their organization. A Wish for 2025: Common Rooms, Not Walls “Product and Engineering are like coffee and milk – different, but together they make something special.” Vasco's vision for 2025 is a world where Product and Engineering work side-by-side in shared spaces of collaboration and value creation. He calls for a shift from siloed teams to integrated partnerships where both groups speak the same language – the language of value and impact. The companies that embrace this shift will be the leaders of tomorrow, delivering innovation at the speed of market change. Join the Conversation at the Global Agile Summit 2025 “Innovation flows as freely as coffee at a developer conference when Product and Engineering collaborate.” Vasco invites listeners to experience this transformation firsthand at the Global Agile Summit 2025 in Tallinn, Estonia. The summit will showcase real-world examples of organizations successfully adopting flow-based software delivery. For holiday listeners, Vasco has a special gift: a Super Early Bird ticket with a 75% discount. Visit GlobalAgileSummit.com to grab your ticket and see what the future of software development looks like. About Vasco Duarte Vasco Duarte is a thought leader in the Agile space, co-founder of Agile Finland, and host of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, which has over 10 million downloads. Author of NoEstimates: How To Measure Project Progress Without Estimating, Vasco is a sought-after speaker and consultant helping organizations embrace Agile practices to achieve business success. You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn.

Xmas Special: From Project-Driven to Flow-Driven Software Development in 2025 with Vasco Duarte In the kickoff episode of the “5 Wishes for 2025” series, Vasco Duarte dives into a topic close to his heart: why managing software like construction projects leads to failure. Drawing on his experience in the Agile community and sharing compelling real-world examples, Vasco introduces a new perspective on how software development should flow, adapt, and continuously deliver value. Software Development: Stop Building Houses, Start Growing Gardens “Software is more like a garden than a construction site—continuous care and attention are key to thriving.” Vasco begins by debunking the myth that software development can be meticulously planned like a construction project. Sharing a story about a failed 18-month software endeavor, he highlights how rigid plans crumble in the face of changing markets. Instead, he advocates for an adaptive, flow-based approach to software development, comparing it to the continuous nurturing required in a garden. Why Projects Fall Short in Software Development “You can't plan your year's meals in January—why would you try that with software?” Vasco identifies three critical flaws of project-driven software development: 1. Assumption of Stability: Markets and requirements shift too fast for static plans. 2. Front-loaded Decisions: Early decisions often fail to hold up over time. 3. Artificial Boundaries: Restrictive scopes kill innovation and flexibility. The Three-Step Framework for Flow-Based Software Development 1. Continuous Delivery “Software is like a shark—it has to keep moving or it dies.” Vasco explains how companies can succeed by continuously delivering updates to users. He shares insights from a mobile startup using experiments and feedback loops to keep evolving and delivering measurable value. 2. Incremental Funding “Fund software like a business, not like a construction project.” Drawing on ideas from Lean-Agile financial planning, Vasco introduces incremental funding as a smarter way to manage development. He points listeners to a previous episode with experts Maarit Laanti and Rami Sirkia for deeper insights. 3. Goal-Oriented Teams “Teams need goals, not just backlogs.” Vasco stresses the importance of giving teams end-to-end ownership of the value they create. The backlog is a tool, but the real focus should be on clear goals that align with business impact. He mentions his OTOG - One-Team-One-Goal blog post.  Raising Agility to the Portfolio Level “Flow-based software development lets us make quick, strategic decisions at the portfolio level.” By embracing continuous delivery, incremental funding, and goal-driven teams, organizations can elevate agility from individual teams to the entire portfolio. Vasco highlights this as a game-changer for modern businesses, enabling quicker, smarter product decisions. Global Agile Summit 2025 – Don't Miss Out! “Join us in Tallinn to see flow-based software delivery in action.” Vasco invites listeners to the Global Agile Summit 2025, where real-world examples of flow-based development will take center stage. For those listening during the holiday season, there's a Super Early Bird ticket available with a 75% discount. Visit GlobalAgileSummit.com for details. About Vasco Duarte Vasco Duarte is a thought leader in the Agile space, co-founder of Agile Finland, and host of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, which has over 10 million downloads. Author of NoEstimates: How To Measure Project Progress Without Estimating, Vasco is a sought-after speaker and consultant helping organizations embrace Agile practices to achieve business success. You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn.

In this special episode, Vasco Duarte announces the first-ever Global Agile Summit 2025, scheduled for May 18-20 in Tallinn, Estonia. After seven years of organizing virtual Agile summits, the team is taking the next big step with an in-person event bringing together practitioners, leaders, and innovators from across the Agile community. The summit will feature three packed days: Day 1: Hands-on workshops with thought leaders Days 2-3: Parallel tracks focused on Business, Product, and Development This practitioner-focused event emphasizes real-life success stories and practical implementations of Agile methodologies. Past summits have featured renowned speakers like Marshall Goldsmith and Gojko Adzic. Super early-bird tickets are available now at 75% off the full price (just 249€), exclusively for past summit attendees and paid subscribers. Perfect for: CTOs and CPOs Engineering and Product Leaders Tech Leads and Product Managers Consulting Companies Agile Teams Learn more and secure your spot at GlobalAgileSummit.com

BONUS: Unlocking the Secrets to Thriving Workplaces and Agile Leadership with Vasco Duarte In this insightful BONUS episode, Vasco Duarte is interviewed by Bill Fox for an episode on the Forward Thinking Workplaces Podcast. Vasco is a visionary leader in agile and lean software development. Vasco shares his revolutionary approach to fostering innovation, creating dynamic workplaces, and leading teams to success. His strategies are designed for leaders looking to elevate their organizations by focusing on people, purpose, and efficient work processes. Tune in for practical advice on how to unlock your team's full potential and thrive in today's fast-paced work environment. Creating Environments for Natural Innovation “Innovation is a natural human quality; it flourishes when you don't make an effort to prevent it.” Vasco emphasizes that innovation isn't something leaders need to force. Instead, it happens organically when the right environment is in place. He encourages leaders to shift away from rigid structures and towards creating motivating spaces where creativity can thrive. By doing this, teams naturally become more innovative and solutions-driven. “The only way innovation does not happen naturally is if we make an effort to prevent it from happening.” Motivated Individuals: The Key to Project Success “Build your projects around motivated individuals and trust them to deliver their best.” Vasco highlights the importance of centering projects around motivated individuals, giving them the trust and support they need to succeed. According to him, leaders should focus on empowering people, unleashing their full potential. When teams feel trusted and valued, they bring more energy and creativity to their work. “If you trust people and give them the space to perform, they will achieve things you didn't expect.” The Power of Community and Purpose “Aligning purpose with autonomy and mastery leads to engaged and high-performing teams.” Drawing from Dan Pink's model of autonomy, mastery, and purpose, Vasco stresses the role of community and clear purpose in building engaged teams. He explains how people are naturally motivated when they understand the purpose of their work and have the freedom to master their skills. This alignment creates a strong sense of belonging and shared goals within the team. “When people have a sense of community and purpose, they bring their best selves to work.” Defining Boundaries to Foster Innovation “Clear boundaries create a flexible framework where innovation can thrive.” Vasco believes that well-defined boundaries are essential to encouraging innovation. Far from being restrictive, these boundaries offer a structured yet flexible framework that helps teams feel secure while exploring new ideas. When teams know the limits but also have room to experiment, they perform better and innovate faster. “Boundaries are not barriers; they provide the structure that allows innovation to flow freely.” Streamlining Processes with "#NoEstimates" “Focus on delivering value efficiently by reducing waste in your processes.” One of Vasco's most transformative ideas is his “No Estimates” approach to software development, which encourages focusing on value and reducing waste. This method ensures that teams spend their time wisely, enhancing productivity without the guesswork of traditional estimations. It's all about respecting everyone's time and effort while delivering maximum value. “Stop wasting time on estimates and start focusing on delivering real value to your customers.” Leadership Aligned with Employee Purpose “Leaders must understand and align with the purposes of their employees to drive team success.” Vasco shares valuable leadership advice, urging leaders to connect with their team members on a deeper level. By understanding employees' individual purposes and goals, leaders can foster more meaningful and productive collaborations. Open communication is key to building cohesive, high-performing teams that are aligned with the organization's vision. “When leaders align with their team's personal goals, they unlock higher levels of performance and engagement.” Real-World Insights from Industry Practitioners “Learning from practitioners in the field brings fresh, actionable insights.” Through his podcast, Vasco shares real-world insights from a wide range of industry practitioners. These stories highlight different approaches and solutions that have been successfully applied in various sectors, providing listeners with diverse perspectives on innovation and agile leadership. “Every practitioner I speak with offers a unique lens on solving the challenges of modern work environments.” About Vasco Duarte Vasco Duarte is an agile thought leader, podcast host, and one of the pioneers behind the “#NoEstimates” movement. With years of experience in lean and agile software development, Vasco helps teams and organizations improve productivity, efficiency, and innovation through dynamic leadership and strategic processes. He is also the host of the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast, where he shares insights from industry practitioners on agile leadership, team dynamics, and efficient workflows. You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn.

Luis Garcia: Forecast Over Estimation, How To Transform Your Approach To Project Management, NoEstimates Unplugged Week This is one of a series of episodes where Product Owners explain how they used, and benefited from #NoEstimates in their work with teams.  To know more about #NoEstimates, sign-up to get the first 3 chapters of the book here. Introduction to #NoEstimates Luis Garcia, transitioning from estimation discomfort to a #NoEstimates approach as a product owner, discovered its benefits after attending a workshop by Woody Zuill. Faced with the challenges of hard commitments in government projects, he sought to shift focus from when to what and why in project discussions. A Transformative Project Example  Implementing #NoEstimates in a kanban team, Luis emphasized work breakdown and comfortable task sizing. This method facilitated stakeholder communication, improved expectation management, and enabled precise progress measurement through metrics like cycle time and using techniques like Monte Carlo forecasting. Overcoming Implementation Challenges  When Luis tried to introduce #NoEstimates, he originally faced skepticism, misconceptions about planning, and stakeholder resistance. In those cases, Luis advises focusing on forecasting based on available data, ensuring team stability, and managing expectations effectively. And focusing on progress transparency, instead of trying to change people's minds. Strategic Stakeholder Management  Successfully integrating #NoEstimates involved fostering team accountability and ownership over the refinement process, thereby enhancing stakeholder dialogue and planning efficiency. For example, Luis shares that #NoEstimates shifted the team's focus to identifying and preparing the most valuable tasks, leveraging data for all planning and prioritization decisions. This focus helped to keep stakeholders informed, and improved transparency. Measuring Success and Communicating Progress  Without traditional estimates, Luis's team adopted a probabilistic approach to measure and communicate progress, supported by insights from the book "Thinking in Bets" by Annie Duke. When it came to adopting a different way to measure and communicate progress, practicality was key; even simple tools like Excel were effective for data management in the #NoEstimates process, emphasizing simplicity and scalability. Advice for #NoEstimates Adopters  Luis recommends low-change experimentation with #NoEstimates to experience its benefits firsthand and stresses the importance of informative discussions over rigid planning. Resource Recommendation  For those considering #NoEstimates, Luis suggests starting with the "NoEstimates" book and following thought leaders like Vasco Duarte, Woody Zuill, and Allen Holub on social media. About Luis Garcia Luis is a Program Manager at Formula.Monks, specializes in developing impactful digital products. Luis has over 10 years of experience and several Agile certifications, he adeptly applies Agile frameworks to meet client needs. His background includes a Master's in Computer Engineering and an Executive MBA. He is also fluent in English, Spanish, and French, he values diverse work environments and continuous learning. You can link with Luis Garcia on LinkedIn.

#5amMesterScrum Show 1,147 Live - Professional Product Owner (3R Thursdays) - Today's topics: (1) So I was chatting in Slack with Vasco Duarte about his PO Summit April 23rd to the 25th and he mentioned the idea of Professional Product Owner and now I'm doing a mental exercise on what that means.  I curious on your thoughts? Please like and subscribe and share 5amMesterScrum.  Please send me your topics.   You are are doing Great Please Keep on Sharing. 5am Mester Scrum 5am Mester Scrum Show 1,147 went live on Youtube, LinkedIn and Facebook 3R (Requirements, Reviews, Retros) Thursday 2/8/2024 from Philadelphia, PA  Happy Scrumming, Please don't forget to sign up for out weekly mailing list with its freebees. https://5ammesterscrum.com/join-our-weekly-newsletter/ Social Media: - search 5amMesterScrum or #5amMesterScrum  and you should find us and if not please let us know LinkedIn, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok     Podcasts: (search 5amMesterScrum)   

BONUS: The Future Of Agility, Experiment Driven Development, With Vasco Duarte Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Merry Christmas, everyone! As we bid farewell to 2023, we present the final BONUS episode of this Christmas week—a glimpse into what we believe is the future for every Agile team out there.  Brace yourselves for a deep dive into the heart of agility: learning at the speed of experimentation! Specifically, we'll explore the exciting realm of Experiment-driven development, a game-changer poised to reshape how teams approach learning and development. Don't forget, each episode this week complements the Coach Your Product Owner e-course, accessible at bit.ly/coachyourpo. Throughout this week, we've delved into five crucial topics that every Scrum Master should master, with each topic complementing a module in the Coach Your PO e-course. Today's focus is on The spectrum of experimentation—a concept that promises to revolutionize the way teams learn and evolve. The Spectrum of Experimentation In previous episodes, we emphasized that writing and deploying software is the slowest and most expensive way to learn about what adds value to our product and business. Recognizing this, we introduced the idea of paper-prototype-based usability tests as a means to define and run experiments in 24 hours or less. However, this is just one facet of the vast landscape of experimentation. Why does it matter? Not all experiments and hypotheses are created equal. While some ideas could lead to a 10x improvement in our product, others may offer incremental gains that are challenging to quantify. The key is to align the effort spent on validating hypotheses with their potential impact. The Experiment Spectrum Enter the experiment spectrum—a versatile range of experiments designed to collect information spanning from minutes to months. Let's explore some options based on time scales: On the Hour Scale (Minutes): User Interviews: Direct conversations with potential users. Usability Tests: Quick assessments of user interaction. Paper Prototype Sales: A creative experiment—sell the paper version of the app to gauge interest. On the Day or 24-Hour Scale: All of the Above: Intensify by including more interviews or tests. Customer Surveys: Quick insights if you have a means to reach your audience. Sales Calls with Existing Customers: Conduct a "sales pitch experiment" to validate core adoption/sales hypotheses. On the Week or Month Scale: All of the Above: Scale up for more comprehensive data. Landing Page Tests: Experiment with different landing page variations. Email List Tests: Leverage existing mailing lists for experiments. Podcast Episodes and YouTube Videos: Engage with a wider audience. Running Software in Production: The traditional approach but still a valuable part of the spectrum. The Value of the Spectrum This spectrum acts as a strategic tool, ensuring teams don't over-invest in validating hypotheses that might not have a significant impact on their goals. Imagine how much unnecessary code could be avoided if teams could quickly validate assumptions! Remember, an Agile principle is to "Maximize the work not done," and that the cheapest software to operate is the one that is not developed. Code is a liability, and confidence in its value must be established before investing in development, deployment, and maintenance. Processes are Also a Domain of Experimentation! As Scrum Masters, we are well aware that experimentation is not limited to products—it extends to our processes. Teams cannot improve unless they are constantly learning and experimenting. One powerful approach is self-experimentation, where teams start by experimenting with their process before venturing into product experiments. This builds confidence and familiarity with the concept of running experiments. Experiment Driven Development: Summary Today's episode focused on the evolution from learning to Experiment-driven development. Key takeaways include: Understanding the experiment spectrum—a range of experiments designed for different time scales. Examples of various experiment types, from quick-hour experiments to those spanning weeks. The importance of running experiments with processes before transitioning to product experiments. All this week's episodes are companions to the Coach Your PO e-course, available at bit.ly/coachyourpo. Related modules include: Version 1, Module 4: Customer Needs – A valuable concept for assessing the potential impact of hypotheses. Version 1, Module 6: Quick Prioritization Techniques – Techniques applicable not just for backlogs but also for prioritizing assumptions and experiments. Version 2, Module 2: Setting up Product Goals – A crucial step before running experiments. For more details or to purchase the Coach Your PO e-course, visit bit.ly/coachyourpo. If personalized coaching is your preference, contact us at coaching@oikosofy.com. As we conclude this special week of bonus episodes, we invite you to reach out for more information about our products and consulting services. Remember, a rising team lifts all products! Wishing you all a Happy New Year! See you next week for another regular week of episodes. About Vasco Duarte Vasco is a leading voice in the agile community, known for his contributions to the development of agile methodologies and practices. He is the co-founder of Agile Finland and the host of Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, the most popular Agile podcast in the world, which has more than 10 000 000 unique downloads. He is also the author of “NoEstimates: A novel look at how Agile can transform software development, making it both more sustainable, as well as incredibly profitable.” Vasco is a keynote speaker at many conferences and events, sharing his knowledge and experience with the agile community. With his passion and expertise in agile, Vasco has made a significant impact on the way software development is done today, helping organizations to become more efficient, flexible, and responsive to changing requirements.lYou You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn and connect with Vasco Duarte on Twitter.  

BONUS: Unleashing Agile Experimentation, Accelerating Learning Cycles With 24h Experiments, With Vasco Duarte Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Merry Christmas, everyone! In today's Christmas week BONUS episode, we're diving into the world of Agile experimentation, specifically exploring how to enable 24-hour experiments—a topic that promises to revolutionize the way we approach product development. As we explore this exciting subject, remember that each episode this week is a companion to the Coach Your Product Owner e-course, accessible at bit.ly/coachyourpo. This week's episodes are designed to equip Scrum Masters with essential tools to assist their Product Owners in mastering five key areas. Today, we unravel the secrets of conducting rapid experiments that speed up your learning and development cycles. First: Defining Experiments and Their Purpose in Product Development Let's start by revisiting the Lean Startup methodology and its famed Build-Measure-Learn cycle. Lean Startup emphasizes that the purpose of "building" is not merely to deliver software but to validate hypotheses. Before running an experiment, it's crucial to define what you're trying to achieve, as discussed in Monday's episode on how to define value. Taking Amazon's website as an example, suppose a team aims to boost the conversion rate for users who have added items to their cart. The hypothesis could be: "Removing shipping costs from the checkout overview will result in a higher conversion rate for people who've added an item to their cart." This hypothesis, or belief, becomes the trigger for experimentation. Second: Designing the Experiment Once the hypothesis is clear, it's time to design the experiment. Think of it as crafting a story, but with a focus on experimentation. Here's a template to structure your experiment: Title: Increase Conversion Rate for People Who've Added an Item to the Cart by Removing Shipping Costs from the Checkout Overview. We Do: Specify the actions to set up the experiment. We Expect: Clearly state the anticipated outcomes. Data We Collect: List the crucial data points needed for analysis. Conclusion: Outline the lessons learned and set a date for analysis. This structured template ensures clarity and sets the stage for a comprehensive understanding of the experiment. Third: Designing 24-Hour Experiments Before we start brainstorming stories and features that would need to be implemented by the development team, we should think about running experiments in 24 hours or less. We do this, because we want to avoid one of the major sources of waste in our processes: doing work that would not need to be done at all in the first place! As we explore the experiment above, we define the key question as, "Would a person not shown shipping costs be more likely to complete a purchase after adding an item to the cart?" To achieve faster learning, consider alternatives to software changes. In this episode, we explore some concrete alternatives to writing and deploying software when it comes to answer the key question defined above.  One example we explore is: conducting usability tests using paper prototypes with a small group. Through qualitative analysis and user feedback, you can gain confidence in your hypothesis without investing time in extensive software modifications. Running 24h Experiments: Summary In summary, today's episode tackled critical aspects of designing and running experiments, emphasizing the importance of learning. Key takeaways include: Lean Startup's Build-Measure-Learn cycle focuses on validating hypotheses. Experiment design involves specifying actions, expected outcomes, data collection, and drawing conclusions. The concept of 24-hour experiments emphasizes the need for rapid learning. All episodes this week complement the Coach Your PO e-course, available at bit.ly/coachyourpo. Related modules include: Version 2, Module 8: Critical Documents for the PO Role – Utilize Impact Mapping to identify assumptions and expectations for designing experiments. Version 2, Module 9: Collecting Feedback Faster – Explore methods for collecting feedback at various stages of product development, laying the groundwork for experiment-driven development. In Version 1, Module 3, we delve into Actionable Metrics—an indispensable tool for anyone looking to run successful experiments. For more details or to purchase the Coach Your PO e-course, visit bit.ly/coachyourpo. If personalized coaching is your preference, contact us at coaching@oikosofy.com. Continue your journey of learning, keep supporting your team, and join us for the final episode tomorrow! See you tomorrow! About Vasco Duarte Vasco is a leading voice in the agile community, known for his contributions to the development of agile methodologies and practices. He is the co-founder of Agile Finland and the host of Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, the most popular Agile podcast in the world, which has more than 10 000 000 unique downloads. He is also the author of “NoEstimates: A novel look at how Agile can transform software development, making it both more sustainable, as well as incredibly profitable.” Vasco is a keynote speaker at many conferences and events, sharing his knowledge and experience with the agile community. With his passion and expertise in agile, Vasco has made a significant impact on the way software development is done today, helping organizations to become more efficient, flexible, and responsive to changing requirements.lYou You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn and connect with Vasco Duarte on Twitter.

BONUS: Helping Product Owners Make Decisions Quickly With Experiments, And Lean Startup, With Vasco Duarte Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Merry Christmas, everyone! We hope your holiday season is filled with joy and festive cheer. As we continue our Christmas week BONUS episodes, today's focus is on empowering Product Owners (POs) to quickly make informed decisions based on the definition of value and value metrics.  As usual in this year's BONUS week of episodes, this episode is a crucial companion to the Coach Your Product Owner e-course, accessible at bit.ly/coachyourpo. Quick Decision Making is the Goal! While defining and measuring value are vital, our ultimate objective as Scrum Masters is to expedite the decision-making process. The pace of software development is directly correlated with the speed at which POs, stakeholders, and the team make decisions. Today, we discuss how Scrum Masters can help their teams, PO's and stakeholders, make informed decisions faster. Quick decision-making not only accelerates development but also contributes to learning faster, and discovering what does not need to be done at all! This aligns with Agile's principle of maximizing the work not done. What Do POs Need to Make Decisions Quickly? Understanding the obstacles to swift decision-making, we identify two types of obstacles: Lack of Information: Relevant information is crucial for decision-making, and when it is missing it makes decisions slow, or impossible at all. Timely Information: Having information at the right time ensures decisions align with current needs, information that is delivered too late does not help us avoid working on useless backlog items, among other things. Let's delve into addressing each of these challenges. First: Help Collect Information That Matters Define Value: As discussed on Monday, defining the value for products is the first step in collecting the right information. Measure Value: Tuesday's episode covered measuring value through metrics, providing valuable insights for decision-making. Experimentation: Today, we discuss the process of experimentation to collect information efficiently. Real-world examples illustrate how experiments reveal the right metrics, emphasizing the importance of evaluating whether the collected information aids decision-making. Second: Collect Relevant Information in a Timely Fashion Strategic Metrics vs. Day-to-Day Metrics: As discussed in yesterday's episode, distinguish between strategic metrics (top-level indicators) and day-to-day metrics (granular, changing metrics). These day-to-day metrics enable daily experiments and timely decision-making. Metrics Tree: Introduced in yesterday's episode, the Metrics Tree tool helps decompose top-level metrics into lower-level, day-to-day metrics. This tool facilitates running experiments that deliver the necessary information for informed decision-making. Speeding Up Decision Making For Product Owners: Summary In conclusion, today's episode highlighted the significance of quick and adaptive decision-making for the Product Owner role. The key takeaways include: Ensure you're collecting the right information. Collect that information swiftly, even within 24 hours (more on that in tomorrow's episode). All episodes this week are companions to the Coach Your PO e-course, available at bit.ly/coachyourpo. Today's episode is a complement to the following modules: Version 1, Module 8: Defining the Perfect Sprint Goals – emphasizes using metrics for decision-making. Version 2, Module 02: How Scrum Masters Can Onboard a New or Beginner Product Owner – discusses goal setting and metrics. Version 2, Module 03: How to Work with a Skeptical PO – highlights the importance of requirements discovery in decision-making. For more details, visit the Coach Your PO e-course page at: bit.ly/coachyourpo. If live coaching aligns better with your needs, reach out to us at coaching@oikosofy.com. Continue your learning journey, keep supporting your team, and join us for the next episode, where we discuss how to setup experiments that you can run in 24h or less! About Vasco Duarte Vasco is a leading voice in the agile community, known for his contributions to the development of agile methodologies and practices. He is the co-founder of Agile Finland and the host of Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, the most popular Agile podcast in the world, which has more than 10 000 000 unique downloads. He is also the author of “NoEstimates: A novel look at how Agile can transform software development, making it both more sustainable, as well as incredibly profitable.” Vasco is a keynote speaker at many conferences and events, sharing his knowledge and experience with the agile community. With his passion and expertise in agile, Vasco has made a significant impact on the way software development is done today, helping organizations to become more efficient, flexible, and responsive to changing requirements.lYou You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn and connect with Vasco Duarte on Twitter.

BONUS: Helping the PO Measure Value, Unwrapping Metrics Mastery with Vasco Duarte Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Merry Christmas, dear listeners! We hope your festive season is filled with joy and warmth. Today marks another special BONUS episode in our Christmas week lineup, and we're diving into the crucial topic of helping Product Owners measure value. If you missed our previous episode on defining business value, be sure to check it out as today's content builds upon those insights. This episode, like all others this week, is a companion to the Coach Your Product Owner e-course, accessible at bit.ly/coachyourpo. Why We Need To Help Product Owners Measure Value Ever envisioned driving a familiar road blindfolded? Many teams find themselves in a similar predicament, knowing their backlog and delivery process well but lacking clarity on their goal. A backlog of items, as emphasized yesterday, is not a goal. Defining Value is Not Enough; We Must Measure It While some teams may define goals, many stumble when it comes to measuring them early and consistently. Aligning with the Agile Manifesto, this episode emphasizes why continuous delivery of valuable software needs to be complemented with the same continuous measurement of value! Leading and Lagging Indicators and Why That's Important In this episode, we discuss the distinction between leading and lagging indicators. Leading indicators provide insights into future events, while lagging indicators validate that the product is delivering value. Explore the significance of both in making informed decisions. The Difference Between Strategic Metrics and Day-to-Day Metrics (The Metrics Tree Technique) Building on yesterday's discussion about understanding the company's strategy, we explore the transition from strategic metrics (lagging indicators like revenue) to day-to-day metrics. This transition is essential for ensuring daily value delivery and supporting short-term, customer-focused experiments. In this segment, we discuss the Metrics Tree technique which Vasco learned from Chris Matts. Product Dashboards for the PO and the Team Product Dashboards emerge as a crucial tool to keep teams focused on the right metrics throughout the development process. These dashboards visualize product goals, the target customer, current and future sprint goals, and key metrics. They serve as a cornerstone for team accountability, fostering self-management and autonomy. In this episode, we discuss a Product Dashboard similar to the one illustrated below:  How To Measure Value: A Summary In today's episode, we covered the following steps to help the PO measure value: Define value (discussed in the previous episode). Define appropriate metrics for the defined value. Consider both leading and lagging indicators. Ensure a balance of strategic and day-to-day metrics for decision-making. Build a product dashboard with the PO and the team to enhance self-accountability and self-management. Explore these concepts further in the Coach Your PO e-course: Module 3 (Version 1.0): Setting up ACTIONABLE metrics, distinguishing between ACTIONABLE and Vanity Metrics. Module 2.0: Scaling up the Product Owner role for multiple teams and products, featuring insights into Product Dashboards and Vision. Module 09: Techniques for quick feedback and leveraging process metrics critical for the discussed product dashboard. For more details on the Coach Your PO e-course, visit bit.ly/coachyourpo. If personalized coaching suits your needs, reach out to us at coaching@oikosofy.com. Keep learning, keep helping your team, and we'll catch you in the next episode! About Vasco Duarte Vasco is a leading voice in the agile community, known for his contributions to the development of agile methodologies and practices. He is the co-founder of Agile Finland and the host of Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, the most popular Agile podcast in the world, which has more than 10 000 000 unique downloads. He is also the author of “NoEstimates: A novel look at how Agile can transform software development, making it both more sustainable, as well as incredibly profitable.” Vasco is a keynote speaker at many conferences and events, sharing his knowledge and experience with the agile community. With his passion and expertise in agile, Vasco has made a significant impact on the way software development is done today, helping organizations to become more efficient, flexible, and responsive to changing requirements.lYou You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn and connect with Vasco Duarte on Twitter.

BONUS: How To Help Your Product Owner Define Value, with Vasco Duarte Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Merry Christmas, everyone! This is the first of 5 BONUS episodes for this Christmas week, each of these episodes complements one or more modules of the Coach Your Product Owner e-course available at bit.ly/coachyourpo. In this episode, we delve into one of the crucial aspects of the Product Owner role: defining, measuring, and leveraging Business Value.  Why We Need To Help Product Owners Define Value We start the episode with an anecdote about training Product Owners. Many of those POs faced the common challenge of delivering from a well-defined, high-pressure backlog, which led them and their teams to "be a slave to the backlog." Those PO's understood during the training, that having a crystal clear definition of value turned the decision-making process into a more straightforward one. The Importance Of Strategy In Defining Value Not every company has a crystal-clear strategy. And having a clear strategy is critical to be able to have conversations about what value means for a specific organization. In this episode, we also talk about how we can help PO's facilitate conversations with key stakeholders to align the product with the company's success metrics. Translate the Product's Strategic Goal into a Concrete Measurable Goal Eventually, once the strategy for the organization, and the product are clear, we need to turn the company's strategy into tangible, measurable goals for the product. In this episode, we walk through an example, we learn about Luke, the Scrum Master, assisting Leya, the ambitious PO, in reducing call center wait times through strategic experiments. Key Steps: Understand Company Strategy Link Product to Strategy and Goals Define Specific, Measurable Metrics This Episode Is A Companion To The Following Coach Your PO E-Course Modules This episode is a companion, and a complement to the following Coach Your PO e-course modules: Module 2 (Version 2.0): Onboarding New Product Owners Module 8: Critical Documents and Artifacts for Product Owners (featuring impact mapping) Module 3 (Version 1.0): Metrics That Drive Product Success To learn more about the e-course, and to purchase it, visit bit.ly/coachyourpo. If you think that getting coaching is a better option yourself, you can contact us at coaching@oikosofy.com Keep learning, keep helping your team, and have a wonderful Christmas! About Vasco Duarte Vasco is a leading voice in the agile community, known for his contributions to the development of agile methodologies and practices. He is the co-founder of Agile Finland and the host of Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, the most popular Agile podcast in the world, which has more than 10 000 000 unique downloads. He is also the author of “NoEstimates: A novel look at how Agile can transform software development, making it both more sustainable, as well as incredibly profitable.” Vasco is a keynote speaker at many conferences and events, sharing his knowledge and experience with the agile community. With his passion and expertise in agile, Vasco has made a significant impact on the way software development is done today, helping organizations to become more efficient, flexible, and responsive to changing requirements.lYou You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn and connect with Vasco Duarte on Twitter.

BONUS: From journalism to Scrum Mastery, collected lessons on working with teams by Ian McGrady Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Ian's journey from journalism to becoming a Scrum Master is a testament to his adaptable mindset and persistence. His transition stemmed from a unique start; he secured his first job due to his fast typing skills and a desire to meet Peter Jennings. Ian's persistence in seeking a meeting with Jennings honed his tenacity. The introduction to the Scrum Master role came through recognizing the news industry's agile, continuous delivery setup. Despite challenges, like sending out 400 resumes for just 3 interviews and a job offer, Ian's honesty on his resume and his ability to relate his existing skills to the software field were pivotal. In interviews, he remained coachable, acknowledged his learning curve, and emphasized genuine interest in others. He underlines the importance of not striving to be the smartest person in the room, instead focusing on collaboration and curiosity. From TV News Deadlines to Agile Leadership, learning how to work under pressure Becoming a Scrum Master has brought about significant changes and personal growth for Ian. Inspired by Jeff Sutherland's book "The Art Of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time," he realized the value of efficiency. Transitioning from TV News, where deadlines were paramount, he leveraged his experience to provide leadership to his team. Ian's principles and vision became guiding forces, focusing on extracting the best from individuals and incorporating it into the work. He emphasized stepping back to allow the team to shine and maximizing their value without personal dominance. His journey exemplifies transformation through collaborative leadership and value-driven mindset. Building the Foundation: Key Steps for Launching Effective Teams Launching new teams is a crucial process that Ian has garnered valuable insights from. Key lessons involve the necessity of team formation events, despite potential resistance from upper management. Addressing this as a communal effort, Ian suggests socializing the idea of team formation through specific activities. Four critical steps include creating a working agreement, establishing a workflow, defining a Definition of Ready (DoR), and a Definition of Done (DoD). These artifacts can aid in resolving conflicts. Ian recommends the book "Liftoff" by Diana Larsen and Ainsley Nies and advises using timeboxes to identify and address conflicts during team formation. Empowering New Teams: Strategies for Maximizing New Team Potential Addressing challenges faced by new teams in attaining maximum value from Scrum events, Ian shares insights and solutions. He recounts an NGO team's bureaucratic hurdles that hindered effective team startup events. Ian emphasizes the importance of focusing on delivering the essence of Scrum events and the Scrum Master's role in ensuring team value. He recalls an example where a team failed to update the board during the daily scrum, suggesting the live update approach to enhance visibility. He advises keeping work consistently on the board and centering the daily scrum on "done" work. Ian also recommends incorporating refinement into the workflow for improved outcomes. Turning the Tide: How Effective Team Formation Revolutionized Scrum Outcomes Ian shares a transformative case study highlighting the impact of team formation. He joined a team of talented individuals struggling with teamwork. After obtaining buy-in for a startup event from his boss, the team's performance improved drastically. Shifting from completing 3 items per month to 22, Ian recommends focusing on metrics that emphasize "done" work. Addressing the challenge of team composition, having reliable contributors was vital. Open communication and transparent norms facilitated tough discussions. Challenges during formation included gaining buy-in from all stakeholders and addressing pushback from senior management. Ian emphasizes that while some individuals may be natural stars, teams require nurturing for success. In this segment we refer to the OTOG mnemonic (One Team, One Goal) as a team effectiveness maximizing strategy. The One Team, One Goal approach is depicted in this blog post by Vasco Duarte.   About Ian McGrady Ian McGrady started in IT as a co-founder and Junior Project Manager at Blue Lotus Systems Integration and Data Conversion. There he co-authored an internal book about project management. He has worked as a Scrum Master in wagering, banking and healthcare. You can link with Ian McGrady on LinkedIn. 

Neste episódio partilho os meus 3 episódios favoritos do "Então e eu?", um podcast que tive em 2016 juntamente com o Rui Cruz e o Vasco Duarte

BONUS: How to answer commonly asked Scrum Master interview questions, with Jeff Campbell and Vasco Duarte Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   About Jeff Campbell and Vasco Duarte Jeff is an Agile Coach who considers the discovery of Agile and Lean to be one of the most defining moments of his life, and considers helping others to improve their working life not to simply be a job, but a social responsibility. As an Agile Coach, he has worked with driving Agile transformations in organizations both small and large and has published a book on the subject: bit.ly/aatbook. You can link with Jeff Campbell on LinkedIn.    Vasco is a leading voice in the agile community, known for his contributions to the development of agile methodologies and practices. He is the co-founder of Agile Finland and the host of Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, the most popular Agile podcast in the world, which has more than 8 000 000 unique downloads. He is also the author of "NoEstimates: A novel look at how Agile can transform software development, making it both more sustainable, as well as incredibly profitable." Vasco is a keynote speaker at many conferences and events, sharing his knowledge and experience with the agile community. With his passion and expertise in agile, Vasco has made a significant impact on the way software development is done today, helping organizations to become more efficient, flexible, and responsive to changing requirements. You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn and connect with Vasco Duarte on Twitter. 

Vasco Duarte and Luke Szyrmer discuss scrum in a remote setting, including how to adapt to remote even though scrum wasn't designed to handle it. This episode aired originally on the ScrumMaster toolbox podcast. Subscribe to Managing Remote Teams podcast on Soundwise

Welcome to Episode 41 of the Enterprise Excellence Podcast. It is such a pleasure to have Mr Vasco Duarte on the show with us today. Vasco helps companies generate customer-centric products and get their processes to a level of performance they thought was impossible. Vasco does this by focusing product development teams on the end-to-end life-cycle of their products. From Concept to Cash and Back!Vasco is the Author of the book "No Estimates" and daily podcast host at the Scrum Master Toolbox. Vaso gives back to the community every day to improve the IT and product industry worldwide. Proudly brought to you in association with S A Partners, a world-leading business transformation consultancy.Product owners can get better outcomes by engaging with sales. Vasco is training product owners to start with their customer's vision for the product, rather than their own or their company's vision. One of the advantages that product owners get from engaging with sales teams is hearing their customers language. The wrong type of interaction - sales led development without the whyVasco talks about interactions between salespeople and product owners. The wrong type of interaction is when a salesperson says, "Here's the list of features you need to develop for my customers".  The right type of interaction - collaboration and engagementThe salesperson could be a great source of insight for the product owner.  Great product owners will engage the salesperson to understand the context around that list of features: why are they being requested?Salespeople have an incredible mindset in intuitively understanding the customer's business model. Vasco believes that when a product owner can tap into this mindset, they can amplify the customer's business model. But, unfortunately, the majority of the products out there are a burden on customers. They impose tasks or models on the customer rather than help them succeed. Key TakeawaysFocus on how we can serve - Focus on serving other teams in our business as well as external customers, establishing a culture of collaboration, continuous improvement and innovation.Minimal viable experiment - provides a simple, fast way to test our theories on how we can improve and learn from this. The MVE concept is about developing the minimal viable approach to product development or improvement to share with a customer and gain their thoughts and feedback. Quotes16:05min There's only one phrase in your customer's mind. And that phrase is there all the time. And the phrase goes like this. What have you done for me lately? And they ask that question from your product every single time they interact with your product. And your product needs to shout that answer all the time. What have you done for me lately? Right? And, of course, it has to be designed with that question in mind, right? We don't add features to a product. We solve problems for a customer.LinksBrad - Brad is proud to support many Australian businesses. You can find him on LinkedIn here. If you'd like to speak to him about how he can help your business, call him on 0402 448 445, or email bjeavons@iqi.com.au. Our website is www.bradjeavons.comVasco - LinkedIn and the Scrum Master Toolbox.SA Partners

Vasco Duarte and Luke Szyrmer discuss scrum in a remote setting, including how to adapt to remote even though scrum wasn't designed to handle it. This episode aired originally on the ScrumMaster toolbox podcast.

Desde o século XIX, já várias pessoas tentaram descobrir a resposta perfeita para esta pergunta. Até hoje, ninguém conseguiu. Dá-lhe, Vasco Duarte. Música inicial: "Desassossegado" - Janeiro Música final: "Nada de mais" - Projeto 65 Comunicação: Inês Rebelo, Pedro Valente Lima, Rita Marques Por Rodrigo Salazar Oliveira Instagram: www.instagram.com/nadademais.podcast Twitter: twitter.com/nadademais2018 Facebook: www.facebook.com/nadademais.podcast

Vasco Duarte, Brad Stokes and James Gifford discuss how the Scrum Master role will change the world of work. Scrum Masters are people who care about improving the world of work (they do that with their teams every day) and are committed to that mission. Unfortunately some reason, people feel “ashamed” of being called Scrum Master, and quickly change to Agile Coach in their title. However, they should be proud of their work as Scrum Masters! The three delve into the world of collaboration and creating cooperative, creative workplaces. Vasco is organising an event for Scrum Masters (specifically for that role): http://scrummastersummit.org/, and with the goal to help Scrum Masters be proud of their role and actively contribute to improving the world of work. Vasco recently wrote about the vision of the transformation he sees coming in the article named: "Scrum Masters are the future CEO’s”, and would like to have the opportunity to share this message, as well as promote the event to your audience. https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/2021/01/blog/scrum-masters-are-the-future-ceos-and-a-podcast-by-the-lean-enterprise-institute/ Important Links: Join Vasco at the Scrum Master Summit 2021 the week of May 17, 2021 Scrum Masters are the future CEOs If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a review, a rating, or leave comments on iTunes, Stitcher or your podcasting platform of choice. It really helps others find us.  Much thanks to the artist Krebs from Machine Man Records who provided us our outro music free-of-charge!  If you like what you heard, check out these links to find more music you might enjoy! If you’d like to join the discussion and share your stories  please join Coalition.AgileUprising.com Looking for real-time interaction and conversation with other practitioners?  Jump into the fray at our Discord Server! We at the Agile Uprising are committed to being totally free.  However if you'd like to contribute and help us defray hosting and production costs we do have a Patreon.  Who knows, you might even get some surprises in the mail!

Vasco Duarte, master of Scrum, issues a call to arms for all scrum masters: you have nothing to lose but your estimates and feature factories! Noted Scrum sceptic Squirrel questions Vasco vigorously on what Scrum Masters do and discovers that Vasco's view of the role is very different from the traditional one. SHOW LINKS: - Vasco: http://softwaredevelopmenttoday.com/ , https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/ - Scrum Master Summit: https://scrummastersummit.org - No Estimates book: https://oikosofyseries.com/no-estimates-book-order --- Our new book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show.

This week, Dan Neumann is joined by a very special guest, Vasco Duarte, the host of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast — a daily podcast for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches. Vasco interviews guests from all over the world to give his listeners actionable advice and daily doses of inspiring conversations to help improve their craft! Vasco himself is a Certified Scrum Master, an Agile Coach, and a Business Consultant. He was also one of the leaders and catalysts of Agile methods and Agile culture adoption at Avira, Nolia, and F-Secure. Together, they’re exploring the concept of Scrum Masters as the CEOs of the future. As Rob highlights in this episode, there are a number of facets that well position Scrum Masters to be the CEOs of our future. He speaks about why this is, his vision for Scrum Masters in general, how you can position yourself as a Scrum Master to take on leadership positions, and some of the challenges you might face as a Scrum Master in a leadership position and how to overcome them.   Key Takeaways Why might Scrum Masters be the next CEOS? As a Scrum Master, you learn to lead without pushing people or being a command-and-control leader The traits that are necessary of a Scrum Master would make for a well-rounded CEO (such as servant leadership) Vasco’s vision for Scrum Masters: Servant leadership (or, the leader that serves) Transforming the world of work rather than making sure that events are on the calendar Coaching the organization to actually transform to better use the scrum framework as opposed to simply surviving in the organization they are a part of As a Scrum Master, you define your role in practice every single day “A Scrum Master that can make a leadership team work cohesively and harmoniously toward the good of the company, the good of the customers, and the workers, is a Scrum Master that is at the top of their career.” — Vasco Duarte “I’m asking all … Scrum Masters to take ownership of the role, continue to develop the role, and maybe even develop a full-fledged career path, first starting as a team member … mov[ing] on toward helping teams, helping other Scrum members, and even helping leadership teams to grow.” — Vasco Duarte What makes Scrum Masters better aligned to be successful CEOs: Scrum Masters are already suited to work in domains where they are not specialists in, to help the team succeed The core of the Scrum Master’s role is collaboration (AKA trying to get the team to work better together for the success of the company, the customers, and the workers themselves) which embodies one of the key aspects of the CEO The lack of technical knowledge in a particular area of the organization that a CEO needs to lead will never be an impediment to become a CEO (there is no CEO that knows everything) Scrum Masters should excel in helping the team deliver value A challenge that Scrum Masters should be aware of as their companies move forward in their agile journey: Very often, companies tend to do “big bang agile transformations” by bringing in a bunch of agile coaches that do great work but are then let go (leaving Scrum Masters to pick up the pieces) Solution: Rob encourages that, as a Scrum Master, you should collaborate with these agile coaches that are temporarily brought on and get involved with the transformation early on Solution: Make sure that the teams are not left hanging by preparing the teams from a supported place   Mentioned in this Episode: Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Software Development Today — Vasco Duarte’s Blog Vasco Duarte’s Twitter: @duarte_vasco Vasco Duarte’s LinkedIn Lean Enterprise Institute’s Podcast (WLEI) WLEI Ep: “Boeing Ex-Executive Alan Mulally Discusses a ‘Working Together Management System’” Scrum Master Summit (Week of May 17th, 2021)   Want to Learn More or Get in Touch? Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com! Email your thoughts or suggestions to Podcast@AgileThought.com or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!

Vasco Duarte, master of Scrum, issues a call to arms for all scrum masters: you have nothing to lose but your estimates and feature factories! Noted Scrum sceptic Squirrel questions Vasco vigorously on what Scrum Masters do and discovers that Vasco's view of the role is very different from the traditional one. SHOW LINKS: - Vasco: http://softwaredevelopmenttoday.com/ , https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/ - Scrum Master Summit: https://scrummastersummit.org - No Estimates book: https://oikosofyseries.com/no-estimates-book-order --- Our new book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show.

In the SPaMCAST 644, we talk teams. At the core of agile is the belief that the team is the fundamental building block of work. Because they are so important, organizations put tons of effort into helping and guiding teams. The problem is not that teams aren’t important or that we aren’t working hard to make them better, teams are still chronically messed up. We discuss a framework for guiding support for teams.  We also have a visit from Jeremy Berriault who brings his QA Corner to the podcast.  Jeremy and I discuss the differences between static and dynamic testing. Understanding the definition of each is an important step in improving quality.  The Software Process and Measurement Cast is a proud media sponsor of the Global Scrum Master Summit.    The First Global Scrum Master Summit Week of May 17th, 2021, Live and Recorded Organized by the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast http://bit.ly/scrummastersummit21 The Software Process and Measurement Cast is a proud media sponsor of the DevOps Online Summit.  DevOps professionals throughout the world come together and share their learnings here at the DevOps Online Summit. This coming April 26th – 30th we are having our third summit. Our goal is to bring together 5000 DevOps professionals.  Grab a ticket! https://bit.ly/3syp2c5  Re-Read Saturday News  In SPaMCAST 642 Vasco Duarte made the startling statement that a Scrum Master will be your next CEO. Chapter 7 in Fixing Your Scrum, Practical Solutions to Common Scrum Problems, by Ryan Ripley and Todd Miller echoes the power of that statement by emphasizing the definition of a scrum master.     If you have not bought your copy -- what are you waiting for? Fixing Your Scrum: Practical Solutions to Common Scrum Problems  This Week’s Installment  Week 7: Embracing The Scrum Master Role -  https://bit.ly/3m0HB5D  Previous Installments Week 1: Re-read Logistics and Front Matter - https://bit.ly/3mgz9P6  Week 2: A Brief Introduction To Scrum, and Why Scrum Goes Bad - https://bit.ly/37w4Dv9  Week 3: Breaking Bad Scrum with a Value-Driven Approach - http://bit.ly/3stGc9Q  Week 4: The Product Owner - https://bit.ly/3qpKvSn  Week 5: The Product Backlog - http://bit.ly/3cAEk9c  Week 6: The Development Team - http://bit.ly/2OLVAAs  Next SPaMCAST Next up is data security.  We live in frightening times in the cyber world. Paul Katzoff and I discuss why data security is more important than ever and what we can do to make the cbyer-world less scary. Everyone in the value chain is responsible for data security.

Always a great conversation with Vasco Duarte!  This time we discussed:-his new Scrum Master Summit - happening in may (don't miss it!!!) - www.scrummastersummit.org-why Scrum Masters feel 'ashamed' of the Scrum Master role-how Scrum Masters are essential in helping teams take ownership and delivering value-what interviewers/companies should look for in a potential Scrum Master-the most important skills a Scrum Master must develop in order to 'train up' for the CEO role-why learning Scrum is NOT the most important thing!You can check out Vasco at https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/ ***JOIN THE FORGE***Sign up for more info about our online leadership immersion experience.https://badassagile.com/the-forge/****** GET US ON CLUBHOUSE!!https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/badass-agile Don't forget to join us in the Badass Agile Listener Lounge on Facebook for member exclusives, livestreams and previews! https://www.facebook.com/groups/badasslistenerlounge/ We're also on YouTube!  Follow the podcast, enjoy some panel/guest commentary, and get some quick tips and guidance from me: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf6I_bii9oUSI8fkN1BOk6g ****** Our mission is to create an elite tribe of leaders who focus on who they need to become in order to lead and inspire, and to be the best agile podcast and resource for effective mindset and leadership game. Contact us (contact@badassagile.com) for elite-level performance and agile coaching, speaking engagements, team-level and executive mindset/agile training, and licensing options for modern, high-impact, bite-sized learning and educational content.

Always a great conversation with Vasco Duarte!  This time we discussed:-his new Scrum Master Summit - happening in may (don't miss it!!!) - www.scrummastersummit.org-why Scrum Masters feel 'ashamed' of the Scrum Master role-how Scrum Masters are essential in helping teams take ownership and delivering value-what interviewers/companies should look for in a potential Scrum Master-the most important skills a Scrum Master must develop in order to 'train up' for the CEO role-why learning Scrum is NOT the most important thing!You can check out Vasco at https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/ ***JOIN THE FORGE***Sign up for more info about our online leadership immersion experience.https://badassagile.com/the-forge/****** GET US ON CLUBHOUSE!!https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/badass-agile Don't forget to join us in the Badass Agile Listener Lounge on Facebook for member exclusives, livestreams and previews! https://www.facebook.com/groups/badasslistenerlounge/ We're also on YouTube!  Follow the podcast, enjoy some panel/guest commentary, and get some quick tips and guidance from me: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf6I_bii9oUSI8fkN1BOk6g ****** Our mission is to create an elite tribe of leaders who focus on who they need to become in order to lead and inspire, and to be the best agile podcast and resource for effective mindset and leadership game. Contact us (contact@badassagile.com) for elite-level performance and agile coaching, speaking engagements, team-level and executive mindset/agile training, and licensing options for modern, high-impact, bite-sized learning and educational content.

Always a great conversation with Vasco Duarte!  This time we discussed: -his new Scrum Master Summit - happening in may (don't miss it!!!) - www.scrummastersummit.org -why Scrum Masters feel 'ashamed' of the Scrum Master role -how Scrum Masters are essential in helping teams take ownership and delivering value -what interviewers/companies should look for in a potential Scrum Master -the most important skills a Scrum Master must develop in order to 'train up' for the CEO role -why learning Scrum is NOT the most important thing! You can check out Vasco at https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/ ***JOIN THE FORGE*** Sign up for more info about our online leadership immersion experience. https://badassagile.com/the-forge/ ****** GET US ON CLUBHOUSE!! https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/badass-agile Don't forget to join us in the Badass Agile Listener Lounge on Facebook for member exclusives, livestreams and previews! https://www.facebook.com/groups/badasslistenerlounge/ We're also on YouTube!  Follow the podcast, enjoy some panel/guest commentary, and get some quick tips and guidance from me: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf6I_bii9oUSI8fkN1BOk6g ****** Our mission is to create an elite tribe of leaders who focus on who they need to become in order to lead and inspire, and to be the best agile podcast and resource for effective mindset and leadership game. Contact us (contact@badassagile.com) for elite-level performance and agile coaching, speaking engagements, team-level and executive mindset/agile training, and licensing options for modern, high-impact, bite-sized learning and educational content.

Vasco Duarte returns to the podcast to discuss the Scrum Master. Scrum Masters are the face of agile in many organizations. Helping team facilitators get the role right benefits not only the agile community but every business they are involved with!   Vasco has been working in the software industry since 1998 and has learned the hard way what works (most of the time) and what does not work (almost never). His goal is to help our industry evolve. We can’t become better without trying out new and innovative approaches to software development. The majority of our businesses run on software. We owe it to our society to get better at an activity that affects so much our lives and our countries’ economies. Vasco consults companies that understand software is a key component of their business model. Get in touch via twitter: @duarte_vasco; or on his company’s web-site: http://www.oikosofy.com/. Check out the Scrum Master’s Toolbox Podcast: https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/ The Software Process and Measurement Cast is a proud media sponsor of the Global Scrum Master Summit.  The First Global Scrum Master Summit Coming Soon. Sign-up to be notified when registrations open Week of May 17th, 2021, Live and Recorded Organized by the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast http://bit.ly/scrummastersummit21 The Software Process and Measurement Cast is a proud media sponsor of the DevOps Online Summit.  DevOps professionals throughout the world come together and share their learnings here at the DevOps Online Summit. This coming April 26th – 30th we are having our third summit. Our goal is to bring together 5000 DevOps professionals.  Grab a ticket! https://bit.ly/3syp2c5  Re-Read Saturday News  This week we read Chapter 5 of  Fixing Your Scrum, Practical Solutions to Common Scrum Problems, by Ryan Ripley and Todd Miller. Chapter 5 dives into fixing the antipatterns that hover around the product backlog. This chapter reinforces that a team and product owner are only as good as the backlog they are working from.  If you have not bought your copy -- what are you waiting for? Fixing Your Scrum: Practical Solutions to Common Scrum Problems  This Week’s Installment  Week 1: Re-read Logistics and Front Matter - https://bit.ly/3mgz9P6  Week 2: A Brief Introduction To Scrum, and Why Scrum Goes Bad - https://bit.ly/37w4Dv9  Week 3: Breaking Bad Scrum with a Value-Driven Approach - http://bit.ly/3stGc9Q  Week 4: The Product Owner - https://bit.ly/3qpKvSn  Week 5: The Product Backlog - http://bit.ly/3cAEk9c  Next SPaMCAST Next week we will talk with Caleb Woods, CEO and| Senior Software Craftsman at RoleModel Software. Caleb and I talk about the role of craftsmanship in developing and maintaining software (or really anything else).

In the podcast this week, we discuss the Agile Coaching Code of Ethics and the process of building an ethical foundation.  Shane Hastie and Craig Smith have been leading the effort to craft a useful Agile Coaching Code of Ethics for the past year. These two thought leaders have helped to pull together a diverse group of coaches, and then guide that herd of cats in order to create a new force to guide agile coaches of all stripes.  In May 2017 Shane Hastie joined ICAgile as the Director of Agile Learning Programs, tasked with ensuring the learning objectives remain valid and useful, supporting the various communities that make up the ICAgile ecosystem, and seeking ways to advance the state of agile learning. In November 2019 he moved into the Director of Community Development role, building and supporting the global community of thought leaders, members, instructors, and certification holders. Shane’s Profile - linkedin.com/in/shanehastie Email - snhastie@gmail.com  Twitter - shanehastie Craig Smith has been active in the IT industry for over 15 years. He has been an Agile practitioner for over 10 years and is a Certified Scrum Master and a member of both the Scrum Alliance and Agile Alliance and as an Agile Coach, he has worked on a number of high-profile technical and business projects. He regularly conducts Agile training and has presented at a number of Australian and international conferences. He is also an Agile Editor for InfoQ and co-hosts an Agile podcast called The Agile Revolution. Craig’s Profile - linkedin.com/in/craigsmithau Websites craigsmith.id.au  (Blog) theagilerevolution.com  (Podcast) unbounddna.com  (Company Website) Email - craig@craigsmith.id.au  Twitter - smithcdau The Software Process and Measurement Cast is a proud media sponsor of the Global Scrum Master Summit.  The First Global Scrum Master Summit Coming Soon. Sign-up to be notified when registrations open Week of May 17th, 2021, Live and Recorded Organized by the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast http://bit.ly/scrummastersummit21 The Software Process and Measurement Cast is a proud media sponsor of the DevOps Online Summit.  DevOps professionals throughout the world come together and share their learnings here at the DevOps Online Summit. This coming April 26th – 30th we are having our third summit. Our goal is to bring together 5000 DevOps professionals.  Grab a ticket!  https://bit.ly/3syp2c5    Re-Read Saturday News  This week we read Chapter 4 of  Fixing Your Scrum, Practical Solutions to Common Scrum Problems, by Ryan Ripley and Todd Miller. I have argued that the role of the Product Owner is the hardest in Scrum. The role is difficult for many reasons, Todd and Ryan tackle seven of the most pernicious antipatterns of product ownership in Chapter 4, The Product Owner, of Fixing Your Scrum. Compromising Scrum by accepting any of these antipatterns will need other compromises which will increase the overhead needed to deliver value. That, in turn, will hurt the business.  If you have not bought your copy -- what are you waiting for? Fixing Your Scrum: Practical Solutions to Common Scrum Problems  Previous Installments Week 1: Re-read Logistics and Front Matter - https://bit.ly/3mgz9P6  Week 2: A Brief Introduction To Scrum, and Why Scrum Goes Bad - https://bit.ly/37w4Dv9  Week 3: Breaking Bad Scrum with a Value-Driven Approach - http://bit.ly/3stGc9Q  Week 4: The Product Owner - https://bit.ly/3qpKvSn Next SPaMCAST Next week, Vasco Duarte returns to the podcast to discuss the Scrum Master. Scrum Masters are the face of agile in many organizations. Helping team facilitators get the role right benefits not only the agile community but every business they are involved with! 

Join me with Vasco Duarte who runs Oikosofy a coaching company in Finland and is also behind the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. Vasco is the author of a fascinating book called No Estimate's. Vasco and I chat about the challenges of estimating complex business application software, particularly in the CRM and ERP domains, and how the No Estimates movement and the method covered in his book can help business applications teams construct collaborative contracts with their customers and never deliver late again. At the end of this podcast episode I give details on how you can win one of 14 copies of Vasco's book, the No Estimates book.Our discussion coversThe #noestimates movement and how the approach addresses the frustration of unreliable and late delivery on software projects.Alternatives to traditional estimation methodologies.Using the Extreme Contracts approach to create a win-win situation between vendors and customers.Educating Product Owners who may have never been involved in software development.Blink estimates, or rethinking what is delivered in a sprint to deliver customer value as quickly as possible.The "Clinton process" Spike concept centred on solving a problem for the customer with the aim of delivering a solution in a very short time frame.ResourcesVasco Duarte on LinkedInNo Estimates book Scrum Master Toolbox PodcastExtreme Contracts - Jacopo RomeiAgile Estimating and Planning training Mike Cohn Maarten Dalmijn on Medium.comScrum Master Toolbox Product Owner e-course Neil Killick Blink Estimation The Clinton Process - Clinton Keith on “No estimates and set-based design” – Blog postRaphael Branger on LinkedIn Spike concept from extreme programming Kent Beck on LinkedIn Amazing Applications podcast page on LinkedInAmazing Applications podcast page on PodchaserScrum for Microsoft Business Apps online course at Customery AcademyAgile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps free online mini-course at Customery AcademySupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/amazingapps)

Joe Krebs speaks with Vasco Duarte about the lack of management support and why this role is so important for the future world of work and if the role “Scrum Master” is still appropriate or if it should be renamed.

You can order the complimentary poster mentioned in this podcast episode here: https://www.incrementor.com/toolkit

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. About  Ed Evan Rich is the author of “Express Yourself Fearlessly”, and co-author of “The 48hr Book Method” a Product Manager by day, podcast host by night and I am homeschooling my child with my wife in between. You can read more from Ed at https://EdEvanRich.com Vasco Duarte is a managing partner at Oikosofy where he wants to change the world, one company at a time. He’s also the regular host on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast. Product Manager, Scrum Master, Project Manager, Director, Agile Coach are only some of the roles that he’s taken in software development organizations. Having worked in the software industry since 1997, and Agile practitioner since 2004. He as worked in small, medium and large software organizations as an Agile Coach or leader in agile adoption at those organizations. Vasco was one of the leaders and catalysts of Agile methods and Agile culture adoption at Avira, Nokia and F-Secure. You can read more from Vasco at his blog: http://SoftwareDevelopmentToday.com

For the holidays, three veteran podcasters came together to talk about the state of agile, and where to focus on the road ahead!  Thanks to Ryan Ripley, host of "Agile For Humans" and co-author of "Fixing Your Scrum", Vasco Duarte of the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast and author of "No Estimates", and Laurens Bonnema for bringing us all together! Ryan Ripley at Agile For Humans (www.agileforhumans.com): Vasco Duarte at Scrum Master Toolbox - (https://scrum-master-toolbox.org): My most sincere thanks to these gentlemen for bringing their world-famous insights to the Badass Agile podcast.  Much thanks and respect for all you do. ***JOIN THE FORGE*** Our online leadership immersion experience is taking names for a December 2020 Cohort. Sign up for more info here: https://badassagile.com/the-forge/****** Don't forget to join us in the Badass Agile Listener Lounge on Facebook for member exclusives, livestreams and previews! https://www.facebook.com/groups/badasslistenerlounge/ We're also on YouTube!  Follow the podcast, enjoy some panel/guest commentary, and get some quick tips and guidance from me: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf6I_bii9oUSI8fkN1BOk6g ****** Our mission is to create an elite tribe of leaders who focus on who they need to become in order to lead and inspire, and to be the best agile podcast and resource for effective mindset and leadership game. Contact us (contact@badassagile.com) for elite-level performance and agile coaching, speaking engagements, team-level and executive mindset/agile training, and licensing options for modern, high-impact, bite-sized learning and educational content.

For the holidays, three veteran podcasters came together to talk about the state of agile, and where to focus on the road ahead!  Thanks to Ryan Ripley, host of "Agile For Humans" and co-author of "Fixing Your Scrum", Vasco Duarte of the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast and author of "No Estimates", and Laurens Bonnema for bringing us all together! Ryan Ripley at Agile For Humans (www.agileforhumans.com): Vasco Duarte at Scrum Master Toolbox - (https://scrum-master-toolbox.org): My most sincere thanks to these gentlemen for bringing their world-famous insights to the Badass Agile podcast.  Much thanks and respect for all you do. ***JOIN THE FORGE*** Our online leadership immersion experience is taking names for a December 2020 Cohort. Sign up for more info here: https://badassagile.com/the-forge/****** Don't forget to join us in the Badass Agile Listener Lounge on Facebook for member exclusives, livestreams and previews! https://www.facebook.com/groups/badasslistenerlounge/ We're also on YouTube!  Follow the podcast, enjoy some panel/guest commentary, and get some quick tips and guidance from me: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf6I_bii9oUSI8fkN1BOk6g ****** Our mission is to create an elite tribe of leaders who focus on who they need to become in order to lead and inspire, and to be the best agile podcast and resource for effective mindset and leadership game. Contact us (contact@badassagile.com) for elite-level performance and agile coaching, speaking engagements, team-level and executive mindset/agile training, and licensing options for modern, high-impact, bite-sized learning and educational content.

For the holidays, three veteran podcasters came together to talk about the state of agile, and where to focus on the road ahead!  Thanks to Ryan Ripley, host of "Agile For Humans" and co-author of "Fixing Your Scrum", Vasco Duarte of the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast and author of "No Estimates", and Laurens Bonnema for bringing us all together! Ryan Ripley at Agile For Humans (www.agileforhumans.com): Vasco Duarte at Scrum Master Toolbox - (https://scrum-master-toolbox.org): My most sincere thanks to these gentlemen for bringing their world-famous insights to the Badass Agile podcast.  Much thanks and respect for all you do. ***JOIN THE FORGE*** Our online leadership immersion experience is taking names for a December 2020 Cohort. Sign up for more info here: https://badassagile.com/the-forge/ ****** Don't forget to join us in the Badass Agile Listener Lounge on Facebook for member exclusives, livestreams and previews! https://www.facebook.com/groups/badasslistenerlounge/ We're also on YouTube!  Follow the podcast, enjoy some panel/guest commentary, and get some quick tips and guidance from me: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf6I_bii9oUSI8fkN1BOk6g ****** Our mission is to create an elite tribe of leaders who focus on who they need to become in order to lead and inspire, and to be the best agile podcast and resource for effective mindset and leadership game. Contact us (contact@badassagile.com) for elite-level performance and agile coaching, speaking engagements, team-level and executive mindset/agile training, and licensing options for modern, high-impact, bite-sized learning and educational content.  

In this special Christmas episode, Ryan Ripley - host of the Agile for Human podcast - and Chris Williams - host of the Badass Agile podcast - join our host Vasco Duarte to reflect on what Agile has become and what the future holds for us!  Don't’ miss this special, funny and insightful podcast episode!  Merry Christmas Scrum nation! About Ryan Ripley, Chris Williams, and Vasco Duarte Ryan Ripley loves helping people do great work. He is a servant leader at heart and is passionate about fostering safety and trust in the workplace. Ryan created the Agile for Humans podcast to put the focus back on the individuals and interactions that make agile work. You can link up with Ryan Ripley on LinkedIn and connect with Ryan Ripley on Twitter. Ryan also hosts a popular Agile podcast: Agile for Humans.   Chris Williams is one of Canada’s most recognized agile and business performance coaches. Chris has his own proprietary philosophy, built on years of research and practice; participating in elite programs with in team and Human Performance coaching. You can link up with Chris Williams on LinkedIn. Chris also hosts a popular Agile podcast: Badass Agile. Vasco Duarte is a managing partner at Oikosofy where he wants to change the world, one company at a time. He’s also the regular host at the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast. Product Manager, Scrum Master, Project Manager, Director, Agile Coach are only some of the roles that he’s taken in software development organizations. Having worked in the software industry since 1997, and Agile practitioner since 2004. He as worked in small, medium and large software organizations as an Agile Coach or leader in agile adoption at those organizations. Vasco was one of the leaders and catalysts of Agile methods and Agile culture adoption at Avira, Nokia and F-Secure. You can read more from Vasco at his blog: http://SoftwareDevelopmentToday.com

This episode of Joekub we get a bit meta as we talk to agilist/author/podcaster Vasco Duarte about what it's like to be an agile podcaster. Vasco is host of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast (SMTP) which has been running for about 5 years now. If you've never heard SMTP you should definitely give it a try. Each episode is around 10 minutes and is always trying to impart a new tool or technique for your kit. Vasco shares with us why he decided to start the podcast, how he's applied lean thinking to developing it, and the impacts he's seen his podcast on the agile community. So many great insights about building a community as an agilist! Please join Jakub and Joe as they get to know Vasco! The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast - http://scrum-master-toolbox.org/ Blog - http://softwaredevelopmenttoday.com/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/duarte_vasco?lang=en LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/duartevasco/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/joekub/message

"The Errors of Estimation" by Vasco Duarte from his blog at http://softwaredevelopmenttoday.com In this episode we find out why Vasco sees estimation as a failure point in agile development projects. We look at a number of different estimation approaches and explore their flaws. Vasco is a big advocate of the alternative 'No Estimates' approach to agile software development. If you'd like to learn more about this approach then Vascos book, 'No Estimates' and accompanying videos, are a great place to start. You'll find more information at https://oikosofyseries.com/no-estimates-book-order

Wie man schon am Titel dieses Artikels sehen kann, bin ich kein großer Fan von Story Points. Warum das so ist, erkläre ich Dir hier.  Als "Vater der Story Points" gilt Ron Jeffries. In seinem Artikel Story Points Revisited erklärt er, wie es zu diesem Konzept gekommen ist. Er ist sich allerdings selbst nicht sicher, ob er tatsächlich der Erfinder ist. Er erklärt auch wunderbar, welche alternativen Konzepte er bevorzugt (ja, auch er ist kein Fan von Story Points). Aber was sind Story Points eigentlich? Die ursprüngliche Idee von Story Points ist es, den Schwierigkeitsgrad oder die Komplexität eines Features zu beschreiben. Je schwieriger eine Aufgabe ist, desto mehr Story Points bekommt sie. Es ist eine bisschen wie ein Level in einem Videospiel wie z.B. Tetris. Wenn ich noch nie Tetris gespielt habe, wird mir Level 10 sehr schwer vorkommen. Mit zunehmender Erfahrung fällt mir Level 10 immer einfacher, bis ich am Ende nur noch müde darüber lächeln kann. Das ändert allerdings nichts an der Sache, das Level 10 trotzdem Level 10 bleibt. Für einen unerfahrenen Spieler ist es immer noch eine Herausforderung.  Das gleiche gilt für Features in einem Backlog. Ein erfahrener Entwickler wird mit einem Feature mit 5 Story Points mit Leichtigkeit fertig, während ein Junior Entwickler zumindest anfangs noch seine Schwierigkeiten haben wird. Beide brauchen für die Implementierung unterschiedlich lang. Story Points sagen also NICHTS über den Aufwand aus! Deshalb macht es auch keinen Sinn Story Points z.B. in PTs (Personen Tage) umzurechnen. Wenn ein Team das Thema Agilität ernst nimmt, wird es immer besser im Abarbeiten der Backlog Items. Das bedeutet, dass es ein halbes Jahr später wesentlich mehr Story Points pro Sprint (auch bekannt als Velocity) abgearbeitet werden. Das Team wird immer erfahrener.  Leider fällt es vielen Menschen schwer das Thema "Erfahrung" aus ihren Story Point Schätzungen raus zu halten. Das führt dazu, dass die beiden Dinge vermischt werden. Sobald ich das aber mache, macht es keinen Sinn mehr mit Story Points zu arbeiten. Ich kennen Unternehmen, die haben einen Umrechnungsfaktor für Story Points, z.B. ein Story Point sind drei PTs. In diesem Fall kann man auch gleich in PTs rechnen, da es einfach nur einen weitere Zeiteinheit ist, die am Ende mehr Verwirrung stiftet, als das sie hilft.  Heutzutage gibt es bessere Konzepte, um Projekte zu planen. Eines davon ist z.B. #NoEstimates. Mehr dazu in meinem Podcast mit Vasco Duarte.  R.I.P Story Points...

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website. Christian has been thinking hard about the question of what success means for Scrum Masters. He describes how the role of the Scrum Master must have a “risk” perspective, and be about minimizing risk. In this episode, we discuss what that may mean for Scrum Masters and what practices help with that goal. Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The Flow Retrospective Christian shares his idea on “The Flow Retrospective”, which describes and illustrates how Agile software development can help teams reach much higher productivity and predictability. In this retrospective, Christian helps the team analyze and understand flow metrics to help them make better decisions.  In this segment, we refer to Actionable agile metrics from Dan Vacanti and The #NoEstimates book by Vasco Duarte.   About Christian Hofstetter Christian is an enthusiastic Release Train Engineer, Certified Professional Co-Active Coach, and Facilitator who started his agile journey as a Product Owner. Later he turned his back on technology and focused on people and relationships. He is passionate about creating space for people and teams to be the best they can be. You can link with Christian Hofstetter on LinkedIn.

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.   When Raphael got started, many of his teams still had the back-end and front-end separation clearly visible, to the point of them being separate teams. Raphael found that, in Business Intelligence projects, that separation would cause communication gaps, and started investigating how to go about removing that gap. That led him to work in developing the concept of “generalizing specialists” for his organization, and he shares that process with us, with many tips on how to slowly, but deliberately move towards cross-skilled team members, and cross-functional teams. Featured Book of the Week: Agile Data Warehouse Design, by Lawrence Core In Agile Data Warehouse Design by Lawrence Core (check the book’s website), Raphael found an idea that helped him “see” how Agile could be adapted to work in Business Intelligence and Data projects. In the process of developing that idea, Raphael also found out how to involve users directly in the data modeling step, therefore benefiting from very early feedback. In this segment, we also refer to the NoEstimates book by our podcast host Vasco Duarte.   About Raphael Branger Raphael Branger is a Certified Disciplined Agile Practitioner and a pioneer in adapting agile methods in the context of data and analytics projects. He works as a Principal Consultant Data & Analytics at IT-Logix in Switzerland with more than seventeen years of experience in business intelligence and data warehousing. You can link with Raphael Branger on LinkedIn and connect with Raphael Branger on Twitter.

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.   Steve was hired to help the teams go “faster”. However, when he started to see the Prodcut Owners throw their teams under the bus at Sprint Demos he understood that something else was going on. It wasn’t only about helping teams be faster anymore. As he started to dig deeper, he found a culture of fear in the organization and many other anti-patterns that he shares with us. A great story, with lots of warnings for us to keep an eye out for. Featured Book of the Week: The #NoEstimates Book by Vasco Duarte In The #NoEstimates Book by Vasco Duarte, Steve found a book that helped him understand what empirical process control is about, and put some things in place on how he approaches teams and their process.  In this segment, we also refer to The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, Drive!, Coaching Agile Teams, Agile Game Development with Scrum, and Suzuki’s Zen Mind.   About Steve Jaccaud Steve is an Enterprise Agile Coach, Volunteer, Speaker, and Musician in Boston, Massachusetts. When he's not leading workshops with creative software organizations, he's probably working on an album or deep in meditation! You can link with Steve Jaccaud on LinkedIn and connect with Steve Jaccaud on Twitter.

Vasco Duarte is the host of The Scrum Master Toolbox which is the largest podcast on Scrum Master topics. Both Jeffs had the opportunity to be guests on his show in their career and it was finally time to bring him on. Find all the show notes and links at https://www.theagilewire.com

This is a BONUS episode on the topic of #NoEstimates. The Agile Wire podcast hosts Jeff Bubolz and Jeff Maleski interview Vasco Duarte. Some of you might have heard about #NoEstimates, and want to know more, and for others, it might be the first time you hear about it. Either way, in this episode we talk about the origins of #NoEstimates and why you may want to consider it when helping your teams.  This is a shared episode with a fellow Agile podcast The Agile Wire, where hosts Jeff Maleski and Jeff Bubolz interview Agile practitioners. Both Jeff Maleski and Jeff Bubolz have been guests here on the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast.   About Jeff Bubolz and Jeff Maleski Jeff Bubolz is a speaker, trainer, and agile coach. He has been a Product Owner, Scrum Master and Development Team member. Jeff has worked with enterprise companies to small start-ups. His goal is to end human suffering in organizations, by nudging people to be the change they want to see in the world.   You can link with Jeff Bubolz on LinkedIn and connect with Jeff Bubolz on Twitter.   Jeff Maleski is passionate about working with and building up both individuals and teams using ideas from Jurgen Appelo’s Management 3.0 and Dan Pink’s Drive. When leading project teams, Jeff strives for empirical based planning and forecasting, continuous learning, and delivering high quality software products that exceed expectations. Jeff believes in leading by actions and focusing on building relationships with others.   You can link with Jeff Maleski on LinkedIn.

Vasco Duarte has grown businesses from 0 to 10 million and from 300K to 5 million. He is the owner of the #1 Scrum podcast - Scrum Master Toolbox. Vasco has worked in the software industry since 1997, and he’s been a Agile practitioner since 2004. He's one of the leaders and catalysts of Agile methods and Agile culture adoption at Avira, Nokia and F-Secure. In this episode, Vasco talks about the importance of eliminating guesswork and his step by step process for creating high-demand products. INSIDE THE EPISODE: [01:06] How Vasco discovered Agile & how he uses it in product development [07:24] Vasco talks about how he made 20,000 in the first 7 days with his first online product [10:28] Vasco’s step-by-step process for creating high-demand products [16:00] Understanding the numbers behind a successful product [20:41] Sources that Vasco learned from that made the biggest impact [22:47] What the future looks like for Vasco Get your cheatsheet for Vasco’s episode at unstoppablebusiness.com/podcast

Today I had the pleasure to talk to Vasco Duarte. He wants to transform product development organizations into product business organizations. Vasco does that by focusing the work of the product development teams on the end-to-end life-cycle of their products. From Concept to Cash and Back! In this episode, we talk about #NoEstimates and all the myths that are around. Vasco explains the idea behind this concept and how to bring it to life.  Here are the links we mentioned in this episode: https://bit.ly/slicingmeeting   https://bit.ly/remotescrum  https://bit.ly/remote_work_LIVEQA_ScrumMasterPodcast

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.  Lists are useful because they help us mentally review where we might need to pay attention as a Scrum Master. In this episode, we have 2 lists. We present 4 PO anti-patterns and 3 patterns that you can help your PO with and make sure they excel at their job!   The Great Product Owner: 3 patterns that make great PO’s Just as there are many ways for a Product Owner to enter a negative spiral, there are also some things that are the hallmark of good Product owners. In this segment, we discuss 3 different patterns that, if you can help your PO follow them, will improve greatly the collaboration between team and PO, and will help the PO excel at their job! The Bad Product Owner: 4 different, and critical PO anti-patterns In this segment, we discuss 4 different Product Owners anti-patterns and dive into possible solutions that we can implement as Scrum Masters. We talk about defining working agreements with the team and the PO (not only the team) and discuss why it is critical for Scrum Masters to create a productive collaborative relationship with the Product Owner. In this segment, we refer to the Coach Your Product Owner course produced by Vasco Duarte, the host of the podcast.  [IMAGE HERE]Are you having trouble helping the team working well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at: bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate.   About Bola Adesope Bola is an experienced Business and Agile Transformation Consultant, Speaker and Coach with in-depth knowledge and experience working with businesses in implementing best practice frameworks, driving changes and solving complex business problems. Bola has worked on several transformation initiatives, coached teams and Scrum Masters. He’s an Agile Coach based in Toronto. You can link with Bola Adesope on LinkedIn and connect with Bola Adesope on Twitter.   

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.  From the user-centric PO to the over-planner PO that failed to collaborate with the team, this episode covers plenty of aspects to keep an eye on when collaborating with your Product Owner. The Great Product Owner: The user-centric Product Owner Great Product Owners have a clear Vision for the product. But there’s a lot more to a great PO than the Vision. In this segment, we talk about the PO who was able to learn from quick releases, and validate their own assumptions about what value might mean for the end customer. Including, finding opportunities to help customers who were looking for a competitor product!  The Bad Product Owner: The non-collaborating Product Owner Usually, a Product Owner that has a clear set of items they want the team to work on would be on the “great product owner” category. But not in this case. Listen in to learn how a PO was good at planning but then failed at the most important thing: team collaboration. In this segment, we talk about the User Story Mapping workshop facilitator guide by Vasco Duarte. Check it out if you want to know how to prepare, and host a great User Story mapping workshop. Are you having trouble helping the team working well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at: bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate. About Eddy Bruin For many years, Eddy has been using serious games and learning metaphors to help teams and organizations move forward. He is an Agile and Test Coach with the mission to help teams deliver software people actually want to use while also enjoying their work. He helps teams to enable feedback loops continuously and likes to discuss all agile and test topics over a special beer. He loves to go to (un)conferences on serious games (for example Play14, Play4Agile), and also on Agile and Testing. You can link with Eddy Bruin on LinkedIn and connect with Eddy Bruin on Twitter.

In this Futurebuilders podcast together with Vasco Duarte and our daring host Teemu Uotila we will find out: How software can grow your business? Designing more impactful approach to software project management? How #NoEstimates can help you improve and transform software into a business growth factor? Vasco Duarte is an agile coach and strategist. He is managing partner at Oikosofy and he is the host of "Scrum Master Toolbox" podcast. Vasco is also the author of the controversial book #NoEstimates – how to measure project progress without estimates.  

Melissa Perri on Deliver It, Jenny Tarwater, Laura Powers, Linda Podder, and Cheryl Hammond on Agile Uprising, Michael Sippey on Product Love, Ryan Jacoby on Scrum Master Toolbox, and Phil Abernathy on Engineering Culture by InfoQ. I’d love for you to email me with any comments about the show or any suggestions for podcasts I might want to feature. Email podcast@thekguy.com. This episode covers the five podcast episodes I found most interesting and wanted to share links to during the two week period starting April 29, 2019. These podcast episodes may have been released much earlier, but this was the fortnight when I started sharing links to them to my social network followers. MELISSA PERRI ON DELIVER IT CAST The Deliver It Cast podcast featured Melissa Perri with host Cory Bryan. They discussed Melissa’s book Escaping The Build Trap and what motivated her to spend three years writing it. Melissa says she wrote it because she found herself answering the same questions about product management over and over again. They talked about what the build trap is (project-oriented, no product managers, spinning up teams for CEOs that prioritize work, never talking to customers, and getting rewarded for shipping features) and how demoralizing it can be. They talked about Stephen Bungay’s The Art Of Action and his notion of the knowledge gap, the alignment gap, and the effects gap, and Melissa told a story of how she applied these concepts for a client by introducing ways to address these gaps by learning how to communicate strategic intent. Melissa says she always hears from her clients that their CEOs and leaders care about points and velocity but she says that this is only because they have don’t know how else to measure success. When you give them goals that they can relate to, they no longer need to latch onto points and velocity. I particularly liked what Melissa said about getting leaders to work together as a team by getting rid of individual goals. iTunes link: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ep85-escaping-the-build-trap-with-melissa-perri/id966084649?i=1000434062102 Website link: http://deliveritcast.com/ep85-escaping-the-build-trap-with-melissa-perri JENNY TARWATER, LAURA POWERS, LINDA PODDER, AND CHERYL HAMMOND ON AGILE UPRISING The Agile Uprising podcast featured Jenny Tarwater, Laura Powers, Linda Podder, and Cheryl Hammond with host Chris Murman. They talked about the Women In Agile community and events and what they have learned so far. Cheryl said that they have learned that there is interest among all genders to learn about Women In Agile and get involved in the pre-conferences. Laura learned that it was giving her an opportunity to pay it forward to the next generation. Linda described being a recipient of what Laura has been paying forward and Jenny talked about meeting people through these events who helped her both professionally and personally. She also described how the huge number of attendees of the main conference that Women In Agile is attached to makes her feel lost and how the pre-conference helps her ease into the conference community. They talked about the Launching New Voices program and how it provides a stage and mentoring on how to give a talk to create a more diverse body of speakers. Linda was a protégé in the 2017 program and she described how it taught her not only how to present her topic but also taught her the psychology behind it so that she could help her audience internalize her message. Laura described being a mentor in the program and I loved what she said about authenticity. iTunes link: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/women-in-agile-2019/id1163230424?i=1000434352507 Website link: http://agileuprising.libsyn.com/women-in-agile-2019 MICHAEL SIPPEY ON PRODUCT LOVE The Product Love podcast featured Michael Sippey with host Eric Boduch. Michael Sippey became VP of product at Medium after spending some time running product for LiveJournal at SixApart and at Twitter. He was also one of the first bloggers. They talked about how many of these early blogging technologies developed into today’s modern social media platforms and how Michael wishes he could have thought more about the downsides of the technologies and planned for them. This led to a discussion of scenario planning and the the natural tendency towards optimism that product people have. They talked about the history of Twitter and some of the reasoning behind the restrictions Twitter introduced in their API in 2012 and some of the improvements Medium is making now to prevent amplification of low quality content. Then they got into a discussion of hypotheses and hypothesis testing as being fundamental to product management. Michael encourages his product managers to have hypotheses that are bold enough that the users are going to notice and that will drive enough change that it is worth the development time to pursue it. iTunes link: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/michael-sippey-joins-product-love-to-talk-about-hypotheses/id1343610309?i=1000434598454 Website link: https://soundcloud.com/productcraft/michael-sippey-joins-product-love-to-talk-about-hypotheses RYAN JACOBY ON SCRUM MASTER TOOLBOX The Scrum Master Toolbox podcast featured Ryan Jacoby with host Vasco Duarte. Vasco started by by asking Ryan about his book, Making Progress - The 7 Responsibilities of an Innovation Leader. Ryan described the seven responsibilities as: 1) define progress, 2) set an innovation agenda, 3) create and support teams that build, 4) cultivate the ingredients of successful innovation (customer insights, well-defined problem statements, strategic questions, and ways of communicating evidence of what works and what doesn’t), 5) give great feedback, 6) inspire progress, and 7) reward progress. Vasco asked about how Scrum Masters can contribute to innovation. Ryan suggests picking some of the techniques they discussed, applying them to your team, and then sharing them widely. He then referenced Teresa Amabile’s work on finding out what makes people happy and work. He says that by helping your team make progress, you will be improving morale and people’s job satisfaction. iTunes link: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/bonus-ryan-jacoby-on-7-responsibilities-innovation/id963592988?i=1000434879127 Website link: http://scrummastertoolbox.libsyn.com/bonus-ryan-jacoby-on-the-7-responsibilities-of-an-innovation-leader PHIL ABERNATHY ON ENGINEERING CULTURE BY INFOQ The Engineering Culture by InfoQ podcast featured Phil Abernathy with host Shane Hastie. Phil talked about how happier employees make for happier customers. For producing happier employees, he starts with purpose, autonomy, and mastery as popularized by Dan Pink and he adds fairness. He distinguishes between fairness and equality. He says employees don’t expect equality — there are different levels of capability, maturity, experience, and salary but this is not seen as unfair. They then talked about org structures, going back to Conway’s law and how it relates to complexity. Phil talked about the KPI-driven organizations today that take anything that is not working and put a vice president in charge of it. This leads to things like having a head of “digital.” He asks, “What’s the difference between the IT department and this new digital department?” Nobody can explain it. He says that this obfuscation of accountability and responsibility is at the heart of complex structures and that instead we should copy the great companies. They all have small, simple, loosely-coupled teams delivering a service to a direct customer group, internal or external. Phil says people confuse empowerment and self-direction with no management and no direction. He says there needs to be a hierarchy, but it should be flat, with spans of control over ten. He has a metric he calls the bureaucracy mass index, which is the ratio of enablers such as managers to total employees. A healthy BMI is typically around 10% and in some companies he sees BMIs as high as 45%. He says healthier BMIs lead to happier customers and happier companies. Regarding the structure of the work itself, Phil says too many companies he works with are overloaded. The reason for the lack of prioritization is a lack of strategic clarity: there’s a digital strategy, an innovation strategy, IT transformation strategy and no one can figure out the real strategy. A simple strategy that can be explained in three to five bullet points does not exist. He then got into a description of OKRs and how they are developed collaboratively. The companies who get these right, he says, don’t have a prioritization problem. Last, he adds leadership style because structuring the organization and structuring the work is not enough. A good leadership style, he says, is based on an agreed set of values like trust, respect, transparency, courage, and experimentation. Every organization says they have these values but they don’t all practice them. He says it comes down to holding people accountable. He references Patrick Lencioni’s work on having trust at the foundation and he connected this to accountability and results. He says that the courage of senior leadership to call people out for breaking the values is the deciding factor. He then related this all to Carol Dweck’s book Mindset. This interview is only twenty minutes long, but Phil doesn’t waste a single word. iTunes link: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/phil-abernathy-on-employee-happiness-bureaucracy-mass/id1161431874?i=1000435046419 Website link: https://soundcloud.com/infoq-engineering-culture/phil-abernathy-on-employee-happiness-and-the-bureaucracy-mass-index FEEDBACK Ask questions, make comments, and let your voice be heard by emailing podcast@thekguy.com. Twitter: https://twitter.com/thekguy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithmmcdonald/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thekguypage Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_k_guy/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCysPayr8nXwJJ8-hqnzMFjw Website:

Cal Newport on Coaching For Leaders, Becoming Mr. Why on Troubleshooting Agile, Gary Pedretti and Jeff Gothelf on Agile For Humans, Thai Wood on Greater Than Code, and Jeff Campbell on Scrum Master Toolbox. I’d love for you to email me with any comments about the show or any suggestions for podcasts I might want to feature. Email podcast@thekguy.com. This episode covers the five podcast episodes I found most interesting and wanted to share links to during the two week period starting April 15, 2019. These podcast episodes may have been released much earlier, but this was the fortnight when I started sharing links to them to my social network followers. CAL NEWPORT ON COACHING FOR LEADERS The Coaching For Leaders podcast featured Cal Newport with host Dave Stachowiak. Cal talked about the inspiration for his new book Digital Minimalism having come from readers of his previous book Deep Work who liked what that book had done for their work lives and asked, “What about my personal life?” Dave and Cal talked about competitive Rock, Paper, Scissors, and how the top competitors in that sport are so good at understanding and taking advantage of the way our brains work. This took them to the main point of the book, which is that technologies like social media are not understood by our brains in the same way as true social interaction, so we can be interacting on social media all day long and still feel lonely. Dave asked about the impact the modern tendency to replace face-to-face conversation with virtual connection such as email, text, and social media likes, can have for leaders. Cal described the scenario in which a person in a leadership position with a remote component to it reads, say, an email and can’t put a finger on the emotional affect — she can’t tell whether the author of the email is really angry with her or really happy. He says we need the complex, social-processing part of the brain that relies on analog cues such as the back-and-forth of hearing a voice or seeing body language. It is how we understand people, connect with people, and coordinate with people towards common goals. Taking this kind of conversation out of the picture makes it difficult to be a leader. Dave asked what Cal learned from his readers and blog followers. Cal said he was surprised to learn from his readers and followers the degree to which digital distraction was filling a void for them. He had assumed that simply reducing or taming the digital distractions would allow us to immediately get back to the things we know are more important. He learned instead that, for a lot of people, it is unclear what they are going to do next once they have taken the lightweight distraction out of their lives. He says he is much more sympathetic now about the difficulty of figuring out what you want to do instead of just mindless swiping in every down moment. In the book, he asks people to take a 30-day period to limit social media use and he said, “People are often surprised by how little they miss things like Facebook during this process and also surprised by how much they’re at a loss to figure out what they should be doing instead.” iTune link: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/400-how-to-reclaim-conversation-with-cal-newport/id458827716?i=1000432139932&mt=2 Website link: https://coachingforleaders.com/podcast/400/ BECOMING MR. WHY ON TROUBLESHOOTING AGILE The Troubleshooting Agile podcast with hosts Douglas Squirrel and Jeffrey Fredrick spent an episode talking about someone they call “Mr. Why.” Squirrel told a story about a client who would get orders from on high that said, “Thou shalt do it this way.” He would also get orders with explanations that do not make any sense such as investors making technical decisions. Squirrel calls this client “Mr. Why” because most people in these types of environments eventually stop asking the why. The challenge for this client is not that he doesn’t ask why but that he only asks himself. Squirrel said that he tells Mr. Why that we want to be opposite of lawyers, who are carefully trained never to ask the question, “Why?” Jeffrey said that he thinks the legalistic type of question is the model that people often think is the proper way to analyze a situation: legalistically building a case rather than collaboratively trying to get to answers and this could be why people fall into communication patterns in which their goal is to win rather than to jointly discover. To me, this sounds exactly like the difference between constructive and deconstructive criticism described in the book, How The Way We Talk Can Change The Way We Work by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey. The constructive criticizer is making an airtight case about the behavior he or she is criticizing even when doing so constructively, while the deconstructive criticizer is seeking to jointly discover the truth with the help of the recipient of the criticism. iTune link: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/becoming-mr-why/id1327456890?i=1000432455338&mt=2 SoundCloud link: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/becoming-mr-why GARY PEDRETTI AND JEFF GOTHELF ON AGILE FOR HUMANS The Agile For Humans podcast featured Gary Pedretti and Jeff Gothelf with host Ryan Ripley. Ryan asked a question that he hears a lot: how do we do UX activities and product discovery within a sprint? Gary says that from the developer community, he hears that design work takes too long. From the designer community, he hears that they think their work is strategic and sprints feel tactical or that they think developers don’t really care about design. Jeff pointed out that the fundamental values and principles of Scrum and UX are the same, but melding the processes in a way that respects both Scrum and UX has proved elusive for a lot of organizations. They talked about a 2007 paper by Desirée Sy and Lynn Miller on staggered sprints that was misunderstood as a series of mini-waterfalls. I believe Jeff was referring to the article named Adapting Usability Investigations for Agile User-centered Design. Jeff explained that they were actually describing two kinds of work being done by the same team, not by separate groups of designers and developers communicating by handoff.  Jeff described experimenting with his team’s processes back in 2008-09 and settling on a process in which designers were part of the Scrum team with engineers and product managers and work was prioritized not just on what needed to be delivered but also on what the team was trying to learn. Gary talked about how the separation of designers from the rest of the team is similar to the separation of database people and application architects from the rest of the team because of a belief that the work of the database designer or application architect needed to be completed before the work of the rest of the team could begin. In each case, people discovered patterns that overcame this limitation, like the patterns of Ambler and Sadalage’s Refactoring Databases book and the patterns of evolutionary or emergent architecture. iTune link: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/afh-106-exploring-user-experience-and-scrum/id991671232?i=1000433513601&mt=2 Website link: https://ryanripley.com/afh-106-exploring-user-experience-and-scrum/ THAI WOOD ON GREATER THAN CODE The Greater Than Code podcast featured Thai Wood with hosts Jessica Kerr, Sam Livingston-Gray, John K Sawers, and Avdi Grimm. They started with a discussion of resilience engineering and how it spun off of human factors and brought in cognitive systems. Jessica said that old-style human factors got mired in Taylorism whereas cognitive systems is about making systems that work with people in the way that people naturally work. Thai had gotten into tech coming from emergency medicine as an EMT. Jessica asked what he brought to software development from his EMT days. Thai responded that, in medicine, you are trained about burnout, how to identify it, and what resources are available to help with it. In software, despite similar stressors and similar problems, burnout is not talked about that much. Jessica asked Thai how to distinguish between reliability and resilience. Thai said that resilience encompasses the ability to continually adapt to change, whereas reliability might be consistently performing within the same state. He also said that he thinks of robustness as being able to survive certain inputs but not necessarily being able to adapt to them. iTune link: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/121-emergency-communication-with-thai-wood/id1163023878?i=1000431679618&mt=2 Website link: https://www.greaterthancode.com/emergency-communication JEFF CAMPBELL ON SCRUM MASTER TOOLBOX The Scrum Master Toolbox podcast featured Jeff Campbell with host Vasco Duarte. This episode was the first to be done in a Q & A format. The question for this episode was: Have you been able to break through the proverbial IT gate and start talking about wider Agile adoption together with management? Jeff answered that being able to communicate with management is probably one of the most important factors to success. He told the story of working at a company that went out of business. Reflecting on this period of his career, he arrived at the idea that, if he was unable to convince management that a particular behavior or practice was important, then that was his failing and not theirs. His recommendation for a person looking to influence management is that they should start doing public speaking and teaching. Exposure to teaching, he says, teaches you to be able to express yourself multiple different ways which is critical because not everybody comes to understand a topic the same way. iTune link: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/selling-agile-how-to-get-buy-in-from-management-q-jeff/id963592988?i=1000431928436&mt=2 Website link: https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/2019/03/podcast/selling-agile-how-to-get-buy-in-from-management-qa-with-jeff-campbell/ FEEDBACK Ask questions, make comments, and let your voice be heard by emailing podcast@thekguy.com. Twitter: https://twitter.com/thekguy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithmmcdonald/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thekguypage Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_k_guy/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCysPayr8nXwJJ8-hqnzMFjw Website:

Andy Hunt on Greater Than Code, David Sohmer on SPAMCast, Josh Seiden on Scrum Master Toolbox, Tim Herbig on The Product Experience, and Wyatt Jenkins on Product Love. I’d love for you to email me with any comments about the show or any suggestions for podcasts I might want to feature. Email podcast@thekguy.com. This episode covers the five podcast episodes I found most interesting and wanted to share links to during the two week period starting April 1, 2019. These podcast episodes may have been released much earlier, but this was the fortnight when I started sharing links to them to my social network followers. ANDY HUNT ON GREATER THAN CODE The Greater Than Code podcast featured Andy Hunt with hosts Janelle Klein, Avdi Grimm, and Jessica Kerr. Andy talked about the origin of his book The Pragmatic Programmer and his workshops on iterative and incremental development where he has students play Battleship while making all their shots upfront. He talked about one of my favorite iteration strategies, the walking skeleton, which he introduced back in 2000 in the same book. He talked about the need people have to be given an estimate and how it comes from a cognitive bias to have closure. He also talked about why scaling Agile doesn’t work at a lot of places: people are ignoring the context that made Agile work for the pilot teams. He suggests that instead of trying to “lock it down”, you should “open it up.” iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/120-expect-the-unexpected-with-andy-hunt/id1163023878?i=1000431206698&mt=2 Website link: https://www.greaterthancode.com/expect-the-unexpected DAVID SOHMER ON SPAMCAST The Software Process and Measurement Cast podcast featured David Sohmer with host Tom Cagley. David started by saying that a key ingredient for an agile or lean transformation is to first help the organization understand the “why” of the transformation because things are going to get worse before they get better by design and when that happens, it is good to have already discussed the “why” so that the focus can always be on how to fix the problems that come up rather than falling back to the old way of doing things. This deeply resonated with me because I have seen people fall back to the old ways of working even after half-heartedly trying and even actually succeeding with more agile ways of working because their expectations were so different from reality, especially about the amount of work they would have to put in to see results. David also talked about the shift away from individual contributors and toward self-organizing multi-skilled teams and how this can be controversial in organizations that have weak teams and strong individual contributor heroes. He says part of the trick is getting people who actually want to be T-shaped rather than specialists. He went on to talk about intermediary groups who are not on the business side or the technology side but want to be the handoff between the two and create the documentation and have control and power in the organization and are quite destructive to the relationship between technology and the business. He talked about the things he aimed for during the transformations he has done such as ensuring XP technical practices are part of the transformation and he listed the things he tried to avoid. iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/spamcast-536-executives-view-agile-transformations/id213024387?i=1000430995898&mt=2 Website link: http://spamcast.libsyn.com/spamcast-536-an-executives-view-of-agile-transformations-an-interview-with-david-sohmer JOSH SEIDEN ON SCRUM MASTER TOOLBOX The Scrum Master Toolbox podcast featured Josh Seiden with host Vasco Duarte. Josh talked about how, in the early days, there was a focus on producing beautiful deliverables: wireframes, research reports, personas and other work on paper that teams had to interpret and act on. He described Lean UX as way of working in the UX problem space with less focus on deliverables and more focus on results. Josh described the “lean” in Lean UX as coming from knowing that the work we do with technology is filled with uncertainty, so the best way forward in those environments is to test our assumptions continuously. The activities of Lean UX then become: declaring assumptions, writing hypotheses, and thinking about your work as tests and experiments to help you learn. The people doing the work of Lean UX, he says, are small, cross-functional, colocated, collaborative teams that minimize handoffs and get different points of view that build on each other’s ideas. Vasco asked Josh how he defines the minimum viable product. Josh prefers the Eric Ries definition in which it represents the least amount of work that one can do to learn what one needs to learn next. Vasco also asked Josh what he means when he uses the word experiment. Josh clarified the difference between an experiment in the product development sense from simply abdicating decision-making. iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/bonus-josh-seiden-on-lean-ux-toolbox-for-product-owners/id963592988?i=1000431422661&mt=2 Website link: https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/2019/03/podcast/bonus-josh-seiden-on-lean-ux-a-toolbox-for-product-owners-and-agile-teams/ TIM HERBIG ON THE PRODUCT EXPERIENCE The Product Experience podcast featured Tim Herbig with hosts Lily Smith and Randy Silver. They discussed Tim’s new book, Lateral Leadership, and what he means by the title. He describes it as how to lead and influence people without formal authority. From conversations Tim had with product people, not many of them are aware that they have a leadership responsibility, but the implicit expectation from the environments and the stakeholders is that they step into leadership responsibility. He talked about how he recommends product people attend developer community-of-practice meetings to listen, learn how to ask better questions, show that they care, and gain credibility. Randy asked about warning signs of ineffectiveness as a lateral leader. Tim said a big warning sign is when people become resigned to just ask for more granular specs to simply get their job done. He says that this would show an unhealthy hierarchy in the team. Another potential warning sign is whether your peers feel safe about opening up about what really makes them struggle at work in the environment you have created. Lily asked about what tools Tim uses to set the mission or goal for the team. He referenced Stephen Bungay’s mission briefing idea from The Art Of Action. Tim likes the mission briefing because it helps you develop a shared language together and it lets product teams and the people within them have the autonomy to succeed in their specific job by improving the clarity you create up front. Randy compared the Bungay Mission Briefing framework to Teresa Torres’ Opportunity Solution Tree concept. Lily asked whether the mission briefing is defined by just the product manager and team or other stakeholders as well. Tim says that, in the early stages of an idea, he uses it to capture his own thoughts. He may then do another iteration with the team in which he holds back his input. Then he runs it by his boss and boss’s boss to ensure there is alignment and buy-in. Lily asked about what happens when you don’t get alignment. Tim started his answer by distinguishing between alignment and agreement. He then quoted Jeff Bezo’s statements on being able to disagree and commit. He sees reaching alignment as something that would allow you to get started with an idea that you can adjust along the way. He says alignment is much easier to obtain when you don’t feel the need to also get agreement before you start anything. iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/how-to-influence-without-power-tim-herbig-on-product/id1447100407?i=1000431209799&mt=2 Website link: https://www.mindtheproduct.com/2019/03/how-to-influence-without-power-tim-herbig-on-the-product-experience/ WYATT JENKINS ON PRODUCT LOVE The Product Love podcast featured Wyatt Jenkins with host Eric Boduch. After a discussion of Wyatt’s career journey from disc jockey to product manager at Shutterstock, Optimizely, and now Patreon, they got into a discussion about the why and how of market-testing your features and ideas. For Wyatt, such tests are about understanding customers better and de-risking product ideas before rolling them out. Some of Wyatt’s favorite kinds of tests are the price tests that were popular at Shutterstock. Eric related how pricing seems to be particularly challenging for product managers. They got into a discussion of pricing tests like the painted door test and what to do for the customers who signed up for a service at prices lower and higher than the final chosen price at the end of the test. Eric asked what Wyatt would recommend to a product manager wanting to learn about pricing. Wyatt recommended the book Monetizing Innovation and he recommended reading up on the stories of the companies that have had some of the most successful pricing changes and some of most disastrous ones. iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/wyatt-jenkins-joins-product-love-to-discuss-pricing/id1343610309?i=1000431181574&mt=2 Website link: https://productcraft.com/podcast/product-love-podcast-wyatt-jenkins-svp-of-product-of-patreon/ FEEDBACK Ask questions, make comments, and let your voice be heard by emailing podcast@thekguy.com. Twitter: https://twitter.com/thekguy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithmmcdonald/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thekguypage Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_k_guy/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCysPayr8nXwJJ8-hqnzMFjw Website:

Today, I’ll be speaking to Vasco Duarte about using tools over generic frameworks. Product Manager, Scrum Master, Project Manager, Director, Agile Coach are some of the roles that he's taken in software development organizations. Vasco's mission is to transform product development organizations into product business organizations. He does that by focusing on the work of…… Continue reading Episode 5: Tools over Frameworks with Vasco Duarte

First Scrum Team Was the Best Team of My Life Richard Kasperowski interviews Vasco Duarte. Vasco is a long-time Agilist and the host of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast. Vasco talks about his journey as an Agilist, starting with the time he did Scrum exactly by the book—and it turned out to be the best team of his life. Connect with Vasco on Twitter at https://twitter.com/duarte_vasco and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/duartevasco/, and listen to the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast at https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/. Read the full transcript at kasperowski.com/podcast-20-vasco-duarte. To support this podcast, join the community of high performers - subscribe to Richard’s newsletter at https://kasperowski.com/.

Courtney Eckhardt on Greater Than Code, Teresa Torres on Product Love, Johanna Rothman on Developer On Fire, Jeff Patton on Scrum Master Toolbox, and Jeff Gothelf on Scrum Master Toolbox. I'd love for you to email me with any comments about the show or any suggestions for podcasts I might want to feature. Email podcast@thekguy.com. This episode covers the five podcast episodes I found most interesting and wanted to share links to during the two weeks period starting January 7, 2019. These podcast episodes may have been released much earlier, but this was the week when I started sharing links to them to my social network followers. COURTNEY ECKHARDT ON GREATER THAN CODE The Greater Than Code podcast featured Courtney Eckhardt with hosts John K Sawers, Sam Livingston-Gray, Jamey Hampton and Coraline Ada Ehmke. It was great to hear another conversation that built upon the human factors conversations with Steven Shorrock and John Allspaw in previous episodes. I like how Courtney highlighted the importance of good communication in incident response by helping us picture what the lack of good communication looks like from the customer’s point of view. iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/110-human-incident-response-with-courtney-eckhardt/id1163023878?i=1000426093173&mt=2 Website link: http://www.greaterthancode.com/2018/12/19/110-human-incident-response-with-courtney-eckhardt/ TERESA TORRES ON PRODUCT LOVE The Product Love podcast featured Teresa Torres with host Eric Boduch. I felt that, while A/B testing is a powerful and useful technique, Teresa makes a great point that it is not appropriate in all circumstances and she lists several other techniques that teams should consider when doing product discovery. I also liked the bloodletting metaphor. iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/teresa-torres-joins-product-love-to-talk-about-product/id1343610309?i=1000425622664&mt=2 Website link: https://productcraft.com/podcast/product-love-podcast-teresa-torres-product-discovery-coach-and-writer-of-product-talk/ JOHANNA ROTHMAN ON DEVELOPER ON FIRE The Developer On Fire podcast featured Johanna Rothman with host Dave Rael. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard someone make a distinction between management and leadership. I always felt that it let managers off the hook. I feel that a manager needs to be a good leader to do his or her job well and vice versa. Johanna captured that sentiment. iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/episode-402-johanna-rothman-learning-and-delivering/id1006105326?i=1000426413335&mt=2 Website link: https://developeronfire.com/podcast/episode-402-johanna-rothman-learning-and-delivering JEFF PATTON ON SCRUM MASTER TOOLBOX The Scrum Master Toolbox podcast featured Jeff Patton with host Vasco Duarte. Jeff talked about how, when he got into software development, he quickly learned that building software was about making as many people as happy as you could while still making money. When he found himself on XP and Agile teams in the first decade of the 2000s, he felt something was missing. When he later fell in with product people, he realized that the missing piece was product thinking. They discussed how Jeff came up with user story mapping and Jeff cited three books that emphasize product thinking: Inspired, Escaping The Build Trap, and Inspired. iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/product-owner-role-what-scrum-masters-can-do-to-help/id963592988?i=1000426507266&mt=2 Website link: https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/2018/12/podcast/jeff-patton-shares-his-view-on-the-product-owner-role-and-what-scrum-masters-can-do-to-help/ JEFF GOTHELF ON SCRUM MASTER TOOLBOX The Scrum Master Toolbox podcast featured Jeff Gothelf with host Vasco Duarte. Vasco asked Jeff about the key ingredients in Agile transformations that get organizations to continuously think about how the product they’re creating relates to the business and the market. Jeff gave a great answer that finished with an example of how even a change in the name of the team changes the way that the team thinks of themselves and their mission. iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/how-to-redefine-measure-success-for-software-development/id963592988?i=1000426560415&mt=2 Website link: https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/2018/12/podcast/jeff-gothelf-on-how-to-redefine-the-measure-of-success-for-software-development/ Feedback Ask questions, make comments, and let your voice be heard by emailing podcast@thekguy.com. Twitter: https://twitter.com/thekguy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithmmcdonald/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thekguypage Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_k_guy/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCysPayr8nXwJJ8-hqnzMFjw Website: https://www.thekguy.com/ Intro/outro music: "waste time" by Vincent Augustus

Le Podcast Agile, épisode 82 - L'interview - Vasco Duarte Abonnez-vous à l'infolettre pour recevoir les prochains épisodes sur http://lepodcastagile.fr Rejoignez la communauté des Agilistes sur http://lesagilistes.com Retrouvez cet épisode et ses sources sur https://lepodcastagile.fr/2018/09/05/lpa-82-l-interview-vasco-duarte/ Et suivez Le Podcast Agile sur Twitter : https://twitter.com/lepodcastagile Bonne écoute !

SPaMCAST 508 features our interview with Vasco Duarte!  Vasco and I discuss vision and product owners. The product owner role is crucial. To be effective, the product owner must be able to articulate a vision for the product they champion. Vasco Duarte’s Bio in his own words: I want to transform product development organizations into product business organizations. I do that by focusing the work of the product development teams on the end-to-end life-cycle of their products. From Concept to Cash and Back! Currently a Managing Partner at Oikosofy. Product Manager, Scrum Master, Project Manager, Director, Agile Coach are only some of the roles that I've taken in software development organizations. Having worked in the software industry since 1997, and Agile practitioner since 2004. I've worked in small, medium and large software organizations as an Agile Coach or leader in agile adoption at those organizations. I was one of the leaders and catalysts of Agile methods and Agile culture adoption at Avira, Nokia, and F-Secure. I host a daily podcast where I interview Scrum Masters about their daily challenges and insights: https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/ You can read more from me at my blog: http://SoftwareDevelopmentToday.com You can join me on twitter: @duarte_vasco Re-Read Saturday News In week 4 of re-read of The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande (use the link and buy a copy so you can read along) we tackle Chapter 3, The End Of The Master Builder.  In Chapter 3 Gawande identifies the scenarios in which checklists have an impact.  Checklists provide value even in the most complicated scenarios. Current Installment: Week 4 - The End Of The Master Builder - https://bit.ly/2BmIGBc Previous Installments: Week 3 – The Checklist - https://bit.ly/2KMhVFR Week 2 – The Problem With Extreme Complexity - https://bit.ly/2AGZQZX Week 1 - Approach and Introduction - https://bit.ly/2LYi9Lv Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 509 will feature our essay discussing if you can demonstrate incomplete work.  My knee-jerk reaction is no...or maybe heck no, but knee-jerk reactions are not always right. We will also hear from Gene Hughson (Form Follows Function) and Jon M. Quigley (Alpha and Omega of Product Development).

SPaMCAST 507 opens with our essay on consensus decision making. Consensus decision-making techniques are used by almost every team. The process of getting to a decision or solution that the whole team can at least live will make sure that everyone on the team has a seat at the table and that team builds both majority and minority views into the deliberation process. Want to read about consensus decision making?    6 Step Framework for Consensus Decision Making - https://bit.ly/2OZj5kF Consensus Decision-Making Revisited - https://bit.ly/2B2uJrT Life Cycle of Consensus Decision Making - https://bit.ly/2B3bgri Consensus Decision Making Forever – Sometimes - https://bit.ly/2OY21vk   In our second column, Susan Parente brings her I Am Not a Scrumdamentalist column to the podcast.  In this installment, Susan talks about the myths of agile and how falling into the traps that the myths create affect the delivery of value. Jeremy Berriault (QA Corner) anchors the cast this week with a discussion of what happens when you make bad decisions. Re-Read Saturday News It is week 3 of our re-read of The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande (use the link and buy a copy so you can read along). Chapter 2 continues building the case for checklists to deal with complex and complicated environments. This chapter firmly pins down the idea that checklists save time, money and lives. Current Installment: Week 3 – The Checklist - https://bit.ly/2KMhVFR Previous Installments: Week 2 – The Problem With Extreme Complexity - https://bit.ly/2AGZQZX Week 1 - Approach and Introduction - https://bit.ly/2LYi9Lv Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 508 features the return of Vasco Duarte!  Vasco and I discussed vision and product owners. The product owner role is crucial and to be effective the product owner must be able to articulate a vision for the product they champion.  

Deadpool 2, New Challengers 1, Justice League: No Justice 2, Superman Special, Hunt For Wolverine: Claws of a Killer, Infinity Countdown: Daredevil, Mighty Thor: At the Gates of Valhalla, Quicksilver: No Surrender, X-Men Wedding Special, Flavor 1, Ether: The Copper Golems 1, A Walk Through Hell, Jazz Legend; Garfield: Vacation Time Blues, Black Mirror s4e3, News (Kamala something something, Doom Patrol to DC Online, Deadly Class first look, Eternals movie, Alfred on EPIX, Batwoman to Arrow-verse, DC/Looney Tunes, Cassandra Cain to Gotham, West Coast Avengers, Spidergeddon, Happytime Murders trailer, Predator trailer, Supergirl returns, Adventures of the Super Sons, Homecoming 2 casting)   Comics Details: New Challengers 1 by Scott Snyder, Aaron Gillespie, Andy Kubert, Klaus Janson, Brad Anderson Justice League: No Justice 2 by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson, Francis Manapul, Marcus To, Hi-Fi Superman Special by Peter Tomasi, Pat Gleason, Scott Godlewski, Gabe Eltaeb, Mark Russell, Bryan Hitch, Alex Sinclair, Ian Flynn, Kaare Andrews Hunt For Wolverine: Claws of A Killer 1 by Mariko Tamaki, Butch Guice, Cam Smith, Dan Brown Infinity Countdown: Daredevil by Gerry Duggan, Lee Ferguson, Phil Noto, Chris Sprouse, Scott Hanna, Karl Story, Matt Yackey Mighty Thor: At The Gates of Valhalla by Jason Aaron, Jen Bartel, Ramon Perez, Matt Wilson Quicksilver: No Surrender 1 by Saladin Ahmed, Eric Nguyen, Rico Renzi X-Men Wedding Special by Chris Claremont, Marc Guggenheim, Kelly Thompson, Marika Cresta, Greg Land, Todd Nauck, Jay Leisten, Federico Blee, Jason Keith, Rachelle Rosenberg Flavor 1 by Joseph Keatinge, Wook Jin Clark, Tamra Bonvillain Ether: The Copper Golems 1 by Matt Kindt, David Rubin, Kike Diaz Walk Through Hell 1 by Garth Ennis, Goran Sudzuka, Ive Svorcina Jazz Legend 1 by JC Lacek, Vasco Duarte, Cristian Docolomansky Garfield: Vacation Time Blues by   Comics Countdown, 16 May 2018: Gideon Falls 3 by Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino, Dave Stewart Brave and the Bold: Batman and Wonder Woman 4 by Liam Sharp, Romulo Fajardo Jr All-New Wolverine 35 by Tom Taylor, Ramon Rosanas, Nolan Woodard Flavor 1 by Joseph Keatinge, Wook Jin Clark, Tamra Bonvillain Mighty Thor: At the Gates of Valhalla by Jason Aaron, Jen Bartel, Ramon Perez, Matt Wilson Lucy Dreaming 3 by Max Bemis, Michael Dialynas Justice League: No Dreaming 2 by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson, Francis Manapul, Marcus To, Hi-Fi Batman 47 by Tom King, Tony Daniel, Sandu Florea, Danny Miki, Tomeu Morey X-Men Red 4 by Tom Taylor, Mahmud Asrar, Rain Beredo Fence 6 by CS Pascat, Johanna the Mad, Joana Lafuente  

Episode 25 of the Modern Agile Show features an interview with Vasco Duarte, an agile/lean expert, leader of the #NoEstimates movement, author of the #NoEstimates book and host of the popular ScrumMaster podcast. Vasco talks about how to conduct high-speed experiments (e.g. within 24 hours) so we invest in knowledge acquisition, not estimates. Vasco explains how he helped a car company test voice activation in cars without spending tons of time and money. Instead of estimating when voice activation would be available, he helped the company quickly gain knowledge about the value of the feature. Vasco describes how he uses throughput, rather than estimates, to help companies realize what is possible and avoid wasting millions of euros. Vasco says that the lost art of agile is “slicing work down” based on testing your core hypothesis. He mentions the need to get to incremental funding, rather than big upfront funding approaches. We discuss how critical it is to make sure you have a team that can actually work together and get work done, before anything else. Finally, Vasco mentions how he uses impact mapping and story mapping to help manage work and describes a backlog as a “mental disease that prevents us from forgetting bad ideas.”

Ryan Ripley (@ryanripley) recently joined Vasco Duarte (@duarte_vasco) on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast to discuss Agile Coaching and working with teams. [featured-image single_newwindow=”false”]Vasco Duarte – Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast[/featured-image] I had a lot of fun recording this episode with Vasco. We covered the very broad topic of agile coaching. I really liked that we were able to deep dive agile coaching and discuss how it ties back to Scrum Masters and their role on Scrum Teams. I really wanted to make the point that coaching is a career path and a difficult one at that. Ultimately, we are here to reveal insights about the systems of work without resolving them. To me, this is the highest form of coaching. I hope you enjoy this episode and give Vasco’s podcast a try. In this episode you'll discover: How to approach working with new teams What to do with advanced teams How to start your own coaching journey Links from the show: Check out Vasco’s Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast – http://scrum-master-toolbox.org Improve yourself with Christopher Avery’s Leadership Gift Program – http://ryanripley.com/leadershipgift Zen in the Martial Arts by Joe Hyams How to support the show: Thank you for your support. Here are some of the ways to contribute to the show: Share the show with friends, family, colleagues, and co-workers. Sharing helps get the word out about Agile for Humans Rate us on iTunes and leave an honest review Join the mailing list – Check out the form on the right side of the page Take the survey – totally anonymous and helps us get a better idea of who is listening and what they are interested in Leadership Gift Program Make a donation via Patreon Book of the Week: [callout]Create Your Successful Agile Project – You think agile techniques might be for you, but your projects and organization are unique. An “out-of-the-box” agile approach won’t work. Instead, unite agile and lean principles for your project. See how to design a custom approach, reap the benefits of collaboration, and deliver value. For project managers who want to use agile techniques, managers who want to start, and technical leaders who want to know more and succeed, this book is your first step toward agile project success. Click here to purchase on Amazon.[/callout] [reminder]Which topic resonated with you? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below.[/reminder] Related Episode: Want to hear another podcast about the life of an agile coach? — Listen to my conversation with Zach Bonaker, Diane Zajac-Woodie, and Amitai Schlair on episode 39. We discuss growing an agile practice and how coaches help create the environments where agile ideas can flourish. Help promote the show on iTunes: One tiny favor.  — Please take 30 seconds now and leave a review on iTunes. This helps others learn about the show and grows our audience. It will help the show tremendously, including my ability to bring on more great guests for all of us to learn from. Thanks! This podcast is brought to you by Audible. I have used Audible for years, and I love audiobooks. I have three to recommend: Agile and Lean Program Management by Johanna Rothman The Lean Startup by Eric Ries Rolling Rocks Downhill: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Entertaining Way to Learn Agile and Lean by Clark Ching All you need to do to get your free 30-day Audible trial is goto Audibletrial.com/agile. Choose one of the above books, or choose among more than 180,000 audio programs. It's that easy. Go to Audibletrial.com/agile and get started today. Enjoy! The post AFH 084: Ryan Ripley on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast appeared first on Ryan Ripley.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Key Take-Aways: A passionate team can be recognized by the quality of the product or service they provide. They create something that creates value in the world, not just a product. [...] I would say that you can't look for passion by looking at the team. When you look at the outcome of their work, at the quality of the product or services that the team produces, as seen by their customers, you will know if it's a passionate team. You will know it because passion exudes in the product, the outcome or the final deliverable that comes out of a passionate team. You will see it in the quality of the products that they produce, and just before we started recording, we were talking about two different kinds of microphone, right? The one that you are using right now, which sounds awesome. And another one, which is driven by what I would call a marketing focused American company who doesn't understand the use of their technology. […] Well, it doesn't need to be easy to use, necessarily, it depends on what kind of product we are talking about. But in the case of a microphone that is used for recording in a, like for example the microphone that I'm using, it's used for recording anywhere. It's not used for recording in a studio, right? So you need to deal with all kinds of other sound problems. And you see that. People are actually thinking about how the product is going to be used, and they transfer that into the product itself. It doesn't need to be an easy to use product. It can be a very complex, I don't know, spectrometer, or whatever. It doesn't need to be something that is easy to use. But it clearly helps the people using it to solve a real problem that they have. And it does solve very often in ways that are very hard to replicate, because they required a lot of passion to develop that kind of a product. [...]  In most passionate teams, there is constructive conflict, where ideas are the focus, not the people. […]Well, actually, in my experience, the best teams I worked with, there's conflict. And sometimes, when you're an outsider, you might even think that they are fighting with each other, but they are not. What they are trying to do, the process they are going through, is this constructive conflict whereby ideas are the focus of their discussion, not the people. It's not about your idea vs. my idea. But it's about multiple ideas, and which one should we try, and how to we develop it, so in the end, out of those conflicts emerged other ideas that no one in that meeting or conversation ever thought about before, but they were developed and further improved with multiple perspectives, and together as a team, they created something new. So this constructive conflict is definitely one of the most important things that I would say you would see in a high-performing or a passionate team, if you will.[…]  Passionate teams work in an environment, where diversity can be expressed. When they argue, they learn, as they have to express their unstated assumptions. […]I would say that a team, if it's more than two people, and even in two people, that could happen, a team is a complex social system. And in my experience, you can't remove diversity from a social system. What you can do is that you can quench it, you can stop it from emerging. And this is very much done, I'm thinking about Germany, the country we both lived in, you still live there. Where the opinion of the boss is always the one that matters. And that's one way to constrain a social system, in order to create order, there's a reason for it, but that does not remove the diversity in those teams, it just stops it from being expressed. And I would say that in passionate teams, there is an environment where diversity can be expressed, where it's okay to disagree, and actually in fact we look for opportunities for disagreement, not to fight, although it might look like fighting from the outside, but rather to learn. And when we get into a discussion and we start arguing even, when we put arguments, then we learn, because we have to express unstated assumptions that we had. And we have to listen to other assumptions that may be different than ours. That's my hypothesis, at least, that you can't remove diversity from a complex system. You just need to find ways to let it emerge.[…]  Passionate teams don’t accept external constraints. They embrace them and then they change them. They own the way they are working. […]And actually, there's one perhaps another characteristics of a passionate team, is that they don't accept external constraints, they embrace, but then they change external constraints. Like for example, in this particular team that I was working with, we introduced Scrum. And in Scrum, there's this thing that, you know, you do the sprint planning in the beginning, and then you do the planning poker and so on. And this team just stopped estimating. They took in the Scrum constraint of doing the planning and the estimation and so on, and then at some point they decided, hey, this is not useful for us anymore, we'll stop it. Another thing that they did is that they had the Jira board, where they had all of the stories that they were working on, and at some point they said, this is not useful for us, we should use a physical board. They were collocated, so that was easy for them, and they started using a physical board. And then later on, we changed rooms, we went to another room in another part of the building, and they designed the room themselves. And the room, if you entered that room, you would say, "These guys are crazy." It looked totally different from a normal room in that company. […]  The leader of a passionate team is constantly working on creating the environment that allows the team to express their creativity and their ingenuity every day. […]We have these amazing examples of companies that delegate the decision about making the customer happy to the lowest level of the organization, like Nordstrom, the department store, there's a whole book about it, I think it's called, "Radical Management" by Steve Denning, where he talks about putting the client first or the customer first in everything we do. And the way to do that is to actually delegate the decision making to the fringes of the organization, because those are the people who are actually in touch with the "reality" of what it is to work with clients, to be in front of clients every day when they are at work. So, for me the role of the leader is someone who enables the people who do the real work, who solve the real problems in product development, who develop the real product, to be able to make decisions.  Now, what does that mean? In very practical terms, it means that the product owner is not a person outside the team. I shudder to think and to hear when people in Scrum say that the product owner is not a team member. That is the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard in my career. Of course the product owner is part of the team. Otherwise, the team has no ownership over the product. By definition. If you put the product owner outside the team, the team is just a bunch of lackeys, servants to the product owner. That makes absolutely no sense. The team is the most creative, intelligent group to develop the product. So I would say that leaders need to create the environment, for example making the product owners part of the team, getting the developers to actually talk to and interact with customers, real customers. That kind of actions, that's there for the leader. The leader in a passionate team is constantly working on creating the environment that allows the team to express their creativity and their ingenuity every day.[…]  Passionate teams do not fall from the sky. They are not an accident, they are not created by magic tools either. They are created by constant, daily endeavor, effort and reflection. […]Well, so, first of all, I think that you should all read the blog post that Marc published on the passion model, and hopefully at some point even the book. But that's not enough. What I would say is that once you understand the model and once you understand those characteristics that Marc describes, then it's time to go back to basics. Passionate teams are created on the day to day practice of creating amazing, hyper-performing, really passionate teams. Passionate teams do not fall from the sky. They are not an accident, they are not created by magic tools either. They are created by constant, daily endeavor, effort, reflection, just like the Agile manifesto says.[…] Additional Material: Books: Radical Management Five Dysfunctions Of A Team Links: PASSION Model: http://marcloeffler.eu/2016/09/07/seven-elements-of-highly-passionate-teams/?lang=en The 5 Dynsfunctions of a Team: https://www.tablegroup.com/books/dysfunctions Bio: https://about.me/duarte_vasco Podcast: http://scrum-master-toolbox.org/ Blog: http://softwaredevelopmenttoday.com/  

In this not to be missed June Challenge Month episode, Vasco Duarte inspires us to overcome the obstacles, break down the barriers, and launch a "Happiness with a Business" model... in just seven days. In this inspiring podcast, Vasco gets us ready for what's to come the following week, when he'll walk us through creating a successful business model, one where we can actually sell things. He says the first step: Speak to ten people and find out what problems they need solved. For more happiness, visit www.happymelly.com.

Hosts Ryan Ripley, Don Gray, Aaron Kopel, Tim Ottinger, Jason Tanner Discussion Ryan Ripley (@ryanripley), Don Gray (@donaldegray), Aaron Kopel (@aakopel), Tim Ottinger (@tottinge), and Jason Tanner (@JasonBTanner) got together via Skype to discuss their thoughts on 2015 and what they are looking forward to in 2016. We covered a lot of ground and a variety of topics including: Professionalism, #NoEstimates, Book Recommendations, Teamwork, Learning, Leadership, and the benefits of agility. And then…we called it a night. Agile for Humans is brought to you by audible.com – get one FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/agile Resources, Plugs, and More Ryan – https://ryanripley.com I was recently featured on Vasco Duarte’s podcast – The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Ryan Ripley Talks About the Delusion of Control Ryan Ripley Talks About Why Sometimes a Team Isn’t Really a Team Ryan Ripley on Metrics that Define Success for Scrum Masters Ryan Ripley Explains a Critical Insight in Leading Change Ryan Ripley on the Rule of 3 for System Thinkers Path to Agility Conference – May 25 & 26 in Columbus, OH Don – http://coachingbeyondtheteam.com/ Coaching Beyond the Team Patterns of An Agile Journey by George Dinwiddie, et al. Slack by Tom DeMarco Aaron – http://www.projectbrilliant.com/ AgileIndy Conference – April 12, 2016 in Indianapolis, IN Tim – http://industriallogic.com The Productivity Formula Programming is Mostly Thinking Defending Scrum Against Stupid Arguments Art of Thought by Graham Wallas Thinking for a Living by Thomas Davenport Five Dysfunctions Of A Team by Patrick Lencioni Teamwork is an Individual Skill by Christopher Avery Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are by Dr. Seuss Jason – http://appliedframeworks.com/ Certified Scrum Professional (CSP) Fast Pass Workshops offered by Applied Frameworks Jason’s LinkedIn Page Influencer by Joseph Grenny Switch by Chip and Dan Heath The post AFH 025: What Did We Learn in 2015? [PODCAST] appeared first on Ryan Ripley.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 372 features our interview with Vasco Duarte. Vasco returns to the podcast to discuss his new book, #NoEstimates Book.  In the interview, Vasco and I discussed the underlying concepts behind #NoEstimates and how the concept has matured. If you are interested in project management, estimation and delivering value, the ideas that Vasco discusses will be both controversial and valuable. If we paraphrase Shakespeare, then Estimates or #NoEstimates has to be the question. Let’s answer it! Introducing Vasco: Vasco wants to transform product development organizations into product business organizations. He does that by focusing the work of the product development teams on the end-to-end life-cycle of their products. From Concept to Cash and Back! Vasco Duarte is currently a Managing Partner at Oikosofy. Product Manager, Scrum Master, Project Manager, Director, Agile Coach are only some of the roles that he has taken in software development organizations. Having worked in the software industry since 1997, and Agile practitioner since 2004. He has worked in small, medium and large software organizations as an Agile Coach or leader in agile adoption at those organizations. Vasco was one of the leaders and catalysts of Agile methods and Agile culture adoption at Avira, Nokia and F-Secure. You can read more from Vasco on his blog: http://SoftwareDevelopmentToday.com and join him on twitter: @duarte_vasco Twitter: http://twitter.com/duarte_Vasco Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: http://scrum-master-toolbox.com/ NoEstimates book: http://noestimatesbook.com/ Call to Action! Review the SPaMCAST on iTunes, Stitcher or your favorite podcatcher/player and then share the review! Help your friends find the Software Process and Measurement Cast. After all, friends help friends find great podcasts! Re-Read Saturday News The readers have spoken and next week we will begin the re-read of How to Measure Anything, Finding the Value of “Intangibles in Business” Third Edition by Douglas W. Hubbard. Like The Mythical Man-Month that we completed last week, the version we are reading is not the same version I originally read in 2007. Check out the introduction to the next re-read at Software Process and Measurement Blog.   Upcoming Events Details on 2016 Conferences that include QAI Quest and ISMA12 to name a few in a few weeks. Next SPaMCAST The next Software Process and Measurement Cast will feature our essay #NotImplementedNoValue. The twelve principles that underpin the Agile Manifesto include several that link the concept of value to the delivery of working software. The focus on working software stems from one of the four values, “Working software over comprehensive documentation,” which is a reaction to projects and programs that seem to value reports and PowerPoint presentations more than putting software in the hands of users. For a typical IT organization that develops, enhances and maintains the software that the broader organization uses to do their ultimate business, value is only delivered when software can be used in production We will also have a new column from the Software Sensei and will revisit Gene Hughson with an entry from the Form Follows Function Blog! Shameless Ad for my book! Mastering Software Project Management: Best Practices, Tools and Techniques co-authored by Murali Chematuri and myself and published by J. Ross Publishing. We have received unsolicited reviews like the following: “This book will prove that software projects should not be a tedious process, for you or your team.” Support SPaMCAST by buying the book here. Available in English and Chinese.

The Software Process and Measurement Cast 371 features our essay on Focus and the Pomodoro technique.  Focus might be just about the most important technique available for getting work done. Focus and attention are critical assets that need to be managed or we risk wasting time and energy. We will also include Steve Tendon discussing management’s role in a learning organization from his new book, Tame The Flow. Management needs to both facilitate and participate in a learning organization.  A learning organization is a critical success factor for engaging in a knowledge economy. Finally, we will anchor the cast with a visit to the QA Corner with Jeremy Berriault.  Jeremy and I discussed testing environments. Jeremy puts his stamp on the perennial discussion of whether all testing environments need to be production like. Call to Action! Review the SPaMCAST on iTunes, Stitcher or your favorite podcatcher/player and then share the review! Help your friends find the Software Process and Measurement Cast. After all, friends help friends find great podcasts! Re-Read Saturday News We have just completed the re-read of The Mythical Man-Month with the essay titled “The Mythical Man-Month 20 Years Later” Check out the new installment at Software Process and Measurement Blog.  We will be choosing the next re-read book to be?  One last call for votes. Please vote on the blog!  Currently we have a tight battle between: Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business - Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency – Vote Here Upcoming Events Details on 2016 Conferences that include QAI Quest and StarEast to name a few in a few weeks. Next SPaMCAST The next Software Process and Measurement Cast will our interview with Vasco Duarte .  Vasco returns to the podcast to discuss his new book #NoEstimates Book.  In the interview Vasco and I discussed the underlying concepts behind #NoEstimates and how the concept has matured. If you are interested in project management, estimation and delivering value, the ideas the Vasco discusses will be both controversial and valuable. Shameless Ad for my book! Mastering Software Project Management: Best Practices, Tools and Techniques co-authored by Murali Chematuri and myself and published by J. Ross Publishing. We have received unsolicited reviews like the following: “This book will prove that software projects should not be a tedious process, for you or your team.” Support SPaMCAST by buying the book here. Available in English

Hosts Ryan Ripley, Vasco Duarte Discussion Vasco Duarte (@duarte_vasco) joined Ryan Ripley (@RyanRipley) for a discussion about #NoEstimates. Vasco is the author of the #NoEstimates Book, Founder of Oikosofy, and host of the Scrum Master ToolBox Podcast. One of the staring points of #NoEstimates is: “We as an industry are not able to estimate well.” We as an industry are not able to estimate well.Tweet This With that starting point, alternatives are necessary. #NoEstimates seeks to explore those alternatives. We started with Vasco's early days of discovering the #NoEstimates path. It started with data. I won't steal Vasco's thunder, but it was interesting to learn how much many of the #NoEstimates ideas are driven by actual project data from a variety of sources. Software projects are a search for value. My goal is to find value. @duarte_vascoTweet This We then moved on to cover many of the questions that #NoEstimates critics and skeptics ask when hearing these ideas for the first time. How to pick one project over another, how to align with project dependencies and more are covered during our hour together. Finally, we touched on the kind of environments where #NoEstimates is not an option: In cases where you are not allowed to experiment, where you are not allowed to learn, where you have to know everything upfront, you have no option but to speculate about the cost of a particular project. And then…we called it a night. Agile for Humans is brought to you by audible.com – get one FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/agile Resources, Plugs, and More Ryan – https://ryanripley.com Woody Zuill Neil Killick Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck Agile in 3 Minutes via Amitai Schlair I'm presenting at SDEC 2015 – November 2-5 2015 – Winnipeg, CA Vasco – http://softwaredevelopmenttoday.com/ #NoEstimates Book Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Vasco's company – Oikosofy User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton Impact Mapping by Gojko Adzic The post AFH 020: #NoEstimates with Vasco Duarte [PODCAST] appeared first on Ryan Ripley.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Show 300! Show Zero was published on January 7, 2007. 2,738 days later, we feature our interview with Vasco Duarte. We discussed #NoEstimates, which evokes a great deal of passion.  The interview will embraces that passion and we sort through the noise to get to the core of the idea which is highly useful despite all of the controversy. #NoEstimates asks teams, product owners and leaders to rethink how they predict project performance.  Change is hard but Vasco describes a less painful path to predicting delivery. Vasco’s Bio: Product manager, scrum master, project manager, director, and Agile coach are only some of the roles that Vasco has taken in software development organizations. That experience has been gained by having worked in the software industry since 1997, and being an Agile practitioner since 2004. Vasco has worked in small, medium and large software organizations as an Agile Coach or leader in Agile adoption. He was one of the leaders and catalysts of Agile methods and Agile culture adoption at Avira, Nokia and F-Secure. Vasco’s blog can be found at http://SoftwareDevelopmentToday.com Follow Vasco on Twitter @duarte_vasco  Next Software Process and Measurement Cast number 301 will feature our essay on technical debt. Technical debt is the work not done or the shortcuts taken when delivering a product. We all take shortcuts, but at what cost? Upcoming Events I will be attending Agile 2014 in Orlando, July 28 through August 1, 2014.  It would be great to get together with SPaMCAST listeners, let me know if you are attending. I will be presenting at the International Conference on Software Quality and Test Management in San Diego, CA on October 1.  I have a great discount code!!!! Contact me if you are interested! I will be presenting at the North East Quality Council 60th Conference October 21st and 22nd in Springfield, MA. More on all of these great events in the near future! I look forward to seeing all SPaMCAST readers and listeners that attend these great events! The Software Process and Measurement Cast has a sponsor. As many you know I do at least one webinar for the IT Metrics and Productivity Institute (ITMPI) every year. The ITMPI provides a great service to the IT profession. ITMPI’s mission is to pull together the expertise and educational efforts of the world’s leading IT thought leaders and to create a single online destination where IT practitioners and executives can meet all of their educational and professional development needs. The ITMPI offers a premium membership that gives members unlimited free access to 400 PDU accredited webinar recordings, and waives the PDU processing fees on all live and recorded webinars. The Software Process and Measurement Cast some support if you sign up here. All the revenue our sponsorship generates goes for bandwidth, hosting and new cool equipment to create more and better content for you. Support the SPaMCAST and learn from the ITMPI. Shameless Ad for my book! Mastering Software Project Management: Best Practices, Tools and Techniques co-authored by Murali Chematuri and myself and published by J. Ross Publishing. We have received unsolicited reviews like the following: “This book will prove that software projects should not be a tedious process, neither for you or your team.” Support SPaMCAST by buying the book here. Available in English and Chinese.

SPaMCAST 299 features our essay on systems thinking.  Many process improvement programs falter despite our best efforts because they don't improve the overall performance of IT. The impact of fixing individual processes can easily get lost in the weeds, the impact overtaken by the inertia of the overall systems. Systems thinking is a way to view the world, including organizations, from a broad perspective that includes structures, patterns, and events, rather than simply based on a single event.  The essay begins: In a world made up of interlocking systems, understanding requires defining a set of general principles independent of the system being measured. At a more finite level, such as a company or product, understanding systems is crucial for being effective and efficient.  Many process improvement programs falter when, despite our best efforts, they don't improve the overall performance of IT. More? Listen to SPaMCAST 299! Next week is show 300!  We will feature our interview with Vasco Duarte. We discussed #NoEstimates.  The topic of #NoEstimates evokes a great deal of passion.  Our interview will embrace that passion and sort through the noise to get to the core of the idea which is highly useful despite all of the controversy. Upcoming Events Upcoming DCG Webinars: July 24 11:30 EDT – The Impact of Cognitive Bias On TeamsCheck these out at www.davidconsultinggroup.com I will be attending Agile 2014 in Orlando, July 28 through August 1, 2014.  It would be great to get together with SPaMCAST listeners, let me know if you are attending. I will be presenting at the International Conference on Software Quality and Test Management in San Diego, CA on October 1.  I have a great discount code!!!! Contact me if you are interested! I will be presenting at the North East Quality Council 60th Conference October 21st and 22nd in Springfield, MA. More on all of these great events in the near future! I look forward to seeing all SPaMCAST readers and listeners that attend these great events! The Software Process and Measurement Cast has a sponsor. As many you know I do at least one webinar for the IT Metrics and Productivity Institute(ITMPI) every year. The ITMPI provides a great service to the IT profession. ITMPI’s mission is to pull together the expertise and educational efforts of the world’s leading IT thought leaders and to create a single online destination where IT practitioners and executives can meet all of their educational and professional development needs. The ITMPI offers a premium membership that gives members unlimited free access to 400 PDU accredited webinar recordings, and waives the PDU processing fees on all live and recorded webinars. The Software Process and Measurement Cast some support if you sign up here. All the revenue our sponsorship generates goes for bandwidth, hosting and new cool equipment to create more and better content for you. Support the SPaMCAST and learn from the ITMPI. Shameless Ad for my book! Mastering Software Project Management: Best Practices, Tools and Techniques co-authored by Murali Chematuri and myself and published by J. Ross Publishing. We have received unsolicited reviews like the following: “This book will prove that software projects should not be a tedious process, neither for you or your team.” Support SPaMCAST by buying the book here. Available in English and Chinese.