Agile Toolkit Podcast

After coding live at Lean+Agile DC 2018, Ben Scott of Ippon Technologies joins Bob Payne to talk code craftsmanship and getting proper feedback from the business side.  Ben explains a way to quickly build a quality demo from scratch – creating the first demonstrable piece of value.  Bob and Scott walk through their opinions on (shudder) best practices, living in ambiguity in agile methods, and bridging the gap between IT and business. Bob Payne: [00:00:03] Hi I'm your host Bob Payne. I'm here at Lean+Agile D.C.. I'm here with Ben Scott and we're listening to "Stand in the Place Where You are" by RBM played on the music fiddle version which is really disconcerting for me. It's like Fugazi. You know elevator music which is definitely elevator music. But country elevator music. So Ben we were talking earlier about lots and lots of things but you were talking about sort of your experience here trying to do live coding and talk. What was your what was the gist of your talk? What were you talking about with. Ben Sc

Carlos Rojas, Director of Technology and Operations at Fannie Mae, sat down with Bob Payne at Lean+Agile DC 2018 to discuss Business-Driven Agile Engineering.  Carlos shares thoughts on Fannie Mae’s trailblazing Agile transformation – from prioritizing agility-supporting corporate shared services (recruiting, contracts & procurement, and facilities), to machine learning and a mantra of “Automate Everything.”    Transcript Bob Payne: [00:00:01] Start there. Carlos Rojas: [00:00:02] OK. Bob Payne: [00:00:03] Hi I'm your host Bob Payne. I'm here with Carlos Rojas. And Carlos you're talking about transformation. We were chatting you mentioned how to how to use shared services. So tell me a little bit about your your your talk here today at Lean Agile DC. Carlos Rojas: [00:00:24] Absolutely. So couple of things to highlight right. One is you go and change a culture, Most people start with the processes. Most people start with their methodology and then they say we're Agile. And I think that part of making it a

Modern Agile stickers everywhere are helping Modern Agile stick.  Dean Chanter of Capital One recalls his Accidental Experiment with Modern Agile (cake for every release!).  Bob and Dean talk through the power of the laptop sticker, evolving and “upskilling” ScrumMasters, and Lean roots.   Transcript Bob Payne: [00:00:05] Hi I'm your host Bob Payne and i'm here with Dean Chanter and Dean you're from, You're at Cap One.   Dean Chanter: [00:00:11] Yeah, Currently at Cap One.   Bob Payne: [00:00:14] You're doing some work with scaled Agile and you're saying you sort of accidentally started applying Modern Agile. I'm super curious about that journey.   Dean Chanter: [00:00:25] I did it was very interesting so I joined Capital One about seven months ago, was with Intel for about 13 years before that, and when I first got to Capital One everybody had a Modern Agile sticker on their laptop there was actually a bunch on my desk. So I just slapped one on my laptop. I had heard about it before I got the Capital One but

Agile didn’t work as your silver bullet?  Not a surprise, according to Very’s Dan Fish, Product Manager & Agile Coach, and Gabe Weaver, Chief Product Officer.  Dan and Gabe joined Bob Payne at Lean+Agile DC 2018 to talk Agile methods, holacracy, and the hard work required to solve organizational impediments after adopting Agile. TRANSCRIPT: Bob Payne: [00:00:01] Hi I'm your host Bob Payne, i'm here at Lean+Agile DC. Why don't you guys introduce yourself since.  Dan Fish: [00:00:08] Sure. I'm Dan fish I'm a product manager and agile coach at Very. Gabe Weaver: [00:00:14] And I'm Gabe Weaver I'm the chief product officer at Very  Bob Payne: [00:00:17] Excellent. So you guys are here talking about why agile might not be the silver bullet everybody everybody's been making it out to be. And you also do Holacracy at Very so I'm excited about both of those things. I like to blow stuff up and I love you know experimenting with self managing teams and strategies. So those are a couple of things I'd like to talk ab

BUSINESS AGILITY: Evan Leybourn, founder of the Business Agility Institute and Conference, has been screaming into the void about Business Agility, and the void is finally screaming back.  Evan is building a strong community around business agility across diverse industries, and plans to reclaim business agility from the consultants and marketing folks that keep using the buzzword. Evan sat down with Bob Payne of the Agile Toolkit podcast to discuss. How do you define Business Agility?  How do we de-buzzword it? Hearing so many stories, I came to the position that we don't want a definition.  In this formative stage of Business Agility around the world, whatever definition we put on it is going to limit its ability to be more things to more people, and right now I think that's more important. What we did is we actually put together a Model of Business Agility, about 60 of us working with the community on all the different domains and dimensions that make up Business Agility.  I think that is a better way of v

The Agile Toolkit Podcast I always say that DevOps in one sense is really an extension of agile principles out to everybody on the ship. -Jeffery Payne Bob Payne chats with Jeffery Payne, Founder of Coveros, at Lean+Agile DC 2018.  The Payne Cousins (not really) chat DevOps and tips for pairing developers and testers.  The discussion covers moving toward a generalized specialist model, testers showing up like a demolition crew, and the true meaning of pairing. [caption id="attachment_7988" align="alignnone" width="2024"] Jeffery Payne sits down with Bob Payne (not cousins..)[/caption] TRANSCRIPT Bob Payne: [00:00:02] Hi I'm your host and technical idiot, Bob Payne. Just struggling with the equipment there for a little bit, making making the the the big newbie mistake of hitting play instead of record. So I'm here at Lean + Agile DC 2018 and I'm here with Jeff Payne of Coveros. Jeffery Payne: [00:00:25] Your cousin right. Bob Payne: [00:00:26] Yeah. Cousin Jeffery Payne: [00:00:27] Yeah. Bob Payne: [00:00:27]

I sat down with Manjit Singh and Antonio Medina to talk about details of their new book The Lean Playbook. See more below and subscribe now.    Fresh off the release of their The Lean Playbook book. Most books were very theoretical and didn't show how to practically implement these techniques and tools, so what we did was collect a set of experiences from many teams in which we achieved some specific business outcomes. It's actionable. You can jump to a tool or challenge you're trying to address and that's what makes it a good reference book.  We aren't just focusing on IT - also Lean for Services (Pharma, government, finance, sales, and more). When people think about Lean, they think about IT and manufacturing, but the techniques can be applied in every industry.  Even though people want to apply Lean, the ask isn't always clearly defined. In the book, we look at it holistically and look at the delivery of value and how it flows through the systems. There are a lot of opportunities to reduce waste: Empower

I spoke with Business Agility Conference organizer Evan Leybourn on some of the inner workings and the future of the conference.    The people are the best part of the conference. 40% of attendees were from over seas and 95% of all attendees flew in just for this event - which is incredible! Truly a global audience.  We really approached our topics differently this year. It was designed specifically to have "ah-ha!" moments constantly where everyone tells us a story. We weren't looking for theory, we wanted them to tell us their "why," - to leave us inspired.  In the coming years, we really don't want to grow too big - 350-400 might be the max. Primarily because the intimacy of the conversations is important, but we want to go broader. We want small, focused events all of the world to give people opportunities and the chance to join the conversation.  4 Pillars in the Business Agility Institute: Community Outreach Guidance Leadership And LitheSpeed, as one of our first Institute Partners, has been doing and

I sat down with Ellen Grove and Sue John to talk all things facilitation. See more below and subscribe now.      Facilitation essentially is holding people safely in a space to express themselves is critical. It isn't just about the fun thing - it isn't just about playing with Lego's. It's about the debrief and helping the participants reflect and think about "what did we just learn here." And that helps them to get better at reflecting. It let's them ask "how are we going to do this thing," and "how are we going to be better at doing that thing."  Lego Serious Play, and other similar techniques, allows everyone to get their ideas on the table and that's how you get people talking, collaborating, and making decisions as a team. It's easier to talk about this Lego on the table than that department is run poorly or I don't work well with that person.  Facilitation for Decision Making Exercise: Set up a meeting for the entire morning - We'll be exploring until maybe lunchtime THEN we see the impact Make a decis

People make agile seem pretty complicated when they first hear about it. There are clear successes when you implement agile if you are able to incorporate a few things. If you don't understand the underlying philosophies of scrum, you may have a harder time being successful. Listen with Bob and George Dinwiddie as they give advice and tips on how to organize your work, do it, and work as a team.    1. Organizing the work Goes hand in hand with the body of scrum.Have a clear goal, work in iterations, don't plan too far in advance. For some, that's enough, but it might not be enough by itself to deliver regularly and reliably. Here are some tips on organizing your work: Break the work down into chunks to complete in short iterations.   Measure progress by the end result's value, rather than the time spent on the work 2. Doing the work Teams already know the work that they're doing to some degree. Sometimes they aren't doing it well, sometimes they are.  Having deadlines might shine a light on some fundamenta

I talked all things Lean Startup with Teague Hopkins of the Teague Hopkins Group at the Agile DC Executive Summit.    Enjoy Bob Payne

I speak with Sevatec's Josh Seckel, formerly at USCIS, at the Agile DC Executive Summit.    Enjoy Bob Payne

John Hughes from Sevatec keeps popping up at virtually every conference, so I think I'd snag him for some podcasting.    Enjoy Bob Payne

I sat down with Amber King from CapitalOne Innovation Labs at the Agile DC Executive Conference.    Enjoy Bob Payne   This podcast brought to you by LitheSpeed. 

I sat down with Lymari Castro from DoD and Warren Smith with Rein LLC to chat about their talk, Infusing an Agile Requirements Backlog in a Large DoD Program.  Enjoy Bob Payne

Since SAFe 4.5 was just recently released, I decided to ask the creator what's new. Listen to us talk new configurations, better integration of DevOps, and continuous improvement with SAFe creator Dean Leffingwell.   Enjoy Bob Payne

Josh and I chat about his key note talk regarding Modern Agile.  Possibly the most influential sticker driven development project ever.   Always a pleasure chatting wth Josh and I have changed my practice to be a bit more modern. What will you do? Follow him at @JoshuaKerievsky Enjoy Bob Payne

I speak with Tom Paider at Lean + Agile DC 2016. I have worked with Tom for many years and always love to see how he has helped transform his organization. Enjoy Bob Payne

I speak with Max Keeler from the Motley Fool at the LitheSpeed Lean + Agile DC conference. Max talks about the culture and the evolution of Agile at the Motley Fool. Enjoy Bob Payne

I discuss the Laloux Culture Model with Peter Green (@tptman) at the Scrum Gathering 2016 in Orlando. He has a great explanatory video for Teal and how Agile Fits in. See the video herehttps://vimeo.com/121517508 Enjoy Bob Payne