Future State Now: A Business Technology Podcast

The Project Management Office (PMO) has traditionally been responsible for providing governance over projects, programs and portfolios; ensuring projects are managed according the standards set forth by the PMO; and to provide reporting on progress to leadership. When Agile is introduced into an organization, along with new ways of tracking work, self-organizing teams and new ways of understanding priority, the value the PMO provides comes into question. In a recent blog post, LeadingAgile SVP and Executive Consultant Marty Bradley addressed the question “Should the PMO Go Away?” In this episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, Marty and Dave dig deeper on this topic and explore what PMO’s (and PMO Leaders) need to do in order to remain relevant to an organization transitioning to Agile. Show Notes 00:08 Podcast Begins 00:35 What does a LeadingAgile Executive Coach actually do 01:40 When the Executives say “Stop saying Agile.”, it’s actually a good thing. 3:05 Should the PMO go away? Who’s asking and why? 07:12 Why do we need a PMO and governance if the teams are supposed to be self organizing? 08:38 If we do not have trust, how can we have self-organization and Agility? 09:39 All night deployments and the impact of not trusting the team 10:43 When the people who “know better” create a system that fosters missed deadlines and failure, they create a very dysfunctional form of predictability 12:15 How the PMO can maintain its’ relevancy in an organization transitioning to Agile. 13:27 How do we maintain the necessary non-agile elements when we transition to Agile? 14:55 How can we have more empathy for the members of the PMO and the massive personal and career change they are facing in maintaining the stability of a traditional approach while supporting the change to Agile? 16:29 Changing the focus and the metrics used to track the work 17:10 The impact on Development Managers 18:12 Why would I want to eliminate the need for my own position (if we transition from waterfall to Agile) 18:42 Coping with transition: “This is my job,…I got a family…What am I supposed to do?” 19:55 Maintaining a balance between preserving the necessary domain knowledge and changing as fast as you can 20:29 What PMO Leaders need to know before the Agile transition team shows up - “Not everything needs to be perfect Agile.” 23:51 If I am in a PMO and I want to get up to speed and maintain my own relevancy, what do I need to learn? 25:10 “I’d look at my company and figure out what is value in my company?” How do you define value? 27:02 Finding your organization’s own definition of value 27:46 Closeout Contacting Marty Email: marty.bradley@leadingagile.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/AskCoachMarty Contacting Dave Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo Related Links: Should the PMO Go Away? (Marty’s blog post mentioned in the interview) http://bit.ly/2jwshAS Cost of Delay http://bit.ly/2jVLfx4 Agile Governance at eVestment - A More Agile Approach to PMO http://bit.ly/2khDBhq Agile Governance - An interview with Liana Dore from Agile 2016 http://bit.ly/2kRXj6F Kanban http://bit.ly/1cXGeK9 Lean Startup http://bit.ly/1ky8H1h Don Reinertsen “The Principles of Product Development Flow” http://amzn.to/2jYlyOY Feedback/Questions If you have comments on the podcast, or have questions for the LeadingAgile coaches that you’d like to have addressed in a future episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, you can reach Dave at dave.prior@leadingagile.com LeadingAgile CSM and CSPO Classes For information on LeadingAgile’s upcoming public CSM and CSPO classes, please go to: www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

2017 is here and Mike Cottmeyer is ready. In this episode of SoundNotes, the CEO of LeadingAgile shares his thoughts on the primary issues facing organizations as they continue working to transform. There are many who claim culture is the main issue, but is that really the impediment to Organizational Agility? ShowNotes 00:08 Interview Starts 00:47 How do you lead change in large organizations? 02:17 Is the biggest impediment to Agile really culture change? How do you do that at scale? 03:00 What is getting in the way of culture? 04:16 I can change my attitude and value system, but will the organization support that changed attitude and belief? 04:51 The mindset shift is just the starting point 07:15 How do you get 1,000 people to simultaneously have a mindset shift and then know what to go do 07:42 Is the industry still stuck? How do we get past wanting Agile to being able to do Agile? 08:12 A positive Agile culture has to be reinforced 10:07 The difference between culture and the basic actions you should do 11:29 Can you have the behavior without the culture system shift? 13:29 Can you use the mechanics to reach a desired end state without worrying about becoming Agile? 15:35 Where does Mike see the industry going in 2017? 19:49 Does the organization really need to understand how Agile works or can someone coach the organization into an Agile state? 22:02 How does the organization recognize the fundamentals of what needs to be changed to achieve Organizational Agility? 24:18 Does having data that explains the problem help strengthen the case for change? 25:10 Your organization is deeply flawed. 26:41 How are we going to measure that the problem was indeed solved? 28:07 The organizations are broken. Teaching them to want something is not enough. At some point you have to do the work. 30:00 If we teach culture change will people really self organize in the presence of constraints 31:19 Should everyone be more disruptive? Who designs the structure to support that? 32:18 Is there a point where you need to be more directive to help people become more Agile? 33:04 We are so myopically focused on self organization. 34:02 If i am an executive with limited time to learn and research, what do I focus on? 35:18 The problem is that people are overselling how Agile can work. 38:35 Do you want to do Agile on a team, or do you want to become an Agile organization? 39:08 How Agile do you need to be? 43:57 The music Mike has been listening to lately and is looking forward to listening to. 45:05 The one thing Mike wishes all the clients knew before he got into the room. 46:41 Closeout Books Mentioned in the Podcast The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey http://amzn.to/2jUektH Christian Self-Mastery by B.W. Maturin http://amzn.to/2jU0cjZ The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn http://amzn.to/2jzO4DL Music Mentioned in the Podcast Collective Soul http://www.collectivesoul.com Peace Trail by Neil Young http://amzn.to/2kmlFBU Reaching Mike If you’d like to know more about Mike, or reach him with follow up questions: http://bit.ly/2kvoOyo Feedback/Questions/Reaching Dave If you have comments on the podcast, or have questions for the LeadingAgile coaches that you’d like to have addressed in a future episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, you can reach Dave at dave.prior@leadingagile.com LeadingAgile CSM and CSPO Classes For information on LeadingAgile’s upcoming public CSM and CSPO classes, please go to: https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

A Retrospective on Vacations If you love your work and are very driven, the idea of “vacation” can be a daunting thing. In this episode of SoundNotes, Derek Huether and Dave Prior hold a retrospective on how they each coped with the challenge of taking time-off from work over the holiday. If you count yourself among the vacation challenged, this conversation may provide insight into why you need to take the time, why you need to protect the time BUT why your version of taking a break to restore yourself doesn’t have to fit the standard definition of “vacation”. Show Notes 00:08 Podcast Begins 00:17 Topic Intro - a Retrospective on taking vacation 00:52 Derek explains why he took his first vacation in almost 2 years 02:07 Pre-vacation anxiety 03:12 If you get grumpy when you don’t have too much work to do “YOU NEED TO GET AWAY” 03:52 When your sustainable pace is an unsustainable pace 04:10 Some of us are wired a little weird and there is no “balance” 05:11 Sometimes having too much to do can be a positive 06:03 The dopamine rush of getting something done… how much sleep do you really need 07:33 Debating the argument for getting “enough” sleep 09:14 Derek’s Kanban board for vacation activities 11:06 What Derek reads on the beach for relaxation (feel free to roll your eyes) 12:00 How “the damn ocean and seagulls” prevented Derek from relaxing with his DevOps books on the beach and how the Beastie Boys saved the day 13:20 If you are reading work related books on the beach, aren’t you still at work? 14:10 When you take time off from work and your hobbies are work related 15:48 Finding your own way to satisfy the need to unplug, take a break and get refreshed 16:38 The restorative joy that comes from watching seagulls attack people 17:08 Pomodoro Timer 17:22 The weight of vacation guilt - for doing work, or for not really taking “vacation” 18:20 Why would you want to go on vacation and be remorseful when it is supposed to be a reward 19:14 Derek’s trick of reserving play time as a planned activity 20:15 Having intentionality and discipline to carve out time for creative fun stuff 20:48 Super not productive time may be recovery time and that is part of being productive 21:30 Giving yourself permission to be not productive and then protecting that time 21:55 What happens when YOU don’t respect your not productive time 22:20 “I have to respect it” and take the time without carrying the guilt 23:04 Dave’s resolution to get less done in 2017 and trying to create a small vacation every day 23:45 Derek’s quiet time (with coffee) 25:10 Meditation … it’s not about emptying your mind - it’s about not dancing with the thoughts that arise 26:20 Derek’s version of meditation - post-its and coffee 26:50 It’s a way of looking at your though and saying “yeah, but not right now” 27:02 Wrap up thoughts, it’s okay to suck at vacation, it’s okay to not do stuff, protect the time with discipline, acknowledge that you derive and need the time, and don’t let other people tell you how much time you should take 27:56 Podcast End Links from the Podcast Visible Ops Handbook http://amzn.to/2jzVqKM DevOps Handbook http://amzn.to/2iTX8FM Ariana Huffington “The Sleep Revolution” http://amzn.to/2k2ySik Contacting Derek You can reach Derek on the LeadingAgile site at https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ On Twitter at https://twitter.com/derekhuether Or on his personal site at http://www.derekhuether.com Contacting Dave You can reach Dave on the LeadingAgile site at https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ On Twitter at https://twitter.com/mrsungo Or on his personal site at: http://drunkenpm.net

LeadingAgile’s Derek Huether and Dave Prior take on two questions from someone who attended a workshop Dave ran on Redefining Your PMO for Agile: Should I change Sprint length to account reduced capacity during the holidays? Is it okay to performance at the individual team member level? During the podcast Derek and Dave respond to both questions and offer different ways of coping with reduced capacity as well as things to consider if you are inclined to try and track individual team member performance. This podcast is a fairly short one, so show notes have been omitted this week. Contacting Derek and Dave If you have follow up questions for Derek, here is his contact info: Email: derek@leadingagile.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/derekhuether LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ Dave can be reached at: Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ Submitting Questions And if you have follow up questions for Dave, or have any Agile related question you’d like us to discuss in an upcoming podcast, please send your question to Dave at dave.prior@leadingagile.com. You can send the question in the body of an email, or you can send an mp3 of wav of you asking the question and will include the recording in a podcast on your topic. LeadingAgile CSM and CSPO Classes For information on LeadingAgile’s upcoming public CSM and CSPO classes, please go to: https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

MLB Advanced Media has been growing very rapidly over the past few years and even if you aren’t a fan of baseball, you’ve probably been the beneficiary of their work. Michael Daly and Matt Volpe have been managing teams and providing internal Agile coaching at MLB every step of the way. For anyone working at an organization that is struggling to get it’s legs with Agile, these guys have a story full of hope and some valuable lessons they’ve learned along the way. And while there are places where they have made conscious choices to adopt practices which may seem non-standard for an Agile organization, one of the things you will learn from the interview is how they reached those decisions through an empirical approach as they ran experiments on how to help Agile work best within their organization. Show Notes 00:08 Podcast Intro 00:30 What Matt and Michael do at MLB Advanced Media 01:56 What does MLB Advanced Media do 03:29 Some background on the MLB Advanced Media Agile Transformation and how management interacts with the work Matt and Michael are doing 10:44 What makes the MLB Agile transformation unique and how the approach they’ve taken has helped foster the transformation 13:09 How MLB Advanced Media supports good Product Ownership 15:00 The importance of coaching, training and building a good backlog 15:19 “You don’t do your kid’s homework, but with with them and help them do it” 17:05 Does it help to have all your folks trained by one individual or does that limit your organizations ability to have a diverse understanding of how Agile works 18:20 “…back when I was coding with stone knives in bear skins” 21:00 How MLB approaches governance around which practices teams will use and how much flexibility each team has to make adjustments based on their own individual needs 25:00 Mobile software development is “…a viking funeral” 26:55 The question of whether to use stable teams or move people around 28:24 How to cope with not having stable teams and still making Agile work 30:11 Stable teams when it make sense and … “THE OTHERS” 32:52 Why Matt’s use of points in Sprint Planning gives Dave a seizure and why it’s the right thing for Matt’s team to do it anyway 36:48 How Matt’s team spends time collectively grooming the backlog every day 37:37 Why Michael’s team struggles with forecasting and why Michael hates estimation meetings 39:09 How Michael’s team benefits from using story point anyway 41:02 Not trying to compare teams against one another 42:20 Why Matt maintains a bench team 42:54 The value of taking an empirical approach to develop a hybrid 43:25 Advice from Michael and Matt for those who feel like they do not have the support they need to be successful in adopting Agile 48:47 “…AND DON’T CALL THEM RESOURCES! CALL THEM PEOPLE” 49:09 Getting in touch with Michael and Matt if you have follow questions 49:31”…It’s Italian for Fox - that’s all you need to know.” You can learn more about MLB Advanced Media here: http://www.mlbam.com If you’d like to get in touch with Michale Daly, you can reach him via email at michael.daly@mlb.com If you’d like to get in touch with Matt Volpe you can reach him via email at matt.volpe@mlb.com If you’d like to contact Dave Prior, you can reach him at dave.prior@LeadingAgile.com And if you’d like to learn about LeadingAgile’s upcoming class schedule, you can always find it here: http://leadingagile.com/training

In this episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes, Devin Hedge makes the case for focusing on Agile IT Operations in order to increase speed within your organization. If you’ve been considering working with (or have already adopted) DevOps, the information Devin shares in this interview may help you discover how your organizations Operations function is limiting your ability to increase flow. Show Notes 01:08 Podcast Begins - Introductions 01:36 Background on Devin 02:14 Topic Introduction: Agile IT Operations 02:49 The relationship between Agile IT Operations and DevOps 03:48 Why DevOps is picking up again 04:34 Our new problems are our old problems 05:29 It’s about awareness and maturity 06:37 An indicator that IT Ops is where you need to focus your attention in order to increase your speed 07:02 Speed creates dependencies 08:52 Why IT Operations is the bottleneck 10:18 Agile is not going to fix your lack of solid disaster recovery planning, but it may force you to acknowledge that you need to do something about it 11:41 Automating the process of server creation all the way through the system 15:02 How to get started with understanding what the issues actually are 16:46 What do we do with the folks who need something new to do after we automate? 18:22 An example of automated templates for virtual machine creation 20:12 Organizational Debt = Technical Administrative Debt 21:50 A case study in how Agile IT Operations can impact an organization 24:50 Not trusting the automation and not being able to see the ball moving at 90 mph 27:27 How do you maintain the situational awareness that can’t come from an algorithm set up to review logs? 30:37 It’s all about establishing and maintaining a “practice” 33:49 How do I get started with this? Where can I get more information on Agile IT Operations? 34:44 How Lean Practices and Value Stream Mapping can help you get started 36:55 How gaining visibility and awareness can help you establish yourself within the organization you work for 37:54 How does this work within the context of scaling to things like SAFe? 39:51 Failure is a gift - don’t blink! 41:34 How to reach Devin Links from the podcast The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim http://amzn.to/2i3pURL Additional titles by Gene Kim http://amzn.to/2i3xDPI LeadingAgile Basecamps https://www.leadingagile.com/the-journey/ Contacting Devin If you’d like to get in touch with Devin with follow up questions you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/devin-hedge/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/agiledevin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinhedge Contacting Dave If you’d like to get in touch with Dave LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo For Information on LeadingAgile CSM and CSPO Classes If you’d like to attend one of LeadingAgile’s CSM or CSPO classes, you can find a full list of upcoming classes here: https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

Student Q&A: Estimating Work for Contracts when your Agile Consultancy is Bidding Against Waterfall Competitors In this podcast, LeadingAgile Enterprise Transformation Consultant, Devin Hedge joins Dave Prior to discuss a question from one of our recent CSM/CSPO students who wanted to know how to estimate work for contracts if the Agile consulting he works for is bidding against a waterfall organization that may be providing a more detailed bid. If you’d like to get in touch with Devin with follow up questions you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/devin-hedge/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/agiledevin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinhedge Here are links to the resources Devin recommends for further information: Defense Acquisition University http://dau.dodlive.mil/tag/agile/ Agile Contracts: Creating and Managing Successful Projects with Scrum http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118630947.html If you’d like to attend one of LeadingAgile’s CSM or CSPO classes, you can find a full list of upcoming classes here: https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/ And if you have a question you’d like to submit for a podcast, just send us an audio file to use in an upcoming episode just send it to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

This podcast features a question from one of the students in a recent LeadingAgile CSM class. Cheri (the student) asked for advice on how to use Jira with Scrum and her organization's SDLC. In the podcast LeadingAgile Principle Consultant, Derek Huether, offers advice on how to go about using/customizing Jira to work with Scrum and an existing SDLC. If you'd like to reach Derek with follow up questions you can find him: the LeadingAgile site (https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/), via Twitter (https://twitter.com/derekhuether), on his personal website (http://www.derekhuether.com) or via email at derek@leadingagile.com.

Derek Huether has been working on new blog post that outlines 3 things you need to do to establish better productivity practices. The blog post will be live in a few days on the LeadingAgile Field Notes site (https://www.leadingagile.com/blog/). In the meantime, check out this podcast where Dave Prior and Derek discuss the triangle of productivity, how to understand what enables you to get more done and the importance of learning to hack yourself for greater productivity. 00:09 Podcast Begins 00:23 Topic Introduction - Patterns on what makes people productive or kills their productivity 01:13 The patterns of success - system, ritual and habit 01:32 Where the data comes from 02:36 Getting clarity the process of productivity 03:10 An example: Scrum 04:14 Personal Kanban as an example 05:25 Holding yourself accountable vs. Making a commitment 06:37 Testing out different personal productivity systems 09:09 The myth of productivity guru’s and developing habits out of rituals 10:54 Learning to do X every day because of what happens when you don’t 11:23 Two systems Derek uses almost daily to increase his productivity 12:00 The importance of breaks and downtime to reset 13:07 If the information being shared requires too much time to convey the message, the message is lost 13:43 How many hours a day are you actually able to be productive 14:22 No one is productive for 8-9 hours a day without a break 15:05 Why you need to reset: “It takes more and more effort to get less and less out of me” 15:46 Planning for personal maintenance 17:15 You need a change of scenery to recharge 17:38 Going to Lowes “OH MY GOD THAT IS SO BORING!” 17:58 Focusing on a different problems to recharge 19:13 If I don’t see progress, my productivity is going to go down and down 19:25 Creating self maintenance tasks and putting them on the board so you don’t skip them 20:35 Is taking a break part of the process? 21:17 Habits can show you if you are being productive 21:36 Hacking yourself to become more productive 23:00 Am I really committed to doing what I am working on now? If not, why are you doing it? 24:04 Dealing with writer’s block 24:42 It’s not about getting the most done. It’s about becoming a student of your productivity 25:27 Having an approach to help you work through things like writer’s block 25:50 Managing procrastination - driven and optimistic vs. pessimistic and indifferent 26:45 What can you do to make yourself more driven and optimistic 26:57 A fifth quadrant - giving yourself permission to not be productive 27:54 Finding the checkpoint so you can take a break - It’s OK! A link to the blog post will be posted here as soon as the blog is live Here is a link to the twitter picture mentioned in the podcast Links from the Podcast: A link to the blog post will be posted here as soon as the blog is live Here is a link to the pictures mentioned in the podcast: The Triangle of Productivity https://www.instagram.com/p/BMhrTBcAPdM/ The 4 Quadrants of Productivity https://www.instagram.com/p/BNUVR07Avjw/ Reaching Derek: On the LeadingAgile website: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/ On his blog: http://www.derekhuether.com On Twitter: https://twitter.com/derekhuether Agile Baltimore Agile Baltimore and the Baltimore Lean Coffee Meetup can be found here: http://www.meetup.com/Agile-Baltimore-Group/

In this episode of LeadingAgile's SoundNotes, Tim Wise joins Dave Prior to answer some questions from CSM and CSPO students about how Business Analysts, Systems Analysts and Product Managers can work with Scrum Teams. If you are interested in learning more about LeadingAgile's Certified ScrumMaster and Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, please visit http://www.leadingagile.com/training/ If you would like to reach Tim, you can find him here: LeadingAgile http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/tim-wise/ WiseAgile http://www.wiseagile.com Tim on Twitter https://twitter.com/timswise Tim on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/timwise