Future State Now: A Business Technology Podcast

This is the first in a series of podcasts we’ll be doing on Growth Mindset. In this episode Mary Kaufman and Dave Prior discuss what a growth mindset is, why it is vital it is to the work we do at LeadingAgile, and how embracing challenges fits into a growth mindset approach. During the conversation, Mary and Dave provide examples of common challenges we all face both at work, in our day-to-day lives, and in introducing large-scale organizational change. As they walk through the examples, Mary and Dave share tips on how to embrace the challenges you face and keep yourself firmly grounded in a growth mindset.

This week in SoundNotes Lance Kind joins Dave to talk about Scaled Agile Tech Coaching. In this episode, Lance and Dave explore how technical coaching can be used to supplement the process coaching that is typically offered during an agile transformation. He also shares his approach to introduce technical coaching in a way that can scale across the enterprise.

Lance is an experienced Senior level software developer as well as an Agile coach. He’s also an author and produces podcasts in both English and Mandarin Chinese. He’ll be joining Dave in hosting our podcasts going forward so that we can offer more podcasts and also ones that focus on deeper technical topics.

Contacting Lance:

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/lance-kind/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lancer-kind/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/LancerKind
• Email: lance.kind@Leadingagile.com
• Personal Web Site: (for links to Lance’s publications and other podcasts: http://lancerkind.com

One of the things you need for Agile practices to deliver on their promise is a fully dedicated team of people working together to deliver value in a predictable manner. What we want is a high-performing, learning team that can consistently make and meet commitments.

But what if that isn’t an option? What if you work in an organization that still believes in the power of multi-tasking, or you work in an agency whose whole business model is built around the idea that everyone is 100% utilized across however many teams/projects are needed to hit that number?

In this episode of SoundNotes, Jeff Howey and Dave Prior take on the question of what to do if you don’t have dedicated teams. They explore the various forms this commonly takes, how it is likely to impact your ability to deliver value and they share some coping mechanisms as well as ideas on how to approach the conversation with the appropriate people when the time comes.

Contacting Jeff Howey

• Email: Jeff.howey@leadingagile.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffhowey/

Contacting Dave Prior

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsungo
• Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com

If you have a question you’d like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com

And if you're interested in taking one of our upcoming Certified ScrumMaster or Certified Scrum Product Owner classes, you can find all the details at https://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/

Many organizations of all sizes have been publicly experimenting with Dojos—immersive learning environments adopted from ancient martial arts practices—that focus on upskilling teams and producing products. In this week's podcast, our guest Joel Norman shares his thoughts and experiences related to Dojos, including what makes them successful, common challenges uncovered when running Dojos, and why they may not be the ticket to Transformation many organizations hope they'll be. 

You can have different levels of Agility in an organization—and those are all necessary and great. But it takes more to achieve Business Agility, which is entirely different from team-level Agility, or enterprise-level, and so forth. In this podcast, Dave Prior and LeadingAgile CEO Mike Cottmeyer think through and explore the nuances of Business Agility and what it takes to achieve it.

Simply sending your people off to training, or bringing someone in to train isn’t going to automatically get you the value you want out of it.  In this quick podcast, Dave Prior and LeadingAgile’s Jeff Howey dig into five things you can do to ensure you get the most value out of Agile training in your organization.

This week’s SoundNotes features a question submitted by a student during a recent Certified Scrum Master class. The question was posted in the topic parking lot and we did not have time to address it during class, so I followed up with the student after class and we discussed it via phone. I also offered to do a podcast on it and Jeff Howey joins me this week to dig into the topic. Because I spoke to the student after class, I was able to add some more detail for Jeff which you will hear during the conversation, but the question posted by the student was:

I would like to know how long should milestones typically be and how many sprints should we break it down to? We have a goal of what we want to achieve and a rough timeline but we don’t log too many feature tickets ahead of time thinking that the task might become stale or pollute the board with an everlasting list of things to do and most of the time we were just closing the tickets. As a result, I feel we become short-sighted and optimize for the current sprint but not for the milestone.

What is DevOps? How does it tie into the LeadingAgile model? How do we deal with the complications it presents when we apply it at scale? In this week’s podcast, LeadingAgile Chief Transformation Officer Matt Van Vleet joins Dave to answer all of these questions along with a general primer on DevOps in Agile Transformation.

In this episode of SoundNotes, our guest Jeff Howey will help uncover the opportunities this challenging scenario can present—and offer ideas on how to change its foundational causes to prevent it from happening in the first place.

In this episode of SoundNotes, Matt Craig joins Dave for a discussion that centers around comparing the way biological systems and businesses function and respond to change. In a biological system, enzymes bring elements together that catalyze reactions and keep iterating until they find an effective response.