LeadingAgile SoundNotes: an Agile Podcast

This is the second interview in a series we are doing on Cost of Delay. The first interview, where Jim Hayden provided an overview of Cost of Delay can be found here: http://bit.ly/2lUDWFR In Part 2 of the series, Marty Bradley explains how Cost of Delay actually works. During the interview we discuss things like Weighted Shorted Job First (WSJF), how to determine relative Business Value of different features or projects and how to evaluate that value against different factors like risk. During the interview Marty refers to two different graphics that help explain Cost of Delay. Here are links to the two graphic files*: The Formula for Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF)https://www.dropbox.com/s/slfrifz9pqqqgex/WSJF%20Formula.jpg?dl=0 The Cost of Delay Table https://www.dropbox.com/s/9lwrd0tjs5wcmqy/WSJF%20Table.jpg?dl=0" * These graphics are based on examples Marty was referencing in the interview. The originals can be found at http://www.scaledagileframework.com/wsjf/. Show Notes 00:08 Interview Begins 00:34 Background on Marty 01:47 Intro to the topic 01:54 It’s okay to be confused about what Cost of Delay actually is 02:36 Dave “mansplains” the basics of Cost of Delay 03:05 Why people are using Cost of Delay to prioritize work 05:00 Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) (see link above) 05:49 Using a table to calculate WSJF (see link above) 06:19 Using relative sizing to determine User Business Value and the other WSJF factors 06:44 What is “Business Value”? 08:39 How relative sizing works 09:10 How to use the table to get guidance on prioritization 11:07 The actual value of Cost of Delay may not be mathematically quantifiable, and that’s ok because it’s all about relative sizing 13:00 Be careful about bias and gaming the scores 13:24 Using the iPhone 7/Apple Bluetooth Headphones example 14:45 Adding columns to the table so that it works best for you 16:27 Deciding what to do first, second and what to kill 16:40 WSJF - a simple explanation 17:18 The formula for determining WSJF 17:44 Examples of how WSJF can help 19:50 Resources you can use to learn more about Cost of Delay 22:49 Understanding and measuring “value” 23:18 Are we getting smarter about understanding value or just delaying understanding it? 23:45 Key indicators of value and the importance of smaller batch size 25:32 Getting in touch with Marty 25:50 Podcast Close Links from the Podcast An Overview of Cost of Delay with Jim Hayden https://www.leadingagile.com/podcast/an-overview-of-cost-of-delay-with-jim-hayden-and-dave-prior/ The Principles of Product Development Flow by Don Reinertsen http://amzn.to/2m6u0xL Black Swan Farming http://blackswanfarming.com Contacting Marty: You can reach Marty: On the LeadingAgile site: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/marty-bradley/ Email: marty.bradley@leadingagile.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martybradley/ Contacting Dave You can reach Dave: On the LeadingAgile site: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ On Twitter at twitter.com/mrsungo On his personal site at: www.drunkenpm.net 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/ Use the discount code: LA_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class.

This episode of LeadingAgile’s SoundNotes offers a case study of how the technology teams at NewSpring church have been using Agile practices to develop innovative products that will enable their members to stay engaged with NewSpring throughout the whole week. Jon Horton is the Web Director at NewSpring. A few weeks ago he and several members of his team attended a LeadingAgile CSM class. In the interview Jon explains how he introduced Scrum to the organization, how it is being adopted by the technology teams, how it impacts their ability to deliver value for NewSpring members and some of the challenges that they’ve faced along the way. This podcast offers a great case study of how Agile practices are extending beyond traditional software development teams and are being used to innovate and deliver value to all types of “customers”. Show Notes 00:08 Podcast Begins 00:55 Some background on Jon and his role at NewSpring Church 02:20 How technology help NewSpring Church meet people where they are 04:10 How Agile practices were introduced at NewSpring 05:25 The Agile practices that have proven to be the most valuable to Jon’s team 07:10 How work gets prioritized at NewSpring 09:00 The way teams are set up at NewSpring 09:24 The Sprint lengths used by different teams and why they’ve been selected 10:25 How Jon’s team got started with Scrum and how they’ve evolved their learning and adoption 11:10 Traditional practices that the team’s use to support their Agile practice 12:30 Challenges in introducing Agile at NewSpring 13:44 Jon’s plan to extend Agile beyond the technology group 14:37 Is there a difference in applying Agile within a religious organization than in a more traditional software group? 15:50 Jon’s advice for other religious organizations that are interested in trying to implement Agile 18:00 Getting in touch with Jon 18:37 Podcast end Links from this podcast NewSpring Church https://newspring.cc Essential Scrum by Kenny Rubin http://amzn.to/2mMA3Ux Contacting Jon Twitter: https://twitter.com/jonhorton Contacting Dave You can reach Dave on the LeadingAgile site at http://www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ On Twitter at https://twitter.com/mrsungo Or on his personal site at: http://drunkenpm.net 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: http://www.leadingagile.com/our-gear/training/ Use the discount code: LA_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class.

This podcast is the first in a series we intend to do on Cost of Delay. This podcast features LeadingAgile Enterprise Transformation Consultant, Jim Hayden, and Dave Prior discussing the ideas behind Cost of Delay at a fairly high level. If you are new to the subject, or are struggling with understanding it, this may help provide clarity on what Cost of Delay is and how it works. In a future podcast on this subject we will look at Cost of Delay from a more Reinertsen-centric viewpoint. We also plan to do at least one podcast that offers a case study on how Cost of Delay has been put into practice within an Agile organization. We will look at how they are using it to understand and prioritize work at the project, program and portfolio level. Show Notes 00:09 Podcast Begins 1:12 Why (and how) we are talking about Cost of Delay 2:52 Some background on Jim Hayden 3:16 What is Cost of Delay 3:37 Example 1: Laptop Manufacturer with a set window of sales opportunity 4:22 Example 2: Selecting between two different projects based on time to develop and ROI 5:10 Is Cost of Delay vs. opportunity cost? 5:54 Understanding the impact of deferring a release 8:43 What if you delay your launch and a competitor beats you to the market and your customer 9:15 Example 3: Apple launching the iPhone 7 without the bluetooth headphones 10:15 Visualizing and understanding the Cost of Delay across multiple projects 12:08 Why understanding the Cost of Delay and decision making process is not solely about revenue 14:31 When new projects arise… determining where to prioritize them against existing work 15:57 The organization’s cost for doing the project 17:03 Additional factors to consider when understanding the value a project provides 18:00 Standardizing rules around how to prioritize work 18:59 Decomposing work to understand the value better 19:51 Defining “value” and Cost of Delay within your organization 21:57 Why it is so important for a Product Owner to have a method for prioritizing work that is understood by all stakeholders 23:04 When value is vague, Cost of Delay becomes more important 23:57 Example 4: Prioritizing 12 projects across an entire year 27:39 Adding a new project mid-year 29:10 How does sunk cost factor in? 30:37 Again with the logic! 31:29 We value starting things, not finishing things 33:27 Why we want to work in small batches 33:51 Where to find more information on Cost of Delay 34:26 Getting in touch with Jim Hayden 34:39 Closing Links from the Podcast An Introduction to Cost of Delay by Derek Huether https://www.leadingagile.com/2015/06/an-introduction-to-cost-of-delay/ The Principles of Product Development Flow by Don Reinertsen http://amzn.to/2m6u0xL Black Swan Farming http://blackswanfarming.com Contacting Jim Hayden You can reach Jim on the LeadingAgile site at www.leadingagile.com/guides/jim-hayden/ Email: jim.hayden@leadingagile.com Contacting Dave You can reach Dave on the LeadingAgile site at www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ On Twitter at twitter.com/mrsungo Or on his personal site at: drunkenpm.net 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/ Use the discount code: LA_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class.

In Andrew Fuqua’s blog post “Slack and the Agile Manager’s Role: Be the Slack” https://www.leadingagile.com/2017/01/slack-agile-managers-role/ he shared his thoughts on the need for management to make space and time for teams and individuals to be creative and innovative. In this podcast Andrew and Dave Prior dig deeper on the topic, how and why organizations resist it, and how managers can get started with introducing time to allow teams to be innovative. Show Notes 00:15 Podcast Begins 00:48 Some background on Andrew’s work as an Enterprise Consultant 01:47 Introducing the topic of Slack 02:05 How the PMBOK defines slack 03:00 How Andrew defines slack and what he focuses on when he’s looking at it 04:12 Why wringing all the slack out of a team is not necessarily a good idea 05:00 Finding the slack you need to keep 05:44 Flow Trumps Waste and Value Trumps Flow 06:56 When you see downtime, what do you lose when you feel compelled to fill it up? 07:44 Whose job is it to create an environment and culture that supports creativity? 08:33 Why it goes beyond the responsibilities of a ScrumMaster 08:58 BUT ANDREW! WE ARE TOO BUSY TO STOP AND BE CREATIVE! 09:24 Someone is going to come along and eat your lunch! 09:43 Why organizations forget to take the time to be innovative 10:40 Why it is about more than simply holding innovation days. 12:18 What’s the manager supposed to do in Agile anyway? 12:54 How we end up with managers who do not know how to manage and like to crack the whip 14:09 Creativity also needs sustainable pace 15:26 Making space for creativity every single day 16:31 The manager shouldn’t be delivering stuff 17:07 Taking personal responsibility for protecting your own space/time to be innovative 17:43 How Andrew creates and protects the innovation space for himself 19:08 Time spent recovering from working at an unsustainable pace is not the same as slack time set aside for innovation 20:09 How Managers can introduce Slack 22:05 How much slack should I make sure each person has and how do I track it? 22:42 How do you become a change agent that will transform an organization to support Agile? 23:18 Focusing on Lead Time to help the organization understand what needs to change 23:53 Is the best way to create change changing the CEO 24:09 What a manager can do to understand Slack more 24:47 How do we get more creativity in the organization 25:13 Happiness Metrics, Employee Retention and taking a baseline before introducing Slack 25:51 Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose 26:56 Things a Manager Should Not Do 29:02 Beware the Hero 29:58 Parting words of advice for a manager who is trying to understand how to let Slack live in their environment 30:42 How to reach Andrew Links from the Podcast Slack and the Agile Manager’s Role: Be the Slack https://www.leadingagile.com/2017/01/slack-agile-managers-role/ Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork and the Myth of Total Efficiency by Tom DeMarco http://amzn.to/2lkow1C How to Use an A3 In An Agile Transformation https://www.leadingagile.com/2015/08/how-to-use-an-a3-in-an-agile-transformation/ Contacting Andrew You can reach Andrew via LeadingAgile at https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/andrew-fuqua/ On Twitter at https://twitter.com/andrewmfuqua On LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewfuqua/ Contacting Dave You can reach Dave on the LeadingAgile site at www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ On Twitter at twitter.com/mrsungo Or on his personal site at: http://drunkenpm.net 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/ Use the discount code: LA_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class.

This episode of SoundNotes features two questions that were submitted recently by students. 2:11 Question 1 - Design and Cross Functional Teams Submitted by Sergey via Email : “Every time I hear you speak about cross-functional team I am not sure who these teams comprise of exactly. In my world the confusion here is most often related to design inputs. Any digital product will have a visual UI and thus its development will require design inputs. Do most of Leading Agile clients consider this a separate process that contributes to the readiness of stories for a technical Scrum team? Or do you normally assume designers are a part of a Scrum team? In my view, the former creates waterfall-like dependencies and the latter gets in the way of confident estimations. So, even if both models are feasible, none of them seems ideal, because it leaves an are that has to be tightly managed.” 8:20 Question 2 - How do you deal with a manager who thinks you should be ScrumMaster for multiple teams AND Product Owner at the same time? This question was submitted by a student in a CSPO class who allowed me to record the question being asked as long as I promised not to post the recording or identify the person by name. In order to honor that, I played the recording for Derek before hand, but in the podcast, what you’ll hear is me (Dave) relating the question. The question shared by the student related to the fact that they are currently playing the role of ScrumMaster on three different teams and have also been asked to act as Product Owner for these teams. The person explained to their manager that the way Scrum is designed to work, a ScrumMaster is supposed to be dedicated to a single team, should definitely not be trying to support three teams and absolutely should not be playing the role of ScrumMaster and Product Owner at the same time. The manager responded by asking that the person give a detailed account what they are doing all day as a Scrum Master because the manager did not believe the person was too busy to be able to serve as ScrumMaster for three teams and Product Owner for as those teams as well. 9:32 Derek and Dave respond and respond to the question. 19:25 Podcast wrap up 20:12 Podcast end 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 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/ Use the discount code: LA_Podcast to receive a 15% discount on the class.

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