LeadingAgile SoundNotes: an Agile Podcast

This episode of SoundNotes is an interview with LeadingAgile CEO, Mike Cottmeyer who takes on 3 separate topics during the interview:

1. Locus of Blame (01:38)

2. Elevate Agile (27:38)

3. Speaking with Authority  (41:39)

Locus of Blame

Things happen. They don’t always happen the way we want them to. You get a flat tire on the way to a job interview, your supplier is late resulting in a massive delay in your delivery of a project, there’s a pandemic and that messes up pretty much everything you had planned. The questions you ask yourself in response to these kinds of setbacks are very important. Learning how to learn from these challenges may not come naturally to you but it is a critical skill.

Elevate Agile 

This September, LeadingAgile will be holding an event to celebrate its 11 year anniversary (because Covid got in the way of the 10 year anniversary), and we’re also holding our 2nd Elevate Agile conference. During the interview Mike shares some details about this very exciting event.

Speaking with Authority

While advancing in their career many people get to a stage where it is important for them to be able to enter a room, take over, and lead. For some, this comes with ease, but for many, it is the opposite. They can’t see how to get from being the person who was never asked (or allowed) to lead, to being someone who can "own" a room of people. Mike shares details about how (and when) he worked through that. And similar challenges he has worked through since. If you are someone who does not feel you have the agency/experience/authority/power to take the room, you’ll find some helpful tips in this part of the interview.

Elevate Agile

• https://elevateagile.com/

Contacting Mike Cottmeyer

If you’d like to contact Mike you can reach him at:

• LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/mike-cottmeyer/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cottmeyer/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mcottmeyer
• Email: mike@leadingagile.com

Contacting Dave Prior

If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at:

• 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.

This podcast is the second in a series of conversations focused on Fixed vs. Growth Mindset. Leveraging the work in Carol Dwek’s book, Mindset, Mary Kaufman and Dave Prior are exploring the differences between having a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Each episode of this series will focus on how our mindset impacts the way we perceive and respond to different types of stimulus / events. This episode is focused on obstacles and the differences between how a fixed mindset and a growth mindset meet and respond to the things that get in our way.

This week in SoundNotes our focus is Design Thinking. If you are a Product Owner and Design Thinking is not part of your toolbox you need to listen to this podcast. This is the first in what will be a series of interviews centered around Design Thinking, how it works and why it is a critical element of the work of anyone serving in a Product Owner or Product Management role.

As vaccination rates rise and the number of people infected with Covid-19 drops our world is slowly moving on to some new form of normal. Many of us have returned, or soon will be returning, to the office. After a year working from home, that shift back to the thing that was once part of our every day work lives, is going to present unique challenges for each of us. Some have been champing at the bit, waiting to get back to a busy social IRL work atmosphere. Others discovered that working from home actually provided greater productivity and comfort. No matter how you reacted to the pandemic lock-down, returning to the office is gonna be a little weird.

In this episode of the podcast, LeadingAgile Executive Coach/Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Kelly Lingerfeldt joins Dave to talk about returning to the office, the challenges that will present for each of us, and different strategies we can use to cope with getting out from behind the Zoom camera, swapping our sweat pants for actual pants and going into the office.

Earlier this year LeadingAgile was contacted by GC Uttam who expressed an interest in taking Certified Scrum Master training. Uttam wanted to learn how he could use Agile practices within his organization to provide better support for the Nepalese orphans and widows they serve.

LeadingAgile believes strongly in giving back. And whenever we can we provide open seats in our classes to those whose work is to serve others. We offered Uttam a seat and agreed to check back a few months after class to see how he’d been able to put what he learned to use. During the interview, Uttam and Dave talk about how he has introduced some of the key principles and values from Agile back to his teams and the people they serve. You’ll also hear about how they’ve begun using Scrum to run marketing experiments in their ministry work.

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.