Rick Waters, CST

From national elections to ditch digging, Matt and Rick use the recent US Presidential election results, to springboard into some great examples of how national politics and business events can mirror each other. Moreover, how do we, as Agile professionals, react to internal politics.

It’s no shock that there is turmoil in the populace, after the recent US Presidential Election. But, the fact that Agilists are criticizing each other prompted this 2 part discussion. In this first discussion, Rick, Mike and Sandie talk about how certain demographics have historically been under-represented, and targeted unfairly in politics and our national culture - and how the recent election has brought that normally covert part of the culture into the spotlight.

Trying to draw… Show more

It’s no shock that there is turmoil in the populace, after the recent US Presidential Election. But, the fact that Agilists are criticizing each other prompted this 2 part discussion. In this first discussion, Rick, Mike and Sandie talk about how certain demographics have historically been under-represented, and targeted unfairly in politics and our national culture - and how the recent election has brought that normally covert part of the culture into the spotlight.

Trying to draw parallels to the Agile world, Rick points out that the corporate world is not immune to the turmoil we’ve see in the nation this month. Show less

If you've been around Chicago long enough, at least in the Agile community, you would know that the company currently known as HERE (formerly NAVTEQ and then Nokia) has a great reputation for being an Agile organization through and through. The truth is, the Agile movement there started as an experiment - as most things in Agile should.

I tag along while Allen Rutzen and Jorgen Hesselberg describe the best example of a true Agile Transformation and an organizational Agile Mindset.

The ever-controversial Tom Mellor discusses the differences between ‘Being Agile’ and ‘Doing Agile.’ Tom talks quite a bit about Frederic Laloux’s organizational paradigms (categorized by a color spectrum), and gets us started down a road that leads to differences in what we are taught about the basic elements of Scrum – or at least what we thought we were taught.

Tom also qualifies and stands by his statement “I think the ScrumMaster was the worst thing ever created in Scrum” by… Show more

The ever-controversial Tom Mellor discusses the differences between ‘Being Agile’ and ‘Doing Agile.’ Tom talks quite a bit about Frederic Laloux’s organizational paradigms (categorized by a color spectrum), and gets us started down a road that leads to differences in what we are taught about the basic elements of Scrum – or at least what we thought we were taught.

Tom also qualifies and stands by his statement “I think the ScrumMaster was the worst thing ever created in Scrum” by answering the question “If you don’t have a ScrumMaster, how do you expect [a new Scrum Team] to become a team that practices Scrum?” — You have to listen to get his answer :) Show less

An analogy and a personal message to management about how to work with Agile teams.

I recently got the most wonderful opportunity to talk with a couple of legends in the Agile Community – Chet Hendrickson and Ron Jeffries! They’re partnering with Brian Levy to bring a 5-Day, dual certification, public CSD class to Chicago for the week of 14-18 March, 2016.

Ron, Chet and Brian discuss many of the XP Practices we grown to love and integrate into our Scrum implementations. Brian also adds a dash of SAFe to the conversation.

The class, in downtown Chicago, combines… Show more

I recently got the most wonderful opportunity to talk with a couple of legends in the Agile Community – Chet Hendrickson and Ron Jeffries! They’re partnering with Brian Levy to bring a 5-Day, dual certification, public CSD class to Chicago for the week of 14-18 March, 2016.

Ron, Chet and Brian discuss many of the XP Practices we grown to love and integrate into our Scrum implementations. Brian also adds a dash of SAFe to the conversation.

The class, in downtown Chicago, combines a 3-day Certified Scrum Developer (CSD) class and a 2-Day SAFe ScrumXP class. Class attendees will be awarded the CSD via Scrum Alliance (assuming they already have other pre-requisites covered), and the Scaled Practitioner (SP) via Scaled Agile. Show less

In July 2015, Maria Matarelli and Harvey Wheaton presented the results of Scrum Alliance’s State of Scrum 2015 survey. The survey returned 4400+ responses that led to some very interesting results.

I was able to get Maria and Aakash Srinivasan (both veterans of this podcast) to discuss some of the more interesting analysis of these results.

Aakash Srinivasan is an Agile Coach and Trainer, in the Washington DC area, who speaks quite often at Agile events, conferences and Gatherings. Aakash and I sat down last month and talked about a great range of topics.

Besides name-dropping (Mike Cohn, Dhaval Panchal, Roger Brown, Catherine Louis, Maria Matarelli, Dave Prior, Mike Vizdos, Arlen Bankston, Tom Mellor), we actually talk about topics like why Agile Coaches are needed when ScrumMasters are intended to be the team coaches;… Show more

Aakash Srinivasan is an Agile Coach and Trainer, in the Washington DC area, who speaks quite often at Agile events, conferences and Gatherings. Aakash and I sat down last month and talked about a great range of topics.

Besides name-dropping (Mike Cohn, Dhaval Panchal, Roger Brown, Catherine Louis, Maria Matarelli, Dave Prior, Mike Vizdos, Arlen Bankston, Tom Mellor), we actually talk about topics like why Agile Coaches are needed when ScrumMasters are intended to be the team coaches; ‘Pure Scrum’ vs Reality; DAD, Scrum, Scrumban, and Kanban comparisons and where/when they fit; training, co-training, and being CST candidates; Scrum Gatherings and Agile conferences. Show less

Vivek and Rick discuss many different topics in this conversation ranging from Governance to Training certification, Agile industry diversity to Release Planning, etc. We briefly touch on our career goals of CST and CSC, and where we are at in our journeys.

In some organizations, just addressing Technical Debt is a heady subject. Consider using a public information radiator to track and burn down Technical Debt. Here's one technique.