Agile Mentors Podcast

Ready to spark real change in your organization? In this episode, Brian Milner sits down with April K. Mills, founder of Engine for Change, to reveal how anyone can become a powerful change agent—without waiting for permission. Learn how to drive meaningful change, navigate resistance, and reignite Agile practices with strategies that actually work. Overview In this inspiring episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner talks with April K. Mills, CEO of Engine for Change and author of Everyone is a Change Agent, about what it truly means to lead change. April explains how effective change agents focus on clearing obstacles rather than forcing compliance, and why fostering curiosity, empowerment, and collaboration is key to sustainable change. From navigating corporate roadblocks to revitalizing Agile practices, April shares actionable insights and tactics to help you take control and make a lasting impact—whether you're in a small startup or a global enterprise. References and resources mentioned in the show: April K. Mills Everyone is a Change Agent: A Guide to the Change Agent Essentials by April K. Mills Change Tactics: 50 Ways Change Agents Boldly Escape the Status Quo by April K. Mills Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. April K. Mills is an engineer-turned-change-evangelist and author of Everyone is a Change Agent and Change Tactics, empowers individuals and organizations to thrive through change using her proven Change Agent Essentials. With a passion for turning ideas into action, April helps people drive meaningful change with the time, title, and budget they already have. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have April K. Mills with us. Welcome in April. April K. Mills (00:11) Thanks for having me. Brian (00:13) Very happy to have April with us. April is the founder and CEO of an organization called Engine for Change. That's engine-for-change.com. That's her website. She's also an author. There's a book that she put out called, Everyone is a Change Agent, a Guide to the Change Agent Essentials. And that's what we wanted to have her on to talk about today with a little bit about being a change agent. Now I shouldn't say from the outset, April is a request. We had a listener request for April to come on. And I always love that. I always try to push those people to the top of our list and get them on as soon as possible. And it was such an interesting topic. I thought this would be just a really great way to have a great topic to have early in 2025. So April, let's start with just trying to understand when we say change agent, how do you define that? What do you mean by change agent? April K. Mills (01:09) Yeah, a change agent is someone who takes action to bring about the change they want to see in the world. So rather than waiting for a boss or a corporate program or somebody from HR to come in and say, hey, let's improve this process, the change agent sees the need for a change and takes action. And the big thing I talk about in my books and my work is the difference between what typically happens when somebody sees a need for a change in an organization where they decide, I'm gonna go get a boss to go make everybody do my idea. I call that driving people. And I draw the contrast with that and driving change where you choose the change for yourself and you clear the obstacles for others to choose it too. And I love talking about that with Agile audiences especially because Agile is a change agent movement. of folks who want to drive change. I see a better way to create this product and I want to be part of it. And that's always what's drawn me into the agile space. Brian (02:13) Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. And it is a big change, right? To think about the dynamics of someone kind of sitting back and saying, yeah, I see something that needs to be done. I see something that should be a different way, but you know, who am I to say anything about this? Who am I to do anything about versus the person who actually takes action and does things. So that kind of leads to a question about change agents. What kind of skills or traits do you think are really helpful or beneficial to someone to be a better change agent. April K. Mills (02:46) Well, the key is that difference between driving people and driving change. It's not what degree do you have, it's not how long have you been in the industry, it's not are you a people person, are you more focused on the data or some of those factors that we usually like to talk about. It really is, are you willing to take the step yourself first and clear those obstacles and encourage and invite people to join you? Or do you want somebody to make them obey you? And that choice is really the key for anybody to be a change agent. Because so many times we've seen people who might be able to convince the boss, hey, our team should be agile. And what happens, right? It goes on for about three months. The team gets frustrated. The boss gets angry. And then everybody starts to have a reaction when you bring it up, right? I'm sure plenty of the listeners have gone into an organization. If you're passionate about agile and you go, hey, have you guys heard about agile? And they go, ooh. And they make like a face. That's because they've encountered somebody who is driving people. And so that's the big focus I always try and talk with people about is can you show up with that willingness to let people join you and understand what their obstacles are to doing it. Brian (03:57) What are some kind of warning signs or signals you'd look for to kind of recognize whether I'm actually approaching this from a driving people perspective versus driving the change? April K. Mills (04:08) So a lot of times the key is how are you thinking about or talking about in your own head about the people around you or even yourself? We have a tendency to drive ourselves as well. So you can hear it in the language, right? I'm frustrated because so-and-so won't listen. I wish I could get more attention. It's all this sort of vague or... putting the action onto someone else and then complain the action isn't happening fast enough. You can hear it in the language. And so when someone's driving change, you don't hear that. hear, you know, I'm working on, I'm doing, the next thing is my action is I'm going to go talk with this person. I want to understand. I'm going to be curious. And you get this agency, this power coming back into your body almost, and then taking taking the next step from there. And so it's almost easy. You can almost say, well, how far outside your body would you put the power to make this change happen is a useful question to ask people. And if they say, well, it's in the CEO of the company, it's in the industry, it's in my tech lead, but it's certainly not me, well, then you're not a change agent. Brian (05:20) So that brings up a good point because I think I can try to channel what the listeners might be thinking here. I know that in times I've been in organizations where, yeah, you have the ideal, you have the thing that you think is the best thing to do. But because the power dynamics in the organization, you don't really have the power to make that change and you depend a little bit on others that have the power to to help affect it. And so there is a sort of an aspect of, I don't really have the capability or the power to cause this change to happen. How can I still stay with that mindset of driving change versus driving people when I know I need someone else's help? April K. Mills (06:03) Right. So that's a great conversation. And I've started to call it phase one Agile versus phase two Agile. I'm old enough in this space where when I first joined, a lot of Agile was team-based. Somebody on the team or several people on the team said, yeah, I want better. And these are the things that we can do as a team to deliver better. And let's do them together. And then the problem was the teams could do it, but they couldn't scale it. And they were like, if only we could get the senior leaders to pay attention to us, that would solve all our problems. And then you get phase two agile, which was executives buying agile implementations and forcing it down on people. There is one right way and we will do exactly this and you must conform and no other versions are allowed. And then we got the fractures and all of the fights about all of the different aspects. And so we tried it both ways, right? We tried it with the team effort and then we tried it with this thou shalt effort. And I think the key to actually making Agile work across organizations and deeper into organizations is to keep that energy from the team-based Agile to say, we're choosing something better, but it's that piece of driving change. What are the obstacles for others to choose it to? We didn't do that step. We went from my team does it, now the boss should make everybody else do what my team does. And I think that's where we got off track. in really scaling Agile into something that was

Curious about the future of Agile in 2025? Join Brian and Lance Dacy as they dive into the rise of AI, hyper-personalization, and how teams can balance innovation with customer focus. Plus, discover actionable insights to navigate a rapidly evolving landscape—don’t miss this forward-looking discussion! Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian and Lance set their sights on 2025, exploring how AI is transforming Agile practices and reshaping customer engagement. They discuss the shift from output to outcome metrics, the expansion of Agile beyond IT, and the critical role of leadership agility. With practical takeaways on fostering continuous learning and delivering real value, this episode equips teams and leaders to stay ahead in a fast-changing world. References and resources mentioned in the show: Lance Dacy Accurate Agile Planning Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Lance Dacy is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant's heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Happy New Year's Agile Mentors. We are back and a very happy New Year's to everyone who's listening. Welcome back for another episode and another new year of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner, and we have our friend of the show for our annual kind of tradition now. We have Mr. Lance Dacey back with us. Welcome in, Lance. Lance Dacy (00:23) Thank you, Brian. Happy New Year to all of y'all. Happy to be setting this tradition. think it's two times now, so we'll just call it a tradition, but I love it. Thank you for having me. Brian (00:32) Very glad to have you here. The tradition we're referring to is that we like to take the first episode of the new year and just take a pause and kind of look ahead a little bit. What do we see coming up? What do we think this new year is going to be like? Obviously, it's a year of change. Here in the US, we'll have a new president that comes in. I'm not going to get into whether you like that or not, but it's new. It's going to be a change. There's going to be differences that take place. And I know there's a lot of differences and changes going on just in the way businesses operate and how things are run and lots of new technologies, lots of new trends. So we just thought we'd take a pause and kind of scan the horizon and maybe give you our take at least on what we're hearing and what we're seeing. And you can see if you agree with these or not. We'd love to hear from you in our discussion forum on the Agile Mentors Community afterwards if you have other thoughts or opinions on this. let's get into it. Let's start to talk about this. So Lance, I guess I'll start. I'll just turn it over to you and ask you that generalized question. Give me one point or one thing that you've been reading or seeing recently that you think is going to be a really important thing for us to kind of be prepared for or look out for here in 2025. Lance Dacy (01:44) Great question, Brian. There's so many things out there, and I thought we could start by looking back a little bit. if we're okay with that, just let's summarize, you what did we see happen in 2024? You mentioned, you know, 2025 is a year of change, absolutely, but 2024 was definitely a different kind of year as far as my experience is concerned and seeing a lot of industry trends that are just popping up out of nowhere. Now we are fans of agility, which means we embrace quick, efficient changes, but there's things going on in 2024 I never predicted Brian (01:52) Yeah, yeah. Lance Dacy (02:19) fast. And so I think we've got to reshape the way that we're thinking about these things. I think the topic of mind, one of the biggest shifts that I saw in 2024 that I think will continue in 2025 is AI. So that artificial intelligence is a big word that we keep lumping into a lot of things. And I just wanted to take a pause a little bit and say, I know everybody's got a little bit different experience about AI, but in particular, as it relates to product development and agile delivery, which is what this show is basically focused on, I thought we could look at some insights of what happened in 2024 with that. And so I think I call us babies at it right now. And I know that may be a bad term, but I have a lot of experience with AI and machine learning and things like that. But as far as the use of it, I feel like we're all a little bit more of babies on how to use it in the day-to-day work that we're trying to accomplish. And I think that comes with learning something. I embrace that. I don't mean that as a downplay, by the way, but that we're all babies. I'm just saying we're less mature about it. We're experimenting with a lot of things. And I don't think that some of the AI is all good. I I embrace it as a thing that's going to help us later on, but... I thought we could just share our experiences of how we've seen this thing manifest itself. I think tools like AI driven, I'm going to use the bad word JIRA, but in place of that, just use any product backlog management tool that you see. And I've seen a lot of organizations not just talk the game of, we use AI for our backlog management, but I'm talking about backlog prioritization, sprint planning capacity. And I believe what's happening is it frees teams up to do more of the... value driven work that we're going to see a lot more of in 2025. So what I mean by that is when we got automated testing and development, if you remember those days, it freed the developers up or the testers, should say, from doing less of the does this thing work to more of how does it feel using it as a human being, you know, automating that. So I've seen things like JIRA, with AI with JIRA and GitHub co-pilots, you know, reshaping the value creation in the teams and eliminating the need of having to do very low level tasks. So what is your thoughts on that and do you have any experiences of that as well? Brian (04:36) Yeah, for sure. There's a couple of things I've found that just kind of some stats I found from some different places. you know, listeners know I'm kind of like a data geek here. want to know where the data comes from and want to make sure it's a, yeah. Yeah. You want to make sure it's a solid source and it's not some questionable, you know, sketchy kind of, well, I asked 10 of my friends and here's the answer, you Right, right. Exactly. Lance Dacy (04:48) Good hand. I love that. or a FBI. Brian (05:02) But so there's a couple of things that came back. One was, I think Forrester is probably a pretty good source of information. They have some pretty good rigor to their process. And they have a thing that they put out every year. This one's just called the Developer Survey. And this is the one that they put out for 2024 that I'm quoting here. But a couple of stats from that that I found interesting. One was, 49 % of developers are expecting to use or are already using general AI assistance in their coding phase of software development, which, you know, maybe higher than most people might think. But it doesn't surprise me too much. I think that's probably kind of what I'm used to it. Understand saying, you know, an assistant co-pilot, that kind of thing. They're not saying 49 % have been replaced. They're saying 49 % are being assisted. by that and that seems about right. Maybe again, maybe a little higher than some might expect, but that seems like not too big of a shocker. Lance Dacy (06:04) Well, the animation too. So when you talk about assistance versus letting it run it, I saw a gentleman on LinkedIn, which is also a good. I wish we could interact more with our users on this call, because I'd love to hear their perspective. But I heard somebody say, let AI write my code. No, thank you. Code is like poetry. It has to be refined over time. It has humanistic qualities. And I was like, man, that's a really good point. But when I try to show my kids how to create a Ruby on Rails app to do an e-commerce site and I type it into chat GPT or whatever tool you use, I was amazed at how quickly it was able to put together. mean, you got to still know the file structures and things like that. But I don't know that developers are just going to say, I was going to write the whole thing. think they're, I think it's saving us keystrokes. I think we talked about that last time as well, but that's an interesting, interesting take. Brian (06:50) Yeah. Yeah. So I thought, I thought that was interesting. There was another, you know, I'm kind of, I'll move around between these two sources basically, but there's another source that I saw where there was a Harvard Business Review article. posted this on LinkedIn a while back, but it was a kind of the source of it was about a survey that they did to try to determine the impact on the job market. And one of the things they did was now their data was from July, 2021 to Jul

Missed some episodes this year? Don’t worry—Brian’s got you covered with a highlight reel of 2024’s most memorable moments, featuring game-changing insights from Agile thought leaders and innovators. Tune in to catch up, reflect, and set your sights on a stellar 2025! Overview In this special year-end episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian takes us on a trip down memory lane, sharing highlights from some of the most impactful conversations of the year. Featuring insights from Agile legends like Mike Cohn, Clinton Keith, Heather McGowan, and more, this curated selection is packed with golden nuggets that you can revisit or discover for the first time. Whether you missed an episode or want to relive the best moments, this recap is a perfect way to close out 2024 and prepare for what’s ahead. References and resources mentioned in the show: #79 Navigating Agile Trends and Challenges in 2024 with Lance Dacy #86 Revisiting User Stories with Mike Cohn #90 Mastering Agile Coaching with Cherie Silas #93 The Rise of Human Skills and Agile Acumen with Evan Leybourn #100 Navigating the Future of Agile and Scrum with Lance Dacy & Scott Dunn #111 Adapting to the Future of Work with Heather McGowan #120 Agile in Gaming with Clinton Keith #123 Unlocking Team Intelligence with Linda Rising Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian Milner (00:00.622) I'm Brian Milner and this is the Agile Mentors Podcast, a show about both the personal and organizational journey towards agility. My friends and I will be sharing with you what we've collectively learned from seeing thousands of companies Agile implementations, apparels and pitfalls, as well as the secrets to success. We'll share our personal in the trenches experiences so that you can apply what we've learned in a practical way in your careers. We also hope to hear and learn from you as well. If you're like us and are always in search of better ways of working together, you're in the right place. Join us, mentor, and be mentored. Let's get started. Brian Milner (00:53.288) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We are back for the final episode of 2024. Believe it or not, we have reached all the way to the end. You might be thinking, wait, there's a few more weeks left. Yeah, there's a few more weeks left, but the next release date would have been on Christmas Day itself and the one following would have been on New Year's Day. So we're gonna take two weeks off to be with our families after this episode. And we encourage you to enjoy that time, take the time with your family as well and friends, and truly wish you the best over that time period. But before we get there, we do have one more episode for you. We thought what we'd do for today's episode might be tiny bit different than normal. In fact, I don't think we've done anything like this before. What I wanted to do is, since it is the last episode of the year, is to look back over the past year and play you some portions of some of the really fantastic discussions that we had over this past year. Just pull out a handful of these to talk to you about. If they sound interesting to you, maybe you can go back and take a listen to those episodes. So let's get right into it, because I don't want to waste time setting it up any more than that. For starters, I want to go back to something that's now kind of a tradition for us, and the next one you'll hear from us after this episode will be the continuation of that. The beginning of this year in 2024, we started things off and we kicked it off with friend of the show, Lance Dacey. And that episode was really about looking forward into 2024. And for us to talk about what we maybe thought was coming and what we saw in the future, and then trying to somehow make some predictions or give some advice about how we might be better prepared for it. And one of the areas that came out in that discussion was really talking about how leadership affected an Agile transformation and Agile with the culture of an organization. So I'll play you a little clip here from Lance's discussion. One of the thoughts that he had in that episode, really talking more about how we need to go to the next level with our organizations and with the leadership in our organization. Take a listen. We've been trying to scale Scrum and Agile for a long time and we've written the practices on how to do it. Brian Milner (03:13.23) but we're not allowing the people to practice that. You know, just got through coaching. My youngest son is in fifth grade and we coach his football team. It's like, we're going to sit down and tell you during this play, here's the stance that you take to block. You're basically a robot. Do everything that we say, even if you don't understand it, because the whole scheme for that play is built on everybody doing their job exactly as prescribed. But as you evolve into professional football or high school football, they've learned so much about those mechanics. that's really fun now because they've got the IQ to respond to what's in front of them. That's agile. And that to me is what we have to start learning in organizations, is we know how to run the play at the team level, but how do we build up the people to run the play correctly in challenges when there's adaptations that need to be made? And a lot of times management and leadership is the suffocating part of that where they don't allow for that. It's always interesting to go back and look at those conversations that we have at beginning of the year. and see kind of how it played out. Were we right? Were we wrong? So if you're interested in that, check out that. That was just episode 79 was the first one that we did in 2024. Next up, I'm gonna jump to episode 86. This was one with our very own Mike Cohn. Mike had come back on because quite frankly, we've had for many years a set of user stories that were sample user stories that you could come to our website and download just as a resource for people if they wanted to see what... samples of user stories look like, try to imagine what that would look like in their particular context. So that's why we had this collection of user stories. Well, Mike went back to re-edit those recently, and then he took kind of another look at it and had forced him to kind of reconsider some things, wanted to share some thoughts about those new ideas and thoughts he had about user stories, just in re-examining ones that he had put together previously. So in this next clip, what you'll hear Mike talk about is really kind of a controversy maybe just his own controversy internally, but kind of a shift that he had over the years and really the template itself for a user story. So take a listen to this. I had a bunch of slides. I looked at them a few years ago to confirm this. I looked at them and they all said, I want to blank, right? And it was what the user wants. And sometimes it's not what the user wants. So if you look at slide decks that I create today, they all say, I. Brian Milner (05:36.866) They don't say I can, they don't say I want to, they just say I, and then you fill in the verb. For example, as user, I am required to enter a strong password. I don't want to enter a strong password. I want to type in my dog's name and let the system know it's me, right? So I am required to enter a strong password that doesn't fit with I want to or I can. I can enter a strong password? Well, that doesn't really help. I don't want to. I can enter a strong password. I can enter a weak password. Is that possible? So I do think there's problems with I can, but I leave all of that out of the template and I let the situation determine what that verb should be. Always an interesting conversation there with Mike Cohn. Very, very lucky and fortunate to have him come on usually multiple times per year. And that was just one of the times that Mike came on our show this last year, but really, really interesting stuff there about user stories. If that's something you're interested in, I encourage you to check out that. That was episode 86 with Mike Cohn on user stories. Now we're gonna jump ahead to episode 90. Episode 90, we had a friend of mine, Sheree Silas, come on. Sheree is a very authoritative, knowledgeable person on Agile coaching. In fact, she is the person that I most likely am going to point you to if you come to me and want to find out more about Agile coaching. She has some really great classes and other things that she teaches. And we had her on to talk about Agile coaching, obviously. And one of the things that came up is something that I hear sometimes in classes that Some of this coaching stuff you talk about sounds a little bit like counseling a little bit. Is there a crossover there with counseling? Is this a counseling job? So take a listen to what Shree had to say in response to that question. As an adult coach, you are not an organizational psychologist. You are not a counselor. You are not an organizational therapist or any of those things. That is not the job. The job is consulting, mentoring, training. and some coaching, helping people how to learn how to negotiate, learn how to collaborate, learn how to have good, healthy conflict. And there's helping them to get the business results they want. And it's very frustratin

How do you navigate a bumpy job market with an agile mindset? Join Brian and leadership coach Mark Kilby as they explore practical strategies for staying prepared, leveraging your network, and taking ownership of your career during uncertain times. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors podcast, Brian Milner and Mark Kilby explore how to approach the challenges of today’s unpredictable job market with an agile mindset. Drawing on insights from Mark’s extensive career as a leadership and career coach, they discuss how preparation, adaptability, and proactive networking are essential to staying ahead. Mark emphasizes the importance of treating your career like a product, continuously iterating and inspecting trends to navigate change effectively. The conversation also delves into the power of maintaining strong professional relationships, keeping your resume and LinkedIn profile up to date, and using experimentation to explore new career paths. Whether you're facing a career transition, considering your next step, or simply looking to stay prepared, this episode offers actionable advice to help you take ownership of your professional journey. References and resources mentioned in the show: Mark Kilby From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams: Collaborate to Deliver by Johanna Rothman & Mark Kilby Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Mark Kilby is a leadership and career coach specializing in helping leaders and teams thrive in complexity. Passionate about building more inclusive and effective organizations, he draws on years of experience guiding professionals through organizational change, remote work transitions, and sustainable growth, all with a focus on fostering trust, collaboration, and long-term success. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back and this is another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always Brian Milner and today I've got a friend that I have seen talk several times at conferences, we were talking, I don't think I've actually crossed paths with him personally yet, but Mr. Mark Kilby is here. Welcome in Mark. Mark Kilby (00:21) Thank you, Brian, and glad that we finally had a chance to meet virtually face to face at least. Brian (00:26) Right? Right? Yeah. And today's world, you know, that's actually saying a lot. You know, that's kind of the default. Mark is a leadership and career coach and has been, you know, a speaker at multiple Agile conferences over the years. He has a book that he co-authored called From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams. And he has spoken on lots of different topics. Mark Kilby (00:31) Yes it is. Brian (00:51) But when we talked about having him on, we talked about a topic that I know is very topical here. For some of you, maybe, know, kind of right in the meat of where you are at the moment, but really starting to think about this bumpy job market a little bit and how to navigate that with an agile mindset. You know, this agile stuff is not just stuff we talk about in working with a team, but it actually is a way of thinking about you know, doing anything. give me kind of your description there, Mark. When you think about, you know, navigating a bumpy job market with an agile mindset, how does that look different from others? Mark Kilby (01:27) So, well, it. The best way to think about this is whether you get this out of college at career placement or you're working with a career coach later on, it's always plan out your route and just follow the steps. Well, it's kind of hard over the last couple of years to say what the right steps are because so much has happened. And you and I were talking just before we hit the record button about one of the things that gets a little bumpy here in Florida, and we call those hurricanes. And I've learned over the many years living in Florida that you can prepare for hurricanes, but you can't prepare for exactly what happens. And so it's kind of the same way these days with our careers. You can maybe get certain certifications, you may get the right resume, the right LinkedIn profile, but if... If you're not paying attention to how the market shifts, and I think many people have been caught off guard with the latest market shifts, you can be in a world of hurt. how do do the prep to weather that storm? So that's kind what I'm focusing on these days. Brian (02:42) That's awesome. That's awesome way to look at it. Cause I think you're right. know, like I know I personally have gone through a couple of, you know, layoff periods in my career and, you know, it's never something when it hits, well, at least I shouldn't say this in my experience, I absolutely were completely prepared for, they were a little bit of a shock when they happened and Mark Kilby (02:51) yeah. Brian (03:05) first one much more so than the second one. I think you learn something from each time something like that happens. But you mentioned kind of the way the market is shifting and the way things are changing a little bit and trying to be prepared. So I wanna follow that for a little. So when you talk about navigating kind of a bumpy job market and the shifts and being prepared, how do you prepare for the unknown? For things that you don't really know what's coming or you don't really know how things are shifting. How do we do that? Mark Kilby (03:38) Yeah. Well, it's paying attention to some of the longer term trends. mean, 100 years ago, know, kind of fall into the hurricane example. We had no way to predict these. And now we've got a little better way. have models to kind of guess and it's still guessing. So, but at least we have a sense of, OK, how big is it going to be? You know, how big is the change that's going to happen? How do we prepare for it? Do we stay in place? Where we're at? Is it time to move and do something else? So it's kind of the same way with our careers these days. I'm gonna guess, not everyone's gonna have the visual, but with the amount of gray on the podcast right now, you could probably relate to this. Our parents probably stuck in the same job. most of their life. I learned early on, especially in tech, the changes that happen rapidly. Matter of fact, the place where I went as a summer intern shut down the next year. The whole plant went poof. But my parents were like, how can you? It's such a great place. This company's been around for decades. But I could tell that the winds were changing. Something was shifting there. So I learned to look at, right, how is the business doing? How is the market doing for the business? And what does that mean for me? So it really helps that we kind of build up our own little model to predict, you know, how is my job going to be here in the next year or so? Even five years ago, I saw early indicators that Azure coaches, scrum masters, we're going to be at risk. But the job market was going to turn. think several people could tell that. But I mean, we had so many that were going into that, that the set of roles and we were also, you we we were seeing some failures as well as successes with transformation. And I remember, so I actually had Ken Schwaber in my, as my my Scrum instructor, I remember him saying, know, Scrum will not solve your problems. It'll make them highly visible. But guess who gets blamed? The person who made it visible. you know, as, as agile coaches and Scrum masters, you know, were the, those folks in particular are always navigating a tightrope. You know, what, what do you, you know, what do you make visible, both the good and the bad? And if, if you're dealing, Brian (05:55) Yeah. Right. Mark Kilby (06:17) with cultures that are more focused on short-term kind of improvements and not looking at the longer term. How are people staying engaged? How are the steam aligned so they can do to deliver business value? You know, if that's not a focus of the organization, then it's that job, that role is going to be probably misunderstood and was. And so when things start going bad, fingers start getting pointed. It's like, okay, maybe we don't need these folks. And we've seen that for the last couple of years in particular, but we were getting early indicators well before that, well before the pandemic hit. So that shift was gonna happen. So we can model some of this is my point. Brian (07:01) Yeah. I like that. Go ahead. Well, I was going to go straight to that. I I like the comparison there with the hurricane. And I was thinking as you were talking about that, why are we better at it now? I would kind of presuppose it's because of the amount of data. But the more data we have, over the years, the better we are. And that if we've suddenly, magically, for whatever reason, lost all our historical data of hurricanes and what they do, then I would imagine we'd be back to square one of not really being able to predict very well about where they go. So translating that over into our careers, I love that comparison. And I love what you're pointing to to say, you can see indicators, can look at the trends, you can see how's the business doing. So that's kind of one o

What does it take to be an effective Scrum Master? In this episode, Brian Milner and Gary K. Evans, author of The Effective Scrum Master, explore the nuanced role of Scrum Masters, the importance of people skills, and the shift from efficiency to effectiveness. Overview Join Brian Milner as he chats with Agile coach and author Gary K. Evans about the essential qualities of an effective Scrum Master. From fostering self-organizing teams to balancing proactive leadership with people-centered strategies, this conversation unpacks the skills and mindsets needed to thrive in the role. Whether you’re new to Scrum or a seasoned pro, this episode offers fresh perspectives and practical advice for taking your Agile expertise to the next level. References and resources mentioned in the show: Gary K. Evans The Effective Scrum Master: Advancing Your Craft by Gary K Evans   Join the Agile Mentors Community Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Gary K. Evans is a seasoned Agile Coach and author of The Effective Scrum Master, with over 30 years of experience transforming Fortune 100 and 500 companies through Lean-Agile practices. Known for his expertise in building high-performing teams and training over 15,000 professionals, Gary brings a unique focus on people-centered solutions to complex organizational challenges. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We are back and it's another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. We're getting towards the end of the year. I am here with you, as always, Brian Milner. And today I have a very special guest with me, Mr. Gary K. Evans is with us. Welcome in, Gary. Gary (00:17) Thank you, Brian. It's great to be here. Brian (00:19) Very glad to have Gary with us. Gary is an agile coach. He's a lean consultant. He owns his own company called Evanetics, but he is also the author of a newly published book that came out this summer. It's called The Effective Scrum Master. And it really is a comprehensive guide. It's a really interesting read. So I thought we'd have him on to talk to us about. what that means, an effective scrum master. So scrum master is this episode, I think it's gonna be really a special one for you. So Gary, let's start with that question. When you say an effective scrum master, what is an effective scrum master? Gary (00:56) In my experience, I've worked with a lot of Scrum Masters who go through the motions, they understand the events, they focus on how to run these Scrum events. But the teams flounder and they struggle with what should I do next? How do I anticipate things? And the Scrum Masters themselves often get very frustrated. One of the complaints that I hear, especially from early to mid-career Scrum Masters is I have this anxiety. How do I know that my team is operating as efficient, as efficiently and effectively as they can because they focus so much on efficiency. So this idea of effectiveness really is much more important. In fact, John Kern, one of the co-authors of the Agile Manifesto, who wrote the foreword for my book, he focused in on that word effective because we spend so much of our energies trying to be efficient. that we aren't accomplishing what we need to do, which is to build self-organizing, mature teams. And that's really the focus of my book. Brian (02:01) That's an awesome distinction, I think, because I like that a lot. There's a conversation that I will have sometimes in class about how that drive or search for trying to be not effective, sorry, what was the other word that you used? Efficient, sorry, sorry, just slipped my mind, ADHD. But the efficient kind of quotient there I think is... Gary (02:18) Efficient. Brian (02:27) something that in business in the business world today is a highly visible term. It's something that everyone seems to think is needed. But, you know, that really dates back to sort of the assembly line and efficiency experts that would stand behind you with a stop clock and try to get you to do something, you know, point two seconds faster so that it would total up to, you know, more productivity over the course of the day. But that's not the kind of work we do. Gary (02:56) I love the fact that you've mentioned that that was really the Frederick Winslow Taylor scientific management approach. And it was very much based on this idea of efficiency. But I have seen so many teams and as an agile coach, I've had multiple experiences of teams that are very, very efficient at going in the wrong direction entirely. They've lost their focus on true north. They don't understand what it is they're actually supposed to do. They think that the Scrum Guide, 14 pages in the Scrum Guide, is their Bible. And that's all that they need to know. And nothing could be further from the truth. Brian (03:37) Yeah. Yeah. And to me that, you're talking about efficiency versus effectiveness. You know, if we were a company that was trying to create a new drug to cure some disease, you know, I want effective. I don't want efficient. I don't want someone, I don't want to produce a million pills that don't work. I want to produce, you I'd rather produce one that works, you know. Gary (03:59) Exactly. Brian (04:05) And that seems to be kind of something that I think a lot of teams are missing today. Gary (04:09) It does indeed. Brian (04:10) Well, good. I like that distinction. I think that's a good distinction and that's a good place for us to start to think about this role as being kind of more effective. I think that they're sort of, I don't know, I'm kind of curious what your take is on this. Is it a marketing problem? Is it an education problem? Why is there so much confusion, I think, about what a scrum master, what a good scrum master is? Gary (04:41) That's a really deep and broad question. Part of it is that in the beginning, when Scrum was introduced into the community and was just beginning to become known, there were two attributes of Scrum Masters that were repeated again and again and again. That was you became a servant leader for the team and you removed impediments. Brian (04:44) Just a light casual one here. Gary (05:09) Unfortunately, most people stopped at that point. And they didn't realize that this, the Scrum Master role, and I'll admit, I take a very expansive view of the Scrum Master role because I've been doing this since 1993, basically, 1994. And I've learned through making lots and lots of mistakes. And the idea that All we have to do is be a servant. Well, what does that mean to be a servant leader? Nobody ever really defined it. I actually wrote an essay a number of years ago on what it meant to not be a servant leader so that I could understand by contradiction what it was that I should be doing. I called it the top 10 scrum master crimes. And really, a lot of them really had to do with crimes because it's very easy for a scrum master to start to merge into making decisions for the team that the scrum master should not be making. Now, there are times when a scrum master should direct the team, should make decisions for the team if the team is not qualified to make certain decisions because they're just too new. But this idea of being a certain leader There's so much more to that. In my expansive view of the Scrum Master role, it is not a process role first. It's a people role. And to be an effective Scrum Master, you have to be an effective people person. I've worked with so many teams and coached Scrum Masters. Scrum Masters just did not like people. They weren't people persons. And the teams responded accordingly. So. A lot of the coaching that I do with my Scrum Masters is you've got to reach deep. You've got to be able to get into people's lives rather than hold them off, you know. And so a lot of it has to do with that. Brian (07:10) I love that. I wholeheartedly concur with that. I've talked on this podcast a little bit about how it seems like we've lost the focus of that first line of the Agile Manifesto, individuals and interactions over process and tools. And I mentioned when I go to Agile conferences sometimes, I feel like the majority of the talks that I see and hear are process and tools talks rather than know, individuals and interactions talks. And I can't agree more. I think that's really a focus for us as Scrum Masters is the individuals and interactions portion, the people portion. You know, our teams are made up of people and if we're not good with helping understand how people work together, we're kind of really missing the value of what it is we deliver to the teams, I think. Gary (08:04) And Brian, the people are all different. And to have a one size fits all because the scrum guy says do X, and Z. Well, that'll work for some people, but it will not work for others. And it may even build resentment within the team because they feel that they're being treated unfairly. The focus, the theme of my book and the reason I wrote the book. Brian (08:06) Right, exactly. Gary (08:30) is that I had seen so many teams that were floundering under Scrum Masters who really didn't understand their own role. And I came up from my experience, I def

Get ready for a special Thanksgiving episode where Brian Milner shares what he’s most grateful for this year and why a little reflection on gratitude can go a long way. It’s time to embrace the positives and celebrate the connections that keep us growing. Overview In this special Thanksgiving episode, Brian Milner takes a heartfelt pause to reflect on gratitude, expressing thanks for his listeners, cherished friendships, and the fresh ideas that continue to shape his Agile journey. He invites everyone to join him in acknowledging the positive aspects of their lives and to practice gratitude, especially during difficult times. References and resources mentioned in the show: Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Join the Agile Mentors Community Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Hey there, Agile Mentors. Yes, I'm not saying my typical opening because this isn't a typical episode. I don't want to make anything cheesy here. It is Thanksgiving. It is around Thanksgiving time here in the US. And traditionally, I've given a little message around this time that's just me. And I won't take a lot of your time here today. But I do want to just kind of focus in a little bit on that concept of being thankful because I do think it's important for us to try to understand and be thankful for the things that we have in our life that maybe we don't always take time to kind of recognize. And this year has been a very kind of challenging years in some ways for our industry, for the profession, but it's also been exciting in some ways as well. And rather than dwelling on just things that would be kind of hypercritical or negative, I think it's important for us to maybe focus in on some of those positive things. So I'll just give you a quick hit list here of things that I, I just wanted to think about about three specific things that I thought were things that I am extremely thankful for this year at this point in my life. and in my interactions with people. The first and foremost, I'm not saving the best for last, I'm doing the best first. That's you, the listeners of this podcast. I can't thank you enough for tuning in and listening. You put out a podcast like this, you have no idea. It's kind of like you're shouting into the void. And you have no idea who is listening and who is not listening, what their desires are, what they want from you. That's why I beg you all the time for feedback, because I just want to know how it can be better for you. I just want to know how I can make this a better use of your time. But I've had the pleasure this year of getting to go to several conferences and going to those conferences is always my chance to kind of talk to face to face some of the people who listen to this podcast. And it is such a thrill. it, just excites me to no end when I'm at those conferences and someone comes up to me and says, Hey, I listened to the podcast. I really liked the stuff you put out there on that. And it really makes an impact for me. Or, you know, I'll hear someone come up and say, Hey, I just found it. I started listening from episode one. I'm now on episode 10 and, it's all been really, really impactful. And I just really appreciate, what you're doing there. So I, I just want to say a huge thanks to you. I mean, we couldn't keep doing this if we didn't have listeners. So I just, I really appreciate you. I appreciate that you're on this journey with me. We're kind of both learning together as we go through this because every episode I learn something from these guests that come through. And I know that you are as well. You're learning things as we go through these topics. So I just want to thank you for being along the ride with me. And especially thank you for those who have come up and introduced yourself and said hello to me over this past year. Really, really appreciate getting to meet you and learn a little bit more about you, about the things that you want and the things that you need. So thank you for being listeners. Thank you for being, for the people who send feedback and email us over our podcast at mountaingoatsoftware.com address. I really, really appreciate you. because we wouldn't be here without you. Another thing I thought I was really, really thankful for this year, the kind of in line with that is just new friends. We do a lot of this stuff, or least I should say, I do a lot of this stuff as a trainer out of my home office and spend several days with people in classes. And I make a lot of new friends through those classes just from people that I connect with and people who stay in contact with me. So I'm highly appreciative of those people that are kind of still on my radar and people that have come through classes with me and have stayed connected with me. But I'm appreciative of the people that I've gotten to spend some quality time with at the different conferences I've been at this year. There's been several conversations that I've had with people that have been so impactful to me, just really, really personal, sometimes emotional conversations I've had with individuals. And it just reminds you that it's human beings that are at the core of this, It's people. getting to know and understand people, I think, one of the joys of getting to do this kind of work. That you get to meet new people and get to hear their stories and learn how they see the world. So I'm really thankful for the new friends that have come into my life. through the course of the last year. And then I'm really thankful for new ideas. The guests that have come through here have, you know, many of them have kind of given me new ways of seeing things, kind of seeing things through a new lens that has challenged me. And I'm always really grateful. when an assumption or an opinion I have is challenged, I don't think of that as being kind of an aggressive thing towards me. I think of it as, well, that's kind of pushing my boundaries a little bit. I thought that I knew and understood this in this way, but now someone's challenged me to look at this from a different perspective. I look at this from a different viewpoint. And I am just enormously thankful that as I've... grown in this profession as I've been doing this now for, gosh, I've been a software developer maybe 25 years now, I'm that old. But given that, there are still plenty of concepts and ideas that they're never ending. There's never an end to the things that would challenge my assumptions or my beliefs about things and get me to really re-examine them. That doesn't mean I'm going to change all of them. But I tell people who come through the class, I don't have any problem with you challenging an idea. The idea isn't me. The idea is an idea. And I change ideas all the time. If I get presented with better information, if there's new data that comes out that says, hey, know that way we've been thinking about this, that's actually wrong, I embrace that. I welcome that. Because it's the reality. Right? And I don't want to continue down the road that's false. So I just really, really appreciate that idea that these ideas are not stale. These aren't ideas, aren't things that would just go by the wayside. These are things that constantly challenge us and get us to look at things in a new light. This isn't an awards acceptance speech, so I'm not going to go through the list of specific people. There's lots of people that I would thank and they know who they are. There's lots of people who work really hard for this podcast to work. And people like Mike Cohn who have mentored me and helped me to understand things that I would never have if I had not come in contact with them. So just really, really am thankful for all of those things. And I encourage you, it may sound like a silly thing, But take five minutes, take 10 minutes and just sit down with a blank piece of paper and just write out, if you were gonna make your top 10, right? What are the top 10 things that this year that you're thankful for, right? You don't have to go through, you know, just the stereotypical things that you might put down, but you know, if you were to think back over the past year, what would be the things that you are most thankful for over the past year? And as I said, I know it's been a hard year for a lot of people. But I think that when we are able to stop and do that and really understand, hey, here are the things that really have gone well. Here are the things I'm really thankful that I encountered or that happened to me in this last year. It really can have a dramatic impact on your outlook and how you see things and really what you look for moving forward, what you focus on moving forward. So I just encourage you, it's a week for that. It's a time when we do that here in the US especially, but if you're somewhere international and maybe you have a Thanksgiving on a different part of the year or a different day, or maybe you don't have one in your country, I encourage you to just take time out to do it. I think you'll appreciate it. I think it'll make an impact for you. So that's really all I got for you today. As I said, short little message, kind of traditional for us to do a little brief little Thanksgiving message here. again, I just want to thank you. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for being wit

Curious if your product team is caught in common traps that limit success? Join Brian and David Pereira as they explore how to simplify workflows, make smarter bets with prioritization, and shift from output-driven thinking to delivering real value. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, host Brian Milner chats with David Pereira, author of Untrapping Product Teams. Together, they dive into the common traps product teams face, the differences between project and product management, and practical strategies for prioritization. David shares insights from his book, offering advice on building healthier backlogs, creating adaptable roadmaps, and moving beyond a feature-obsessed mindset to focus on delivering true value. References and resources mentioned in the show: David Pereira Untrapping Product Teams by David Pereira Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input.  Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. David Pereira is a seasoned Product Leader with over 15 years of experience guiding Agile teams to deliver real value faster. As CEO of omoqo GmbH and a top writer on product management, David is passionate about helping teams overcome challenges, unlock their potential, and simplify their workflows to drive meaningful outcomes. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome back Agile Mentors. We are here for yet another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have Mr. David Pereira with us. Welcome in, David. David Pereira (00:12) Let's be here. Brian (00:14) Very excited to have David here with us. David is the author of a new book called, Untrapping Product Teams. So product owners, this is going to be a discussion that I know you're going to find very interesting. We're going to be talking about a lot of things that have to do with product teams and sort of the ins and outs of working with your products. So David, just for starters, what inspired you to write the book? What was the main problem you were trying to address when you sat down to write this? David Pereira (00:42) pain. I have worked as a product person for many companies throughout the years, different countries, different sides. And one thing that I realized is that there many things going wrong. And sometimes we just don't know that it's wrong and it hurts. Then when we realize the question is, what are we going to do about it? So I started writing about untrapped products. From this perspective, Brian (00:43) Ha ha ha ha. David Pereira (01:12) of there's something wrong, we might not see, but let's start from this and then maybe we can transform how we work for the better. Brian (01:23) Awesome. Yeah, that's a great take on it. Cause I agree. There's certain times when as a product owner, know I've, you you're kind of chugging along and things are going okay, but then something happens and it's sort of like, wow, this is painful. I don't know where it's, I can't put my finger on what's going wrong, but there's something happening here. And you you try to push through it and just get past it sometimes. And it's, that's not always the best strategy. I know you talk about there being sort of these dangerous traps that are kind of typical traps that product people fall into. Can you share any of those with us? What are some of the dangerous traps you identified here? David Pereira (02:01) Sure, there's the classic one called the gigantic backlog. So the team looked at it and we're talking about product owners, but sometimes product owners get demoted to backlog owners and they don't even notice that. So that's one of the most classic traps, but there's also another I call the calendar driven framework. You may think you work with agile, but then you realize that you only do what is in your calendar. So that digitates what you're doing and so on. And you fall prey to what I call as a meeting marathon. Brian (02:38) Yeah. I want to go back a little bit to your, to the big backlog kind of, idea there, because I, I know that's a issue I've talked with people about in class a lot. And, I just want to get your take on this. Cause I, one of the things, you know, we'll, we'll discuss in classes sometimes just the idea of having too big of a backlog and, and kind of wrestling with it and trying to get it in shape. But the question always comes up, you know, you what's the. the right number. We ask a question in class and say, how big is your backlog? And you'll see different reactions from people. Some people, less than 50, other people 250, other people 1,000 plus items. Is there a number? Is there a number that beyond which it's all of sudden now too big? David Pereira (03:24) Yeah, for sure. So for me, first is understanding what is the backlog about. It is a vehicle to drive whether when you look at the backlog, should be able to tell a story. You should know where you're heading to. But when you look there, if you see a 60 year old Christmas wishlist that has everything in but you cannot connect anything, that's when it starts smelling. So for me, a good backlog will have no more than I would say two, three things ahead of us. There might be some things that are directions that we will continue refine and get it better and so on. But if we would have something that takes us like six months of work to get it through, maybe we are doing project management. Brian (04:12) So that's an interesting distinction. if we're moving into product, how would you define that then if we're saying project management versus product management, how do you define that difference? David Pereira (04:23) So project management in general, we assume we know what needs to happen. So we start planning on when we do what and how long we're gonna invest in this and so on. Product management is more about starting what is value, what do we want to achieve? And then we start embracing the unknown, facing reality, learning from it. And then the backlog will emerge from our learnings. So it means we know where we want to land, but how we're gonna get there. We know where to start, but not the next 3, 4, 5 steps. Brian (04:56) Love that. So that gets us kind of into talking about road mapping a little bit because I know that's one of the things you talk about in your book and kind of the idea of trying to plan a little bit far in advance. So if we have a backlog, it's really more two to three sprints versus six months. Do you recommend the product owners roadmap for longer than two to three sprints or is the roadmap just a two to three sprint roadmap? David Pereira (05:24) Sure. So the roadmap for me, it is about a different flight level. So the backlog is the now. What are we doing right now in the next two sprints as we talked about? The roadmap, we're looking at what is the overarching goal we are pursuing. So that could be, for example, a milestone that we aim to achieve for the next two, three months. And then the backlog will march towards that. But for the roadmap, I think it's still important to have something like, what is the direction for six months that maybe we are considering. But the farther we go, the more I would say blurry it becomes. It's more like a direction and we can feel free to adapt that. Brian (06:13) So help me understand here, because one of the things I think that I hear a lot of questions about in class is, since 2020, the Scrum Guide has added this idea of a product goal. And we've always traditionally thought about having a vision for the product. So now we have sort of this nested nature of having a vision, a product goal. And of course, we've always had sprinkles. How do you see those things related? relating to some sort of road mapping. David Pereira (06:45) Let's take a company here as an example. I like looking at the SpaceX. What is the vision? The vision is something audacious, inspiring, that people can connect with. Might be very hard to achieve, but it gives us guidance. For SpaceX, would say two words, populate Mars. That's the vision. It's very far. And what would be a roadmap goal? For example, something they achieved already. It's a step to get closer to the vision. Build a reusable rocket. That's something they spent a lot of time doing, and that could be a roadmap item. Then when you go to the sprint ghost, it's just a smaller step towards that. Brian (07:35) Gotcha. Yeah, that's great way to put it. I like that idea and I appreciate you using kind of a real world example. I think that kind of drives it home for everybody. I think it's obviously one of the things we talk about quite a bit in Agile is that idea of that we don't have any problem with planning. Planning is a good thing. What we have a problem with is plans that are so concrete that they're inflexible. So when we... I've always thought as a product owner, when we try to create these roadmaps, the further we get out from today, the looser, the less defined it is, the more rough the idea is, and the less people should count on there being any date that's going to be met based off of that longer term horizon. Of course, there are exceptions to this. You mentioned SpaceX, mean, SpaceX has a multi-year goal. I mean, they have somet

What makes a team intelligent? Brian and Linda Rising explore the surprising factors that foster group intelligence, from psychological safety to diversity, backed by groundbreaking research from MIT and Google. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner sits down with Agile thought leader Linda Rising to explore the concept of group intelligence. They dive into what makes teams intelligent, discussing the importance of diversity, psychological safety, and social perceptiveness. Using research from MIT and Google, Linda also highlights how storytelling and a growth mindset can enhance team dynamics, leading to more effective and innovative collaboration. References and resources mentioned in the show: Linda Rising Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas by Mary Lynn Manns & Linda Rising MIT Center For Collective Intelligence Project Aristotle The Fearless Organization by Amy C. Edmonson Amy Edmonson’s TED Talks 3 ways to better connect with your coworkers - Mark T. Rivera’s TED Talk Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Agile For Leaders Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Linda Rising is an internationally recognized consultant, speaker, and author with a Ph.D. in object-based design metrics. Known for her expertise in agile development, retrospectives, and the intersection of neuroscience and software, Linda has authored five books and numerous articles. In 2020, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Agility Forum for her impactful contributions to the industry. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back here with you for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I am with you as I always am, Brian Milner. And I wanted to introduce you today to someone I think you're really gonna enjoy here on this episode. I have the one and only Linda Rising with me. Linda, thank you so much for coming on. Linda Rising (00:09) Okay. It is my pleasure, Brian. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's a beautiful day here in Nashville, Tennessee. Brian (00:32) In Nash Vegas, yes. I actually spent a couple years in Nash Vegas. So I know that area back in the day, back in the day, because I worked at Opryland. So that'll tell you how long ago it was. Yeah, back in the dark times, right? But Linda, for those, if anyone who might not be aware, Linda is an author. She is... Linda Rising (00:33) Yeah! wow okay Brian (00:58) really what people would call an agile luminary. She has been involved with this movement for quite a while and has really, I don't think it's too far of a stretch to say shaped the conversation around this a lot with her research and other things that she's provided. we wanted to have her on because she, well, because it's Linda Rising, right? We wanted to have her on for that, but. Recently, she spoke at the Scrum Gathering, the regional Scrum Gathering that took place in Stockholm, and her topic just sounded really fascinating. I thought it would be fascinating for us to talk about. It was a topic of group intelligence. So Linda, I'm sure there's a lot of people out there like me that when they heard that the first time thought, I have no idea what that means. What does group intelligence mean? Linda Rising (01:43) Yeah. Actually, normally when I do anything, give a keynote or an interview on a podcast or the interviewer or the person who's inviting me will say, what would you like to talk about? That's what you did. What would you like to talk about with the idea that I could come up with a list of things I was interested in that I wanted to talk about because I knew something about it. Brian (02:09) Yep, it's true. Linda Rising (02:20) But in this case, no, it was, want you to be the opening keynote for this amazing gathering in Stockholm. and by the way, we want you to talk about group intelligence. So. That was about a year ago and I thought to myself, I don't know anything about, well, maybe I do. Maybe I do know something about group intelligence. But I have spent the past year getting ready for that talk. It was just a few weeks ago and along the way, what I found was it pulled together the research around this topic. pulled together a lot of things that I have been thinking about and it is still not over. I had to give that talk, there was a date for that, but now there are little threads that, as you say, I'm following those down various rabbit holes because they're connected to other things that I'm interested in. So this turned out to be, even though I didn't pick it and I didn't know a whole lot about it, It's turned out to be a great introduction to a different way of thinking. So we know what intelligence is, I think. Don't you? Do you know you have an idea? And aren't you intelligent? Brian (03:41) That's so awesome. Well, that's a quite a loaded question, right? Linda Rising (03:53) Of course you are and and so are our listeners our listeners are intelligent and what's interesting is that the psychologists who measure that They don't really have a definition for intelligence. What they do is they can test for it So have you ever had you know an intelligence test You know, an IQ test. Have you? Have you ever had one? Brian (04:25) You know what, I don't think I ever have, but I know my wife has, my daughters have, I'm very familiar with them, but I can't point back to one to say, hey, I know what my score was. Linda Rising (04:28) I'll bet you have. Well, sometimes you're given that test at a particular point, maybe in high school, and they didn't tell you that it was an intelligence test. You just took it along with the other battery of tests that you were taking at the time. And maybe they didn't tell you, you have an IQ of 145. They didn't tell you how smart you were. Brian (04:47) Yeah. Linda Rising (05:06) but somebody, somewhere, somehow along the way, they did. They measured it. And that's without having a definition for whatever it is. So what that test does is it says you're pretty good at solving a bunch of problems. And that's what the test is. Brian (05:17) That's amazing. Linda Rising (05:32) it asks you to look at some math problems, logic problems, spatial problems, different kinds of problems, and you either solve them pretty well or not so well, and when they are finished with that, that score on that test says something about how well you do at solving those problems. And that's what they're calling intelligence. Brian (06:03) I think I see where you're going with this because to me, if we're going to try to be very precise with words on that, I would say that sounds more like education. If I know how to solve a particular kind of math problem, that's because I've been educated to learn that. It's not a measure of my... Linda Rising (06:13) Yeah. Yep, yep. And so those tests, yeah, those tests do have a bias. They're biased toward people who have a certain kind of education biased against people who maybe didn't have that kind of education. Also, it doesn't even begin to talk about music. Here I am in Music City. Doesn't talk about musical talent. Brian (06:43) Yeah Linda Rising (06:46) It doesn't talk about your ability to perform, say, some sports activity, whether you're going to be a great basketball player or a baseball player. There are a lot of things that intelligence tests don't even, they don't even think about. Now, it doesn't mean this isn't a valid exercise because those IQ tests have been around a long time and they do measure what they measure, they measure it very well. And they do correlate with a lot of performance activities. In fact, if you were hiring somebody, the absolute best thing, if you could just do one thing, would be to give them an IQ test. That correlates most strongly with any kind of performance on the job. So it's a valid test, even if it has some biases, some problems. So that's individual intelligence and we call that IQ. So now the question is, can you do that for a group or a team? Brian (07:53) Yeah. Linda Rising (08:03) Could you say this group, could we measure it somehow? And if so, would it have the same kind of validity? That is, if they do well on this test, would that mean they would do well in the workplace? If we had that, then could we use it to say, all right, this team. is really going to be great for whatever it is that we wanted them to do. Is that possible? So obviously the answer is yes, or I wouldn't be here talking about it. Yeah. So the research is fascinating and it would take a long time to actually go into it, but it was started at MIT. The organization is called the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. and they have been doing this now for over a decade. So this is not brand new out of the box. We're not sure where this is going. This has been happening and has been happening successfully. They do have a test. They can give it to a group. And what they find is that if the group does well, that group will also do well on other, just like IQ, other kinds of things that the test measures. And so, yes, they can measure group intelligence. Brian (09:38) Very interesting. This is really fascinating. Ye

Join us as we explore how Agile in Color is breaking down barriers in the Agile community and empowering people of color through mentorship, support, and leadership. Learn how you can be an ally and foster a more inclusive environment in your own Agile journey. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner is joined by Nosa Oyegun and Luria Lindauer from Agile in Color to discuss the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the Agile community. They dive into the mission of Agile in Color, barriers to entry and success for people of color in Agile, and the role of allies in fostering a more inclusive industry. The conversation also highlights the power of mentorship, vulnerability, and community support to drive meaningful change in organizations. The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to engage with Agile in Color and contribute to the movement for a more diverse Agile community. References and resources mentioned in the show: Nosa Oyegun Louria Lindauer Agile in Color The Canary Code by Ludmila N. Praslova, PhD Email For Details of Coaching with Mountain Goat Software Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Join the Agile Mentors Community Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Nosa Oyegun has over 15 years of experience, and is a seasoned Agile Coach passionate about empowering cross-functional teams, removing impediments, and championing customer-centric solutions. Skilled in Agile frameworks like Scrum and Kanban, she focuses on fostering collaboration, driving value delivery, and nurturing growth for individuals, teams, and executives. Louria Lindauer is a dynamic enterprise strategist and coach with over 25 years of experience, known for transforming complex challenges into clear, actionable solutions. Certified in DEI strategy, Agility, and Emotional Intelligence Leadership, she helps leaders build vision, empathy, and bold organizational cultures where courageous truth and sustainable change thrive. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in, Agile Mentors. We are back. We're here for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. And today, I have with me actually two guests. I know, you're shocked, right? I only ever really usually have one, but I have two. Two for the price of one today, right? I have with me Nosa Oyegun and Luria Lindauer. Welcome in, guys. Nosa Oyegun (00:27) Thank you. Thank you for having us. Louria Lindauer (00:30) Yes. Brian (00:30) Delighted, absolutely delighted to have you guys here. And I hope I said your names correctly. If I didn't, please correct me. OK, awesome. Well, for the listeners, I did get help before. just so you know. But we're here because both Nosa and Luria work for, or are associated with, I should say, associated with an organization called Agile in Color. Nosa Oyegun (00:37) You nailed it. Louria Lindauer (00:38) You did. You did it. Brian (00:56) And I've known several people that have been in and around and involved with that organization. And I just thought it would be a good idea to have them come on and tell us a little bit about it and kind of help us understand a little bit about the mission and purpose there, what they're trying to accomplish with Agile and Color. So let's start with that. Give us kind of a, if you had to describe it, why does Agile and Color exist? Nosa Oyegun (01:24) I would say Agile and Color exists for people who look like us, right? Now, does it include everybody? Yes, we do have members who do not necessarily look like us on the outside, but we all bleed red, right? And so it is a group of like-minded individuals who have come together and said, how do we support our community? How do we support those who are already in the industry? And how do we support those who are trying to get into the industry? Because one of the things that we've realized within the community is there are so many people who might want to get into the industry, but do not have the resources. And so we consider ourselves that resource hub to be able to allow and say, hey, why don't you reach out to this? Why don't you contact this? But that is the sole purpose of being able to mentor and be mentored, just like you always say, Brian. Brian (02:15) Love it, love it, thank you. Yeah, that's awesome, that's awesome. That's a great mission and a great purpose. I know, in today's world, I think there's a lot of confusion around kind of the diversity, equity, inclusion kind of whole topic area and maybe some controversy that may be unfounded and just kind of silly. I'm just kind of curious. I mentioned both your perspectives on this. Why do you feel like really that diversity, equity, inclusiveness, why do you feel like that's an important thing for Agilist, for Agile teams, for Agile organizations? Louria Lindauer (02:48) Hmm. Okay, so this is one of my loves. do a lot of push-packing inclusion. It's important for no matter who you look like for everyone. I'm sure you love a sport. What sport do you love? Okay, so you go with a group. Brian (03:14) gosh, football. Football's my sport. Louria Lindauer (03:18) Going with me to a sporting event, I'm not your people, right? But you wanna go with your people. You wanna go have some fun so you don't have to explain why the ball just went out of bounds and why he's down, is he hurt? And I'm asking all these goofy questions, right? And the reason it's so important is because we need diversity of thought. Because in any, like let's think of a group and let's take away the one dimensional just color, which it is very important. That is a important part. It's a part of who I am as a human being. We are multi-dimensional. I'm sure that you're just not Brian. I'm sure you're just like Brian with the glasses. There's so much that encompasses you. know, like me, I'm a mom, I'm a daughter. You know, I'm an agilism diversity, I include them so many different things. And to be able to have that diversity of thought allows us to have cross-functional teams. But the biggest thing is it's a sense of belonging. So I don't have to explain why maybe my hair is like this or the challenges that I embrace in an organization. There's systematic discriminations in almost all organizations. Because that's just where we, as we change, there's still things that were a certain way. And so now what's important is that we start to recognize those. And you may not see them. So like, I'll give you an example. If you came, well, I was gonna say to my dinner, but my family's very diverse. My dad is... white and Jewish. But anyway, if you go to where I am, you know, into my family and we were in a group, I'm the majority. And so we welcome you in. In the organizations, Aladi's organization, was the only, I have a background in South American, the only Black woman, period. And as we move higher, it becomes very lonely. And even CEOs become lonely because they're the only one. Brian (04:47) Hahaha. Louria Lindauer (05:15) And so when we get together, it's about leadership opportunities, but it's also about that sense of belonging. We can talk about things that other people may not understand. Because this is about people of color as well that come and we can share. It's so important to have a place where we can talk about the things we want to talk about, just like you want to talk about football facts without explaining to me all that stuff I don't understand. Brian (05:40) Right, right, that makes sense. Nosa, anything that you would add to that? Nosa Oyegun (05:43) would even say that the interesting part about it is, like Loria alluded to, is the fact that we all have the story. And so when we all get into the room, what's that shared story that doesn't create that imposter syndrome? Or just that life experience? I can look at Loria and say, hey, I'm having a bad hair day, and she knows what I'm talking about. And so it's the beauty of having that shared experience and being able to say, it's a safe space. You can talk about your fears and we can lock arms together and make this happen for you. Brian (06:23) Yeah, now this is so good. Yeah. Yeah, please. Louria Lindauer (06:23) And can I add one more thing is the beauty also, Nosa and I are very different also. So I learned from her. She has a totally different background from me. A lot of people think because we're all per se like black, we come from very different. I have a friend, she's Nigerian and she came here at a very young age and she did not understand why people were like almost, she felt targeted. as a Black person. She was like, what is going on with all of these isms and race? I don't get it. And so that very different experience opens up insights and perspectives that even happen with people of the same color because people know that people are different. We're all different. Yeah. Brian (07:13) That's really good. I mean, for the listeners here, I mean, I wanna be real, right? I want us to have some honest discussion here because I think you have to have honest discussion here when we talk about things like this. what you guys said, I think is a really important consideration because we all have our own. kind of biases that we may not even be aware of. And even saying that word, I know there's probably s

Can Agile tools really teach you Agile practices, or are they just supporting players? Join Brian and Steve Spearman as they unpack the myths surrounding tools like Jira and discover why the process should always come before the tool. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner and Steve Spearman debunk common myths about Agile tools, with a special focus on Jira. They stress that tools are not a replacement for Agile principles, and the process should guide the choice of tools, not the reverse. The conversation dives into how Agile tools can enhance transparency, why communication is key to effective Agile practices, and the importance of adapting tools to fit unique team workflows. References and resources mentioned in the show: Steve Spearman #43: Cultivating Agile Team Culture in a Virtual World with Richard Cheng #29: Influencing Up with Scott Dunn #71: The World of DevOps with Carlos Nunez Jira Miro Mural Trello SAFe LeSS Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Steve Spearman is a Certified Scrum Trainer® and Agile coach, passionate about helping teams thrive, drive business improvements, and master the art of managing change. With expertise in Agile training, scaled Agile, and leadership, Steve empowers organizations to navigate their Agile journeys smoothly and effectively. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have a very good friend of mine, a mentor of mine, Mr. Steve Spearman is with me. Welcome to the podcast, Steve. Steve (00:14) Thank you, Brian. It's great to be here with you. Nice to see you. Brian (00:17) Nice to see you as well. Yeah, Steve helped me out when I was trying to become a CST and I got to learn a lot from him, watching him teach his classes. So he's a pro. He's a CST, he's a coach and trainer and if you're interested, I recommend his classes. I think he's an excellent trainer and would have no hesitation sending anyone to one of Steve's classes. We wanted to have Steve on because we had this topic that got, actually, this is a listener suggestion. So we're always happy to take listener suggestions. And this is one that one of you sent in saying that you wanted us to kind of dive into and discuss a little bit about myths that are out there about Agile tools. So Steve, what does that mean to you? are some of the, is there a main kind of myth that you? you've heard more often than others about Agile tools. Steve (01:16) I think, Brian, the one we hear all the time, right, is this one that essentially Jira is Agile, right? And we're like, well, Jira is a very popular tool for people to use with Agile. It's might or might not be like most of us who do this. That may not be our favorite, honestly, but it is very popular for some pretty good reasons. So that's, I think, the most common one. And then just the idea that somehow it gets to the confusion people have about being a methodology and stuff, right? That essentially, if you just would implement the tool, then you'd be doing Scrum well, right? And that would be the important thing when in fact, I think most of our recommendations would be a little bit the opposite of that, right? Which is to come up with your own approach to doing things in Scrum and then maybe figure out a tool that helps you with that. Brian (02:06) Yeah, I agree. I've heard that quite often. And I've encountered organizations in my career where I'll ask them if they're Agile or if they are familiar with or no Agile. yeah, we have JIRA. OK, well, not quite what I was asking, but I appreciate the sentiment. But yeah, I mean, I agree. There's probably some mixed reviews on that as a tool. Steve (02:24) Yeah. Brian (02:36) I mean, personally, I'll say I've used it to run, you know, Agile organizations before. I'm not a hater of it. I think it's fine. I think it works. I mean, I don't know what your opinion here is, Steve, but people often ask me if there's a tool I recommend to kind of run projects and. You know, my standard answer is there's not one that I think is better and outshines all the rest. I think they all have their strengths and weaknesses and you just kind of have to tweak and adjust them to make them match, you know, your process. But that's the key, right? Is that process over the tool. Steve (03:17) Yeah. I've, you know, Jira I think is popular for a lot of reasons. One is, usually it's about half the per seat cost of a lot of the other ones. And so that for a lot of companies right there, that's that's a pretty big factor thing. I liked about it. Maybe similar to your experience, Brian was that if you're a little bit more of a techie, it's pretty programmable. You can go in and you could tweak it and you can make it do all kinds of things. And so that's maybe it's strength and it's weakness that it takes a little more investment, but you can do quite a bit with. Brian (03:47) Yeah, I agree. It is pretty flexible. The main thing I try to tell people who use it and are asking about, this going to be viable? Will it work for our purposes? The main thing I think they have to understand is the history of it. The Jira is really a bug tracking software. Well, let me be clear. It was created as a bug tracking software, right? Right. Steve (04:12) Yeah, ticketing system in general, yeah. Brian (04:15) Right, a ticket system. And when you know that, and then you get into the nomenclature and you look at the layout of how everything is within it, that makes sense. can see, cause you know, like the standard thing there is an issue, right? There's different issue types, but the standard thing is an issue. Well, that's because it was meant to handle support issues. Steve (04:35) Yeah. And also the, you know, we commonly use the word tasks, of course, in Scrum, not an official thing, but a very common thing we talk about. And Jira speak is subtasks. And that's just history again, of, know, where it came from. And, you know, a long, long time ago, you had to have a plugin to Jira to do Agile. It was originally called, I believe, Grasshopper many, many years ago. And then they ended up just calling it like Jira Agile for a very long time. And then as... Brian (04:57) Yep. Steve (05:04) it became a bigger and bigger piece of their market, they just kind of wrapped it all up in JIRA now, I think. Brian (05:09) Yeah, we both been around long enough to have been part of those days. So I remember those very well. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I think JIRA will do a fine job for you if that's what you're with. wouldn't, you some organizations using it, I wouldn't say, by all means stop and use something else. I think you can make it work. I think you just have to look at it and say, all right, I understand this is based on this. So now I just need to configure it and adapt it. really for the process we want to do. And I know from my standpoint, I've used it multiple times where when you configure it the right way, it will handle things the way that you, at least from my perspective, the way I usually think is the right way to implement it with a team or an organization. So it works. I can make it work. It just takes some tweaking. I guess for mine, but yeah, it's not Agile. It's not being Agile just because you're using Jira. Steve (06:11) Yeah, and it's kind of the good and the bad thing about tools. think people like them because, you know, I can assign people tickets and things like that, you know, and so like, you know, people, it's clear who's got things and stuff. That's also a weakness though, too, because it, you might say, all I have to do is assign it in the tool and I don't have to talk to you now. I just say, look, you, I signed you this ticket or something. And that's not great from my perspective. And then the other one is that when you, when you, change states and things in the tool. That lets everybody know where things are, and that's good, and it gives you tons of reports and things, and people like those. But it's also less visual than a lot of us are, which back in the day, we liked sticky notes on a board. I that was the thing. That was the thing. And so what I'm leaning toward myself a little more these days is tools like Muro and Mural and so forth that are very visual, and they're often sticky note-based kind of things. Brian (06:55) Yeah. Steve (07:09) And that allows you to do a lot of the stuff we used to do physically, but they don't have the same reporting capabilities. And so that's where we get these trade-offs that I think we're going to see with these tools. Brian (07:22) Yeah, I agree. I agree. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm the same way. And in fact, you know, when I said that earlier, someone asked me what my favorite tool is, you know, I said, my default answer is usually I don't have a favorite, but, if they push me, what I'll tell them is my favorite is just no cards or post-it notes, you know, like that's really, that's really what I, I have found works best. But, yeah, something like Miro or mural, I think is

How does Agile fit into the fast-paced, high-stakes world of game development? Clinton Keith, author of Agile Game Development, spills the secrets from his time working with some of the top studios in the industry and explains why adapting Agile to gaming is both a challenge and a game-changer. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner and Clinton Keith dive into the unique dynamics of Agile in the gaming industry. Clinton shares stories from his decades-long career in game development, explaining how Agile methodologies have evolved in the industry and why traditional approaches often fail. They discuss the impact of deadlines, the influence of digital distribution, and how finding the "fun" in games is crucial for successful development. Clinton also provides valuable insights into modifying Agile practices to better fit the gaming world and the critical role leadership plays in fostering a productive Agile culture. References and resources mentioned in the show: Clinton Keith Agile Game Development: Build, Play, Repeat by Clinton Keith Mike Cohn’s Better User Stories Course Accurate Agile Planning Course Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Clinton Keith is a seasoned game industry veteran turned Agile coach and author of Agile Game Development, 2nd Edition. With 25 years of experience as a programmer, CTO, and production director, Clinton now helps creative teams and studio leaders build better games through effective Scrum, Lean, and Kanban. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. Glad to have you back. We're here for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I am with you as always, Brian Milner. Today, have a very special guest. A very special guest was the word I was looking for, but somehow it came out wrong. A very special guest that I'm very excited about having with us, Mr. Clinton Keith is with us. Clinton Keith (00:17) You got it right the first time. Brian (00:23) Welcome in, Clinton. Clinton Keith (00:25) Hey Brian, thank you so much for the invitation. Brian (00:27) Yeah, very, very psyched, very excited to have Clinton on. Clinton is a CST, but more importantly, he's the author of a book called Agile Game Development. And he has been in the video game industry and working with different video game makers and production houses and things for a long, long time. And he told me he's been a video game maker since the seventies. So I said, well, that's great. Cause I've been a video game player since the seventies. So I'm sure we could cross. and have some overlapping stories here. Me from the consumer side. I wanted to have Clinton on because he's got this unique perspective of really how Agile has developed and how Agile is kind of implemented and works well in the gaming industry. So let me start with just asking you, Clinton, when you work with gaming companies and they are interested curious about Agile, what is sort of the main holdup or the main objection that they present to you when they first start working with you? Clinton Keith (01:37) Well, it's changed. mean, I've been an independent trainer CST since 2008. And back then it was like, this agile stuff doesn't, know, this won't work for us or it won't work for our role playing game or massively multiplayer online game. might work for these small games. But I think since then, what you've seen is there's just such a lot of bad implementations. We call cargo cult implementations of Agile, where we think that standing around in a circle and answering three questions a day is going to result in some productivity fairy flying over our heads and sprinkling this methodology dust on us and wonderful things will happen, where there's a discipline and a change in culture. And so people have seen a lot of poor agile implementations. But at the same time, continuing on with more traditional approaches as games get larger, teams get larger, projects get bigger, that they're saving the worst failures on not adopting a more iterative approach to game development. Brian (02:54) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mentioned that there's probably a lot of objection. There's a lot of the companies that kind of take that fixed scope, fixed schedule kind of approach to doing work and kind of think maybe Agile doesn't align to what we do or our industry or how we do things. Hopefully I'm not putting you on the spot too much, but do have any interesting stories or examples of things like that where you've worked with a company that maybe was just very, very resistant that you kind of, that they kind of turned around in the time you worked with them? Clinton Keith (03:36) Well, think one of the more clear examples and, and, know, I, being a project manager and someone who's a, started as a programmer and ran studios, you know, and we ended up shipping successful titles on schedule, on budget. that, when I work with teams that have true deadlines, you know, these are teams that, especially sports titles where. You know, if, you know, Madden football misses the launch of their next title at the beginning of the NFL season, they're going to lose half their sales as opposed to, you know, being told it's so called, have a deadline, but you know, that just to put pressure on the team. so when you have that kind of deadline, a do or die deadline, then it gets them serious about doing things like prioritizing scope. Brian (04:11) Yeah. Yeah. Clinton Keith (04:30) We're saying, it's like, hey, we have this new engine to render crowds in the stadium and this is going to be beautiful. And, and it's going to look like these are real stadiums filled with people. They're less willing to take that risk if it has to come out on that specific date. And so we prioritize scope by saying, Hey, we have 32 teams, you know, it be baseball or NFL or whatever. have so many stadiums, we have rosters, we have uniforms that have changed from year to year. Those are things that we have to get in. The things that are like a new technology for mud on the uniforms, well, we can take a different approach to that and say, those would be nice to have, but we're not going to bet our schedule on that. So those were the teams on what we call AAA games. They're games that have large staffs, huge budgets, hundreds of millions of dollars. They kind of learned those lessons early on and it really became proof that an agile approach of saying, prioritizing scope and managing scope and delivering things that work and that show increased value in terms of player fun on iteration, iteration basis was really the best approach to hitting those targets. Which again is really difficult for teams that really have those so -called hard deadlines. but was still with a fixed scope, that they want all those things and at the last minute, end up compromising quality, get those all the, to hit all those goals. Brian (06:06) I'm kind of curious about kind of the teaming aspect within the gaming industry because it seems like, and maybe I'm wrong here, so correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like more than some of the other industries in software development that it's a little more of the mercenary kind of attitude of, you know, kind of have the gun for hire that you bring in or guns for hire that you bring in to do some project or some game and then... then when the project wraps, they're gone. People float from place to place. Is it tough to generate, have teams go through stages of formation in that kind of environment? Clinton Keith (06:46) Right. Yeah, no, it's less so with now that we had mobile games, these mobile platforms come out where a lot of most of the effort actually is maintaining and building a live product and growing it over time, where it's like, instead of saying, you know, on traditional large games, we're going to spend two years with no customers, no feedback. We're going to build this huge game and then launch it all at once on a disc or on a cartridge. and then cross our fingers. And with that approach, usually with game development, the traditional approach is to have a documentation phase, a planning phase, a design phase, and then a pre -production phase where we build all the mechanics. And then a production phase where we create all the levels, build the storyline, something that people can play through 20, 30 hours. And then at the end of it, alpha beta phase where we fix all the bugs, make it run fast, find, know, make it fun and polish it and then get it out the door. and in terms of staffing, like what you described was very, yeah, it was the big challenge because in pre -production we, you know, we might want 50 people, 30 people. but then when we're building all this content and building the worlds, then we're growing to a couple hundred people and then you ship it on the disk. What do you do with those 200 people that are sitting around? And that's still on large games. You know, I work with some teams that are over a thousand people developing the game. And they're trying to address that problem by having, you know, large publishers or acquiring studios. And they'll have up to half a dozen studios in various locations around the world working on that, especially

In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner chats with Murman about the value of attending Agile conferences, the importance of networking, and the impact of volunteering in the Agile community. They share personal stories, advice on making the most of conference experiences, and insights into how volunteering can open up new opportunities for personal and professional growth. Overview Brian Milner and Chris Murman dive into the world of Agile conferences, focusing on the upcoming Agile 2025 event and the benefits of attending. They discuss the evolving purpose of conferences, why networking and volunteering are crucial, and how approaching conferences with an open mind can lead to unexpected learning and connections. Chris also shares his journey from attendee to conference chair, providing a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into creating a memorable conference experience. Whether you're a conference regular or considering attending your first one, this episode offers valuable perspectives on getting the most out of these unique events. References and resources mentioned in the show: Agile 2025 Chris Murman Connect with Chris on LinkedIn Agile Alliance Speaker Submission Tips Webinar #105: Scrum Conferences & Neurodiversity with Brian Milner Special Episode Scrum Gathering Denver 2022 Mountain Goat Software’s Accurate Agile Planning Course Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Join the Agile Mentors Community Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Chris Murman is the Agile 2025 Conference Chair with over 15 years of experience in product management and leadership, He has directed successful launches for top brands like Verizon, NBC Universal, and Chick-fil-A. As the Executive Director of Product at JP Morgan Chase, and leads 20 cross-functional teams, driving innovative financial solutions and spearheading AI/ML initiatives that save over 6,000 man-hours per quarter. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today, a very special friend is here with us, Mr. Chris Murman. Welcome in, Chris. Chris (00:11) What's up, Brian? I don't know that I'm a mentor, but I'm here anyways. Brian (00:12) You're definitely a mentor. In fact, we're going to explain to people why you are here in just a moment. Chris is an Agile coach extraordinaire. He has been in the community for quite a while. And he is a fellow Dallas native here with me. And we connect a little bit at the last year's Dallas conference here for Agile. Chris (00:19) Okay, okay, sure. Sure, sure. Brian (00:40) And one of the things that I noted in that conference was they announced the next one, which is coming up in Denver, end of July, beginning of August -ish, we'll put it that way. And he was announced as the chair of that conference. So Chris is actually going to be in charge or leading or behind the scenes for just about everything that's going to take place at that Agile 2025 conference in Denver. So I wanted to have Chris on to talk about that a little bit. Don't think of this as an ad. It's not an ad for it because what I wanted to kind of help people understand was kind of the why behind it. When I normally talk about the conference, it's maybe a month or two before. Well, now it's next summer. So you have some time to plan. And now is the right time to kind of put that kind of stuff in your calendar if it's something that you're thinking about doing. or even maybe thinking about maybe should you volunteer or something like that for it. So Chris, how did you get involved with this kind of thing? How did you get involved with helping out with the conferences? What made you decide to help out in any way, shape or form? Chris (01:54) Well, like many, when I first started the work, I I fell into Agile backwards just like everybody else did. None of us did this on purpose. It just came along and we just started doing it and then it became something to do. in the 2010s when Agile was riding high and I... I saw these conferences as really cool learning opportunities and connection opportunities. People that I knew from the, that you and I both know from the local area, from meetups, would tell me about these conferences. I was attending DFW Scrum the last time that Agile 20XX was in Dallas. I did not go, but. cause I, was too late for me to find out and it was kind of pricey. And so I was like, so like conferences are where you just go and meet people and then they're like, yeah, you should just kind of go. So as, as with many of us who are like, well, how do I pay for these conferences to go? just said, well, I'll submit to speak. And, I don't know about you, but my first few submissions were not great. I, I, I. People always laugh when I say this, but I would literally copy and paste the headline and the entire copy of blog posts that I thought would be really cool to talk about. Because I started my blog, that was kind of how Chris Murman .com is kind of how people first started meeting me because I would promote it on platforms and stuff. Agile Twitter used to be really fun back in those days too. So I would just copy and paste the entire blog post as my abstract. And of course, now knowing what I know, like that was, that's just the worst thing to do in the world. but I didn't know what else to do. So I fell flat on my face the first few years and started getting some advice and feedback and such, and started getting accepted to speak around 2016. Spoke at. Spoke at several conferences that year, spoke at several conferences in 2017. 2018 comes along and they're like, and I'm like, hey, how do I help out? Like this is really cool. I connected with the Agile Alliance community, that specific conference community very, very well. And I'm like, well, how can I help? And they're like, here's three or four people, email them until they say yes. And I'm not. Brian (04:18) Yeah. Hahaha. Chris (04:34) I just was annoying and said, no, I'm not kidding. I want to help. And I got to chair a track. You know, I chaired all kinds of tracks for the next few years. coming out of COVID, I got asked to be on the program team. which is just when people are like, what's the difference between leading a track and leading like the entire program? Think of it as like, The track is like one tiny, tiny sliver in the program team has to go really very narrow across everything to know where everything is. Not that I know every set. I still, I'm like, that was that session was the conference that year. But, so we just have to be more broad in what are the themes that we want to talk about? What are the things that we want to do? and, and, you know, when you join the program team, you know, one of these years it's going to be your year. And then when you. when you're a conference chair, that's your final year on the program team. And then you just go back to civilian life, I guess. I don't know, which is, don't, I don't ask Dana. I don't know what civilian life is on the side of the conference just yet, but I will very soon. So I don't know. It's a, that's a rambling answer, but it's for the most part, that's really how I got going was just, I just wanted to go. You know what I mean? I just wanted to be there. And the only way I could do it was to get a free ticket. Brian (05:34) Ha ha ha. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a, well, that's a great answer. I mean, I, I think I'm kind of, I mean, I probably have a little bit, there was probably a few more years I submitted before I got accepted to speak at the Agile Conference, but I probably submitted three or four years before I got something accepted. And that's even after reviewing a few years and seeing what good and bad submissions were like, you know, and trying to understand that. Chris (06:22) Thank Brian (06:25) But we were talking a little bit beforehand about just the concept of a conference in today's world. I know that we've seen sort of a decline in people who are attending conferences a little bit. And I'm not really sure whether this is a momentary thing or an economy -based thing or what. But when people ask you why attend a conference, what What do you tell people? Chris (06:55) Well, there's many things that you can get out of a conference. That's the cool part about it is that you can attend the conference for many reasons. And I would say now in 2024, coming into next year, 25, I don't know that the reasons for attending the conference are the same as they used to be, right? Because when we first started coming, there's this like, I don't mean to sound pedantic or like over inflate myself, but there's a level of like fame in our community. We have a tiny, tiny community. So you can get agile famous a lot of different ways. Like now you can just be an influencer and write like Chris Stone is a perfect example of someone who just cranks out a ton of content that it's for the most part pretty good and get the following that way. And then people meet you that way. Brian (07:27) You Yeah, yeah. Chris (07:53) there were a lot of ways that you could meet people back then. you could really meet a ton of people there. You could make a ton of connections. So ultimately, I just really wanted to learn. I love learning and I love being connecting wi

In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner and Mike Cohn reveal the keys to achieving lasting success with Agile methodologies. From embracing experimentation and fostering a culture of continuous improvement to improving communication with consistent vocabulary, they offer practical, relatable insights for Agile practitioners at all levels. Overview Brian and Mike discuss the essential ingredients to Agile success, touching on the power of experimentation, the need for flexible coaching, and building a culture of continuous improvement. The conversation dives deep into the importance of effective communication within teams, especially through user stories and consistent vocabulary, ensuring that Agile teams stay aligned. With personal anecdotes and actionable tips, this episode provides a roadmap for anyone looking to excel with Agile. References and resources mentioned in the show: Mike Cohn Essential Scrum by Ken Rubin Agile & Scrum Glossary #85: Effectively Managing Dependencies with Ken Rubin Dependencies Are Killing Your Agile Flow at Scale by Ken Rubin Creating a Software Engineering Culture by Karl Wiegers Private Scrum & Agile Training Agile For Leaders Working on a Scrum Team Classes Story Writing Workshop Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Mike Cohn, CEO of Mountain Goat Software, is a passionate advocate for agile methodologies. Co-founder of Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance, he thrives on helping companies succeed with Agile and witnessing its transformative impact on individuals' careers. Mike resides in Northern Idaho with his family, two Havanese dogs, and an impressive hot sauce collection. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today we have our favorite back with us, Mike Cohn is here. Welcome back, Mike. Mike (00:12) Thanks, Brian. It's good to be here. Hi, everybody. Brian (00:15) So happy when Mike can make time and be with us here on the show. Obviously Mike has a lot of wisdom and experience to share with us. So we wanted to bring him in because we were talking about doing an episode titled The Secret Staggile Success. I remember back in the day in the 80s, was a movie called The Secret to My Success. There was a really obscure movie. was Michael J. Fox. Yes, it was Michael J. Fox. Mike (00:37) Michael J. Fox? Yeah, so it's not that obscure. Brian (00:41) But I still hear that theme song in my head. when we talked about this title, that's what I thought about. But we wanted to talk about maybe some hidden things or things that aren't as immediately apparent to people that are crucial to being successful when you go agile or if your teams are working in an agile way. So let's just open things up, Mike. What's one of the things you had thought about when we talked about this? Mike (01:10) think the number one secret to Agile success for me is being willing to experiment, to try new things. And if you think back, Agile itself, Scrum itself, began as experiments. They were probably teams going, know, this waterfall stuff we've been doing doesn't work. Let's try something different. Somebody else went, yeah, let's do something unusual, and let's try iterating or something. And so Agile itself began as experiments. And yet I see teams kind of get stuck in the mud and not willing to experiment. And I think that's to their detriment. We want to try things out. And silly, trivial examples, try different sprint links. Don't do a one -week sprint link and go, Agile doesn't work. It's not for us. No. Brian (01:52) Yeah. Mike (01:59) Maybe one week sprints are for you. Try a three week iteration or I try something different. And I think the the idea of experimentation is how we come up with new ideas. It's how we learn. It's how we get better. And so if you're going to succeed, you better have that that focus on experimentation. Brian (02:19) Yeah, there's a surprising number of Scrum Masters I've encountered that I'll hear stories about how they run the same exact retrospective, every single retrospective. And I just think, what are you doing? How can you be trying to communicate this and teach the team that this whole thing is based on doing little small experiments and seeing what the result is, when you're not willing to try something new in just how you run a retrospective? So yeah, I completely agree. I think the key there for me is demonstrate it. If you want them to pick up on that, then do it yourself. Mike (02:56) worked with a company years ago that fired their scrum master for basically for being too rigid. He had read something in Ken Schwaber's second book, and I don't want to pick on Ken's book, but he has this wacky sentence in there, and there are wacky sentences in my books, right? So somebody can go find those, and I mean, I get it. But anyway, Ken wrote that the daily scrum must be conducted left to right, starting with the person on the left of the scrum master. And it's like, what? Why is this mandatory? It must be left to right. Anyway, this guy read that in the book and insisted that the Daily Scrum be left to right, starting with the person on left of the Scrum Master. And his team knew that was insane, right? It's just nuts. And so they would mess with him. They would do things like he would call on the person to his left and the person on the right would start talking. he would point to the person on the left to start and they were standing in a semi -circle. They would move, right? So the person on the left was no longer on the left. And they were just messing with him over this. And he would just get mad and insisted it had to be left right because the book said so. And I don't know what it was with him, but he was just stuck on this. Ultimately ended up getting fired for it. Yeah, I heard this story because I ran into him at a conference and I saw him there and he Brian (04:14) Wow. Mike (04:20) looked a little down. It's like, you know, said his name and how are you doing? And he told me this story. And he said, you know, he'd gotten better since then. But, you know, don't get stuck on things. It's just not the it's just not a very agile mindset. Brian (04:34) Yeah. I mean, if you can't, no matter what it is too, I think that if you can't point to what you hope to achieve from doing it that way, or what's the purpose behind us doing it that way, that's questionable part of your process to just say, I can't point to any reason why this, any good that this thing does going left to right person by person, but. Ken said we should do it. I guess, no, I mean, if there's no reason, if you don't see the benefit in it, why would we do that? Mike (05:07) Knowing Ken, I think he was just trying to make it easier for people. Here's one less thing you got to think about. Start on your left and go around the room. But the way it's written and the way this guy interpreted it was like, shalt go left to right. It's like you've got to be willing to, I think, out the way that a known proven way start out that way. So yeah, go ahead and start left to right. It says so. I don't know any different. Might as well go this way. Brian (05:17) You Mike (05:35) But then experiment, learn, figure it out for yourselves. I I can't think of a successful company or team that I've worked with that ever quoted this Scrum Guide at me, right? You know, they may start out exactly the way a Scrum Guide says, or my favorite is Ken Rubin's Essential Scrum Book, start out in a known proven way, but then experiment, make agile your own. Don't throw away the important stuff, and that's why you have to start in a known proven way, but as you get experience, experiment, throw things out. Brian (05:46) Yeah. I love that. Yeah, I think that's a really good one. So a good one to start us off. Thanks for that. Mike (06:12) Yeah, that's, that's what I'm buying. Brian, can I ask you for one of your secrets to agile success? Brian (06:17) Sure. Well, and this one I know it's going to be a little, know, boy, it'd be nice if I could do that, but I, you know, we can't do that. And I understand that this is not going to be for everyone, but one of the things that I think is important is to have some kind of a coaching presence. Now, just to be clear about this, this doesn't mean that you have to, you know, fight tooth and nail to hire some outside consultant or anything like that. I understand budgets are tight and there may not be an ability to do that. But I think if I, you know, if you're a scrum master, then I think that having the ability to continue your learning journey and grow is really important and, and having someone you can go and bounce things off of. So if you can't have someone, if you, if you can't have someone on staff or someone there that's an outside consultant that can help you and coach you through the early stages, I think that could be really, really helpful. And to me, it's an accelerator. I think that kind of thing is something that can really, yes, we will go through training. We understand kind of the basics, but then the coach is sort of like pouring gasoline on that fire to say, now we're going to go from zero to 60 and I'm going

In this episode, Brian Milner and Lance Dacy dive into the evolving world of software development, exploring how AI and automation are reshaping the landscape. They discuss the essential skills developers need in this new era, from embracing AI as a tool to mastering emotional intelligence and continuous learning. Overview Brian and Lance discuss the transformative impact AI and automation are having on the software industry. They explore the importance of adaptability, continuous learning, and cross-functional expertise, emphasizing how developers can thrive by embracing AI as a tool rather than a threat. The conversation highlights the growing need for soft skills like emotional intelligence, curiosity, and collaborative leadership, and encourages developers to be open to new technologies and ways of working to stay competitive in the ever-evolving tech landscape. References and resources mentioned in the show: Lance Dacy Big Agile “Be curious, not judgemental” – Walt Whitman #54: Unlocking Agile’s Power in the World of Data Science with Lance Dacy #63: The Interplay Between Data Science and Agile with Lance Dacy #82: The Intersection of AI and Agile with Emilia Breton #99: AI & Agile Learning with Hunter Hillegas Accurate Agile Planning Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Lance Dacy is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant's heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. How's your week going? I hope everyone's week is going well. Yeah, I'm switching things up. I'm not saying things exactly as I did the past 100 episodes. But welcome in. I hope you guys are having a great week. We are back with you here at the Agile Mentors Podcast. And I have one of our favorites back with us. I have one of our repeat visitors, Lance Dacys with us. Welcome back, Lance. Lance Dacy (00:28) Thank you, Brian. Great to be here. Brian (00:30) Always excited to have Lance with us because we always have such great conversations. And I wanted to have Lance back because we were talking about something recently that I think might be a good topic for us, might be on a lot of people's minds. And that is really kind of getting into this, what we've loosely termed the new age of development. With the new tools and new kind of the way that AI has worked its way into things and automation. How is this going to change and affect our teams? How is it going to change and affect how we develop? How is it going to change and affect the software industry? Lance, I know you had some thoughts on this. I'm going to just open the floor for you and let you take it from there. Lance Dacy (01:15) That's great, Brian. My heart is always with organizations and developers, just trying to help people get better. You and I shared that vision that I remember a long time ago, even at DFW Scrum, one of our vision statements was just trying to help you to do better today than you did yesterday. It's like, what are the things that we can help teams and organizations? And something's real heavy on my mind lately as I work with these teams. You know, we have these notions out there like Agile is dead and, you know, where is Agile headed? And that's not really what this is about here because I think what's happening, as a lot of people have already said, it's just become more of the mainstream. Let's quit labeling it. You know, like Mike always tells us, object -oriented programming won. We don't really call it that anymore. Objects won and off we went. So I'm not really focused so much on the agile type scenario, but we do work in Scrum and agile teams and I see plenty of organizations that need help with that. And I still encounter to this day, developers who are lagging behind on their skills, right? We get so focused in the day -to -day feature development of our roadmap and things like that. that I just fear that developers aren't setting enough time aside or not challenging the organization to help them do that, to learn new skills. And I started compiling this list of like, if I go in and start teaching teams how to do scrum and how to manage your backlog and how to do that, it doesn't matter if they don't have the skills because everything we talk about in Agile is based on reducing waste and the more of these skills gaps that we have. then I find the more handoffs and the more bottlenecks and you know that's one of the eight waste, you know, of lean. And so that's what I wanted to talk about today. And I love the topic like the new age of development. I'm not going to sit here in a spouse to claim to say, here's all the skills you're going to need. But as you and I work, I think we can find plenty of examples to help guide some of these people, even Scrum Masters that are coaching teams or agile coaches, you know, just kind of put some thoughts in their mind about. know, these skills and I have about a short list of five that I've seen growing and then thought we'd go from there. Brian (03:30) That sounds great. I want to dive into one that I know is on your list and it's one we kind of talked about here beforehand, but that is kind of how AI is affecting teams and the skills needed to be relevant with that. Now, I want to preface this by just saying my own personal opinion here on this. I'm not a doom and gloom person when it comes to AI. don't really see it much different than... Lance Dacy (03:34) Thank So, I'll see you. Brian (03:59) how automation really changed things like testing. When automation entered the testing realm, we didn't lose all our testers. We still needed testing. It just was a tool that enhanced the way we did testing. And I think AI is sort of going to be that for how we program. don't think we're at a place where, or I don't know, things could change quickly, obviously, but I don't feel like we're within 10 years. of it completely replacing developers. I think we're still going to need to have expertise. We're still going to need to have that guidance. Maybe 10 years is too big of a window. don't know. Maybe five years? I don't know. Lance Dacy (04:42) These days you don't know. I just thought yesterday something changed. No, I'm just kidding. Brian (04:46) Right, right. But I don't see that happening in the near term window for sure, just because it does a lot of things well, but it doesn't create. It can do things based on what's already been done, but it can't really then go through and create something entirely new itself. So I think you still need human beings for that component of it. Lance Dacy (05:04) Done. Brian (05:15) And I think for developers, learning how to integrate that kind of tool set to help you reduce your errors, define bugs, AI is great at looking over a huge chunk of your code and finding potential issues that you can go back and look at. That can save you enormous amounts of time. So I think there's skill involved there for for the developers segment that I think is embracing it rather than kind of holding it at arm's length and saying, that's the enemy, that's gonna somehow replace me. No, think of it like automation. It's not to replace you, it's just another tool to enhance and give you time to do other things. Lance Dacy (06:02) I think, you know, you mentioned, don't think you and I either would be convicted of being doom and gloom people. think we're pretty well optimistic, right? It is scary. mean, obviously these things that are changing, you're like, my gosh, I have to, the main word I keep thinking about is adaptability. You know, I've got four kids. I keep telling them the best skill they can do is learn how to learn, you know, and I think you just used a perfect example in development about test automation. Brian (06:10) Yeah. Lance Dacy (06:30) We weren't scared of that. The testers might have been because they're like, well, what do I do now? Well, you got to go learn a new skill, right? But it freed us up. Can you imagine still doing, there's companies out there that still do manual testing, and they have to wait until all the changes are in until they do testing, and you will never compete. in a good hyper competitive marketplace doing things like this. So the test automation freed us up and actually what I used to tell my teams is it gives you more confidence, right? So developers can make more radical changes in the code without feeling like, know, you. You blow on something and then it breaks. know, y 'all ever seen code like that before? And it's like, I think it builds their confidence that test automation helped them to be more efficient and more productive because they can experiment more. think that's the goal is I write this code and I can quickly test to see what happens. And I start building my confidence and I can make more radical changes to the system inste

What do lizards have to do with product growth? In this episode, Gojko Adzic reveals how unusual user behaviors can unlock massive opportunities for product innovation. Discover the four steps to mastering "Lizard Optimization" and learn how you can turn strange user actions into game-changing insights. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, host Brian Milner chats with Gojko Adzic about his new book, Lizard Optimization. Gojko explains the concept of finding product growth signals in strange user behaviors, sharing examples where unexpected user actions led to product breakthroughs. He outlines a four-step process for optimizing products by learning, zeroing in, removing obstacles, and double-checking. Gojko also discusses helpful tools like session recorders and observability tools that can enhance product development by uncovering and addressing unique user behaviors. References and resources mentioned in the show: Gojko Adzic 50% OFF Lizard Optimization by Gojko Adzic Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design by Kat Holmes Trustworthy Online Experiments by Ron Kohavi Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Join the Agile Mentors Community Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Gojko Adzic is an award-winning software consultant and author, specializing in agile and lean quality improvement, with expertise in impact mapping, agile testing, and behavior-driven development. A frequent speaker at global software conferences, Gojko is also a co-creator of MindMup and Narakeet, and has helped companies worldwide enhance their software delivery, from large financial institutions to innovative startups. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today, very special guest we have with us. have Mr. Goiko Atshich with us. I hope I said that correctly. Did I say it correctly? Close enough. Okay. Well, welcome in, Goiko. Glad to have you here. Gojko (00:15) Close enough, close enough. Brian (00:21) Very, very, very happy to have Goiko with us. If you're not familiar with Goiko's name, you probably are familiar with some of his work. One of the things I was telling him that we teach in our advanced product owner class every time is impact mapping, which is a tool that Goiko has written about and kind of come up with on his own as well. Gojko (00:21) Thank you very much for inviting me. Brian (00:47) But today we're having him on because he has a new book coming out called Lizard Optimization, Unlock Product Growth by Engaging Long Tail Users. And I really wanted to talk to him about that and help him explain, have him explain to us a little bit about this idea, this new concept that his new book is about. So, Goiko, let's talk about it. Lizard Optimization, in a nutshell, what do you mean by that? What is it? Gojko (01:14) We're going to jump into that, but I just need to correct one of the things you said. I think it's very, very important. You said I came up with impact mapping and I didn't. I just wrote a popular book about that. And it's very important to credit people who actually came up with that. It's kind of the in -use design agency in Sweden. And I think, you know, they should get the credit for it. I literally just wrote a popular book. Brian (01:19) Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha, gotcha. Apologies for that incorrect. Thank you for making that correction. So lizard optimization. Gojko (01:44) So, lizard optimization. Good. So, lizard optimization is an idea to find signals for product ideas and product development ideas in strange user behaviors. When you meet somebody who does something you completely do not understand, why on earth somebody would do something like that? Brian (02:03) Okay. Gojko (02:11) and it looks like it's not done by humans, it looks like it's done by somebody who follows their own lizard logic, using stuff like that as signals to improve our products. Not just for lizards, but for everybody. So the idea came from a very explosive growth phase for one of the products I'm working on, where it... had lots of people doing crazy things I could never figure out why they were doing it. For example, one of the things the tool does is it helps people create videos from PowerPoints. You put some kind of your voiceover in the speaker notes, the tool creates a video by using text to speech engines to create voiceover from the speaker notes, aligns everything and it's all kind of for you. People kept creating blank videos and paying me for this. I was thinking about why on earth would somebody be creating blank videos and it must be a bug and if it's a bug then they want their money back and they'll complain. So I chased up a few of these people and I tried to kind of understand what's going on because I originally thought we have a bug in the development pipeline for the videos. So... I started asking like, you know, I'm using some, I don't know, Google slides or, you know, keynote or whatever to produce PowerPoints. Maybe there's a bug how we read that. And the person, no, no, we, know, official Microsoft PowerPoint. They said, well, can you please open the PowerPoint you uploaded? Do you see anything on the slides when you open it? And the person, no, it's blank. Right? Okay, so it's blank for you as well. I said, yeah. So. Brian (03:48) Yeah. Gojko (03:54) What's going on? so what I've done is through UX interviews and iterating with users and research, we've made it very, very easy to do advanced configuration on text -to -speech. And it was so much easier than the alternative things that people were creating blank PowerPoints just to use the text -to -speech engines so they can then extract the audio track from it. Brian (03:54) Yeah, why? Gojko (04:23) and then use that and it was this whole mess of obstacles I was putting in front of people to get the good audio. It wasn't the original intention of the tool. It wasn't the original value, but people were getting unintended value from it. And then I ended up building just a very simple screen for people to upload the Word document instead of PowerPoints. And it was much faster for users to do that. A month later, there was many audio files being built as videos. Two months later, audio... production overtook video production. then at the moment, people are building many, many more audio files than video files on the platform. So it was an incredible growth because of this kind of crazy insight of what people were doing. kind of usually, at least kind of in the products I worked on before, when you have somebody abusing the product, product management fight against it. There's a wonderful story about this in... Founders at work a book by Jessica Livingston and she talks about this kind of group of super smart people in late 90s who Came up with a very very efficient Cryptography algorithm and a way to compute the cryptography so they can run it on low -power devices like Paul pilots Paul pilots were you know like mobile phones, but in late 90s and Then they had to figure out, how do we monetize this? Why would anybody want to do this? So they came up with the idea to do money transfer pumping, Palm pilots, you know, why not? And kind of the built a website. This was the late nineties as a way of just demoing this software to people who didn't have a Palm pilot device next to them. The idea was that you'd kind of see it on the website, learn about it, then maybe download the Palm pilot app and use it in anger. People kept just using the website, they're not downloading the Palm Pilot app. So the product management really wasn't happy. And they were trying to push people from the website to the Palm Pilot app. were trying to, they were fighting against people using this for money transfer on the web and even prohibiting them from using the logo and advertising it. They had this whole thing where nobody could explain why users were using the website because it was a demo thing. It was not finished. It was not sexy. It was just silly. And Jessica kind of talks to one of these people who insists that it was totally inexplicable. Nobody could understand it. But then a bit later, they realized that the website had one and half million users and that the Pongpilot app had 12 ,000 users. So they kind of decided, well, that's where the product is really. And that's like today, people know them as PayPal. They're one of the biggest payment processes in the world because kind of, you know, they realized this is where the product is going. And I think in many, many companies, people Brian (07:03) Ha ha. Gojko (07:18) stumble upon these things as happy accidents. And I think there's a lot more to it. We can deliberately optimize products by looking for unintended usage and not fighting it, just not fighting it. just understand this is what people are getting as value. And I think for me as a solo product founder and developer and product manager on it, One of the really interesting things is when you have somebody engaging with your product in an unexpected way, most of the difficult work for that user is already done. That person knows about you, they're on your website or they're using your product, the marketing and acquisition work is done. But

Join Brian and Dr. Tess Thompson as they delve into the complexities of scaling Agile, highlighting the challenges of aligning leadership priorities, fostering transparency, and applying system-level thinking for successful organizational transformations. Overview In this insightful episode, Dr. Tess Thompson tackles the pressing challenges organizations face when scaling Agile, with a focus on the critical role of leadership alignment. Drawing from her extensive experience, she explains how misaligned priorities at the leadership level can stall progress and waste resources. Dr. Thompson emphasizes the importance of system-level thinking, transparency, and communication between teams and leaders to resolve misalignments and ensure success. She also shares her holistic approach, blending practices from various Agile frameworks to meet the specific needs of different organizations. References and resources mentioned in the show: Dr. Tess Thompson Scrum Inc. Scrum.org #68: The Pros and Cons and Real World Applications of SAFe with Mike Hall #94: Connecting Teams and Leadership with Anthony Coppedge Three Questions to Determine If an Organization Is Agile by Mike Cohn Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Dr. Tess Thompson is a visionary leader in Agile transformations, with over three decades of experience reshaping industries from energy to biotech across the globe. As a professor at St. Mary's University, her dedication to fostering Agile leaders has empowered countless individuals to embrace adaptability and forge their own path to success. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have a very special guest with me. I have Dr. Tess Thompson with me. Welcome in Dr. Thompson. Tess Thompson (00:13) Hi, I'm glad to be here. Brian (00:16) I'm so happy to have Dr. Thompson with us. And just for people who aren't familiar, let me make sure that I introduce her and give you the background a little bit. First of all, she's been in this business for almost 40 years now. She's been doing stuff in IT since the 80s. She is a principal consultant and RST fellow with Scrum Inc. Scrum .inc, I should say. She is a PST as well with scrum .org. So two different organizations from two different founders of Scrum. She has been a professor at St. Mary's University. So has that kind of educational background as well. And I was asking her beforehand if there's anything else I needed to say. And she said, well, make sure you say I've got nine grandchildren. That's kind of my claim to fame. I love that. So. Nine grandchildren, very happy for that. So that's who we're talking with. And we wanted to have Dr. Thompson because there's a lot of experience here that she brings to the table in the realm of scaling, obviously being connected so closely with those two organizations. So with all that out of the way, let's talk about scaling a little bit. And Dr. Thompson, what I want to start with is just Tess Thompson (01:27) I'm Brian (01:40) When you work with organizations today that have scaling issues, what are organizations really struggling with? What's kind of the main issues that you see organizations have with scaling today? Tess Thompson (01:55) I would say there's a lot of things, but I would say still the biggest problem is getting everybody to align on what the priority is. So at some point, like you get alignment with maybe people that are doing Scrum and they're the people that are above them, but then the people above them are out of alignment. like, for example, one of the clients I have right now brought some consultants in to work on a project. Brian (01:59) Yeah, right. Tess Thompson (02:24) And those consultants have been stuck now for four weeks. And where the alignment problem is, is actually up at the C -suite with this client. Because one of them says, nope, we were supposed to help. That was a priority in 2023. And the other one's like, no, this is a priority in 2024. And they're not helping each other. So in the meantime, this project is stuck for four weeks. And we're spending money on people that are sitting there doing nothing. Brian (02:50) So just when you say alignment, give us kind of a flavor. when leaders are misaligned, what kind of things are they, are there different ideas about priority or different ideas about why they're doing this? What are they misaligned on? Okay. Tess Thompson (03:09) Both, both, I would say both. The, you know, especially as the companies get bigger and bigger, we have a CEO who's got some priorities, but then all the C -suite under them have their own priorities and they're not always, and then they break down to the next level and these priorities start to get out of alignment because people start bringing in their own objectives and their own priorities and they often don't match what somebody else is doing. So part of it is the different incentives and just the organizations being so big, they have to get even these priorities aligned at different levels. Brian (03:49) So this is kind of an amazing thing, I think, for people to latch onto here, because I hear a lot of people in just regular base level classes talk about how there's a disconnect between them and the leadership on how they're going to do Scrum and how this fits into the overall structure of the organization. just understand, Dr. Thompson here is talking about organizations that The leadership has stated, at least in some way, or form, we're in alignment with this. We want to do this. We want to have Scrum throughout our organization. But even in those situations, we're seeing these misalignments of just priorities and what are the drivers really for what they're trying to do. So I find that fascinating that talking to so many people who just wish that their leadership could get on board. with what it is they're trying to do, that even in those organizations where they do, quote unquote, get on board, there's still these kind of fundamental disconnects. Tess Thompson (04:51) Yep, absolutely. In fact, I do very little work anymore on scrum specific. is many organizations, I mean, almost every organization I go into anymore has some shape or form of scrum going on or people with experience with it. Some people, you know, they're not, it's something that they're trying to do anyway, something agile. And they're... They're getting things done quicker. They're delivering with higher quality. They have better communication at that level. But then as you go up the chain, things start to break down and then teams are stuck. So organizations can only get product out the door with high quality as quick as possible. The more the organ... We have to really think the system. So most of the work that I do today is around the system, which is scaling. It's system agility. Otherwise you start having, you just run into optimization in areas, that local optimization problem. Brian (05:58) Yeah, yeah, not seeing the whole, right? Tess Thompson (06:02) Right, absolutely. So I think that over the years that Agile has been around, we're seeing more and more of it, but then it's, like I said, almost all my work now is system level and not down at the team level. So often I'm not even using Scrum language when I'm talking. It is about alignment. It is about prioritization. So yes, at a Scrum level, your product owner is putting the order of the product backlog, and then the team can pull out off that backlog. based on value from all the different stakeholders that the product owner is working with. But in a big organization, those stakeholders can be a manager, can be a director, it can be another department, it can be, it's from all over the place. And then at some point, how does that work coming into the product owner roll up to the priority of the department or a higher level? And then how does that roll up to the higher level? And that's where we start running into messes. Brian (06:58) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. mean, it's like you said, with all these various priorities, with all these various drivers, I've always talked to product owners and say, it's a tough job. You're balancing the needs and desires of all these people into one product, and you're having to take them all into account. So yeah, it's not easy. It's not an easy job. Tess Thompson (07:08) You. Brian (07:27) Well, so I'm curious about, you say you don't really even use the Scrum language as much when you're talking to the leaders, because they're not really interested in that, right? They're not really interested in, we doing this exactly according to what the Scrum guide says? They're interested in the outcome, right? The results that you're getting from this. Yeah, so I'm kind of curious, especially since you're a fellow with Scrum Inc. And I know that the... Tess Thompson (07:37) No. Absolutely. Brian (07:55) a Scrum at Scale kind of strategy is very specific about how these things are implemented. There's practices and all sorts of stuff that Scrum at Scale kind of implements. Would you categorize yourself as sort of a Scrum at Scale implementation consultant? Or is it more of j

Is Agile really dead, or are we just doing it wrong? Tune in as Brian and Scott dive deep into the controversies and misconceptions surrounding Agile practices and what it really takes to make Agile work in today’s organizations. Overview In this episode, Brian and Agile Mentors Podcast regular, Scott Dunn, tackle the provocative question: "Is Agile Dead?" sparked by recent claims of Agile's high failure rates. They discuss the validity of these claims, the common pitfalls of bad Agile implementations, and the importance of continuous improvement and experimentation in Agile practices. The conversation explores the shortcomings of current training approaches, the crucial role of effective coaching and leadership support, and how to overcome the widespread misconceptions about Agile. Brian and Scott emphasize the need to focus on outcomes and ongoing learning rather than getting bogged down by methodology debates and rigid terminologies. References and resources mentioned in the show: Scott Dunn #93: The Rise of Human Skills and Agile Acumen with Evan Leybourn Are Agile and Scrum Dead? By Mike Cohn Join the Agile Mentors Community Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input.  Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Scott Dunn is a Certified Enterprise Coach and Scrum Trainer with over 20 years of experience coaching and training companies like NASA, EMC/Dell Technologies, Yahoo!, Technicolor, and eBay to transition to an agile approach using Scrum. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. Welcome back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today, friend of the show, regular, you know him, you love him, Mr. Scott Dunn is with us. Welcome back, Scott. Scott (00:13) That's my new favorite intro ever. So thank you, Brian. Always glad to be and then glad to talk shop. So I appreciate you making me some space so that I get to work with you again. Brian (00:16) Ha ha ha. Yeah, we need like walkout music for you. know, like when the pitcher comes out to the mound, the relief pitcher or the wrestler comes out, you know, or whatever, they play the walkout music. We need walkout music. We wanted to have Scott back because there's a hot topic and this is your hot take alert because this show I'm sure is gonna be full of personal hot takes here on the subject. Scott (00:30) Yeah yeah, there you go. Brian (00:50) And that is, is Agile dead? There has been a lot of talk recently about this in the past few months. There's been a lot of blog posts written, a lot of armchair quarterbacks chiming in and trying to make sense of this. So before we dive in, Scott, I want to give a little bit of background to our listeners in case you're not aware of something that happened, where this came from, right? Because I think that there was In one sense, there's always an undercurrent. There's always people out there who are ready to say Agile's dead, right? And so they're waiting to pounce on anything that would back them up. And there was someone who was very happy to oblige about that. There was a company called Engprax, E -N -G -P -R -A -X. I couldn't find much out about them except they're a consulting company. And they put out an article that was announcing research they had done that said that 260 % higher failure rates for Agile software projects. That's what their study revealed. Yeah, 268%. So let's just start there, right? But the article is very thinly veiled in support. of another competing process, believe it or not, called Impact Engineering that is authored with a book that's just out, believe it or not, by a gentleman named Junade Ali. Now I have no idea, I have never crossed paths with this gentleman. I don't know his philosophy or his, much more about him. I did look him up on LinkedIn. He's been in the business for about 11 years. If I trace back to his first thing, it's about 11 years ago. He currently lists himself as the chief executive officer of a stealth startup. Well, I think I can remove the mask of what that stealth startup is because it is Ingeprax. So he is the head of that company. I found another article that did the research in support of his book. Scott (03:03) Hahaha Brian (03:12) announcing his new process that is a competitor, of course, to Agile. Now, there's been a lot of back and forth. He's tried to defend this and say, you know, the research is solid, but here's the thing I always say, without data, it didn't happen. If you're not showing me the actual methodology, if you're not showing me the scientific research paper behind it that says, here's the methodology of the research, here's how we conducted it, here's the... There are some details that are in the article, one of which is that the research was done over a period of about five days. So it was research over about five days. was interviewing a set of, I'm trying to scroll through and find the numbers. I think it was like 250 or so engineers from the UK and 350 from the US. It's something around those numbers. But it was interviews with engineers over a period of about five days. Scott (03:50) Wow. Brian (04:11) And so the numbers are based on these engineers' recall of what their idea of success was in projects, whether it was an Agile project or not an Agile project, by their definition of whether it was an Agile project or not. He doesn't really describe in the article what success is. So saying that it's 268 % failure, what is a failure? It doesn't really state that plainly. So again, where's the data, right? I'm not going to go on and on about the research and the fact, but I just want to give the background before we dive into it because that article is what now you will see quite a few blog posts and things crossing your desk on LinkedIn that say, wow, look, this new study says 268 % failure rate for agile projects. Well, anytime you see something like that, check the source. You have to check the source. I try to do this in any conference talk I do. I put the links to the sources. And I try to only list data that comes from scientific studies, where you can find the actual research paper and dive into it and get into the nitty gritty of it if you really want to. Otherwise, as I said, it didn't happen. He says in the article, hey, we had PhD people that looked over our work, unnamed PhD people. So you can't even question whether that person was someone legitimate who did it. Just trust him that they were legitimate. So I set that up because I don't mean to take so much time here at start of the episode, but I just wanted to set the foundation. If you weren't aware of that kind of thing or where that came from, you may not even been aware of the background of where that study came from. Scott (05:46) You Brian (06:04) And the fact that the person who kind of sponsored it is got an ulterior motive, right? They're trying to push their own methodology and they're publishing research that they collected, they are publishing, that just so happens to support their foregone conclusion that Agile's bad and their methodology is better. So, but Scott. Scott (06:31) I'm just trying. Brian (06:32) So let's get into the topic because what I really want to get into is, I'm sure you've seen people post things like this and there's been sort of this wave of things in the past year or so of people who are so quick and anxious to say Agile is dead. So what's your general impression there? What have you seen? What have you experienced and how do you respond if someone in class says, hey, is Agile dead? Scott (06:43) Mm Mm I great, great question. So for those listening, I want to just want to affirm that probably a lot of you had experiences like, well, certainly wasn't going great or we're not seeing what we thought and all those things. So part of this, Brian, is I think the ethos of why those things take off like that is I do think there's a general feeling of is this really working for us or not? That's that's fair. So I'm not going to pretend like, it's always goes great. It's, you know, be Pollyanna about that. I remember actually this year. of a CEO, a company saying, Agile absolutely does not work. We're going to go all the way back to just full waterfall. Right. That to me is kind of that harbinger of like, wow, it's built up enough for someone to say that. So a couple of thoughts I have, and I'm going to be pragmatic like you for my friends that are hearing this or maybe thinking this or people at your company are pushing back a bit, is I'm to go back and say, well, okay, let's just say that Agile is dead. So what are you going to do? Are you really going to go back to waterfall? Well, we already know that story. whole reason, for those listening, consider this, whole reason Agile took off was the option A wasn't working and very clearly wasn't working for complex projects like software. Now for this person to come and recommend XYZ, of course, not surprising for all the listeners out there. Obviously, there's a marketplace, there's business. I get it that people are going to pitch and recommend what they do my classic one in our space Brian would be because obviously you I Mike within Mountain Goat are teaching the CSM CSPO and I'll see like 350 page books of get re

Join Brian Milner as he talks with leadership expert Christopher DiBella about mastering the art of influencing without authority. Learn how to lead with respect, empathy, and compassion to inspire your team, even when you don’t hold the official title. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian interviews Christopher DiBella, an expert in leadership and organizational development, about the power of influencing without authority. They explore how Agile leaders, especially Scrum Masters, can effectively guide teams and influence organizational culture through respect, empathy, and compassion. Chris shares practical strategies for building trust, navigating generational differences, and leading through relationships rather than formal authority. The discussion also emphasizes the critical importance of understanding the motivations and needs of others to achieve lasting influence. Whether you're an Agile coach, Scrum Master, or organizational leader, this episode provides actionable advice for leading in a way that inspires collaboration and growth. References and resources mentioned in the show: Christopher DiBella The Leadership Survival Guide: A Blueprint for Leading with Purpose and Impact by Christopher DiBella, PH.D. #37 Servant Leadership, Not Spineless Leadership with Brad Swanson #70 The Role of a Leader in Agile with Mike Cohn #109 Leadership and Culture in DevOps with Claire Clark Short Answers to Big Questions About Agile Leaders by Mike Cohn Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Mike Cohn’s Better User Stories Course Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Christopher DiBella is a leadership coach dedicated to empowering aspiring leaders by teaching influential leadership practices that streamline processes and maximize potential. As the founder of the Institute of Leadership Coaching and Development, Chris is committed to helping others lead with respect, empathy, and compassion to build engaged, high-performing teams. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have a very special guest with me. I have Mr. Chris DiBella with us. Welcome in, Chris. Chris (00:13) Thanks so much, Brian. I appreciate you guys having me. Brian (00:15) Absolutely. We're very excited to have Chris on. Chris, if you're not familiar with Chris and his work, just a brief little introduction here for you. Chris has an MBA in project management. has a PhD in organizational leadership. He's an author and speaker. He's the founder of something called, actually founder and president, excuse me, of the Institute of Leadership, Coaching and Development. And he has a book that should be out right about now while you're listening to this called the leadership survival guide quotes to keep you from going extinct as a leader. So very, very interesting title there. I can't wait to read that. That sounds amazing. But the reason we wanted to have Chris on was one of the topics that Chris focuses on and talks about from time to time is the topic of influencing without authority. And I thought that's really, really interesting in the Agile world and how that relates to things like Scrum Masters and how we work within the organization and stuff. So let's start there, Chris. Let's just talk about where that, what does that title mean to you influencing without authority? Where did that come from? How did that enter your sphere? Chris (01:27) Well, I mean, for the last couple of years, it's a topic that's just been gaining a lot of momentum within the workplace. I guess the easiest way for me to describe the topic is to say that influencing without authority is simply the ability to motivate others to get them to take your direction. But we all know that the real world doesn't work that way. And it's not so easy to get people on board with our ideas and thought processes. So we just need to be more methodical in our approach. when it comes to influencing others. And it's more important now, particularly because when dealing with the different generational and personal generational differences and personalities in the workplace. Brian (02:06) I'm kind of curious how you define that difference. What does influencing with authority look like? What does influencing without authority look like? Chris (02:18) So they kind of both the same. think people sometimes fail to realize that influence is what actually provides power, right? And not authority. So they both kind of fall on the same lines for me. So when you're trying to influence others, you got to remember that with or without authority, you're trying to get somebody, you're persuading somebody, recently you're coercing them to try to get onto your thought process. So you just got to remember that. When you're dealing with them, that you have the capacity to impact what happens next in their lives. Their lives, sorry, not lives. like you have the ability to shape their actions and their behaviors and their opinions, but you also have the ability to have an effect on their character or their continued development. Right. And kind of adding a little bit more to that question is Ken Blanchard, said that the key to successful leadership in today's workplace is influence and not authority. So for someone to be an influential leader, they just need to learn the skills of confidence and clarity and communication. So that to me implies that even if you're not in a formal position of authority, you can still have an influence on those around you. So it's kind of just bouncing off. You know, there's a thin line of with or without authority. It's just understanding people and understanding how to get the best out of them. And you don't need to be called leader or manager to get that out of people. Brian (03:48) I'm kind of curious because especially with your background in project management, kind of more traditional project management, how does that play in project management? I mean, I've gotten in trouble sometimes in talking in class about this issue because I've, know, in my work history, my experience with traditional project management was very much one of... authority. was very much that that person who was the project manager, basically there was a date, a set of work that we're trying to accomplish. it seemed as if the project manager's job was to kind of drive the team, push the team, be the parent of the team, and make sure that they come in on time, on scope, on budget. How does the project management community in today's environment see this dichotomy between leading with influence or with authority. Chris (04:50) So that's a great question because I think, can I even touch on Scrum teams with this? Cause, cause I think they're, kind of go hand in hand for me. Right. and I, you know, from, if we use project management or Scrum teams as an example, right. No one, even as a project manager, right. No one has any real form of authority on the people side of things. Project managers really are just people put in place just to get things done. Right. They don't, they don't have an official title to get things done. Right. So it can be argued that. Brian (04:54) Yeah, yeah, yeah, please. Chris (05:20) while these individuals on a Scrum team or a project management team have no formal authority at all, that they're still ultimately responsible for project outcomes, right? Or it can be argued that an authority is inherently given to them based on their ability to act on behalf of all those objectives. Right. But the bigger point for me is that if there's no formal authority given, this could just limit the influence that someone has on the people in the processes side. Right. But that doesn't mean that you still can't be an effective leader who others look to. And this type of authority is based more on who you are as a person and how you treat others, as opposed to simply being viewed by that title that you possess. So I think there's there's a very strong connection there between Scrumteam and project managers. Brian (06:04) Yeah, I mean, it's a tricky thing because I mean, I think about this, like a lot of things, I'll make sports analogies and how I think about these relationships. And when I think about like the coach of a team, the coach can't make the players perform better. It has to be their own personal decision to do what they need to do. But on the other hand, we definitely hold the coach accountable if the team isn't doing well. And it seems almost like slightly unfair, you know, to think about this, that I can't really, I don't really have the authority to make that person do something. I have to, as we said, influence them to do it. Chris (06:50) So can I touch on that real quick? Cause you brought up a great analogy that I like to talk about from coaching perspective. So I used to coach soccer and if I start rambling, just tell me to shut up, but I'm licensed to coach up to a college level, right? But I always opted to coach at about the 12 and 13 year age group for

Discover how recognizing and accommodating different collaboration styles can transform your Agile team dynamics. Join Brian Milner and Jessica Guistolise as they delve into the key to effective and inclusive collaboration. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian interviews Jessica Guistolise about the diverse collaboration styles that impact team dynamics. They explore the importance of recognizing and accommodating different collaboration styles—relational, expressive, and introspective—to create effective and inclusive collaborative environments. Jessica provides practical tips for Scrum Masters and facilitators to cater to these styles during meetings and retrospectives. The discussion emphasizes the value of diversity in collaboration styles, which brings different perspectives and ideas to the table, fostering creativity and innovation. References and resources mentioned in the show: Jessica Guistolise Lucid The Collaboration Style Quiz & Report The Global Scrum Gathering Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training Join the Agile Mentors Community Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input.  Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Jessica Guistolise is an Agile Evangelist and coach at Lucid who excels in helping organizations deliver continuous value to their customers. With a passion for people over process, she specializes in change adoption, gaining critical buy-in, and establishing trust in Agile methodologies across various industries. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We are back for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have a special guest with us. have Jessica Gastolis with us. Did I say that correctly? Jessica Guistolise (00:14) You did. Thank you so much. It's a mouthful. I am so happy to be here. Thank you so much for inviting Brian (00:21) Absolutely, incredibly excited to have you here. For those who aren't familiar with Jessica, she is an evangelist at Lucid. So I'm sure we'll hear a little bit about that as we talk. She is an agile coach and she has the credentials to back that up. She has from the Coaches Training Institute, a professional coach certification and also she's an ORSC coach, if you are familiar with that. I'm familiar with that. I know there's a lot that goes into getting those. So it's not just, you know, filling out a, sending in some box stops and, you know, getting it back in the mail. and, so the reason I wanted to have Jessica on is because she was speaking at, or she did speak at the scrum gathering that just took place, back in May. And, she had a couple of talks actually that she did with, Brian Stallings there. but one of them really caught my And I thought it would be interesting here to the audience. And that's about collaboration styles. So let's dive into that topic. When we talk about collaboration styles, Jessica, don't we all collaborate the same? Jessica Guistolise (01:33) You know, it's funny, we don't actually. Though, although there is a kind of a misconception that we do because we collaborate in the way that we collaborate, but not everybody collaborates in the same way. And so for us to create really amazing collaborative environments, it's helpful to have an awareness of those different styles. And if we facilitate in such a way that cares to each one of those styles, you're gonna get so much more in the room than you would if you only stick with, well, here's how I collaborate. So obviously this is the way to do it. Brian (02:09) Right. Yeah, I think this is such an important topic because I know one of the questions I'll get a lot in classes or just even in Q &A sessions when we talk about retrospectives is, I'm having a hard time facilitating my retrospective and my team doesn't want to talk or my team's quiet and shy. And to me, this is all kind of indicative of this concept of you're probably not recognizing that they have different collaboration styles than you do. Jessica Guistolise (02:41) Yeah, absolutely. And it's so amazing because I think as Scrum Masters, as Agile Coaches, this is a really important piece to recognize because as the facilitator, you're really building the container. think of these events as like the containers and the folks who are doing the work, they're all the content. But if you build a container that's going to allow for that content to emerge in a healthy way, you just, I mean, Anything's possible. Brian (03:10) Right, right. And you know, one of the things I love to say in classes is just that, you know, that facilitation, that's the root goes back to this phrase, it means to make easy. And you know, that's our job is to make whatever that thing is easy. And if we are, if we're not aware of our own personal preference and style and how we collaborate, then it's harder for us to even be empathetic or recognize that other people have different styles and much less how to accommodate them and be inclusive of them in those environments. So I just think it's a really important Jessica Guistolise (03:51) Well, and the interesting thing too, besides easy, there's also an element of safety. Because if you're asking me to collaborate in a way that makes me really uncomfortable, then I'm spending all of that time in my discomfort and trying to put forth ideas. Those two things are so, they clash. And so there's also an element of just creating an environment of not just easy because this is the way that I collaborate, but I feel safe in collaborating in a that make sense to me. In fact, there's some, there are a couple of styles that are almost opposites. So if you're asking me to collaborate in that way, ooh, I am not sharing anything with you. Brian (04:31) Right, right, you have that amygdala hijack going on. You're kind of, you're in that fight or flight mode of just, my gosh, I'm panicked. I don't want to do this. I feel highly uncomfortable. you know, it's, can, you know, literally it's blocking those neural pathways of actually being able to collaborate and access, you know, the parts of your brain that would allow you to, to contribute in that kind of environment. Jessica Guistolise (04:59) Yeah, it's fascinating actually, right before the study that was done came out, I was in a collaboration with a group of people who were collaborating in a way that was wildly uncomfortable. And I came out of that meeting feeling dumb. Like I really was like, wow, I didn't, I just gave nothing. But then, you know, a little while later I was like, well, but I have this idea and this idea and this, wait a minute. I was just stuck because this isn't a way that's very comfortable for me. Brian (05:28) Yeah. Well, you know, I know you probably know this, but for anyone else listening out there as well, I have definitely felt that way as well in sessions that were kind of contrary to, you know, opposite of what I prefer. And, you know, the way I always describe it is I don't, I'm not a person who thinks out loud. I think internally, I think quietly and then express it later. I need time to process and work through things. But I recognize there are others who are verbal processors who need to speak out loud and and You know if you're in a meeting with a bunch of those Types of people who have that collaboration style and and yours is a quiet one Then you know I've walked out of those rooms before feeling like gosh I'm the dumb one in this meeting because I didn't have anything to contribute Jessica Guistolise (06:12) Yeah, I didn't provide any value in that, but there is, there's so important to recognize that. And I think there's, there's, there are ways to create these containers and to create these collaboration sales that really help to make it so that everyone can feel comfortable collaborating in the way that is going to be comfortable for them. And it just, it's, you know, it's the facilitator work of being prepared. Brian (06:16) Right, right. Jessica Guistolise (06:38) preparing for the meeting or the event, creating the container in a way that's going to be safe, comfortable, and easy for everyone. Brian (06:45) Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, let's get to the meat of that then, because I know there are a few, you kind of delineated these in the presentation that you had. So walk us through, what are the differences in these different kinds of collaboration styles? Jessica Guistolise (06:59) Yeah, so the study was done, Lucid did a really interesting study. I was so excited by this. And what they found was over half of knowledge workers identify with one of three collaboration styles. And the other part of that is you may not land fully in one of the three and you may have kind of a blend of them, but these are the ones that we see most often. And one of the things that I always like to point out too is that none of these are Like it's just the way that you feel comfortable. They're all really helpful and healthy and really great ways of coming together. So I'll start with the one that I most identify with because it makes the most sense to me. That's we normally create collaboration is we

Explore the dynamic future of work with Brian Milner and Heather McGowan as they discuss the essential shifts in mindset and culture needed to thrive in the augmented era. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner interviews Heather McGowan, a renowned future of work strategist, about the rapidly changing landscape of work in the augmented era. Heather emphasizes the importance of adaptation, empathy, and human connection in response to technological, societal, and cultural shifts. They discuss the pervasive issue of loneliness in the workplace and the critical role of leaders in fostering a culture of trust, agency, and high expectations to drive performance and productivity. Heather also shares insights on finding personal purpose and intrinsic motivation to excel in the future of work. This conversation provides valuable strategies for individuals and leaders to navigate the evolving work environment successfully. References and resources mentioned in the show: Heather McGowan Heather’s Website The Adaptation Advantage by Heather McGowan & Chris Shipley The Empathy Advantage by Heather McGowan & Chris Shipley The UpSwing by Robert Putnam Agile Training for Teams & Leaders Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Heather McGowan is a leading strategist and keynote speaker on the Future of Work, known for transforming mindsets and organizations with her insights on continuous learning, leadership, and culture. Her groundbreaking approach has empowered employees, enhanced leaders' effectiveness through empathy, and driven businesses to achieve their goals in a rapidly evolving market. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back with you for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today we have someone I'm very, very excited to have on. She was the keynote speaker that kicked off our Scrum Gathering in New Orleans this year. It's Ms. Heather McGowan. So welcome in, Heather. Heather (00:20) Hey there, thanks so much for having Brian (00:23) I'm so excited to have Heather in. If you're not familiar with Heather's work, she has, think, the best job title I think I've ever heard. She is the future of work strategist. And like I said, that's awesome. I love that. But beyond that, there's a lot that I could say about Heather to introduce her to you. But I'll give you a couple of things just so you kind of understand the perspective of her coming home. First, She was named one of the top 50 female futurists by Forbes. So let that sink in. She also has two incredible books out there. One called The Adaptation Advantage. has more than two books, two recent books. The Adaptation Advantage, Let Go, Learn Fast, and Thrive in the Future of Work. That's one. And her latest one that just came out recently, it's called The Empathy Advantage. leading the empowered workforce. And I'm very, excited to have her on because her talk at the Scrum Gathering really captured my imagination. And I think everyone's imagination there. so let's just dive in, Heather. Let's talk about this whole concept of the future of work. And I think one of the ways you started in the presentation, I think, was really important to try to understand where we are on the timeline of the work. the way we have progressed through ways of working. So where are we? Where would you put us on the timeline? Heather (01:57) Yeah, so first of all, the title, Future Work Strategist, was not something I applied for. It's a title. Brian (02:03) Really? Because I want to fill out that job application. Heather (02:07) It's a title I created because I felt like there was a need for many of us to be working in looking at the future work, which is something that will never be done. It often gets conflated with being about where we work or DEI issues, but really it is about those things. But for me, it's about leadership, it's about workforce, it's about learning, it's about adaptation, it's about purpose. It's about adapting right now pretty rapid changes that are not only technological, but societal and cultural and demographic and generational. And we're wrestling with just a lot of change at once. one of the things I say to folks is sometimes I think that the majority of what we're going to be doing in the near term is helping each other adapt. Because we're to have to adapt at a clip we've never had to adapt to before. Prior generations had maybe one paradigm shifting change in a generation. Now we might have three or four. Brian (03:02) Yeah. Heather (03:03) So in terms of where we are, we had the agricultural era and the industrial era and the information era. Well, we're now in the augmented era. So we're dealing with technology consuming tasks that we do at a faster and faster clip. And a lot of people kind of catastrophize it about technology taking away jobs. We're the only species that would invent things to make ourselves irrelevant. that's how what people, but it doesn't make any sense. What we're really doing is inventing technologies that augment our potential. And it requires us to not only learn and adapt and think about differently about who we are, which is what the adaptation advantage was really about, but how do we relate to each other? How do we get the best out of each other? And that's really what the empathy advantage was about. So we're in the augmented era. Technology is going to continue to come at a faster and faster clip. But it's more important for us to think about how we learn and adapt and how we lean into our uniquely human skills. Because... The technology can provide the answers, but it's up to us to find the questions. Brian (04:04) That's awesome. Yeah. I think that's such an excellent point that, you know, just trying to think about the fact that, yes, in previous generations, there may have been one paradigm shifting kind of change that comes through a lifetime in the way that we work. But in our lifetimes, we've dealt with the Internet coming on board and we've dealt with multiple revolutions since then, mobile and AI. And these things happen. it's such a greater clip that it really does shift even even things like COVID changing, a lot of places working from home previously was always in the office. It seems like change is the constant now and that change is kind of the thing that we need to get good at is being adaptive and able to change. Why do you feel like, I'm just kind of curious of your opinion on this, why do feel like we're so resistant as humans to just change in general? Heather (05:00) I think we have a fear of obsolescence. then in times like right now, I delve into this sometimes in some of my talks, is we're going through some pretty significant division and polarization. It's really acute in the US, but it's happening all over the world. You look at the elections in France and the UK recently. I think it's important to understand how that happened because a lot of people think that's just social media. And technology did come into play, but if you look back in the US anyway in the 70s and 80s, that's when we started to see a real erosion in our social fabric. We started having fewer people over for dinner and being part of fewer fewer clubs, talking to our neighbors less. So we got more and more isolated. And then we had a loneliness epidemic that's been around for at least a decade or so, which, and when you're lonely, your amygdala, the kind of reptilian part of your brain goes into overdrive. So you go into fight or flight mode. So you have a lot of change, isolation, fight or flight mode, and then you throw in social media that kind of catastrophizes things. And we're all in this us versus them mode. And we've stopped seeing, hearing each other. And one of my messages in almost all my talks is we have so much more in common than we have in difference. They show lots of studies from it. So if we just could start talking to each other again, we may not vote for the same candidate. We don't vote for the same teams, but we both love the sport. And that's what we need to get back to is understanding how much we have in common because so much of the work we're going to be doing, especially when technology comes in, is communication, collaboration, exploration. And all of those things require us to relate to each other because you're going to see something that I don't see. And if I only hired people who think like me, it would be tragic because I wouldn't see the entirety of the opportunity. So if you want to really drive profitable growth in your company, you want those diversities of inputs and you want to set a culture that has people see and hear each other so you can see optimally the opportunity space. And because that's what we're going to be doing. It's most of the work we're going be doing. Brian (06:55) Yeah, yeah, this is a fascinating fact to me because I, one of the things I start in your presentation is just this idea about loneliness. And I absolutely agree. You know, there's, I think we all can kind of recognize that even though we've tried to create these social media companies that to try to, you know, get a, gain a str