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We're arguing about agile so that you don't have to!
We seek to better prepare you to deal with real-life challenges by presenting both sides of the real arguments you will encounter in your professional career.
On this podcast, working professionals explore topics and learnings from their experiences and share the stories of Agilists at all stages of their careers. We seek to do so while maintaining an unbiased position from any financial interest.
234 Episodes
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What do you do when you're assigned to coach a team that clearly doesn't want your help? In this episode, we tackle the uncomfortable reality of coaching unwilling teams—from building trust with resistant groups to knowing when it's time to walk away. 🎯 KEY TOPICS: • Why teams resist coaching (and what they're really protecting) • The danger of "meeting teams where they are" • How to handle power dynamics and surveillance concerns • Coaching executives vs. development teams • When coaching i...
Building products for yourself sounds like the perfect PM training ground! At first glance, you get instant feedback, prioritize ruthlessly, and have no bureaucracy to whom you answer... but does it actually prepare you for professional product management, or does it create dangerous blind spots? In this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel explore several critical dimensions: Learning velocity and skill developmentUser empathy paradoxes...
Is product sense innate or learnable? We debate the million dollar question in product management. Brian and Om explore whether great product leaders are born or made, why organizations promote people with weak product intuition, and how to actually develop genuine product sense. We cover the promotion problem, delayed feedback loops, the role of mentorship, balancing data with intuition, and scaling product thinking across contexts. Key topics: nature vs. nurture in product thinking, why b...
You're expected to drive transformation but can't fire anyone. You need to deliver results but don't control budgets. Welcome to the reality of leading software development efforts - all responsibility, zero authority. Join Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando as we discuss proven strategies for building influence when you have no formal power, including: • Building relationships before you need them • Leveraging expertise without becoming a gate...
Ever wondered why mergers and acquisitions turn good people against each other? In this deep dive, we explore the systematic destruction of workplace relationships after an M&A. From sponsors-turned-foes to information warfare, discover why even the most collaborative cultures become pathological survival games. Key Topics: • Why M&As create artificial scarcity and paranoia • The sponsor-turned-foe phenomenon • Information as currency and weapon • Blame archaeology and ...
Join Product Manager Brian and Enterprise Consultant Om as they peel back the sticky veneer from the "Build First" trend sweeping through product development. Listen or watch as we debate the message being projected by AI tool vendors (who all have their own flavor of tool to sell you) and ask - "are we encouraging teams to skip crucial validation" in favor of rapid prototyping? Stick around for our discussion, which includes: - How "Build First" creates organizational dependencies on AI ...
Is Product Management the most unrealistic job description ever created? Product Managers are supposed to be the "CEO of the product" - a one-person army who is CEO, therapist, engineer, and strategist (all without equity or authority). The only issue is that it sounds terrible and is a modern recipe for failure. Watch as Brian and Om dive deep into the impossible expectations placed on Product Managers. Listen as we talk through how the role expects you to work 60+ hours minimum, han...
In this episode of Arguing Agile, Brian and Om explore the frustrating reality of constant repetition in leadership roles. They discuss why product managers, agile coaches, and team leads find themselves saying the same things over and over - and what to do about it. We explore: • Why repetition is actually part of a leader's core job • How to transform repetition into reinforcement • How the global attention crisis affects workplace communication • Creating single sources of tru...
The agile brand may have become toxic, but your skills haven't lost value. If you're struggling - listen or watch as we discuss the valuable skills you have and how you might apply them in future roles. Founder & CEO Alex Polyakov returns to the podcast, joining Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel for a discussion about the market shift that has taken place and how people avoid being held back by outdated terminology! One immedi...
Your founding team delivered your first million-dollar quarter - but can they scale you to $10 million and beyond? Join Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando as we talk through the challenging transition from startup scrappiness to operational excellence. Along the way, we ask about loyalty vs. performance, innovation vs. optimization, and how to manage team evolution without destroying trust and culture. Watch or listen if you're interested...
Is your QA team really slowing down delivery, or are they just revealing the cracks in your development process? In this episode of Arguing Agile, we're talking about one of the most persistent myths in software development and reveal why QA teams are often unfairly blamed for systemic issues. We explore: The shift-left movement and why QA belongs in customer conversationsHow collaboration breakdowns create false bottlenecks Why treating QA as a cost center backfiresReal strategies for ...
People don't quit jobs - they quit bad bosses... OR DO THEY?!? We had so many untouched debate points from our first episode that it would have been a crime - A CRIME - to throw it all away. So we decided to do a part 2! That's right, we're back and Brian tries to make his argument with all new points - are we blaming individual managers for systemic failures? Listen or watch as we (Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel) debate all new poin...
We're challenging the most accepted wisdom in workplace culture - do people really quit bad bosses, or are they really fleeing broken systems? Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel as they engage in this heated debate and explore whether blaming individual managers lets dysfunctional organizations off the hook. 🔥 Listen or watch as we also cover: Why good managers turn "bad" under systemic pressureThe broken promotion pipeline from individual cont...
Steve Jobs once said he'd rather fire someone than force them to buy into a decision they disagreed with. This flies in the face of popular leadership advice like Amazon's "disagree and commit" philosophy. In this episode, we dive deep into Jobs' consensus-driven approach at NeXT and explore why expert-driven decision making might be superior to top-down mandates. We examine how Jobs' 8-person policy team made only 25 major decisions per year, the importance of psychological safety in decisi...
Last episode, we talked about Instant Pot's failure via financial engineering that most product teams may never see coming. In this episode, we explore why financial literacy should be a core competency for product teams, not something left to the "adults in the room." We break down why reading basic financial statements, understanding customer lifetime value, and making data-driven decisions that actually consider the cost of building features are essential and how you can start moving to...
Instant Pot had $300M+ revenue, passionate users, and $100M cash on hand. So why did they file for bankruptcy? The answer lies in the pattern of how private equity systematically destroys beloved products through financial engineering! In this podcast, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel examine the acquisition of Instant Brands and discuss how leveraged buyouts, special dividends, and debt loading likely turned a kitchen innovation...
Today we're examining Palantir's "Forward Deployed Software Engineers" - and separating fact from the hype! Everything old is new again! Move over companies that have been doing this for decades such as SAP, IBM, and countless consulting firms! https://blog.palantir.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-palantir-forward-deployed-software-engineer-45ef2de257b1 Listen as we break down Palantir's 2020 blog post about their Forward Deployed Software Engineers (FDSEs) and discover what these engineers actua...
Today, we're delivering a not-your-typical-leadership-book review: "Extreme Ownership" by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin! Ed Martin joins hosts Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel for a chapter-by-chapter review of how military leadership principles directly translate to product management, agile coaching, and team development. The core message? True leadership isn't about barking orders - it's about taking complete ownership, empowering o...
The Scrum community is buzzing about a new 55-page expansion to the Scrum Guide. Is this the depth practitioners have been asking for, or is it turning the lightweight framework into bloatware? In this episode, Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando critically examine the "DLC" that claims the original guide was "deliberately oversimplified." We explore new concepts like outcome vs output definitions of done, the "supporters" role, and the inc...
Jensen Huang has 60 direct reports and does no 1:1s, so neither should you - right?!? Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel examine NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's claim that he champions "radical transparency" and his policy of no one-on-ones. Join us as we explore what this means for the rest and listen or watch as we agree that one-on-ones should be employee-driven, focused on growth over status updates, and designed to build the trust that actu...
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