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Agility Island - for practitioners & coaches in Product Management, Lean, Agile & Scrum

Agility Island - for practitioners & coaches in Product Management, Lean, Agile & Scrum

By John Coleman PKT, PST, LSFT, Thinkers360 top 10

Hi, I'm John and I'm passionate about the world of agility, scrum, and kanban. So much so, that I dedicated the last decade and a half of my career to helping organizations and individuals with implementing agility.

Listen to regular nuggets from an active globally recognized practitioner, trainer, and coach in tech and non-tech at the home of authentic agility.

I am a Thinkers360 top 10 agility thought leader, Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer and course steward, co-author of Kanban Guide, Prokanban.org Professional Kanban Trainer and LeSS Friendly Scrum Trainer.
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Currently playing episode

Daily Flow - Why I love Scrum with UX

Agility Island - for practitioners & coaches in Product Management, Lean, Agile & ScrumJul 07, 2021

00:00
14:18
Kanban Series: How to manage discovery and delivery work on a Kanban board
Jan 16, 202409:22
Kanban Series: Classes of Service
Jan 09, 202408:51
What is a "Funnel" in Kanban?
Sep 19, 202301:53
The definition of workflow
Aug 30, 202309:22
Sizing: the Do's and Don'ts
Aug 25, 202301:36
Tom Gilb on eliciting what stakeholders need & solving customer problems, opportunities and threats, the principles of success planning & impact estimation tables

Tom Gilb on eliciting what stakeholders need & solving customer problems, opportunities and threats, the principles of success planning & impact estimation tables

Tom Gilb joins me on this week's episode of the Agility Island podcast to discuss what stakeholders need and how to solve solve customer problems, opportunities and threats? On the agenda: 1. How can we, as practitioners, be better at eliciting what stakeholders really need, who the right stakeholders are, and how can we solve customer problems, opportunities, and threats?

2. Tom’s Background

3. Review and quality control of requirements

4. Definition of ready

5. Definitions of success and failure and examples

6. Value objectives

7. The principles of success planning and definition: Define the success criteria and the constraints of the failure criteria

8. The importance of rigorous systematic thought

9. Definition of the state of success

10. Scientific inquiry

11. The secret of avoiding failure

12. No evil and outsmarting the evil

13. Limiting losses

14. Choose good

15. The importance of having estimates for much safety will be delivered in a timeframe

16. Who are your critical stakeholders? Who do we need t look after?

17. Tom’s experience at Boeing

18. Value requirements and examples

19. Constraint levels: intolerable, tolerable, success, stretches

20. Impact estimation tables

21. Long-term objectives: mature planners vs. immature planners

22. Technical debt

23. Laws of project success

24. Ethics of success

25. De-composing stakeholder needs

26. Delivering miracles while in planning mode? Tom’s Amazon Repository: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Tom-Gi... Tom Gilb on Leanpub: https://leanpub.com/u/tomgilb Tom’s website (free ebooks): https://www.gilb.com/ About John Coleman: John Coleman's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johncolem... John Coleman's website: https://orderlydisruption.com/ Looking to get your Scrum/Agility training? Check out my courses at: https://orderlydisruption.com/collect... Thank you for watching. #scrum #agile #productmanagement

Jul 28, 202353:14
Product Management Series: Product Owner vs Product Manager vs Product Leader and the Scrum accountabilities
Jul 17, 202309:12
Product Management Series: What is the difference between product management and scrum?
Apr 13, 202304:52
What is throughput in Kanban and how do you measure it?
Apr 02, 202304:35
The 1 question to figure out where you are in the product life cycle
Feb 11, 202303:36
Product Owner Coping Strategies
Dec 12, 202204:31
Product Management Series: Different Types of Product Owner
Nov 07, 202208:12
Agility Island: What is Large Scale Scrum (LeSS)?
Oct 07, 202211:59
Agility Island: Advice I would give my younger self (from an active practitioner and scrum master with 18 years of experience)
Aug 31, 202208:47
Agility Island: leader vs scrum master (scrum master vs agile coach?)
Jul 19, 202206:22
Agility Island - Sustainability

Agility Island - Sustainability

Sustainability should be central to value. Instead of inauthentic greenwashing lets aim to be authentic with our sustainability and truly reduce our impact on the environment. If you truly want to improve your sustainability, consider it in terms of how you prioritize value.

Jul 01, 202202:56
Setting Expectations In Scrum

Setting Expectations In Scrum

When will it be done? How do we manage expectations in scrum? How do we use Monte Carlo probabilistic forecasting and the importance of throughput. 


My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johncolemanagilitychef

My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johncolemanagilitychef/

My twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnColemanIRL

Jun 27, 202203:39
Agility Island - What is a product goal?
Jun 24, 202204:58
Retrospectives and Techniques
Jun 20, 202202:23
Constraints, work capability, throughput & flow

Constraints, work capability, throughput & flow

Do you know what your team or team of teams capability to take on work is? How can throughput help? Using real-world examples, this episode aims to outline work capability and throughput. 


My social media:

https://www.instagram.com/johncolemanagilitychef/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/johncolemanagilitychef

http://orderlydisruption.co.uk/


Jun 15, 202205:31
How do you measure value in scrum?

How do you measure value in scrum?

What is value and how is it measured in scrum? 

In this episode, I walk you through some types of value such as organizational value, market value, societal value and learning value. 

I then focus on models such as the WK Kellogg Foundation Logic Model as well as Martin Fowler's Strangler Pattern to further outline the importance of learning. 

https://www.instagram.com/basicallyagile/

https://www.instagram.com/johncolemanagilitychef/

https://anchor.fm/xagility


Jun 13, 202219:09
Trust and its impact on the definition of done in scrum

Trust and its impact on the definition of done in scrum

How does trust impact the definition of done? Does low trust affect the definition of done? How can we work on building trust to help our definition of done?

You can't see me, but I am adding something in the air. What is it? Trust.

Trust yourself.  Trust your team.  Do the work.  Impact the Definition of Done.

For more check out:

My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johncolemanagilitychef

My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/basicallyagile/

orderlydisruption.com

May 31, 202211:20
What the developers do in the last week of the sprint?

What the developers do in the last week of the sprint?

Do you think work should be handed off once it meets the definition of done? On this episode, I talk about how developers should collaborate with the 'testers' and the important role that plays overall. Tune in, you might find some useful tips. 


Apr 29, 202206:00
Can scrum and agility be scaled and what’s the best way to do it?

Can scrum and agility be scaled and what’s the best way to do it?

In this episode, I talk you through some of the different ways and frameworks you can use to scale scrum and agile. The first rule is of course not scale but if you must, here are some ways to do so:

3:27 LeSS - what is it and how does it work?

6:29 Disciplined agile - what is it and how does it work?

7:21 Scrum at scale - what is it and how does it work?

8:21 SAFe - what is it and how does it work?

9:55 Nexus - what is it and how does it work?

11:43 Spotify ING - what is it and how does it work?

12:29 Flight Levels - what is it and how does it work?


I also wrote a blog post on this, you can find it here: https://orderlydisruption.com/blogs/grow-agility-for-your-why/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-preamble-to-1-of-4

Apr 27, 202215:33
Value and Kanban: isn't Kanban just about outputs? Isn't Kanban missing a trick with value and organizational capability?

Value and Kanban: isn't Kanban just about outputs? Isn't Kanban missing a trick with value and organizational capability?

How do we deliver value in Kanban? 

In this episode, John starts off by talking about by briefly introducing evidence-based management (EBM) and explains its 4 key values: time to market, ability to innovate, current value and unrealized value. 

John then moves on to look at how these values operate in the context of Kanban (2:35) and things that may actually harm your ability to deliver value. 

John then goes on to talk about classes of service in Kanban and why in his opinion, intangible is the preferred class of service. 

Apr 25, 202213:43
Balancing UX with shipping fast in scrum? A deeper look into each box of the Lean UX canvas - are you doing User Experience the right way?

Balancing UX with shipping fast in scrum? A deeper look into each box of the Lean UX canvas - are you doing User Experience the right way?

Is there such thing as balancing UX with shipping fast in scrum? 

Is there even such thing as shipping fast in scrum? 

How can we know what is value when we don't know the end-user?   

What happens in each box of the Lean UX canvas?

Apr 12, 202216:22
Daily Flow - dealing with complexity in a Kanban footprint

Daily Flow - dealing with complexity in a Kanban footprint

How can we better deal with complexity in a Kanban footprint? Join me in this short episode to explore how.

Mar 30, 202209:04
Daily Flow - a story about story points and an alternative, throughput

Daily Flow - a story about story points and an alternative, throughput

In this episode, I go through some field stories regarding story points - why you shouldn't use them and offer alternatives. 

Mar 29, 202214:60
Daily Flow: Sizing & Forecasting

Daily Flow: Sizing & Forecasting

Popular patterns for sizing including "exact" time/cost, relative, right-sizing, and #noestimates. Popular patterns for forecasting include Gantt charts(ugh!), burnup/down charts(hmmm), and probabilistic forecasting(oooo). An emerging trend is with right-sizing and probabilistic forecasting. It's not all sunshine and honey, context matters, and it's dangerous to over-simplify. Let's laser focus on the upsides and downsides of each of these options.


Time Stamps:

0:00 Approaches & Their Upsides

9:00 Downsides of Approaches

19:02 Approaches for Forecasting

Mar 29, 202220:41
Daily Flow - where does Scrum Master end and agile leader begin

Daily Flow - where does Scrum Master end and agile leader begin

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction  

0:22 scrum master vs agile coach 

1:46 The conversations you might have as a leader/scrum master/agility coach

 3:48 What I expect a scrum master or agility coach to do

 10:00 What about a leader? 

13:17 Some things to consider stopping


Watch the video version of this episode here: https://youtu.be/9n90oOChNQY

Nov 09, 202117:10
Daily Flow: Scrum definition of done for non-software, Kanban board & column exit criteria

Daily Flow: Scrum definition of done for non-software, Kanban board & column exit criteria

Let's focus on non-software - let's consider a people recruitment process as an example.   

What does "done" mean? Valuable, useful, and usable in Scrum, whatever the organization/team decides it is. 

"When someone's need was met" in Agendashift. Maybe a near to exit stage on a Kanban board... 

 How is "done" different from acceptance criteria for a Scrum product backlog item or subtasks on a Kanban work item? 

0:00 Introduction  

3:42 The definition of "done" 

5:27 Definition of done in Kanban & subtasks 

7:05 Acceptance criteria may become obsolete 

7:53 Different categories of quality standards   

10:44 Recruitment example  

18:07 Definition of Done in Kanban for non-software

20:17 One of the things I love about kanban  

24:28 Answering questions and comments


Watch the video version of this episode here: https://youtu.be/CZTarEzFvBc

Nov 03, 202130:38
Daily Flow: Product backlog refinement and why is it encouraged?

Daily Flow: Product backlog refinement and why is it encouraged?

Product Backlog Refinement is an activity in (single team) Scrum, with supporting events for multi-team Scrum in Nexus and LeSS. Why is it encouraged? Is there something equivalent in Kanban?  

0:00 Introduction  

0:27 Product backlog refinement in Scrum  

8:03 How do we obtain a common understanding  

9:06  A nerve centre for discovery  

15:00 Optional practices 

15:11 Misunderstandings of product backlog refinement

Watch this in the video format here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gti64RAlVL4

Oct 29, 202116:32
Daily Flow: How do projects and Scrum go together?

Daily Flow: How do projects and Scrum go together?

Projects are artificial constructs to get money to get some work done. Key metric include time, scope, and cost. Products don't have scope. Scrum is for product development and works even better with Lean UX and Kanban as a powerful combination. Should we set up Scrum Teams dedicated to projects? 

0:34 What is a project? 

1:01 Deciding whether to use Scrum or not 

3:17 Problems with using Scrum for projects 

9:01 Managing expectations 

10:12 Scrum teams for each project - good idea?


Watch the video format here: https://youtu.be/VnahFNJgS-g

Oct 28, 202112:38
Daily Flow - what is LeSS and why is it needed?

Daily Flow - what is LeSS and why is it needed?

Daily Flow - what is LeSS and why is it needed?

Oct 15, 202117:56
Daily Flow - all the meetings and no time to get work done

Daily Flow - all the meetings and no time to get work done

Are you in an agile team? Does it feel like meeting mania? It doesn't have to be.

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction 

0:24 Meetings with agile

2:12 Three questions in the Scrum guide 

4:04 The situation to strive for  

7:13 Sprint planning 

10:15 Product backlog refinement

13:50 Having a chat with key stakeholders

Link to YouTube video: https://youtu.be/t99iRz-h2Xs

Oct 05, 202117:36
Daily Flow - a chat with Steve Tendon about constraints in knowledge work

Daily Flow - a chat with Steve Tendon about constraints in knowledge work

Daily Flow hosts the amazing Steven Tendon to discuss constraints in knowledge work. This episode is packed with fun anecdotes as well as the story of Herbie. 

Join us in discussing Steve's amazing work in his own Tame Flow. 

1:48 - Basics of constraints in knowledge work / understanding what is a constraint

2:51 - Story of Herbie

8:53 - Finding the constraint

15:31 - Moving people around

22:33 - Rating behaviour/mental models as a constraint



Oct 01, 202131:49
Daily Flow - what to not talk about at the Daily Scrum, what to not do at the Daily Scrum

Daily Flow - what to not talk about at the Daily Scrum, what to not do at the Daily Scrum

Remember those three annoying questions? Thank goodness they no longer exist in the Scrum guide.  

0:00 Introduction  

2:05 Five domains to think about when working on problems... 

3:49 What to talk about in the daily scrum 

5:15 From a flow perspective... 

7:58 Getting to know each other  

10:57 Answering questions and comments

Jul 23, 202113:26
Daily Flow - what is Nexus, and why is it needed?

Daily Flow - what is Nexus, and why is it needed?

Nexus is Scrum.org's scaling/de-scaling pattern. It's simple and it's practical.  

0:00 Introduction  

1:03 The cake metaphor  

4:55  A basic Nexus  

7:58 Why I like Nexus  

10:50 Minimising dependencies  

12:49 The Nexus daily scrum  

15:47 The 2021 update  

18:25 A key distinction between LeSS and Nexus  

21:10 Answering questions and comments

Jul 23, 202126:46
Daily Flow - Scrum - How long should our Sprint be?

Daily Flow - Scrum - How long should our Sprint be?

Two weeks is the most popular sprint length for Scrum teams, so we should use that right? What if we have multiple teams for the product?

Jul 22, 202109:16
Daily Flow - spot the difference - enterepreneurial product ownership & product leadership

Daily Flow - spot the difference - enterepreneurial product ownership & product leadership

On the Xagility ™ podcast at https://anchor.fm/xagility, Marty Cagan explained his view on product ownership & product management, calling it "CSPO pathology". 

Listen to John Coleman's personal opinion on the following:  What does it mean for teams?  What does it mean for entrepreneurial Product Owners? What does it mean for Product Leaders?  What does it mean for training? What does it mean for organizations?


Jul 22, 202116:07
Daily Flow - a chat with Prateek Singh about Work Item Age
Jul 11, 202122:27
Daily Flow - a chat about intent with David Nixon
Jul 11, 202123:21
Daily Flow - "take the time it takes so it takes less time" vs "it takes as long as it takes"

Daily Flow - "take the time it takes so it takes less time" vs "it takes as long as it takes"

Nik Antonelli made John Coleman aware of the expression "take the time it takes so it takes less time"; complexity aside, it's about being able to afford to do it twice when one could have done it properly once. "It takes as long as it takes" is a dead-sure sign that work item aging is not being taken seriously, and it's the slippery slope to expedite-mania.
Jul 07, 202110:19
Daily Flow - time to think

Daily Flow - time to think

In another episode, John Coleman talked about "turning off the tap". A few weeks after turning off the tap, work level anxiety can still be high. It can be tempting to re-open the tap before your workload has normalized. Don't. How often do we pause to walk in nature, to reflect? don't lose that opportunity to finish work that's been in progress for longer than you'd like to admit. sidebar, sometimes work item age is beyond our control. Remember. By switching off, we switch back on. How likely is that if you reopen the tap?
Jul 07, 202105:22
Daily Flow - Why I love Scrum with UX

Daily Flow - Why I love Scrum with UX

Lean UX was co-created by Joshua Seiden and Jeff Gothelf. Scrum and Lean UX were formally combined in recent years, and John Coleman loves this combination. He refers to it as a heat-seeking missile for value. Find out why.
Jul 07, 202114:18
Daily Flow - let's talk about policies

Daily Flow - let's talk about policies

In Kanban, explicit policies are visible/accessible to Kanban system members. Implicit policies are assumptions, and they might not be shared assumptions. Let's talk about policies.
Jul 07, 202112:57
Daily Flow - Kanban charts basics

Daily Flow - Kanban charts basics

Wouldn't know a cycle time scatter plot if it hit you on the head? You're in the right place to look at that and a few other sleep-inducing charts. What a way to start the weekend!
Jun 22, 202120:05
Daily Flow - What is Kanban?
Jun 22, 202116:23
Daily Flow - Turn off the tap!

Daily Flow - Turn off the tap!

Water flow is often used as a metaphor for flow in knowledge work. John often uses the expression "turn off the tap" (incoming work). Is he going crazy?
Jun 22, 202110:23
Daily Flow - is the application of Scrum as per the Scrum Guide too prescriptive?

Daily Flow - is the application of Scrum as per the Scrum Guide too prescriptive?

Is the application of Scrum as per the Scrum Guide too prescriptive? Is the Scrum Guide used as a set of laws you need to adhere here to? Should the Scrum Guide rather be treated as a guide that gives the team a starting point but encourages the team to inspect and adapt the framework to better their outcomes?  To request a topic, leave a message at https://anchor.fm/dailyflow/message or WhatsApp +447908539437, thank you.

Jun 22, 202115:35