Agile State of Mind
By Maria Chec
Agile State of Mind is a podcast about everything Agile. Agile Leadership, Agile Product Management, Agile Processes, etc.
Agile State of MindJul 11, 2023
S3E2 | Be Genuine - On Personal Brand With Maarten Dalmijn
How to create a Personal Brand for yourself as a Product Manager or and Agile Practitioner? What are the important ingredients of creating a personal brand online? What to do to make your personal brand stand out? What is really a good strategy for personal branding in the Agile world? The third series of the Agile Conversations is about #personalbranding in Agile and Tech world. In this episode, Maarten Dalmijn shares his secrets about his personal brand. Why he decided to build it, what are the main channels he uses, and what tips and tricks he can share to keep going. Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariachec/ Find Maarten Dalmijn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maarten-dalmijn/ Follow me on Social Media: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariachec/ Substack: https://mariachec.substack.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agilestateo...
S3E1 | 3 Steps To Building Your Agile Coach & Scrum Master Personal Brand With Chris Stone
How to create a Personal Brand for yourself as an Agile Coach or a Scrum Master? What are the important ingredients of creating a personal brand online? What to do to make your personal brand unique and stand out? What is really a good strategy for personal branding in the Agile world? The third series of the Agile Conversations is about #personalbranding in Agile and Tech world. How to create a personal brand? What is personal branding? How do you make your content stand out? What's important when you start putting yourself out there? @virtuallyagile Chris Stone and I talk about our experiences and how we started our online presence as an Agile Coach or a Scrum Master. Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariachec/ You can find Chris on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thevirtualagilecoach/ Web: https://linktr.ee/virtuallyagile Follow me on Social Media: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariachec/ Substack: https://mariachec.substack.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agilestateofmind/
S2E6 Product Manager Needs To Be Like Rocky Balboa | Conversation With David Pereira
This one is so much fun! Listening to David Pereira talk is not only interesting, it’s also entertaining. What does a Product Manager have in common with Rocky Balboa? We talk about product roles - the CPO, PO and the PM. What are those, what are the differences.
David is a CPO in omoqo and a prolific writer on Product Management topics.
Find David Pereira on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidavpereira/
Substack: https://dpereira.substack.com/
This is the 6th episode of the second season of podcast - Serious Scrum Conversations in collaboration with Serious Scrum
S2E5 Product Operations with Anabela Cesario
I am talking with Anabela Cesario about Product Operations. Anabela is aa Product Operations Leader and a Chief of Staff to the CPO in Outsystems.
Find Anabela on:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anabelabcesario/
Check out her team's Miro board: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOFV9oeA=/?invite_link_id=453965550097
Today we talk about:
💬 What is Product Operations?
💬 Who needs Product Operations?
💬 How to bootstrap Product Operations?
💬 What is a Chief of Staff to CPO
💬 What tools to use and how does the company prioritization process works?
Listen to the full interview and discover more inside information. Stay curious!
📇 Read more on Substack - https://mariachec.substack.com/p/conversation-pawe-huryn-roadmaps
Follow me on Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariachec/
Substack: https://mariachec.substack.com/
Twitter: @mariamchec
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agilestateofmind/
S2E4 Does Anyone Still Care About Scrum Certificates? With Sjoerd Nijland
Does Anyone Still Care About Scrum Certificates? How do we learn an occupation nowadays?
Nyland and I talk about leadership, Scrum Master and Agile Coach accountabilities. We explore if anyone cares about certifications anymore, and talk about professional courses. What makes us become good Scrum Masters? Nyland, who has almost the full suite of Scrum.org certifications, explains what Road to Mastery is and how it differs from the typical two-day training.
Let us take you on an Agile learning journey!
Sjoerd Nijland, the Co-Founder of Serious Scrum Community and a creator of Road to Mastery learning journey. Find Sjoerd on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjoerd-nijland-9323376/ and join the Road to Mastery: https://www.seriousscrum.com/r2m This is the forth episode of the second season of the podcast - Serious Scrum Conversations in collaboration with Serious Scrum.
Watch the full interview and discover more inside information. Stay curious!
📇 Read more on Substack - https://mariachec.substack.com/p/does-anyone-still-care-about-scrum
Follow me on Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariachec/
Substack: https://mariachec.substack.com/
Twitter: @mariamchec
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agilestateofmind/
S2E3 Are You a Traditional Manager or an Agile Leader? Serious Scrum Conversation with Willem-Jan Ageling
On Serious Scrum Community and Agile Leadership
I had the pleasure to talk to with Willem-Jan Ageling, a Senior Agile Coach at Worldline and the Co-Founder of the Serious Scrum Community. One of the most vibrant independent Scrum communities globally. We talk about how Serious Scrum came to be and what Agile Leadership really is.
We talk Serious Scrum Community, Agile Leadership and the difference between a Traditional Manager and an Agile Leader. We also ask ourselves shouldn't the Scrum Master or an Agile Coach be considered in the leadership path of the company?
Listen to the whole conversation!
S2E2 Roadmaps & Avoiding Product Fiction With Pawel Huryn
I wanted to talk to Paweł Huryn, a Product Management Leader about #roadmaps
Find Paweł Huryn on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pawel-huryn/
Substack: https://huryn.substack.com/
This is the second episode of the second season of podcast - Serious Scrum Conversations in collaboration with @seriousscrum7314
Today we talk about:
💬 What do we need to get started?
💬 What format to use for a Roadmap?
💬 What about Gantt Charts?
💬 What is a reasonable time horizon for a roadmap?
💬 How to make changes to it and notify about any delays?
Let's see where the conversation will take us as we spent quite a lot of time on what are commitments. And also discussing Paweł's Roadmap format.
📇 Read more on Substack - https://mariachec.substack.com/p/conversation-pawe-huryn-roadmaps
🎥 Watch on YouTube - https://youtu.be/-_1PRwAx1VM
#9 Results & Retention | On Titles, Staying Sane & Surviving | Series Recap With Daniel Hauck
"The Rolls-Royce R&R Results and Retention" Daniel Hauck
The 9th episode of the 🎥 Engineering Managers Series 🎙 is summarizing the whole season:
💬 The game of titles - does it really matter? 🫅
💬 Stay sane and survive 🛟
💬 Preparation to be a manager NOT 🏋️♂️
💬 Control your calendar 🗓
💬 Build the team
💬 The 1:1s
Daniel Hauck is an Engineering Lead at Musikhaus Thomann and he is writing a book to help first-time managers stay sane and survive the first couple of weeks in the role. Watch the full episode and discover more inside information. Stay curious!
S2E1 On Sprint Goals with Maarten Dalmijn
"Following the plan cannot become more important than meeting objectives." Maarten Dalmijn
Today I was joined by Maarten Dalmijn, a popular Product Management Leader and soon-to-be-author of a book about Sprint Goals on that precise subject and everything around the importance of setting objectives:
💬 why objectives are important 💡
💬 committing to a plan vs hitting the goals 🗺
💬 a framework for creating meaningful Sprint Goals 🎯
💬 why complex work is like poker ♠️
💬 the imperfect burndown charts 📈
💬 stakeholder management 🕺🏼
💬 constructive disagreement 😬
Listen to the full interview and discover more inside information. Stay curious!
#8 Listen Not To Respond But To Understand | On QA Automation & Time Management by Daniel Gorgan @FreeNow
"Find the sweet spot between people's motivation and company needs" Daniel Gorgan The 8th episode of the 🎥 Engineering Managers Series 🎙 is about
💬 why you might want to have a team of Quality Engineers 👷👥👷
💬 the faster you fail, the faster you learn👷
💬 don't overthink
💬 why as an EM you shouldn't leave room for interpretation 👷
💬 find early adopters to help you spread the knowledge
💬 should most of the roles not be needed?
Daniel Gorgan is an Engineering Manager at FreeNow. FreeNow is a taxi and ride hailing app in Europe. Daniel talks about the QE team he leads. Why at some level of maturity of your company it makes sense that the QEs act as a service rather than testers within the teams. What's the difference between a QA, QE, Tester, etc. We also speak about the time and self-management, pomodoro and other techniques to organize one's time. Watch the full episode and discover more inside information. Stay curious!
🎙 Listen to this episode as a Podcast - https://anchor.fm/maria-chec📇
Read about it on Medium - https://mariachec.medium.com/7-you-have-to-slow-down-to-speed-up-by-brandon-parrott-a-team-lead-at-fyllo-1c25c7d5d789
Find Daniel Gorgan on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dcgorgan
QE job position in Free Now: https://www.free-now.com/es/career/jobs/tech/quality-engineer-automation-4536795/
More about FreeNow where Daniel works: https://www.free-now.com/es/
Music by Coma-Media from Pixabay
Follow me on Social Media:
Twitter: @mariamchec
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariachec/
Medium: https://mariachec.medium.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agilestateofmind/
#7 You Gotta Slow Down To Speed Up | On Mentoring, Avoiding Burnout, RFCs by Brandon Parrott @Fyllo
"Take a step back, provide support when needed, make sure that the Engineers have everything they need. Allow them to make the decisions and just be there to support them." Brandon Parrott
The 7th episode of the 🎥 Engineering Managers Series 🎙 is about
- 💬 providing the team with needed support and allowing them to make decisions 👥
- 💬 why there is no such thing as a full stack engineer 👷
- 💬 getting more personal with your colleagues 👪
- 💬 why slowing down will help the team to speed up in the long run 🏁
- 💬 how OCD can be leveraged to prevent the developers from a burnout 😬
- 💬 switching on the camera for WFH calls 🎥
Brandon Parrott, an Engineering Manager at Fyllo is a Team Lead. Fyllo provides marketing and regulatory solutions for highly regulated businesses. Brandon speaks about empowering the developers by giving them autonomy, why micro-management is not the best way to lead people. We talk design phase, mentorship, juggling a lot of things at the same time and many more. Watch the full episode and discover more inside information. Stay curious!
#6 Make Your Role Available For Someone Else | On Performance Reviews by Tiago Oliveira @OutSystems
The 6th episode of the 🎥 Engineering Managers Series 🎙 is about
💬 in people management there is no such thing as seniority 🎖
💬 all managers struggle withe similar problems 👥
💬 how bees can help you deal with changes 🐝
💬 why you need a war room 🪖
💬 how to make space for people to grow ✨
Tiago Oliveira, an Engineering Manager at @OutSystems is a #manager of managers. His company, OutSystems created a low code platform that helps other companies build their applications quickly. Tiago speaks about how the performance review framework can help managers to make space for people to grow. So how to grow this #leadership muscle.
What's more, we speak about how adapting to change can be also learned elsewhere, in his case by working with the bees - you cannot order them around, you need to adapt. We also talk war rooms, mob programming, recreating the office feeling in remote and many more topics. Watch the full episode and discover more inside information. Stay curious!
New episodes come out every Tuesday!
Listen to this episode as a Podcast: https://anchor.fm/maria-chec
Find Tiago on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiagojvo/
OutSystems where Tiago works https://www.outsystems.com/
Music by Coma-Media from Pixabay
Follow me on Social Media:
- Twitter: @mariamchec
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariachec/
- Medium: https://mariachec.medium.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agilestateofmind/
- Set up coaching sessions with me via Sol: https://app.sol.earth/p/maria
#5 We Are Here To Create a Team of Leaders | On Leader Superpowers, Why You Need to Stop Coding, RFCs by Joao Alves, Engineering Manager at Adevinta
"For first-time managers, make sure you are the one in control of your calendar. You say when you are going to go to meetings and when you are not."
The 5th episode of the 🎥 Engineering Managers Series 🎙 is about
💬 controlling your calendar 📆
💬 writing becoming your superpower 🦹🏻
💬 why you need to stop coding 💻
💬 asking Amazing Questions on 1:1s ⍰
💬 rolling out new process change (RFC)
💬 who is Staff Engineer 👷
💬 creating a team of leaders 🤽♀️
💬 how putting people in uncomfortable situations help empowerment ✨
💬 how async communication saved the Daily 💬
João Alves, an Engineering Manager at Adevinta, a digital marketplace that recently bought a part of eBay, is an engineer by heart. Speaks fluently four languages and explains how especially after the pandemic, the human connection matters and we cannot limit our relationships at work to be purely transactional. We speak about empowering people and creating leaders at all levels.
"We try to empower people (…) by putting them in uncomfortable situations. Presenting in public, making sure they collect requirements from the users and they get firsthand feedback. It's not just the Product Owner talking with users."
Listen to the full episode and discover more inside information. Stay curious!
Find Joao on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joaoqalves/
Adevinta where Joao works
https://www.adevinta.com/
Music by Coma-Media from Pixabay
Follow me on Social Media:
Twitter: @mariamchec
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariachec/
Medium: https://mariachec.medium.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agilestateofmind/
Set up coaching sessions with me via Sol: https://app.sol.earth/p/maria
#4 Admit Failures As a Leader | On Empowering Teams & Leader Veto by Jana Reichel @Aroundhome
"The first thing that you can do as a leader is admitting failures yourself. Saying "Hey, I didn't really react well in that situation."
Jana Reichel, a Team Lead Technology @Aroundhome a matchmaking app for home owners and the craftsmen, provides a great perspective of what it means to be a servant leader, how to empower the people and foster psychological safety in the teams and how to create a support group for the leaders. "It's not just about coding. (…) It's about helping others. It's about moving the product forward."
Listen to the full episode to discover more inside information. And stay curious!
Find Jana on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jana-reichel-96629a180/
Aroundhome where Jana works
https://www.aroundhome.de/
#3 The Role Is In a Sandwich | On Team Spirit, Curiosity and Challenges of Engineering Manager Role by Miguel Gomez @Bumble
"Part of my philosophy is that the team should not need me."
The 3rd episode of Engineering Managers Series is about staying curious, fostering the team spirit, being in the middle of a sandwich, and why management shouldn’t be mistaken for parenting...
“The role of Engineering Manager is in a sandwich. You have many inputs from different places. There are different things that are happening at the same time. It’s all the time like that.”
Miguel Angel Gomez, an Engineering Manager at Bumble gives a great and very honest overview of what it means to be an Engineering Manager both in his day to day job and in the industry. How the role differs from a Team Lead or a Tech Lead, etc. He also shares how important it is to create a team spirit and the sense of belonging in a team, as opposed to just having people working in a group.
"The best thing that you can do as an engineer or a developer that wants to follow this path is asking people why we're doing this and being curious."
Listen to the full episode and discover more inside information!
Stay curious!
New episodes come out every Tuesday!
#2 I'm a Learned Extrovert |On Perfectionism, Delaying Pitching In And Psychology in Leadership by Jan Chec Backend Lead @Smartpatient
Learn why you can't be a perfectionist when in a leadership position and why it is important to tell people the why of things. Discover what it really means to be an extrovert or an introvert and how you can learn some soft skills at any stage in life.
Jan Chęć, Backend Lead and my brother, talks about all things #leadership. Why it is important to learn about psychology and how people differ and how delaying pitching in as a leader can have a positive effect on people's participation in meetings. Listen to the full episode for tips on the Engineering Manager role!
#1 Dare To Break Some Rules | On Full-Stack Product Developers, Soft Skills, Tech Specs and The Best Interviews Luis Castro, Tech Lead @Cameo
#1 episode of Deconstructing Engineering Managers is about breaking the rules, soft skills, collaboration on tech specs, and fresh air on what it means to be a real full-stack developer.
Luis Castro, a Full-Stack Developer and a Tech Lead at Cameo. He is also a co-host of a podcast “No Es Sólo Código”, which is in Spanish and means “It's Not Only Code” where he and Alexis Duran talk about everything it takes to be a developer, not only the technical excellence. And that's also the angle of this podcast. Luis presents his view of what it means to be a true Full-Stack Product Developer — watch out because he won’t mention much technology knowledge there either "To me, a full-stack is a true Product Developer. Someone that can understand what are the design needs, what are the business model needs, what are the product needs, and how to deliver fast from the back-end to the front-end, etc." Listen to the whole episode for some great tips on becoming a senior engineer and manager.
Trailer - Deconstructing Engineering Manager Role
Link to YouTube premiere here - June 15th at 5pm CEST
Who exactly is an Engineering Manager and what do they do? What’s the difference between an Engineering Manager, an Engineering Lead, Team Lead, Tech Lead, Functional Lead, etc?
I decided to take up a challenge and find out what it means to be a Leader in Technology. An Agile Leader. And for that I decided to start this series both as a podcast and also on YouTube.
The first episode of my videocast will be an interview with Luis Castro, a full-stack developer and a Tech Lead at Cameo. Luis and I try to deconstruct the role of an Engineering Manager, in this case a Tech Lead and a Frontend Chapter Lead. Join us on June 15th to watch it together!