Software Process And Measurement Cast

SPaMCAST 752 features our interview with Laura Bell Main. We discuss the confluence of fast-growing companies and security. Maybe I should say collision instead of confluence. Note: Laura provides an incredible amount of wisdom in the interview; however, due to a user error (mine) I lost the first minute of the interview. The abrupt start of the interview means we hit the ground running with very little preamble. Laura Bell Main specializes in securing some of Australia and New Zealand’s fastest-growing organizations. She has over twenty years of experience in software development and information security. It's her mission and passion to bring security into organizations of every shape and size.  Laura is the founder and CEO of SafeStack Academy, an online education platform offering flexible, high-quality, and people-focused, secure development training for fast-moving companies, with a focus on building security skills, practices, and culture across the entire engineering team. SafeStack is a value’s driven

I have been considering the relationship between privilege and fatalism. Boiling down the impact of privilege to a single word, we find power. Whether it is the ability to make decisions about the work you will do, the power to direct others to do work, or even just to be heard, privilege is power. That power can generate fatalism in those without the power privilege delivers. In SPaMCAST 751 we discuss! Jeremy Berriault brings his QA Corner to the podcast. Mr. Berriault and I discuss why continuous improvement is important. Our discussion ties neatly into the essay on privilege and fatalism. We all have to commit to getting better every day or risk becoming irrelevant. Re-read Saturday News! Chapter 2 of Team Topologies: Organizing Business And Technology Teams For Fast Flow by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais is a deep dive into Conway’s Law both forward and backward (the Reverse Conway Manuver). Conway’s Law states simply: the way people are organized influences software architecture. Buy a copy and upgrade

SPaMCAST 750 marks the return of Evan Leybourn to the podcast. Evan and I discuss the different domains of business agility, the relationship between behavior and culture, and whether Taylorism still has a place in the world.  Evan is the co-founder of the Business Agility Institute; an international membership body to both champion and support the next generation of organizations. Companies that are agile, innovative, and dynamic - perfectly designed to thrive in today’s unpredictable markets. Evan is also the author of Directing the Agile Organisation (2012) and #noprojects; a culture of continuous value (2018). Website: https://businessagility.institute/ Re-read Saturday News! This week we tackle Chapter 1 of Team Topologies: Organizing Business And Technology Teams For Fast Flow by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais. The authors open Chapter 1 with a quote from Naomi Stafford, Guide to Organizational Design. “Organizations should be viewed as complex and adaptive organizations rather than mechanistic and lin

In SPaMCAST 749, we discuss the attributes of good work input/entry. There is no perfect approach to bringing work into an organization or team. Arguably since people are involved, perfect may not be something that can exist in the real world but instead, there are good approaches. There are nine key concepts for good work entry. Good work entry requires that these nine have to be present in some form regardless of whether you are using Scrum, Kanban waterfall, or some mix of frameworks. We want to be crystal clear, deciding to forego any of these characteristics other than for the briefest moment will set you on the path to the ninth circle of work entry hell. We also have a visit from Susan Parente who brings her Not A Scrumdamentalist column to the podcast. Susan and I diagnose why some organizations think that a product owner can also be a scrum master.  Re-read Saturday News! Today we begin the re-read of Team Topologies: Organizing Business And Technology Teams For Fast Flow by Matthew Skelton and Manue

SPaMCAST 748 features our interview with Bob Galen. Bob and I discuss Extraordinary Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond. With the interview, we wrap up the re-read and then moved on to talk about improving coaching and the agile industrial complex. Bob Galen is an Agile Practitioner, Trainer & Coach based in Cary, NC. In this role, he helps guide companies and teams in their pragmatic adoption and organizational shift towards agile methods of working. Bob has been doing that since the late 1990s, so he’s deeply experienced. He is the Director of Agile Practice at Zenergy Technologies, a leading business agility transformation company. Bob is also President and Head Coach at RGCG a boutique agile coaching firm. Bob regularly speaks at international conferences and professional groups on topics related to agile software development, testing, scaling, and organizational leadership. He is a Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC), Scrum Alliance CAL trainer, and an active member of

This week we continue our exploration of fatalism’s impact on change in organizations (listen to Part 1 in SPaMCAST 745). Fatalism does not have to be permanent. How that transition away from fatalism can be made varies depending on context. In this installment of the series, we will look at a few approaches to tackling this problem.  We also have a visit from Jon M Quigley. Jon and I discussed succession planning and why planning needs to be more diverse to support organizational health.   Re-read Saturday News! This week we re-read Chapter 20 of Extraordinary Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond. Bob notes that Stephen Covey’s seventh habit in his classic, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, is sharpening the saw.  This is a reminder that who and where we are today can’t be who or where we are tomorrow. This habit is a prescription for balanced self-renewal. This is the last chapter of Extraordinary Badass; next week we will discuss the afterword and final thoughts.  

This week we discuss the Manifesto for Organizational Agility with Jeff Bubolz and Chad Beier. Jeff and Chad developed the manifesto to help organizations get agile and stay agile. Many organizations rush into agile finding early success that turns sour a few months or years down the road. This pattern is indisputable. The Manifesto seeks to highlight the core issues that lead to this pattern (you will also want to listen to the interview with Bob Galen on SPaMCAST 748 due to be posted on 26 March).  You can read the Manifesto for Organizational Agility at http://bit.ly/3mOnBaU Chad and Jeff’s Bios: Chad is an organizational agility advisor and external change agent with Wisconsin Agility and Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) with Scrum.org. He promotes organizational agility and positive pressure for change through speaking, advising, coaching, and training. Jeff is a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) with Scrum.org, organizational agility advisor, podcast host, and speaker. Jeff brings storytelling, a broad a

Fatalism stops process improvement and agile transformations in their tracks. One of the definitions of fatalism is the belief that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable. Just accepting the status quo because it is the status quo isn’t pragmatism it is stagnation. We also have a visit from Tony Timbol who brings his To Tell A Story column to the podcast. Sign up for his free newsletter (https://forms.aweber.com/form/73/322717473.htm) and get a copy of the ebook on agile requirements we discussed. Re-read Saturday News! Chapter 18 of Extraordinary Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond is titled “Dojo Practice for the Badass Agile Coach.” The coaching dojo in Chapter 18 has a much smaller footprint than other dojos I have participated in and is easily implementable. I ran two this week and have plans for several more.  Buy a copy and upgrade your coaching skills - Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond Week 17: Dojo Practices - htt

This week Nikhil Nandagopal and I talked about building teams. Teams are the heart and soul of software development in all of its many aspects. Nikhil provides pragmatic advice for organizing people into teams. We also discussed the democratization of coding that low-code platforms deliver. Nikhil Nandagopal, a co-founder of Appsmith, leads the development of the company’s product – the first open-source low-code platform for developers. He is a software engineer and entrepreneur with 10 years of experience building apps.  Nikhil’s GitHub Website: https://app.appsmith.com/applications  Nikhil’s Profile: linkedin.com/in/nikhil-nandagopal-05534241 Twitter NikilNandagopal Re-read Saturday News! Chapter 17 of Extraordinary Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond is titled “The Badass Agile Coach’s Guide to Starting Your Day” which provides a structure or ritual for beginning each coaching day. I almost see this as a macro planning arc that Bob has recommended for all coaching sessio

This week, we take a detour thanks to Extraordinary Badass Agile Coaching. Over the past two chapters, the book has drilled us on recognizing and adapting to situational nuances as a crucial skill for effective coaching. I will admit that my first few years of coaching were formulaic. I did not spend the needed time to understand and address nuances of context or differences in individuals' journeys through life. I do not remember when I learned that roles and situations change the trajectory of coaching, as does the starting point of the person or persons you are coaching. At some point, I got the point. In this chapter, diversity is an omnibus term used to describe inclusiveness across a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, life experiences, and more. Galen-Personick focuses on four specific areas. Rather than recounting the four, what struck me during this read was the impact privilege has on both delivering and being coached. That’s what I discuss

This week, Jorgen Hesselberg discusses the efficacy of assessments in helping to guide an agile journey. Assessments are a tool to help coaches coach and to answer the question of where are we in our journey toward being more agile.  Jorgen last appeared in SPaMCAST 557 in 2019 (http://bit.ly/2MiBw4K). Jorgen Hesselberg is the author of Unlocking Agility and co-founder of Comparative Agility, a leading agile assessment, and continuous improvement platform. A proven thought leader of numerous successful enterprise transformation efforts since 2009, Jorgen provides strategic guidance, executive counsel, and coaching to some of the world’s most respected companies, both as an internal change agent and an external consultant. He has trained thousands of people on agile and Scrum, disruptive innovation, and enterprise transformation strategy. Contact Information Email: jorgen@comparativeagility.com  LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jhesselberg  Comparative Agility:  https://www.comparativeagility.com/product/ Re-read Sat

Planning is an important component of getting work done. Planning is not, however, creating and delivering work. Minimizing the amount of time spent planning but not under planning is almost mind-numbingly difficult. Flow metrics are tools to maximize the value of planning while minimizing the time spent on planning. Over the next few entries in the Software Process and Measurement Blog, we will explore several examples of using flow metrics in planning.   We also have a visit from Susan Parente who brings her Not A Scrumdamentalist column to the podcast. Susan provides guidance on navigating environments that are not pristinely agile in a pragmatic fashion. Re-read Saturday News! Chapter 13 of Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond is titled Badass Pair-Coaching.  Over the years I have had many opportunities to participate in pair coaching, although fewer over the past few years. I miss pair coaching; it pushes me to expand my horizons and up my game. What about you? Week 13:

Today we begin year 17 of the Software Process and Measurement Cast with a presentation that Jeremy Berriault did at IdeaFest 2020. The presentation covered using supply chain concepts in an agile environment. When I originally recorded the session, I felt the idea was interesting but not very useful. But I am a bit of a packrat; I don’t throw anything away. Last week I listened to the presentation again. This time I could see that the idea of using supply chain concepts is a great approach to implementing value chains and mirrors why flow metrics are such a valuable concept. Jeremy was just a bit ahead of the rest of the world. Note, the recording is not perfect. There is some external noise from unmuted microphones in the feed. I think the bit of interference does not diminish the message. The content is great; stay with it and you will have a lot to think about.  The slides: (see www.spamcast.net Jeremy’s website: https://berriaultandassociates.com/ Re-read Saturday News! This week Chapter 12 of Badass Agi

Today we revisit the topic of empathy as we mark the last show in year 16. As coaches and leaders, we are taught that being empathetic is critical. However, the blanket statement that we need to walk a mile in someone else's shoes is not all rainbows and kittens. We will also have a visit from Jon M Quigley who brings his Alpha and Omega of Product Development column to the podcast. Jon and I continue our conversation on flow and its importance for teams and leaders. Re-read Saturday News! This week Chapter 11 of Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond looks up.  Even if you focus your agile coaching practice on teams you will need to coach up the managerial and executive hierarchy of the team. Week 11 - Coaching Up - http://bit.ly/3ZWo6z1 A quick advertisement: Controlling work entry requires preparation and knowledge, building to establishing a path to control work entry (magic wands are normally not available), which is why Jeremy Willets and I have developed a work entry wor

Luis Gonçalves returns to the Software Process and Measurement Cast to discuss his new book, Product First.  We also talked about organizational mastery and change. Become a beta reader of Product First at http://bit.ly/3ZwQHL7  Luis last joined us on SPaMCAST 718, we discussed OKRs.  Luis’s Bio Luis Gonçalves is an Entrepreneur, Best Seller Author, and International Keynote Speaker. When consulting he works exclusively with Entrepreneurs, Founders, and Senior Leaders on the implementation of his game-changing "ADAPT Methodology". By following the "ADAPT Methodology" Executive Leaders will be able to transform their traditional project-oriented companies into modern digital product companies. OKR Guide: https://adaptmethodology.com/okr-guide-en Website: https://adaptmethodology.com/  Website: evolution4all.com  Podcast: https://adaptmethodology.com/podcast/ LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/in/luismsg   Re-read Saturday News! This week Chapter 10 of Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond

A funny thing happened on the way to this week’s Software Process and Measurement Cast, I was asked about managing risk in Agile. In preparation for answering the question, I reviewed and updated some of my work on the topic. So instead of flow metrics, we have an essay on risk. That is just the chance you take when you ask me a question.  Note -- I have a great question on risk to ask Susan Parente, @techriskmanager, the next time we record.  We also have a visit from Tony Timbol. Tony discusses agile requirements in an installment of his To Tell A Story column. Check out Tony at http://tonytimbol.com/   Re-read Saturday News! This week we tackle Chapters 8 and 9.  These chapters of Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond are titled An Agile Coaching Story, Parts 1 and 2. They are written by Mark Summers of Beliminal and provide great advice on how to prepare and execute coaching events.    Week 9 - Agile Coaching Story, Parts 1 and 2 - https://bit.ly/3jQ2m7a  A quick advertise

Today we share our year-end panel discussion with the SPaMcast contributors and occasionally our dogs (once one gets going everyone needs to get in on the action). The topic this year is engagement. Is being on two calls at once, engagement? Does just being present tick the engagement box?  Patterns and antipatterns abound, but Is engagement really that important? The panelists for this installment are: Jeremy Berriault linkedin.com/in/jeremy-berriault-mba Jeremy Willets linkedin.com/in/jeremywillets Susan Parente linkedin.com/in/susanparente   A quick advertisement: Controlling work entry requires preparation and knowledge, building to establishing a path to control work entry (magic wands are normally not available), which is why Jeremy Willets and I have developed a work entry workshop. Interested? Please email us at tcagley@tomcagley.com or willetsjm@gmail.com   Next SPaMCAST  Using flow metrics to plan in Kanban and Scrum environments. Flow metrics are thought of as incredible metrics for value streams a

Over the years we have explored a wide range of books on Saturdays. Sometimes our re-reads reflect the real world outside software development.  For example, in 2018  we re-read Bad Blood, Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou, the story of Theranos and Elizabeth Anne Holmes. This year Ms. Holmes went to prison. While I don’t expect prison sentences for the subjects in the books we read in 2022, I expect the knowledge in the books we tackled to have a broader impact on the world.   In the past year, we have re-read 3.4 books – 40% is the progress on the current book according to Kindle. Links to all of the read entries can be found in the show notes. I am looking forward to reading and learning with all of you in 2023. This week we also have a visit from Susan Parente and her Not A Scrumdamentalist column. Susan and I discussed how a newly minted Scrum Master can get up to speed quickly. A quick advertisement: Controlling work entry requires preparation and knowledge, building to esta

While preparing for this week’s podcast I ran across a recording of a presentation I did at IDEAfest 2020. The topic was the seven macro trends driving software development behavior. The presentation was crafted just at the beginning of the Covid19 pandemic but the topics are still relevant, perhaps even more relevant than they were in March 2020. So to make a long story short, I re-edited the recording and decided to share the talk with those that weren’t at IDEAfest 2020 or have blanked the last two years from their memory.  I will also post the presentation in the feed for your pleasure and to spark conversation.  Re-read Saturday News This week we re-read Chapter 6 of Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond (Amazon Associate Link - buy a copy or two and give them to friends). Chapter 6 of Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond is titled, Badass Agile Coaching Operating System. There are several important concepts to explore in

The SPaMCAST 733 features a reflection on a reflection. As I was reading Chapter 5 of Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond (check out the re-read at https://bit.ly/3W4Mzzg) and retrospecting on my own behavior, I replayed some past coaching experiences. The point today is less the linkage to our current re-read than the confluence of continued learning and reflection. We also have a visit from Mr. Jeremy Berriault. Jeremy and I talk about coaches who let their own biases run away with them.   Re-read Saturday News This week we re-read Chapter 5 of Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond (Amazon Associate Link - buy a copy or two and give them to friends). Chapter 5 is titled Badass Agile Coaching Arcs. Coaching and conversations are highly intertwined activities. I am at a loss as to how I would coach without actively interacting with people. I think the idea of a conversation arc is something I naturally understo