Troubleshooting Agile

After last week's episode on starting before you're ready, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss some ways you can encourage this behaviour—while still providing a safety net for participants and the wider organisation. SHOW LINKS: - Toyota Kata: https://agileconversations.com/blog/we're-the-aliens-three-ways-to-seek-safety/ - How to be helpfully demanding: https://agileconversations.com/blog/how-to-be-helpfully-demanding/ --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at info@agileconversations.com

Squirrel and Jeffrey note examples of teams who never get started because they're aiming to do a project "right", and contrast with those who get started without being ready. SHOW LINKS: - https://twitter.com/douglassquirrel/status/1593243886180216832 --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at info@agileconversations.com

Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss two examples where engineers are trying to get accurate answers, when getting a (slightly) wrong result would actually be better for speed or learning. --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at info@agileconversations.com

Squirrel and Jeffrey continue discussing why you and your team might need a coach—for techniques and skills that they are already good at. This week they concentrate on practical steps for finding internal and external sources of instruction and inspiration. SHOW LINKS: - Pair Programming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_programming - Mob Programming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_programming --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at info@agileconversations.com

An article by Atul Gawande on coaching for surgeons inspires Squirrel and Jeffrey to reflect on why you and your team might need a coach—for techniques and skills that they are already good at. SHOW LINKS: - Personal Best: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/03/personal-best - Mundanity of Excellence: https://fermatslibrary.com/s/the-mundanity-of-excellence-an-ethnographic-report-on-stratification-and-olympic-swimmers - Our podcast episode on Principle 12 of the Agile Manifesto: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/finding-the-motivation-to-learn-stay-agile --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at info@agileconversations.com

This week on Troubleshooting Agile, we revisit another one of our “Greatest Hits” In this episode, we look at how the Ladder can help you discover your own reasoning as well, to discover ways to promote mutual learning with your own behaviour. SHOW LINKS: - Top Business Podcasts for CEOs, from Fiona Anderson: www.rocktime.co.uk/insights/listen…sting-for-ceos/ - The Ladder of Inference (annotated by Jeffrey): troubleshootingagile.com/docs/TheLadd…nference.pdf - The London Organisational Meetup: www.meetup.com/London-Action-Science-Meetup/ - Thinking Fast and Slow, Kahneman: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at info@agileconversations.com

This week on Troubleshooting Agile, we revisit one of our “Greatest Hits” In this episode, we start describing our favourite trust-building technique: the Ladder of Inference. Our take this week is on using the Ladder to understand someone else's reasoning and align your stories, creating trust as a foundation for further improvement in your agile team. Surprisingly, the experience of using the Ladder in this way is similar to Test-Driven Development: careful, understandable, small steps with confidence, and meaningful signals from both success and failure. SHOW LINKS: - Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003ELY7OW/re…ding=UTF8&btkr=1 - The Ladder of Inference (annotated by Jeffrey): troubleshootingagile.com/docs/TheLadd…nference.pdf - Cognitive biases book and more: youarenotsosmart.com/ - Schwarz on unilateral control (again!): www.schwarzassociates.com/managing-per…tionships-2/ - TDD for people video: www.douglassquirrel.com/how-i-work.html - Schwarz 8 behaviours (Paula/Ted are on pa

A listener asks, "how will we know it's working?" when considering changes of process or technology. Jeffrey and Squirrel discuss how to set "imperfect indicators" to measure your progress—or lack thereof!—along the J-shaped curve that takes you through learning to improvement. SHOW LINKS: - Tic-Tac Change: https://blog.jeffreyfredrick.com/2008/07/07/tic-tac-change-slides/ - J-Curve episode: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/a-tale-of-two-change-models-part-ii-getting-better-by-getting-worse --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. 
 Email us at info@agileconversations.com

Jeffrey remarks that he's working with a software team whose code is "done", that is, the organisation wants to keep using it but doesn't want to invest more in changing it. He and Squirrel reflect on when this make sense and how "software doneness" affects processes and measurements. SHOW LINKS: - Control Chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_chart - Principles of Product Development Flow: https://www.pdma.org/page/review_principles_pr --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. 
 Email us at info@agileconversations.com

It is easy to see our dominant organizational structure of teams divided by roles as natural. But Jon Smart, author of the book Sooner, Safer, Happier, points out that this goes against 1.9 million years of evolution. In this podcast Jon and Jeffrey discuss the link between the outcomes we’re getting and how we organize, and thus how changing our organization can change incentives, which in turn shape behaviors to get us better outcomes. Recorded live at DevOps Enterprise Summit 2022 in Las Vegas. SHOW LINKS: - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathansmart/ - https://soonersaferhappier.com - Dr Ron Westrum: A typology of organisational cultures: https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/qhc/13/suppl_2/ii22.full.pdf - NUMMI : This American Life: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/403/nummi-2010

Do you find the yourself constantly fighting for making even small improvements? Randy Shoup has a way to avoid such “nickel and dime” conversations: agree with your peers on an innovation budget. In this episode Randy Shoup and Jeffrey discuss why these strategic conversations require learning how to speak executive, and why new engineering leaders often struggle to live up to their role in these conversations. Recorded live at DevOps Enterprise Summit 2022 in Las Vegas. SHOW LINKS: - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randyshoup/ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/randyshoup - Communicating Effectively with Your Business Partners (video): https://www.infoq.com/presentations/communication-business-partners/ --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at info@agileconversations.com

Dominica Degrandis is an expert on flow and helping companies get the benefits of using flow metrics to make systemic improvements. What does she find as the biggest obstacle to success? A proper investment in change. In this conversation Jeffrey and Dominica talk about the importance of a daily change budget, time you’d expect people to be working in the new way, with some advice for both leaders and practitioners. Recorded live at DevOps Enterprise Summit 2022 in Las Vegas. SHOW LINKS: - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicadeg/ - Dominica Degrandis: https://ddegrandis.com - Making Work Visible, 2nd Edition: https://itrevolution.com/making-work-visible-by-dominica-degrandis/ - Dominica Degranids past episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?i=1000458010204 - Donald Reinertsen Principles of Product Development Flow: http://reinertsenassociates.com/books/ --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can ord

Audit, compliance, security, and governance: these words all carry the heavy weight of bureaucracy, the feeling of a burden to be overcome. In the recently published learning novel Investments Unlimited Bill Bensing and coauthors introduce the idea of automated governance, and in this conversation Bill and Jeffrey explore the difference between “governance theater”, automating away bullshit, and acting to get the real benefit. SHOW LINKS: - Investments Unlimited: https://itrevolution.com/investments-unlimited-book/ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billbensing/ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillBensing - Bill Bensing: https://billbensing.com - Jon Willis part 1: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/john-willis-on-devops-past-present-and-future - Jon Willis part 2: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/john-willis-devops-past-present-future-part2 --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when

If you want to create a “value flywheel” where success breeds success, you need to start with clarity of purpose. Join Jeffrey and his guest David Anderson to learn how David uses the technique of Wardley Mapping to generate shared understanding. But don’t make the mistake of thinking the map is the point! David says throwing away the map is just as important as creating it in the first place. SHOW LINKS: - The Value Flywheel Effect: https://itrevolution.com/the-value-flywheel-effect/ - David Anderson @ The Serverless Edge: https://theserverlessedge.com - Twitter: https://twitter.com/ServerlessEdge - Wardley Mapping: https://learnwardleymapping.com --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at info@agileconversations.com

Want to know the agenda? We aren’t going to tell you! Join Jeffrey with guests Pascal Dufour & Ronald Doelen to talk about how the “tilted slider” applies to meetings just as much as other software development process. Recorded live at CITCON. SHOW LINKS: - Pascal Dufour: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pascaldufournl/ - Ronald Doelen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rdoelen/ - Episode: Tilted Slider: https://agileconversations.com/blog/dont-add-more-metrics/ - Open Space: https://citconf.com/openspace.php - Lean Coffee: http://leancoffee.org - Liberating Structures: TRIZ: https://www.liberatingstructures.com/6-making-space-with-triz/ --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. 
 Email us at info@agileconversations.com

Following last week's debate, Squirrel and Jeffrey share their different takes on the value of having estimated a tech team's planned work when it comes to a retrospective at the end of a cycle, like a sprint or a quarter: Jeffrey sees that checking what the team achieved against what they planned can lead to important lessons about dependencies, inefficiencies, and skills gaps, while Squirrel thinks the risk of the estimates "escaping" is too high, and that the team ought to be able to notice process failings as they go without the "crutch" of estimates. SHOW LINKS: - LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dsquirrel_my-friends-at-cto-craft-are-45-right-about-activity-6983761206993899522-raHE - Squirrel Tweet: https://twitter.com/douglassquirrel/status/1578315480472985602 - You’re Not So Smart : https://www.davidmcraney.com/new-page-1 --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list

Squirrel and Jeffrey have different takes on the value of estimating a tech team's planned work at the beginning of a longer cycle, like a sprint or a quarter: Jeffrey says the discussion of an estimate often leads to insights and better outcomes, and Squirrel says you can get the same results without the estimates. Both agree that sharing and measuring against the estimates outside the team is counterproductive! SHOW LINKS: - LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dsquirrel_my-friends-at-cto-craft-are-45-right-about-activity-6983761206993899522-raHE - Squirrel Tweet: https://twitter.com/douglassquirrel/status/1578315480472985602 --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at info@agileconversations.com

Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss various ways to make statements about the future ("this feature will take a week" or "users will buy 20% more if we cut prices in half") and disagree about exactly how valuable they are and how to use them. SHOW LINKS: - Tilted Slider: https://agileconversations.com/blog/dont-add-more-metrics/ - Toyota Kata: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mrother/Homepage.html - Thinking in Bets: https://www.annieduke.com/thinking-in-bets/ - Estimates are Lies: https://squirrelsquadron.com/events/2022/09-15-estimates.html - Superforcasting: https://www.amazon.com/Superforecasting-Science-Prediction-Philip-Tetlock/dp/0804136718 - Betting Market: https://manifold.markets Events: - Jtf at CITCON Europe Oct 14th & 15th: https://citconf.com/zwolle2022/ - Jtf at DevOps Enterprise Summit Oct 18th-20th: https://events.itrevolution.com/lasvegas/ - Squirrel live in Vienna Oct 20th: https://squirrelsquadron.com/events/2022/10-20-vienna.html - Squirrel live in Miami early November: https://squirrelsquadron

One of Jeffrey's clients solves their burnout problem, and then the same problem comes up in other coaching sessions: needing the freedom to disagree. Squirrel finds a related problem of burnout from being unwilling to disappoint others. Both the need to disagree and to disappoint require difficult conversations, but you can’t really say yes without being able to say no! SHOW LINKS: - The Uncanny Valley of a Functional Organization: https://stratechery.com/2013/the-uncanny-valley-of-a-functional-organization/ - Amy Edmondson (author of Teaming): https://amycedmondson.com/#books - Hard Work Not Hard Conversations: https://agileconversations.com/blog/hard-work-not-hard-coversation/ Upcoming Events: - Squirrel live in Berlin Sept 29th: https://squirrelsquadron.com/events/2022/09-29-berlin.html - Jtf at CITCON Europe Oct 14th & 15th: https://citconf.com/zwolle2022/ - Jtf at DevOps Enterprise Summit Oct 18th-20th: https://events.itrevolution.com/lasvegas/ - Squirrel live in Vienna Oct 20th: https://squirrelsquad

Squirrel has a suggestion for collaborating with people who are irrationally wedded to particular "agile processes", and Jeffrey has related ideas for working to their polar opposite, the anti-zealots who say no process will ever work. SHOW LINKS: - Squirrel's tweet on zealotry: https://twitter.com/douglassquirrel/status/1570321020543696897 - CITCON Europe: https://citconf.com/zwolle2022/ - DevOps Enterprise Summit: https://events.itrevolution.com/lasvegas/ - Squirrel in Berlin and Vienna: https://squirrelsquadron.com/events.html - Xavier Amador, LEAP: http://dramador.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnbOizw_zS0 --- Our book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. 
 Email us at info@agileconversations.com