Advice for a Wayward Scrum Master with Jeff Howey

I’m testing out the AI Generated Summary… In this conversation, Dave Prior and Scott Sehlhorst discuss the importance of improving the product plan while executing it. They explore the common problem of companies jumping straight into execution without considering what they should build and why. Scott emphasizes the need to shift from a mindset of control to one of influence, where product managers focus on solving problems and creating value for customers and the business. They also discuss the concept of uncertainty and sensitivity and how to navigate it using impact mapping to identify needs and changes. In this conversation, Scott Sehlhorst discusses the importance of shifting into a business model and the need to create changes and hypotheses. He emphasizes the process of narrowing down the target population and quantifying the impact of changes. Scott also highlights the significance of determining sensitivity and making connections between cause and effect. He introduces the confidence rubric and explains how to prioritize experiments. The conversation concludes with the idea of constantly improving the plan and focusing on the next most important thing to learn. Takeaways Companies often jump straight into execution without considering what they should build and why. Product managers should shift from a mindset of control to one of influence, focusing on solving problems and creating value for customers and the business. Uncertainty and sensitivity are inherent in product development, and it is impossible to know everything before building a product. Using impact mapping can help identify needs and changes, allowing for experimentation and learning in an uncertain environment. Shifting into a business model involves creating changes and hypotheses. Narrowing down the target population is crucial for effective experimentation. Quantifying the impact of changes helps determine the potential outcomes. Using a confidence rubric can aid in decision-making and prioritization. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Background 03:00 The Fear of Being Late vs. the Fear of Being Wrong 05:58 Backlog Rationalization Workshop 10:00 Moving from Control to Influence 13:07 Building the Right Things 20:00 Navigating Uncertainty and Sensitivity 29:11 Using Impact Mapping to Identify Needs and Changes 31:56 Shifting into Business Model 33:05 Creating Changes and Hypotheses 34:32 Narrowing Down the Target Population 35:15 Quantifying the Impact 36:34 Determining Sensitivity 38:21 Making Connections and Causal Relationships 39:36 Confidence and Uncertainty 43:00 The Confidence Rubric 44:23 Prioritizing Experiments 49:29 What's the Next Most Important Thing to Learn 53:28 Improving the Plan Links from the Podcast The Empathy Map Podcast where Scott and I discuss Impact Mapping https://on.soundcloud.com/szLXeqe5Q6t2Tf9b8 Scott’s blog post about using a Confidence Rubric https://uxpressia.com/blog/make-decisions-about-business-experiments Contacting Scott: Scott’s Blog at Tyner Blain: tynerblain.com/blog/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sehlhorst/ Twitter: twitter.com/sehlhorst Email: [email protected]

Alan Dayley is back to help me continue the quest of figuring out why so many companies are struggling with PI Planning or quarterly planning. During the interview, we discuss some of the reasons organizations struggle with this type of planning. We address the topic from the perspective of senior leadership, why they want it, how they often approach it, and the challenges that creates. We also explore the way the request is often interpreted by the Development Teams, how they often respond, and how critical it is that they have the time needed to understand the request and the freedom to respond in a way that is responsible to the organization. Alan is a SAFe Program Consultant, so during the conversation he also explains how PI planning is supposed to work if you are truly following SAFe. … and, Developers are not batteries Contacting Alan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alandd/ Email: [email protected]

You’ve decided to take a Scrum certification class. Now the question is, which one? If you are looking for something like Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner, there are so many options to choose from that it can be overwhelming. All of them should result in certification and price is certainly a concern. But there are a number of other factors to consider when trying to find the Scrum training that is right for you. When you take a certification class, whether its focus is on Scrum, Lean, Kanban, Project Management, whatever… you are investing in yourself and your future. In this podcast, Vic Bonacci and I talk through some of the key things you should consider when selecting a certification course. You are spending your time and money to obtain knowledge and validation (through certification) that you have a certain degree of expertise. Choose wisely… it’s your future. Contacting Vic LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vbonacci/ AgileCoffee Podcast: https://agilecoffee.com Online Scrum Class: https://onlinescrumclass.com Contacting Dave Linktree: https://linktr.ee/mrsungo Dave’s Classes listed on Scrum Alliance site: https://tinyurl.com/35pzsk5j

Keeping up with what is happening in AI is no small task. You probably know some folks who spend a lot of free time learning how to bend (insert AI flavor of the week) to their will, there are folks who are preaching to anyone who will listen about all the amazing things that are right around the corner, and then there are the folks who just periodically peek over their shoulder and say “Yeah, um… let me know when you’ve got this bit actually working.” And then there are people like Snehal Talati. I met Snehal last year at the Scrum Gathering and we did a podcast about http://aiagile.org, the community he started to bring Agilists together to ensure that the intersection between the Agile space and AI happens in an intentional and thoughtful way. It’s been 8 months since that podcast was posted and that’s like 20 years in the AI space. So Snehal is back to share what’s been happening in AI and Agile. and to talk about the free course he built for the Scrum Alliance to help folks get started. During our conversation, Snehal gives an update on some of the newer changes and challenges in AI and he also offers real-life examples of how AI is becoming a powerful part of his personal productivity. If you’d like to check out the Scrum Alliance’s AI course, that is here: • AI & Agility: A Comprehensive Introduction: https://resources.scrumalliance.org/Course/ai-agility-comprehensive-introduction AI Links to get you started: • AI Agile: https://www.aiagile.org/ • Agile GPT: https://www.agilegpt.com/ • ChatGPT: https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt CONTACTING SNEHAL • Web: https://www.boostaro.com • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/snehal-talati-124a38b6/

If you are on one of those teams that has made a habit of dragging unfinished work from one Sprint to the next... YOU NEED TO STOP!   When you get to the end of a Sprint and have work that isn't done, you can't show it to the stakeholders in the Sprint Review. If you don't show it to Stakeholders in the Sprint Review, you can't get feedback. And if you can't get feedback, you can't inspect and adapt, and you negate the entire point of working in a Sprint. This podcast offers five things that you and your team can do right now to stop carrying over unfinished work and start enabling Scrum to provide you with the results you and your organization were hoping for when you headed down the path to agility. This podcast was originally recorded in video. You can find that version here: https://youtu.be/df8Ig_KYPUg If you liked this podcast, please click subscribe and let me know so I keep adding more. If you are interested in attending one of my upcoming CSM or CSPO classes, just follow this link: https://tinyurl.com/yc5k84z5 And if you'd like to contact me, you can find all my links right here: https://linktr.ee/mrsungo

At the Modus Institute, Jim Benson and Mark Kilby have created a new offering called Successful Distributed Teams. This new course focuses on how to build strong remote teams, how to create a humane, healthy balance of productivity and accountability, and what tools you can use to make it all work. In this interview, Jim and Mark join me to discuss what happened when they combined the many years of experience they each have in shaping remote teams that work. We cover how the idea of remote work has changed over the past few years, what makes it so challenging, and things you can start doing to foster a thriving collaborative remote team.  This podcast was originally recorded in video. You can find that version here: https://youtu.be/TnFzQr80tBg To learn more about Successful Distributed Teams https://modusinstitute.com/course/successful-remote-work-teams To check out Mark Kilby and Johanna Rothman’s book From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams https://tinyurl.com/5fbnynxe Contacting Jim Web: https://modusinstitute.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jimbenson Email: [email protected] Contacting Mark Web: MarkKilby.com Mastodon: https://hachyderm.io/@mkilby LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mkilby/ Email: [email protected]

A few weeks ago I interviewed Gil Broza about his new book, “Deliver Better Results: How to Unlock Your Organization's Potential". The book was designed to quickly provide actionable practices that organizations can utilize to improve their value delivery system. It focuses on understanding the fitness for purpose of your system of delivery, and how to employ his ten strategies to improve your level of maturity. During my prep for the interview and during our conversation, there was one thing that was stuck in my head. None of this works without trust. How can a traditional, potentially toxic organization pivot into an approach that is mostly dependent on a certain level of trust? So, during our first interview, I asked Gil if he’d be open to a second conversation where we focus on the question “How do you build trust in an organizational system that does not have it? Gil was kind enough to agree and that is where this podcast began. If you’d like to check out our initial conversation you can find it here: https://on.soundcloud.com/Ed2C4 Deliver Better Results: How to Unlock Your Organization's Potential
 You can purchase the book here: http://DeliverBetterResultsBook.com Gil has made the first chapter of the book available for download. It provides an executive-level summary of the 10 strategies and how they work as well as an assessment that readers can complete to determine the maturity level of their organization and select strategies to help them improve. You can download it for free here: http://HeardOnPodcast.DeliverBetterResultsBook.com Contacting Gil
 * Work: http://3pvantage.com/
 * LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/gilbroza/ Dave's Upcoming Classes 
In the introduction to the podcast I mentioned a few of my upcoming classes: * A-CSPO February 29-March 1 http://tinyurl.com/bde5acnv * CSM Atlanta - March 4-5 - http://tinyurl.com/yhwzr3bs
 * CSPO Atlanta - March 6-7 - http://tinyurl.com/24be92zy
 And you can find links to all of my upcoming classes here: http://tinyurl.com/4wbkkhra

Gil Broza joins me for a podcast about his new book, “Deliver Better Results: How to Unlock Your Organization's Potential". During the interview, Gil and I discuss how he designed the book to quickly provide actionable practices that organizations can utilize to improve their value delivery system. Our conversation includes details on how to understand the fitness for purpose of your system of delivery, and how to employ his ten strategies to improve your level of maturity. The first chapter of the book provides an executive-level summary of the 10 strategies and how they work as well as an assessment that readers can complete to determine the maturity level of their organization and select strategies to help them improve. Gil has offered an electronic version of the first chapter to listeners of this podcast. Just follow this link: http://HeardOnPodcast.DeliverBetterResultsBook.com The Book You can purchase the book here: http://DeliverBetterResultsBook.com Other Podcasts About the Book During the podcast, I mentioned that I had listened to a few other interviews with Gil about the book. They are definitely worth checking out because each one focuses on a different aspect of the book. - Agile Uprising: https://agileuprising.libsyn.com/driving-better-results-with-gil-broza - Tech Lead Journal: https://techleadjournal.dev/episodes/160/ - SPAM: https://spamcast.libsyn.com/spamcast-792-deliver-better-results-a-conversation-with-gill-broza Contacting Gil Work: https://3pvantage.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilbroza/ Dave's Upcoming Classes In the introduction to the podcast I mentioned a few of my upcoming classes: A-CSPO February 29-March 1 http://tinyurl.com/bde5acnv CSM Atlanta - March 4-5 - http://tinyurl.com/yhwzr3bs CSPO Atlanta - March 6-7 - http://tinyurl.com/24be92zy And you can find links to all of my upcoming classes here: http://tinyurl.com/4wbkkhra

With the state of Agile as it is today, I find myself frequently wondering, “Is this the Darkest Agile Timeline”? Things have been getting a bit bleak lately in the Agile space. With the layoffs, the job market, and the fact that the business world has change fatigue and is tired of not getting what they expected from a way of working they’ve mostly only kinda half-done... Where’s the hope? For this podcast (and to find some hope), I reached out to George Schlitz because 1. George is way smarter than me and sees things I can only vaguely sense the shape of, and 2. His new company Adaptivity Group has a mission statement that includes “an unquenchable thirst for ‘better’" and "a fearlessness about the unknown” that kinda smelled like hope to me. During this interview, George and I discuss whether or not this is the darkest timeline, what that means, how we got here, where we can find hope, and what we can do to make things more better-er and think that little old ant can move that rubber tree plant. If you aren’t familiar with The Darkest Timeline, in the show Community there was a storyline where a random occurrence created multiple parallel timelines. A roll of the dice created six possible ways things could have gone… basically a six-sided multiverse. And one of the parallels created is THE DARKEST TIMELINE. It’s basically the Lemony Snicket timeline of worst case scenario where Captain Kirk is sporting his Van Dyke beard, Thomas Wayne is Batman instead of Bruce Wayne, it rains all the time, you miss every bus, never made that play in the big game, never asked that person to the prom, never got that promotion… you get the idea. During the podcast, George references his blog post on "Addicted to More" blog posts which can be found here: https://www.adaptivitygroup.com/insights/addicted-to-more If you’d like to reach George you can find him here: Adaptivity Group:https://www.adaptivitygroup.com LinkedIn:http://linkedin.com/in/gschlitz

There seems to be a current trend where organizations that say they are doing PI planning or quarterly planning are making a decision for the teams about what must be delivered in the time box. The teams just accept the commitment because they either feel they do not have the agency to push back and say no to some of it or are too busy trying to finish up their last overcommitment to look at new work. So, they begin the new time box already behind and then assess the new work only to (shockingly) learn it is too much. Then they divide it up by the number of Sprints or weeks and that is how they plan out how to get it all done. Most of the time this results in developing a habitual practice of carrying work from one sprint to the next, continually trying to recover from the last overcommitment so they can get to work on the new overcommitment.   In this episode, The Agile Bear, Nigel Baker, joins me to sort through why this is happening, the harm it causes, and ways to fix it. Video Version If you'd prefer to view the video version of this interview: http://tinyurl.com/2eu5yucw Contacting Nigel Linktree: https://linktr.ee/nigelebaker