Arguing Agile: Product Management, Business Leadership, & Org Design

Good at an Unfunded Job? Now You're Doing It Forever | AA270

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Your company cut the Scrum Master role and called it self-organization.

Fantastic...

Where did the coordination work go? We'll bet it landed on someone who doesn't get paid to do it.

Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Leader Om Patel argue through what happens when organizations defund facilitation roles but keep the complex frameworks. Stick with as Brian tries to discern if "let the team figure it out" is really just financial code for a transfer of labor from funded to unfunded and stay till the end to understand how to spot the competence tax on your own team.

Listen or watch as we discuss:
• Why "automate it with AI" and "let the team self-organize" are the same failure
• What is the competence tax: being good at unfunded coordination work
• Who non-promotable tasks disproportionately land on and why
• How NOBODY EVER accidentally rolled out SAFe and "forgot" to fund roles

If you're an Engineer, Product Person, Scrum Master, or Agile Coach watching coordination work get quietly dumped onto the wrong people, this episode is for you! I fight for the users!

#ScrumMaster #Agile #CompetenceTax

Tanya Reilly (Being Glue, Lead Dev talk), Winning with People by John Maxwell, Babcock and Vesterland (gender differences in non-promotable tasks), SAFe, Squarespace

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

If You're Asking When to Kill a Feature, You Already Lost | AA269

Wed, 26 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0400

If you're asking when to kill a feature, you already lost.

Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Leader Om Patel break down why the "should we kill this feature" is really a trap, why the data won't save you, and why the CEO's pet project survives on rank - not merit. Our promise to you is, by the end, you'll have four questions to ask instead, and a framework for sunsetting features without extra helping of the political seppuku.

Listen or watch as we discuss:
• Why metrics are no good to help decide if/when to kill a feature
• The "pet project" problem: some features survive on executive rank alone
• How portfolio-level is the ONLY level that exposes opportunity cost
• Why "ship it and see" with AI is hope-driven development, but with PR
• The three phases every feature should live in: exploring, exploiting, or sunsetting/expiring

For product managers, team members, and other leaders tired of maintaining features nobody uses but nobody is willing to stick their neck out to deal with...

#ProductManagement #ProductStrategy #TechnicalDebt

Campbell's Law, RICE scoring framework, Lean Startup methodology, AA193 Product Lifecycle Phases, AA141 Minimum Viable Product

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

Blaming People: It's Cheaper Than Fixing the System (Molly Graham's Waterline Model) | AA268

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Most "people problems" are structural problems wearing a human face mask.

Product Manager Brian and Enterprise Business Agility Leader Om dissect Molly Graham's Waterline Model! Listen or watch as we debate whether this framework is the most actionable restatement of systems thinking in decades or just Deming in a wetsuit. Stick around to the end and you'll know exactly where your org skips diagnosis and jumps straight to blame.

Other issues discussed are:

Why leaders default to firing individuals instead of fixing broken role definitions
The four-level diagnostic (structure, dynamics, interpersonal, individual) most managers ignore
How overlapping ownership and conflicting goals manufacture "personality clashes"
Why changing what you reward is harder than writing new process documentation
The coaching judgment no framework can teach you: when to stop snorkeling and dive
A practical test: ask three people their goals and see if any answers match

For product managers, agile coaches, and tech leaders tired of watching teams churn through good people.

#SystemsThinking #Leadership #TeamDysfunction

Molly Graham, Lenny's Newsletter, W Edwards Deming, National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), The Waterline Model

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

Your Mentor Can't Get You Promoted (And Never Could) | AA267

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0400

The best mentor you've ever had can't get you promoted.

Not won't - can't.

Product Manager Brian and Business Agility Coach Om draw a hard line between mentors and sponsors, showing why advice never reaches the room where promotions actually happen.

Listen or watch to learn how to audit your current sponsor for belief, power, and breadth - the exact questions that separate advocates from people who just talk; and how to trace someone via their alumni before you bet two years of your career on them.

Batteries are not included; but what is included, is:
• How mentors help you prepare for the room but sponsors get you in
• The three quiet ways a so-called sponsor fails you without you knowing
• How flat orgs push advocacy underground and make it less fair
• The 'alumni tracing' method for verifying a sponsor's record
• Why one strong sponsor might be a single point of failure
• The exact script to use when asking someone for sponsorship

For product managers, developers, and tech professionals tired of watching great work stay invisible.

#CareerAdvice #Sponsorship

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

Your Job Description Is A Lie (Who Actually Makes Decisions) | AA266

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Your job description was written to get you hired, not help you know if a decision is your to make.

That gap between what's on paper and who actually decides is where careers go to die.

Experience & Process Improvement Leader Clint Murt once again joins Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Leader Om Patel in a debate on why job descriptions and/or job role descriptions may buy false comfort, when executive "intrusion" is actually legitimate, and the problem with decision-making that nobody owns.

Listen or watch if you're interested in :
• Why job descriptions go stale the day they're posted
• How that "startup magic" that becomes chaos at 100 people and burns out your best talent
• When that exec has the right to overrides your roadmap
• Why RACIs are fiction and what to use instead
• Practical fixes for decision rights

If you are a product managers, agile coach, or tech leader tired of role confusion and turf wars, this episode is for you!

#ProductManagement #DecisionRights #OrganizationalDesign

Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, David Marquet, RACI matrix, OVIS framework (BCG), Spotify model

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

Promote People Until They Break (And Other Really Bad Startup Advice) | AA265

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 05:00:00 -0400

A startup lecture recommended by Sam Altman calls people "ammunition" and tells you to work 80-hour weeks.

Brian and Om dissect Keith Rabois' (in)famous "How to Operate" talk, exposing the dehumanizing logic behind "barrels and ammunition," the cult of heroic effort, and why grading managers on output-per-head creates a fear-based culture.

What Brian and Om get into:
• Why the "people are irrational" premise is a condescending excuse for bad system design
• The truth behind 80-100 hour work weeks and the duct-tape engine myth
• What "build a company idiots can run" really means for your career
• The "barrels and ammunition" metaphor and its Taylorist roots
• Why "expand responsibilities until they break" destroys psychological safety
• The output-per-head metric and how it incentivizes burning out your team

For product managers, engineers, and anyone who's ever been called a "resource" by someone who read too much Ayn Rand.

#ToxicLeadership #StartupCulture #ManagementAdvice

Keith Rabois, Sam Altman, Y Combinator, Andy Grove, High Output Management, Warren Buffett, Square, PayPal, W. Edwards Deming, The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

Manufactured Consensus: Now Only $4-7 Per Hour! | AA264

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 05:00:00 -0400

That thought leader you follow? A virtual assistant in Manila wrote those posts for $4-7 per hour.

Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Leader Om Patel trace the industrialized pipeline behind LinkedIn's 'thought leadership' industry; from Filipino Virtual Assistants feeding prompts to ChatGPT, to state actors using the same tactics (and sometime the same tools) for influence operations. By the end, you'll see the whole machine.

Listen or Watch as we discuss:
• Why 54% of long-form LinkedIn posts are estimated to be AI-generated
• The Investigative journalism exposing the $4-$7/hour content mills
• How Russian and Chinese influence operations use the same playbook
• Why 'human in the loop' and quality didn't jive with the marketing message
• The spiral of silence: how fake consensus makes real majorities shut up

#LinkedIn #AIContent #MediaLiteracy

Rest of World, Originality AI, OpenAI, Noelle Newman (Spiral of Silence), Big Tobacco 'Doubt is Our Product' campaign, Knight Institute study

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA263 - "Nothing" Is The Most Expensive Word In Your Career

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Your boss asks what you need. You blank and say "nothing." You just turned down free money.

Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Leader Om Patel discuss and debate why that reflex costs you promotions, sponsorship, and credibility, and how to rewire it before your boss stops asking entirely.

By the end, you'll have a five-line cheat sheet to pull from so you're never caught flat-footed again!

Listen or Watch to learn:
• Why saying "I'm good" trains your boss to stop offering help
• The Benjamin Franklin Effect: how small asks build the relationship
• Sponsorship vs. Mentorship: which gets you promoted
• Why your impediment backlog is your best source
• The difference between advocacy/visibility and credit-grabbing

This episode is for you if you're an individual contributor, team leads, or just someone who's ever felt frozen when offered help.

#CareerDevelopment #WorkplaceCommunication #Sponsorship

Transformed by Marty Cagan, Influence by Robert Cialdini, Benjamin Franklin autobiography, Sylvia Ann Hewlett (sponsorship research), L. David Marquet

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA262 - HBR Says Consensus Is Dead (And Proved It With Consensus)

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0400

A PE bankruptcy specialist and BCG partner walk into a bar...

Just kidding, they walked into HBR... and they're trying to sell you a framework!

Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Leader Om Patel dissect the April HBR piece arguing that "consensus decision-making doesn't work in the AI era." By the end, you'll spot the sales funnel dressed as thought leadership, understand who profits from "autonomous scrum," and (hopefully) never read a management article the same way again.

Listen or Watch as we discuss and debate:
• Why the OVIS framework is RACI in a trench coat
• How the authors' try to undermine building consensus
• What "autonomous scrum" is (it's just scrum)
• The fiduciary duty argument
• A Peacetime/Wartime CEO concept lifted without attribution
• Questions to ask whenever an HBR article recommends a specific consulting firm's methodology

HBR: Decision-Making by Consensus Doesn't Work in the AI Era (Rosenthal/Zuckerman, 2026-04-07)
https://hbr.org/2026/04/decision-making-by-consensus-doesnt-work-in-the-ai-era

#DecisionMaking #ManagementConsulting #CorporateGovernance

Harvard Business Review, Saybrook Capital, Boston Consulting Group, United Airlines bankruptcy 2002-2006, The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr, RACI matrix, Jeff Bezos, Marty Cagan

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA261 - The Business Was Dying While Every Dashboard Was Green

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

The damage from your Q1 goal doesn't show up until Q3, on someone else's dashboard, after the person who flagged it got fired.

Part 2 of the Outcome Trap series. Brian and Om argue why you can't see the trap from inside it: second-order effects land too late to trace, the people who spot trouble get removed, and the truth fractures across team dashboards until nobody owns the whole picture. By the end you'll have questions to ask before any number you set quietly destroys the business.

Listen or watch as we discuss and debate:

Why Goodhart's Law turns every new leading indicator into another surface to game
How Sears split into 40 competing units and imploded while every department hit its OKRs
The Wells Fargo whistleblower fired for 'tardiness' eight days after calling the ethics hotline
Why Deming's 1986 warning to eliminate numerical goals got ignored for forty years
Two questions to ask before setting any target

If you've ever been in a company where every conceivable metric was green while the business slowly bleed out, this podcast is for you!.

#OKRs #Deming #GoodhartsLaw

W. Edwards Deming (Out of the Crisis, The New Economics), Goodhart's Law, Peter Senge The Fifth Discipline, The People's Republic of Walmart, Sears (Eddie Lampert), Wells Fargo (Bill Bado), Frances Haugen Facebook testimony, Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

LINKS
YouTube: https://youtu.be/BuWgxH8VpRI
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA260 - How Outcome-Based Goals Become a Permission Slip for Evil

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

The thing everyone agrees is the right way to work has quietly produced some of the worst corporate ethics violations in modern history.

Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Leader Om Patel discuss and debate how outcome-based goals can and often do go catastrophically wrong - from Facebook to Wells Fargo - and introduce a stakeholder outcome mapping tool you can use immediately.

Listen or watch to understand:

How outcome-based OKRs quietly enable the worst ethics failures
The invisible gorilla experiment which illustrates how goals function as mental blinders
The headlines test for stress-testing your goals
A stakeholder outcome mapping exercise to surface hidden tradeoffs
Why the system doesn't need evil people - just good people with bad incentives

This podcast is for anyone who is looking to understand how the efforts of well-meaning and "not-evil" people can and often does go off the rails. It may also be tangentially useful to leaders who are tired of pretending outcome goals are automatically ethical... but you first must WANT to change.

...and if you do like this one, get ready for a Part 2 next where we'll discuss WHY the damage from outcome-based goals is often invisible until it's too late, why organizations systematically destroy whistleblowers, and what Deming figured out decades ago that the tech industry still ignores!

#ProductEthics #OKRs #ProductManagement

State of Product 2026 by Atlassian, Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams, Facebook's Ethical Failures Are Not a Bug They Are a Feature by Betty (2021), Invisible Gorilla Experiment, Locke and Latham Goal Setting Theory, Deming

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA259 - The Memo IS the Strategy (And How You MIGHT Be Running It Too)

Wed, 27 May 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Six companies, seven days, same playbook.

Welcome to the modern age where the excuses are interchangeable, the points don't matter, and ALL the strategies are not-so-secretly the same! Listen or watch as Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Leader Om Patel talk through this month's round of layoffs and expose why Cloudflare's AI-first cuts and Fidelity's RTO-to-layoff pipeline aren't strategic decisions at all!

What Brian and Om get into:

Why Cloudflare cut 1,100 workers the same day they reported 34% revenue growth
How mimetic isomorphism drives CEO herd behavior
Incentive structures that reward confident memos
Why your sprint reviews, OKRs, and retro actions MIGHT be running the same play
A diagnostic for catching yourself performing response instead of executing change

By the end of this episode, you'll be spotting these announcement-as-strategy patterns in real time, maybe even in your own meetings!

#CorporateStrategy #TechLayoffs #ProductManagement

Cloudflare, Fidelity, Coinbase, Meta, Microsoft, Harris School at University of Chicago, Marty Cagan

LINKS
YouTube: https://youtu.be/VTA_y38MXu8
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA258 - AI Is Supercharging the Feature Factory (New 2026 Report)

Wed, 13 May 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Is AI actually helping us escape the build trap, or just helping us build the wrong things faster?

In this episode of Arguing Agile, hosts Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss the new AI4Agile Practitioners Report 2026 from Scrum.org. The data reveals a startling trend: while 83% of practitioners have access to AI tools, the primary fear isn't job replacement, it's that AI is becoming a "supercharged way into the feature factory."

Listen or watch as we examine the report's key findings, including the gap between AI access (83%) and actual competence (only 15% received formal training). We discuss why the reported productivity gains (73.7%) might be masking the erosion of agile values like reflection and collaboration. Citing Melissa Perri's "Escaping the Build Trap," we explore how organizations are using AI to accelerate output without redesigning workflows to improve outcomes.

Key topics include:

Why "speed of delivery" was never the real bottleneck
What practitioners really fear
The lack of workflow redesign in the AI era
Five actionable questions to test if your team is escaping or accelerating

Tune in to learn how to ensure your AI adoption drives value, not just volume.

#Agile #ProductManagement #AI

Escaping the Build Trap by Melissa Perri, The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, AI4Agile Practitioners Report 2026 by Scrum.org, Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA257 - State of Agile Report 2026: Is the Industry a 'Market for Lemons'?

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Is the State of Agile Report a clear-eyed snapshot of the industry - or a sales brochure?

In this episode of Arguing Agile, hosts Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel are joined by returning guest Ed Martin to dissect the 18th State of Agile Report from Digital.ai. Applying the economic theory of the 'Market for Lemons,' where asymmetric information leads to market failure, we discuss the survey results and 'pontificate' on the state of the agile industry.

Join us by watching or listening as we discuss:

Why 41% of organizations increased agile investment while only 13% claim it is deeply embedded
If the Rise of Hybrid and Homegrown Agile is an indicator of a return to 'cowboy coding'
Analyzing the report's contradictory finding that 63% of companies struggle with quality while 68% claim high-quality delivery
The critical issue of leaders demanding ROI from systems they do not understand or actively guide

We don't just discuss the report, but we also brainstorm and share actionable advice for agilists and tech workers on how to navigate a landscape of conflicting data and pressure to prove value.

#Agile #ProductManagement #Leadership

The Market for Lemons by George Akerlof, The 18th State of Agile Report by Digital.ai, Inspired by Marty Cagan, The Wright Brothers vs. Samuel Langley history, J.J. Sutherland

LINKS
Watch it on YouTube!

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA256 - The AI PM Competency Trap: Why AI Tools Won't Save Your Product Career

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Every PM is scrambling to learn AI tools - but is that a trap?

In this episode of Arguing Agile, hosts Brian Orlando and Om Patel summarize Shreyas Doshi's provocative article "Why Product Sense Is the Only Product Skill That Will Matter in the AI Age." Using the article as background for our discussion, we explore whether AI tools like Claude, Cursor, and NotebookLM are genuine superpowers for product managers or just the new baseline that everyone will have access to.

https://shreyasdoshi.substack.com/p/why-product-sense-is-the-only-product

We've structured this episode around several key debates, including:

🔹 AI Tool Usage: Are AI tools a temporary competitive advantage or just commoditized table stakes? When everyone has a bulldozer, the winner is the one who knows where to dig.

🔹 Strategy vs. Prompting: If you and your competitors use the same LLMs to write product strategy, how long until you're all building the exact same app? The hosts argue for using AI as a red teamer rather than an original thinker.

🔹 Speed of Conviction vs. Quality: Business leaders love saying "a fast B+ decision beats a slow A+ decision." But Brian and Om challenge this with Bezos' two-way door framework and evidence that AI-assisted workflows create 37% more rework.

🔹 Product Taste & Judgment: The hosts wrestle with Shreyas' concept of "product taste"—the ability to pick the optimal recommendation from a set of excellent AI-generated options and explain your reasoning.

🔹 The Zero-Cost Software Future: What happens when the cost of building software drops to zero? Will we end up at software bazaars with 30 identical prototypes? The hosts paint a vivid (and slightly terrifying) picture of commoditized software development.

#ProductManagement #AIProductManager #ProductSense

"Why Product Sense Is the Only Product Skill That Will Matter in the AI Age" by Shreyas Doshi (Substack article March 2026), Jeff Bezos' Disagree and Commit framework, Jeff Bezos' One-Way Door vs Two-Way Door decision framework, Claude by Anthropic, Claude Code, Cursor, NotebookLM, HubSpot, Jira, Figma, Google Docs, DataDog, MoSCoW Prioritization Framework, Stanford Cooper Bench Experiment (referenced from Arguing Agile Episode 247), Arguing Agile Episode 254 "QA: Why a Massive QA Boom Is Coming", Arguing Agile Episode 247 "A Poor Team Player - Stanford's Cooper Bench Experiment"

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA255 - What is Business Agility? The 5 Core Capabilities to Master

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Stop burning time and money on agile theater! In this podcast, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel strip business agility back to its absolute basics: no buzzwords, no frameworks - just the organizational muscles you need to survive.

Listen or watch as we introduce and explain the five non-negotiable capabilities: Sensing and Responding (market feedback loops), Speed to Decision Making (decision velocity), Structural Flexibility (reorganizing without chaos), Distributed Authority (decentralizing command and control), and Learning Orientation (continuous evolution).

Then stick around as we tear down the agile industrial complex, discuss why one study claims 47% of companies are operating purely under an "illusion" of agility, and discuss how the introduction of AI can amplify and exposes company's bureaucracy.

Other topics we discuss are:
• How to explain business agility to anyone from CEO to new hire
• Why "scaling" agility is a big lie sold to enterprises
• Typical bottlenecks to the five core capabilities
• Why vanity metrics sabotage competitive advantages
• Time to market, cost of delay, customer adoption, and much more...

Whether you're in product management, leadership, agile coaching, or team development, this episode helps you truly understand business agility and can give you the confidence to push back or ask critical questions when teams and leadership claim they don't need help.

#BusinessAgility #ProductManagement #AgileLeadership

["Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin", "Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais", "Turn the Ship Around by L David Marquet", "The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmondson", "The Lean Startup by Eric Ries", "BCG Study: Why Companies Get Agile Right and Wrong (2024)", "Business Agility Institute 2025 Report", "Organizational Agility: Ill-defined and Somewhat Confusing by Anna Teresa Walter (2020)", "John Boyd's OODA Loop", "Jeff Bezos's One-Way Door vs Two-Way Door Decisions", "Block (Jack Dorsey)", "Arguing Agile Episode 83: Agile Doesn't Work Here"]

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA254 - QA Is Dead!?! Why a MASSIVE QA Boom Is Coming

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Businesses killed QA with bad org design, but with AI, is there potential for a near-term QA boom?

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel as we discuss the systematic elimination of QA roles over the past decade and discuss why that decision is now backfiring.

That's right, with AI-generated code accelerating at breakneck speed and nobody to properly check or test it, Brian and Om argue that we might be heading toward a cliff of technical debt that will make skilled QA professionals more valuable than ever.

We discuss this potential future in five acts:
1. The Expensive Lie: Let's Dev Do the QA (until we lay them off as well)
2. The Coming QA Boom
3. When and Will Businesses Move Software Risk Upstream
4. Why Dev Didn't and AI Won't Replace QA
5. The Case for Human-In-The-Loop

Whether you're a QA professional worried about your career, a product manager who inherited testing responsibilities, or a leader considering QA cuts - this episode provides data-backed arguments for why the QA field may be on the verge of its biggest resurgence yet.

#QualityAssurance #AI #AgileLeadership

Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2023, Practitest State of Testing Report 2024, World Quality Report 2025 by Capgemini and Micro Focus, GitLab DevSecOps Report 2024, Google Code Review Quality Study 2023, McKinsey Technology Report 2025 (State of AI in 2025), Theo (t3.gg) video on the future of developer roles, Software Quality and Beer podcast by Bob Cruz and Matt Kubal (Checkpoint Technologies), Cooper Bench (AI coding benchmark study), W. Edwards Deming (quality management principles), Toyota Production System (quality ownership model), Eliyahu Goldratt (Theory of Constraints / systems feedback loops), Brook's Law, Melissa Perri, Playwright (test automation framework), Claude Code (Anthropic)

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA253 - The Delayering Disaster: Why Cutting Middle Management Is Blowing Up

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Meta and Amazon are cutting managers, but is it efficiency or chaos?

Is de-layering, or flattening your org chart, good for a company, or is it a recipe for destruction?

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel as we wade into the murky pool that is the latest of corporate trends - "un-bossing" or the mass sacrifice of middle management and mid-level coordination roles on the unholy alter of efficiency.

While the biggest of big companies are slashing layers to reduce costs and empower the IC (individual contributors), we take a more nuanced look, arguing that without proper system redesign, this approach leads to decision bottlenecks, leadership vacuums, and the collapse of career mobility.

Listen or watch as we discuss:
- Why firing coordinators doesn't eliminate the need for coordination
- The dangers of "spreadsheet-driven development" (SDD™)
- How informal hierarchies and politics emerge when formal authority is removed
- The impact of removing middle management on mentorship, sponsorship, and career growth
- How to actually flatten an org, when necessary

We're pulling out all the stops (and the research) as we review Google's failed "no manager" experiment from 2002, revisit the book Team Topologies, and discuss the recent trend towards a Chief of Staff type role. If you are a leader considering a reorg or a developer wondering why your meetings are getting more chaotic, this episode is for you!

#ProductManagement #Leadership #TeamTopologies

Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais, Google Project Oxygen, Fortune article "Executives are drowning. Blame the vanishing middle management layer" by Lily May Lazarus, Zappos Holacracy, Arguing Agile Episode #67 (Team Topologies), Arguing Agile Episode #250 (AI ROI)

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA252 - The IKEA Effect: Why You Love Your Bad Product Ideas

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Stop building products nobody wants by discovering the psychological bias killing your strategy!

Today, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel are taking on the "IKEA Effect."

The IKEA effect is the cognitive bias that causes product managers and leaders to overvalue the things they build - simply because they built them! That's right, today we're tackling a bias that's led to so much wasted budget, we're going to end up needing Congressional oversight... not to mentioned the ignored research and "survivorship bias" of trying to be the next Steve Jobs.

Listen or watch as we discuss and review:
- The Scientific research behind the IKEA Effect (people value items 63% higher because they've built those items)
- Why teams ignore expert research and undervalue insights THEY DID NOT SUFFER to obtain
- How traditional review committees designed to kill bad ideas often stifle innovation (and what to do better)
- Balancing the need for intrinsic motivation (Self-Determination Theory) with the necessity of governance
- The "Kill or Nurture" Framework: A new 2x2 decision matrix to evaluate projects based on evidence vs. passion

We also share personal war stories on the product-related IKEA effect, bemoan the struggles of gaining funding for evidence-based ideas, and maybe even distinguish between a wobbly chair and a throne. Tune in if you're interested in ways to stop falling in love with your own bad ideas!

#ProductManagement #Agile #ProductStrategy

Norton, Mochon, & Ariely (2012) IKEA Effect Study, The IKEA Effect (Harvard Business Review), Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci), Gartner Research, Deming's theories on intrinsic motivation

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA251 - AI Product Managers Are Just Product Managers

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0500

AI product manager jobs are everywhere - but are they really different from regular PM roles?

In this episode of Arguing Agile, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel wade deep into the muck-filled pool of hype vs. reality around AI-specific product management roles.

Listen or watch to join us as we do the dirty work of discovering if most AI PM job descriptions are just copy-pasted PM responsibilities with 'AI' slapped on top, or if there's real insight to be found!

Stick around past the buzzword bingo to learn:
- the 'find and replace test' for job descriptions
- the meaning behind "probabilistic vs. deterministic"
- the real AI-specific skills that matter
- how a 20-50% salary premium (and beyond) are justified
- why we think continuous learning beats specialization

Whether you're a product manager considering rebranding or a hiring manager crafting job descriptions, this episode will help you cut through the noise.

#ProductManagement #AIPM #CareerDevelopment

Marty Cagan: Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love, The Lean Startup, Sinan Aral: The Hype Machine, Teresa Torres: Continuous Discovery Habits

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA250 - CEOs Admit There's No AI ROI (But Keep Buying It Anyway)

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0500

AI had little to no impact on productivity in the past 3 years.

This was according to a National Bureau of Economic Research survey released in February 2006 of 6,000 CEOs and executives across the US, UK, Germany, and Australia.

Instead of throwing fruit at us, watch or listen as Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando discuss why it won't be the loudest Silicon Valley CEO helping us make the most out of these new tools and technology, but boring old process improvement and org design!

Yes, the current research-backed consensus (we review more such articles and research) is that AI adoption doesn't lead to productivity gains, but executives are going to still buy it anyway - they've got "positive vibes." 🤡

So that leaves us to figure it out... and figure it out is exactly what we do, by discussing:

Why Executives Won't Stop The Adoption
When AI Becomes the Unquestionable HiPPO
Are We in the J-Curve, or a New Baseline
Deming & Goldratt 101 (Automating a Broken Process)

That's right! Tired of hype and want to understand WHY there's no productivity increases? This is the episode for you!

#ArguingAgile #AIParadox #Leadership

REFERENCES
Fortune Article (Feb 2026), Financial Times S&P 500 Analysis (Sept 2025), METR Study (Jul 2025), Workday Study (Nov 2025), The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt, Out of the Crisis by W. Edwards Deming

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA249 - Disagree & Commit: Corporate Gaslighting? (And What To Do About It)

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Is Amazon's famous leadership principle being weaponized against you?

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel as we talk about how "disagree and commit" becomes "shut up and obey" in most companies.

Watch or listen as we discuss one of tech's most misunderstood management concepts, covering topics such as:

Difference between Amazon and Your Company
Red flag phrases
Why psychological safety is non-negotiable
What happens when smart people stop pushing back
The OnE lEaDeRsHiP tRiCk managers hate

Additionally, drawing on research and experience, we build a framework for protecting yourself and your team from toxic decision-makers attempting to lift-and-shift the walls and roof of "disagree and commit" without the foundation. That's right - practical, diagnostic questions and actionable strategies to distinguish legitimate debate from leadership cowardice!

#ProductManagement #AgileLeadership #WorkplaceCulture

Google's Project Aristotle (2012-2014), Organizational Cynicism by James Dean Jr., Pamela Brandes, and Robbie Darwadkar (1998), Understanding and Managing Cynicism about Organizational Change by Rikers, Wanous, and Austin (1997), Arguing Agile Episode 243: How Corporate Turns Good People Bad, Jeff Bezos 2016 Letter to Shareholders

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA248 - Expertise Overreach: Why Being Right ONCE Makes Leaders Think They're Right About EVERYTHING

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Your boss's biggest career win might be setting them up for their biggest failure. 🚨

Listen or watch as hosts Brian Orlando and Om Patel tackle a phenomenon that's rampant in tech but rarely named: Expertise Overreach: when someone's success in one narrow domain inflates their confidence across every domain, with devastating consequences for teams, roadmaps, and the entire organization.

In this episode, we're diving deep into the murky pool of psychology, neuroscience, and organizational dynamics behind why overconfident leaders derail teams (and how you can protect yourself).

🔑 Key Topics Include:
1. Why Being "Really" Right Once Can Be Dangerous
2. How Power Literally Changes Your Brain (a quick recap)
3. What Happens Inside the Yes-Men Factory
4. How Tech's Hero Worship Problem Makes It All Worse
5. Tips for Protecting Your Team and Your Sanity

This episode helps with practical strategies for dealing with overconfident "leaders," so please 👉 share this with a colleague who you know might need to hear it!

#ProductManagement #Leadership #AgileCoaching

Moore & Healy 2008 - The Trouble with Overconfidence (Psychological Review), Power Changes How the Brain Responds to Others 2014 (Journal of Experimental Psychology), Westfall & Bednar 2005 - Pluralistic Ignorance in Corporate Boards (Administrative Science Quarterly), Arguing Agile Episode #243: How Corporate Turns Good People Bad, Steve Jobs (hire smart people to tell us what to do), Amazon's Disagree and Commit principle

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA247 - AI is a Poor Team-Player: Stanford's CooperBench Experiment

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0500

AI agents failed spectacularly at teamwork, performing ~50% worse than one solo agent!

This week, we're discussing Stanford’s CooperBench study (a benchmark, testing whether AI agents can collaborate on real coding tasks across Python, TypeScript, Go, and Rust) and why AI-developer coordination collapses, even with a constant chat.

Listen or watch as Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel dig into the methods and findings of Stanford’s 2026 CooperBench experiment and learn about the three capability gaps that caused these failures:
• Expectation Failures (42%): Agents ignored shared plans or misunderstood scope
• Commitment Failures (32%): Promised work was never completed
• Communication Failures (26%): Silence, spam, or hallucinations

The experiment's findings seem to confirm human-refined agile practices. The episode ends with a concrete call to action: stop treating AI as teammates. Use them as solo contributors. And if you must coordinate? Build working agreements, not handoffs.

This episode is for anyone navigating the AI hype cycle and wondering if swarms of agents are going to coordinate everyone out of a job!

#Agile #AI #ProductManagement

SOURCE
CooperBench: Benchmarking AI Agents' Cooperation (Stanford University & SAP Labs US)
https://cooperbench.com/
https://cooperbench.com/static/pdfs/main.pdf

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA246 - The Spotify Model: The Viral Org Design That NEVER Existed

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Spotify never used the Spotify Model - and neither should you.

In this $2 billion episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel take a cutting torch to one of big-A-Agile's most beloved organizational myths - the Spotify Model! We're doing invasive surgery to see what's inside beyond the over-hyped squads, tribes, chapters, and guilds that have been copied by companies the world over.

...but what if we found out that the inside was hollow?

What if we found out that the Spotify Model was never even live and tested by Spotify?

🔥 LISTEN OR WATCH AS WE DISCUSS

• Why Spotify Insiders call the model "aspirational and never fully implemented"
• Why the model had little or no relation to Spotify's success
• How survivorship bias tricks us into studying only "winners"
• The four critical failures of the Spotify Model

💡 DON'T WANT TO WAIT FOR TAKEAWAYS?

OK, no problem, but before adopting ANY organizational model, ask:
1. Is this documented practice or just aspiration?
2. Has the source company evolved past this model?
3. What's the original author's current position on its effectiveness?

Please follow the podcast if you'd like us to do more myth-busting content about organizational design fads from 2015!

#Transformation #SpotifyModel

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA245 - Legacy Code: Why Big Rewrites Fail (And What Actually Works)

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Legacy systems work. So why do companies waste millions rewriting them?

In this episode of Arguing Agile, Product Manager Nisha Patel joins Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel for a debate on the dangerous obsession with rewriting legacy systems — from COBOL to green screens — that still power ATMs, government systems, and Fortune 500 billing engines.

Watch or listen as we discuss the myth that "modern" equals "better" and reveal how most rewrites fail because they ignore customer value, edge cases, and real ROI as well as other topics, such as:

How Chesterton’s Fence applies to code (Brian still doesn't know)
How Developers kill software with Resume-Driven Development (RDD)
How Finance kills software with spreadsheet-driven development (SDD)
Why chasing "parity" kills innovation
Risk Mitigation, or, framing technical debt in business terms

If you've ever worked on or tried to replace legacy systems, this episode will either give you nightmares, or help how you approach legacy systems while helping you also stop burning budget on vanity projects.

#LegacyCode #ProductManagement #AgileCoaching

REFERENCES
AA148 - An Introduction to Software Development Finances

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA244 - Why Your Meetings SUCK (And How to Fix Them) | Patrick Lencioni: Death by Meeting

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Your meetings aren't boring because there are too many; they're boring because they lack drama, structure, and purpose!

That's the claim made by Patrick Lencioni's book: Death by Meeting (2004)! Watch or listen as Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel use this book as a guide to discuss why most workplace meetings fail and how to transform them into productive, engaging sessions that people actually want to attend.

🔥 KEY TOPICS COVERED:

• The 3 Fatal Flaws That Kill Your Meetings
• Lencioni's 4 Meeting Framework
• Why "one comprehensive meeting" fails everyone equally
• How to audit your recurring meetings (kill the useless ones)
• How Lencioni's framework intersects with Scrum

Whether you're a product manager or just plain drowning in calendar bloat, this episode gives you actionable strategies to reclaim your time and run meetings that actually matter!

Let us know what you think in the comments... and what meetings you'd kill if you could!?!

#MeetingManagement #AgileCoaching #ProductManagement

Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, Arguing Agile Episode 217: Extreme Ownership - Military Leadership Lessons for Professionals, A Few Good Men (film), Raiders of the Lost Ark (film), Scrum Framework, SAFe PI Planning, The Real World (MTV show)

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
https://arguingagile.com/

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA243 - How Corporate Turns Good People Bad: The Neuroscience of Power Corruption

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Does getting promoted literally rewire your brain to lose empathy?

The science says YES. 🧠

In this research-backed episode of Arguing Agile, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel examine the unsettling neuroscience behind why your favorite coworker turned into a corporate tyrant after their last promotion.

Drawing from peer-reviewed studies in the Journal of Experimental Psychology and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, watch or listen as we explore three mechanisms that erode empathy in leadership positions (and talk through how to evade entropy).

🔬 WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:
• How power physically changes your brain chemistry and reduces your ability to read emotions
• Why narcissistic individuals rise faster through corporate ranks (and how to spot them)
• How socioeconomic class divides create empathy blind spots in leaders
• Practical guardrails to maintain your integrity as you advance

Whether you're a product manager, agile coach, or aspiring leader, this episode will help you recognize the warning signs of empathy erosion in yourself and others... before it's too late!

Have you watched someone change after a promotion? Let us know!

RESEARCH:
• "Power Changes How the Brain Responds to Others" (Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2014)
• "Social Class, Contextualism, and Empathic Accuracy" (2010)
• Prosocial orientation and power amplification studies (JPSP, 2011)

#Leadership #CorporateCulture #WorkplacePsychology

Journal of Experimental Psychology (2014) - Power Changes How the Brain Responds to Others, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2011) - Prosocial Orientation and Power Study, Social Class Contextualism and Empathic Accuracy (2010), Hittner & Haase (2021) - Empathic Accuracy and SES Study, Management 3.0 - 360 Reviews, Good to Great by Jim Collins (implied - wrong people wrong seats metaphor), Die Hard (film reference), Elon Musk Twitter/X takeover, Sheryl Sandberg (referenced), Glassdoor

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: https://arguingagile.com/

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA242 - Move Fast & Break Things: The Dark Side of Silicon Valley's Favorite Mantra

Wed, 24 Dec 2025 05:00:00 -0500

Is 'Move Fast & Break Things' just permission to be reckless?

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel as they examine Mark Zuckerberg's (in)famous mantra and reveal how it may have metastasized from breaking code to breaking laws, teams, and even contributing to real human harm.

Watch or listen as we explore the critical dimensions of this philosophy, including:

BREAKING SOFTWARE: How the original meaning of 'break things' (emphasizing first-mover advantage) evolved from rapid iteration of code to justifying regulatory evasion and monopolistic behavior.
BREAKING TEAMS: Using Harvard research that shows 'always-on' cultures decrease productivity by 20% and spike turnover to discuss how intensity without recovery is just exploitation (and what to do instead).
BREAKING PEOPLE: Discussing the human costs of unchecked speed, from Facebook's alleged role in the Myanmar genocide to Uber's systemic harassment culture to Theranos's fraud.
LEARNING OVER SPEED: We discuss Eric Ries's seminal work: The Lean Startup and how it went out of it's way to emphasize learning velocity over shipping velocity. WRONG (we guess)!
PUSHING BACK (WITHOUT GETTING FIRED): We brainstorm for frameworks to use for challenging speed-obsessed leadership, including trade-off and discuss real-world experiences.

Whether you're running a business, a product manager, or a team member just trying to keep up, this episode arms you with arguments and frameworks to advocate for ethical innovation.

What's your take on 'move fast' culture? Have you seen it more of a positive or negative?

#ProductManagement #TechEthics #AgileLeadership

REFERENCES
Move Fast and Break Things by Jonathan Taplin (2017), Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power Greed and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn Williams, The Lean Startup by Eric Ries (2011), The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmondson (2018), Susan Fowler's blog 'Reflecting on One Very Very Strange Year at Uber' (February 2017), UN Human Rights Council 2018 report on Facebook and Myanmar, Harvard Business School research on always-on cultures (2009), Agile Podcast E22 - Interview with a Scrum Trainer: Fred Mastropasqua (August 2021), Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink, The Social Network (film, 2010)

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: https://arguingagile.com/

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA241 - Product Risk: How Assumptions Kill Your Product (and Your Company, Eventually)

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 05:00:00 -0500

Stop wasting time building the wrong thing faster!

In this episode of Arguing Agile, Product Manager: Brian Orlando and Business Agility Coach to THE STARS: Om Patel respond to yet another listener question, discussing Product Risk Analysis in agile environments!

Listen or watch as they challenge the common misconception that analyzing risks upfront is "waterfall" and reveal why ignoring product risks until you've burned three sprints is how teams end up building features nobody wants.

Stick around while the hosts break down Marty Cagan's four critical product risks (Valuable, Usable, Feasible, and Business-Viable) but stick around for the conversation on why most teams focus on execution risks while the real product killers are hiding in plain sight!

The topics covered are:
- Difference between product risks and execution risks
- Why traditional risk registers are theater
- "Speed-to-death" prioritization for testing assumptions
- Handling team skill gaps as feasibility risks
- Aligning stakeholders who fixate on the wrong risks
- Why business viability (pricing, unit economics) is the most ignored yet most dangerous risk

This episode is great for product managers, agile coaches, and team members who want to stop building things people don't want.

#ProductManagement #Agile #RiskAnalysis

REFERENCES

"Marty Cagan - Inspired", "Melissa Perri - Escaping the Build Trap", "Teresa Torres - Continuous Discovery Habits", "David Marquet - Turn the Ship Around", "Product School blog", "Eric Reis - The Lean Startup"

LINKS
YouTube

Website

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA240 - Why Product Managers & Solution Architects Are Always at War (And How to Fix It)

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 05:00:00 -0500

Is your solution architect a gatekeeper or an enabler?

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel as they draw from their experiences to debate the reasons these roles - which should be natural partners - often find themselves at odds. It's a no-holds-barred look into the eternal conflict between product managers and solution architects!

Watch or listen as we explore:
1. Why the role exists and if it's even necessary
2. Who owns technical decisions
3. How PMs may be part of the problem
4. Three conversations that never happen
5. Identifying architects: shepherds vs. hoarders
6. When and how to escalate (without destroying your career)

They provide actionable takeaways including the "documentation test," the "decision autonomy test," and the "vacation test" to evaluate whether your architect is enabling or blocking your teams.

Whether you're a product manager frustrated by architectural gatekeeping, a solution architect trying to add value without becoming a bottleneck, or a leader trying to resolve these conflicts, this episode offers you solid, practical takeaways that you can start trying today!

#ProductManagement #SolutionArchitect #Leadership

Team Topologies by Manuel Pais and Matthew Skelton, Empowered by Marty Cagan (2020), Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni (2002), Radical Candor by Kim Scott, Release It! by Michael Nygard (2017), The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt, Arguing Agile Episode 67: Team Topologies, Arguing Agile Episode 235: Changing Your Message - Adaptive vs Manipulative Communication, Arguing Agile Episode 236: Why Product Managers Should Own Pricing

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: https://arguingagile.com/

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA239 - Why Your Company Never Learns from Lost Deals (And How to Fix It)

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 05:00:00 -0500

Lost a $2M deal and nobody discussed why? You're not alone!

Your company is running on hope, not learning.

Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel are discussing the potentially career-limiting topic of asking "why does the organization systematically avoid learning from failures?"

Thanks! We'll be sure to shut the door on our way out... but before we do, we'll explore why sales and product teams never debrief lost deals together, why customer churn meetings feel like career suicide, and why executives are never held accountable for their predictions..

...as well as:
• Why cross-functional lost deal retrospectives rarely happen (and how to run your first one)
• The cost of ignoring customer churn and how to conduct no-blame churn reviews
• Building prediction accountability systems to track strategic bets against reality
• How organizational silos kill learning and prevent teams from improving
• Why "move fast and break things" culture prevents meaningful learning
• Creating learning backlogs and embedding continuous improvement in fast-moving organizations

Today is all about actionable tips, specific questions to ask in retrospectives, and strategies for navigating the political landmines of organizational learning. Today, we're giving you tools to transform how your organization learns from mistakes!

Referenced Episodes:
• AA235 - Changing the Message
• AA199 - W. Edwards Deming: Profound Knowledge for Transforming Organizations
• AA67 - Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow

#ProductManagement #AgileCoaching #CustomerChurn

Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais, W. Edwards Deming's work on systems thinking and organizational learning, Amazon's six-pager concept, Arguing Agile Episode 235 (Changing the Message), Arguing Agile Episode 199 (W. Edwards Deming), Arguing Agile Episode 67 (Team Topologies), Silicon Valley move fast and break things culture, 996 work culture

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: https://arguingagile.com/

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA238 - 23 Business Models Everyone Should Know, Part 2 of 2

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 05:00:00 -0500

Discover how the world's most profitable companies actually make money, from Tesla to Amazon to ChatGPT.

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel as they continue to explore the 23 business models from Adrian Slywotzky's "The Art of Profitability." Part 2 continues the examination of the strengths and weaknesses of the remaining 11 business models where the hosts discuss why some companies dominate their industries while others struggle.

Business models covered are:

Specialty Product model (CrowdStrike, Beyond Meat)
Local Leadership (Publix, Dutch Bros)
Transaction Scale (Visa, Stripe)
Value Chain Position (Amazon, TSMC)
Cycle timing (private equity firms)
After-Sale profits (Apple Care, John Deere)
New Product innovation (Tesla, OpenAI)
Relative Market Share (Walmart, Google)
Experience Curve (Southwest Airlines, TSMC)
Low-Cost Design (Dropbox, IKEA)
Scarcity tactics (Ferrari, Nike limited editions)

Whether you're a product manager, startup founder, or business strategist, this episode provides actionable insights on choosing and executing the right business model for your market.

#ProductManagement #BusinessModels #Strategy

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: https://arguingagile.com/

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA237 - 23 Business Models Everyone Should Know, Part 1 of 2

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 05:00:00 -0500

12 proven business models that separate successful products from failures!

Product Manager Brian Orlando & Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel examine 12 real-world business models with real examples of the companies that employ them!

Based on "The Art of Profitability" by Adrian Slywotzky (2002), this part-1-of-2 podcast covers:
• Customer Solution Model (Palantir, SAP, Salesforce)
• Product Pyramid (Apple, Tesla, GM)
• Multi-Component Pricing (Uber, Coca-Cola)
• Switchboard Platforms (Uber, Airbnb, eBay)
• Time & Materials (Consulting firms)
• Blockbuster Model (Pharma, Netflix)
• Profit Multiplier (Microsoft, Disney)
• Entrepreneurial Model
• Specialist Model (Mayo Clinic, Agile Coaches)
• Installed Base (Printers, Razors, K-Cups)
• De Facto Standard (Windows, Adobe PDF)
• Brand Model (Apple, Nike, BMW)

Perfect for product managers, agile coaches, startup founders, and business leaders trying to understand which revenue model fits their product strategy. 💬 Which business model does your company use? Let us know in the comments!

🎯 ...and look out for part 2 - coming soon!

#ProductManagement #BusinessModels #AgileCoaching

The Art of Profitability by Adrian Slywotzky (2002), The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim/Kevin Behr/George Spafford (2013), Palantir, Salesforce, SAP, IBM, Deloitte, PWC, Apple iPhone SE, Tesla Model 3/S/X, General Motors (Chevrolet/Cadillac), Uber, Coca-Cola, Airbnb, eBay, Stripe, PayPal, Amazon, McKinsey, Netflix (Stranger Things, House of Cards, Daredevil, Narcos, Black Mirror), Microsoft Windows, Disney, Google Android, Yeti, Claude AI, Gemini AI, OpenAI, Gillette, HP, Lexmark, Keurig K-Cups, Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Adobe PDF, Linux, MacOS, PlayStation, Kleenex, BMW, Mercedes, Nike, Adidas, Agile Alliance, PMI, Grab (Asia ride-sharing), Moffitt Cancer Center, Anderson Clinic, Gulf and Western

business models, product management, agile coaching, revenue models, product strategy, startup business models, SaaS business models, subscription business model, platform business model, customer solution model, product pyramid, profit multiplier, entrepreneurial business model, business model canvas, product manager training, agile product development, business strategy, monetization strategy, pricing strategy, Adrian Slywotzky, art of profitability, arguing agile podcast, product leadership, business model innovation, recurring revenue, marketplace business model, consulting business model, brand strategy, competitive advantage

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA236 - Why Product Managers Should Own Pricing (Not Sales or Execs)

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 05:00:00 -0500

Debating why pricing belongs in product management's hands, not sales or finance.

Product Manager Brian and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om are rankling egos as they discuss a heated debates: who should own pricing decisions? Listen or watch as they argue that pricing is product strategy, not a sales tactic.

🎯 Topics Covered:
• The financial literacy gap in product management
• How to diagnose pricing authority in your organization
• Why executives resist giving PMs pricing control
• Collaborative pricing models that actually work
• When and how to change prices

Think your organization handles pricing differently? Let us know!!!

#ProductManagement #PricingStrategy #ProductLeadership

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA235 - Changing Your Message: Adaptive vs. Manipulative Communication

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 07:00:00 -0400

When does adapting your communication style cross the line into manipulation?

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel as we examine the differences between translation and transformation of messages.

Together, we provide a framework for communicating effectively across audiences without becoming a "slimy shapeshifter."

Discover the three-point integrity test, learn to spot narrative inconsistency, and understand why your reputation depends on what people say when you're NOT in the room!

Watch this episode to hear/see us explore:
• Difference between changing language vs. changing the message
• Spot political operators who weaponize adaptive communication
• 3 patterns of manipulative communicators
• What bosses say when you're not in the room
• How to maintain integrity across different audiences
• The consistency of storytelling

We're exposing the difference between changing language vs. changing the message and discussing how to maintain integrity!

REFERENCES

Adam Grant (Think Again),
Kim Scott (Radical Candor),
Amy Cudd (Harvard Research)

#ProductManagement #Leadership #Communication #Integrity #AgileCoaching #ProfessionalDevelopment

stakeholder communication, political operators, credit claiming, blame shifting, managerial integrity, trust building, adaptive communication

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA234 - When Teams Refuse Coaching, What Works, And When to Walk Away

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 05:00:00 -0400

What do you do when you're assigned to coach a team that clearly doesn't want your help? In this episode, we tackle the uncomfortable reality of coaching unwilling teams—from building trust with resistant groups to knowing when it's time to walk away.

🎯 KEY TOPICS:
• Why teams resist coaching (and what they're really protecting)
• The danger of "meeting teams where they are"
• How to handle power dynamics and surveillance concerns
• Coaching executives vs. development teams
• When coaching is actually meddling in disguise
• Setting explicit success criteria for coaching engagements

📚 REFERENCES:
• Trillion Dollar Coach by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle
• Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins
• Management 3.0 concepts

💡 Whether you're a coach, manager, or team member dealing with coaching dynamics, this episode offers practical frameworks for navigating these challenging situations.

#AgileCoaching #Leadership #ProductManagement #TeamDynamics #OrganizationalChange #ExecutiveCoaching #TrustBuilding #ChangeManagement

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA233 - Building Your Own Product: Ultimate PM Hack or Career Sabotage?

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Building products for yourself sounds like the perfect PM training ground!

At first glance, you get instant feedback, prioritize ruthlessly, and have no bureaucracy to whom you answer... but does it actually prepare you for professional product management, or does it create dangerous blind spots?

In this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel explore several critical dimensions:

Learning velocity and skill development
User empathy paradoxes
Resource management realities
Technical vs. strategic balance
Failure tolerance
Career advancement
Business model understanding

Our findings? Set artificial constraints, validate with real users, document your learnings, and use self-building as a supplement to professional experience, not a replacement.

Whether you're considering a side project or wondering if your solo work translates professionally, this episode offers practical frameworks for balancing the best of both worlds.

#ProductManagement #MVP #Solopreneur #ProductStrategy #CareerDevelopment

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA232 - Product Sense: Innate or Learnable? The Million Dollar Question

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Is product sense innate or learnable? We debate the million dollar question in product management.

Brian and Om explore whether great product leaders are born or made, why organizations promote people with weak product intuition, and how to actually develop genuine product sense. We cover the promotion problem, delayed feedback loops, the role of mentorship, balancing data with intuition, and scaling product thinking across contexts.

Key topics: nature vs. nurture in product thinking, why bad product leaders rise, learning challenges, mentorship environments, data vs. intuition, and transferring skills across domains.

Whether you're developing your product intuition or building a product culture, this episode offers practical frameworks for intentional learning.

#ProductManagement #ProductSense #Leadership #ProductStrategy #CareerDevelopment

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA231 - Real Strategies to Help Influence Without Authority

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 05:00:00 -0400

You're expected to drive transformation but can't fire anyone. You need to deliver results but don't control budgets. Welcome to the reality of leading software development efforts - all responsibility, zero authority.

Join Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando as we discuss proven strategies for building influence when you have no formal power, including:

• Building relationships before you need them
• Leveraging expertise without becoming a gatekeeper
• Creating value through results delivery
• Navigating authenticity vs strategic communication
• Why being right isn't enough

Whether you're a product manager caught between stakeholders, a team lead struggling with team dynamics, or an agile coach trying to drive organizational change, this episode gives you tactics that actually work in the real world.

#AgileCoaching #ProductManagement #Leadership

Tags: agile coaching, product management, scrum master, influence without authority, leadership skills, team dynamics, organizational change, agile transformation, product operating model, stakeholder management

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA230 - The Human Cost of M&A: When Good People Turn Against Each Other

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Ever wondered why mergers and acquisitions turn good people against each other?

In this deep dive, we explore the systematic destruction of workplace relationships after an M&A.

From sponsors-turned-foes to information warfare, discover why even the most collaborative cultures become pathological survival games.

Key Topics:
• Why M&As create artificial scarcity and paranoia
• The sponsor-turned-foe phenomenon
• Information as currency and weapon
• Blame archaeology and scapegoating
• The performance of fake collaboration
• How PE controls destroy generative cultures

Whether you're facing an acquisition or leading through one, this episode reveals the uncomfortable truths about corporate transformation.

#MergersAcquisitions #Leadership #CorporateCulture

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

REFERENCES

Arguing Agile 61: Experiences in Corporate Buyouts (Mergers & Acquisitions)
Arguing Agile 96: Stages of Company Decline, or When Companies Hate Their Customers
Arguing Agile 217: Extreme Ownership Military Leadership Lessons
Arguing Agile 219 - How Private Equity Killed Instant Pot (And Why Your Product Could Be Next)
Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games (2008)
Marty Cagan - Transformed: Moving to the Product Operating Model (2024)

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA229 - Build First: The Dumbest Take of 2025?

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Join Product Manager Brian and Enterprise Consultant Om as they peel back the sticky veneer from the "Build First" trend sweeping through product development.

Listen or watch as we debate the message being projected by AI tool vendors (who all have their own flavor of tool to sell you) and ask - "are we encouraging teams to skip crucial validation" in favor of rapid prototyping?

Stick around for our discussion, which includes:
- How "Build First" creates organizational dependencies on AI vendors
- The death of institutional knowledge and strategic thinking
- Effects of skipping user research and stakeholder conversations
- The token economy trap and hidden costs of AI-driven development
- Practical ways to leverage AI tools without falling into these traps

Whether you're a product manager, developer, or leader navigating the AI hype cycle, this episode offers balanced insights on how to use AI tools responsibly while still building products people actually want.

#AIProductDevelopment #BuildFirst #ProductManagement

product management, agile development, AI tools, build first, user research, token economy, product strategy, tech leadership, AI in product development, product validation

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA228 - Product Management: The Impossible Job - Is the PM role fundamentally broken?

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Is Product Management the most unrealistic job description ever created?

Product Managers are supposed to be the "CEO of the product" - a one-person army who is CEO, therapist, engineer, and strategist (all without equity or authority). The only issue is that it sounds terrible and is a modern recipe for failure.

Watch as Brian and Om dive deep into the impossible expectations placed on Product Managers. Listen as we talk through how the role expects you to work 60+ hours minimum, handle everything from technical architecture to customer support, and somehow maintain strategic vision while putting out daily fires.

The reality?

Most PMs have responsibility without authority and get paid for one job while doing five. We explore the industrial complex that perpetuates these unrealistic expectations and discuss what needs to change.

🔥 Key Discussions Include:

The myth of "CEO of the product"
Sensationalizing the 60-hour work week
Exploitation (aka. human Swiss Army knife)
Power dynamics in modern Business
$$$ (industrial complex) perpetuating the status quo

Whether you're a PM drowning in responsibilities or a leader wondering why your PM "doesn't communicate enough," this episode will give you plenty to think about.

#productmanagement #Leadership #AgileCoaching #WorkLifeBalance #ProductStrategy #TeamDevelopment #OrganizationalDesign

LINKS

Watch if on YouTube

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA227 - Tired of Repeating Yourself? Fixing Broken Communications!

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode of Arguing Agile, Brian and Om explore the frustrating reality of constant repetition in leadership roles. They discuss why product managers, agile coaches, and team leads find themselves saying the same things over and over - and what to do about it.

We explore:
• Why repetition is actually part of a leader's core job
• How to transform repetition into reinforcement
• How the global attention crisis affects workplace communication
• Creating single sources of truth and communication contracts
• The hidden costs of poor organizational alignment
• Practical strategies to reduce unnecessary repetition

Whether you're dealing with stakeholders who don't listen, teams that forget decisions, or an organization drowning in information overload, this episode is packed with tips to improve your communication effectiveness.

#LeadershipCommunication #ProductManagement #OrganizationalEffectiveness

REFERENCES
Arguing Agile 225: The Team That Got You Here - Navigating Growth and Team Evolution
Arguing Agile 211: Communication is Product's Only Job, Or Is It?
Arguing Agile 201: Mastering Stakeholder Communication and Management
Arguing Agile 198: Better Communication - Mastering Crucial Conversations

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA226 - If Agile Really is Dead: What Agile Professionals Should Do Next

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 05:00:00 -0400

The agile brand may have become toxic, but your skills haven't lost value.

If you're struggling - listen or watch as we discuss the valuable skills you have and how you might apply them in future roles.

Founder & CEO Alex Polyakov returns to the podcast, joining Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel for a discussion about the market shift that has taken place and how people avoid being held back by outdated terminology!

One immediately actionable piece of advice?

Reframe your experience in business terms, such as:
What impact did your presence bring?
How did you save money or drive revenue?
How did you improve speed to market or decision-making?
What deep organizational problems did you solve?

These are executive-level skills that could translate to Director and VP roles. This work hasn't disappeared - it's evolved and so should your career positioning.

#BusinessConsulting #Leadership #AgileIsDead

LINKS

Watch it on YouTube

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA225 - The Team That Got You Here: Navigating Growth and Team Evolution

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Your founding team delivered your first million-dollar quarter - but can they scale you to $10 million and beyond?

Join Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando as we talk through the challenging transition from startup scrappiness to operational excellence. Along the way, we ask about loyalty vs. performance, innovation vs. optimization, and how to manage team evolution without destroying trust and culture.

Watch or listen if you're interested in:
• Why early-stage generalists struggle with structured processes
• The emotional cost of replacing founding team members
• Innovation vs. optimization team dynamics
• Career development and succession planning
• Communication strategies for organizational change
• The role of coaches in team transitions

#StartupGrowth #TeamEvolution #ProductManagement
REFERENCES
AA221 - Steve Jobs' Radical Decision-Making: Why Consensus Beats Disagree & Commit
AA217 - Extreme Ownership: Military Leadership Lessons for Professionals

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA224 - QA is the Bottleneck? | Why Your Testing Team Isn't the Real Problem

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Is your QA team really slowing down delivery, or are they just revealing the cracks in your development process? In this episode of Arguing Agile, we're talking about one of the most persistent myths in software development and reveal why QA teams are often unfairly blamed for systemic issues.

We explore:

The shift-left movement and why QA belongs in customer conversations
How collaboration breakdowns create false bottlenecks
Why treating QA as a cost center backfires
Real strategies for breaking the cycle of blame
The hidden value QA brings to lean startup principles

From waterfall thinking to modern agile practices, we break down why QA teams are actually your best allies in creating customer value - if you let them.

#QualityAssurance #AgileCoaching #ProductManagement

REFERENCES
Arguing Agile 211 - Communication is Product's Only Job)
Arguing Agile 201 - Mastering Stakeholder Communication and Management
Arguing Agile 199 - W. Edwards Deming's Profound Knowledge for Transforming Organizations

LINKS
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA223 - People Don't Quit Jobs, They Quit Bosses! Part II

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 05:00:00 -0400

People don't quit jobs - they quit bad bosses... OR DO THEY?!?

We had so many untouched debate points from our first episode that it would have been a crime - A CRIME - to throw it all away. So we decided to do a part 2!

That's right, we're back and Brian tries to make his argument with all new points - are we blaming individual managers for systemic failures? Listen or watch as we (Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel) debate all new points and explore how broken systems may create the very behaviors we blame individuals for, including:

The Stanford Prison experiment
Toxic performers "too valuable" to fire
HR's role in systemic issues
The theater of data without action
Generational workplace differences
The cost of fixing systems
Revolution vs Evolution

Whether you're in software development and dealing with impossible commitments, a team lead navigating toxic culture, or an executive wondering why your engagement surveys aren't fixing anything - this conversation just might challenge how you think about your workplace dysfunction.

#ArguingAgile #WorkplaceCulture #SystemsThinking

LINKS
Watch on YouTube

AA222 - People Don't Quit Jobs, They Quit Bosses - Or Do They?

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 05:00:00 -0400

We're challenging the most accepted wisdom in workplace culture - do people really quit bad bosses, or are they really fleeing broken systems?

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel as they engage in this heated debate and explore whether blaming individual managers lets dysfunctional organizations off the hook.

🔥 Listen or watch as we also cover:

Why good managers turn "bad" under systemic pressure
The broken promotion pipeline from individual contributor to leader
How measuring individuals while preaching teamwork creates conflict
Why psychological safety can't survive in hierarchical power structures

Spoiler alert - we don't end up agreeing in this episode, and that's OK! Whether you're a struggling manager or frustrated employee, this conversation will change how you view workplace dysfunction.

#Leadership #Management #WorkplaceCulture

LINKS
Watch on YouTube

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA221 - Steve Jobs' Radical Decision-Making: Why Consensus Beats Disagree & Commit

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Steve Jobs once said he'd rather fire someone than force them to buy into a decision they disagreed with. This flies in the face of popular leadership advice like Amazon's "disagree and commit" philosophy. In this episode, we dive deep into Jobs' consensus-driven approach at NeXT and explore why expert-driven decision making might be superior to top-down mandates.

We examine how Jobs' 8-person policy team made only 25 major decisions per year, the importance of psychological safety in decision-making, and why paying people to tell you what to do (rather than just do what you say) creates better outcomes. Other topics include...

Consensus vs. "disagree and commit" leadership styles
Expert-driven decision making vs. ivory tower decisions
Building psychological safety for real alignment
Scaling decision frameworks in growing organizations
When to fire vs. when to coach through disagreement

Perfect for product managers, agile coaches, and leaders looking to build more effective decision-making processes.

#DecisionMaking #Leadership #ProductManagement

LINKS
Watch on YouTube

REFERENCES

Source Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_W6dLP09MQ
Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon, by Colin Bryar & Bill Carr, 2021
Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers Into Leaders, by L. David Marquet, 2013
AA208 - Jamie Dimon's Rant: Leadership Lessons on Trust and Effectiveness
AA201 - Mastering Stakeholder Communication & Management

INTRO MUSIC
Toronto Is My Beat
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA220 - Why Finance is Everyone's Job: The Hidden Truth Behind Product Failures

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Last episode, we talked about Instant Pot's failure via financial engineering that most product teams may never see coming.

In this episode, we explore why financial literacy should be a core competency for product teams, not something left to the "adults in the room."

We break down why reading basic financial statements, understanding customer lifetime value, and making data-driven decisions that actually consider the cost of building features are essential and how you can start moving toward a future where you have more transparency into financial matters.

Key topics covered:
• Why whoever controls the budget is the real product manager
• How financial complexity hides exploitation and manipulation
• The curriculum gap in product management education
• Practical metrics every product team should track
• How to bring finance people into your product discussions

This isn't about becoming accountants - it's about understanding the financial impact of your product decisions and building something that lasts.

#ProductManagement #FinancialLiteracy #AgileLeadership

REFERENCES
----------------
AA219 - How Private Equity Killed Instant Pot (And Why Your Product Could Be Next),
AA217 - Extreme Ownership: Military Leadership Lessons for Professionals,
AA201 - Mastering Stakeholder Communication & Management,
KIRO 7 News Seattle: https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/instant-pot-pyrex-parent-company-instant-brands-files-bankruptcy/VLWFB4OF75FHLERB7B5KCMXUFI/,

LINKS
YouTube: https://youtu.be/Xbub7ZKTMKo
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

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Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA219 - How Private Equity Killed Instant Pot (And Why Your Product Could Be Next)

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Instant Pot had $300M+ revenue, passionate users, and $100M cash on hand.

So why did they file for bankruptcy?

The answer lies in the pattern of how private equity systematically destroys beloved products through financial engineering!

In this podcast, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel examine the acquisition of Instant Brands and discuss how leveraged buyouts, special dividends, and debt loading likely turned a kitchen innovation success story into a cautionary tale for every product team.

Watch or listen to learn:
• Real reasons successful products fail under PE ownership
• Why "professional management" really means cutting the people who built the product
• How debt servicing kills innovation budgets
• The one question every product manager should ask their CFO
• Why product-led growth can't survive private equity's playbook

This isn't just about Instant Pot - it's about protecting the products and teams you care about from becoming the next casualty of financial engineering.

#ProductManagement #PrivateEquity #InstantPot

References:

New Lawsuit Accuses Private Equity Company of Plundering Assets of Instant Brands; Michael Wolf, Nov 2024; https://thespoon.tech/new-lawsuit-accuses-private-equity-company-of-plundering-assets-of-instant-brands/
Arguing Agile #61: AA61 - Experiences in Corporate Buyouts (Mergers & Acquisitions)
Arguing Agile #96: AA96 - Stages of Company Decline, or When Companies Hate Their Customers

Tags
#ProductManagement #InstantPot #ArguingAgile

LINKS
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

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Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA218 - Palantir's Forward Deployed Software Engineer - Revolution or Rebrand?

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Today we're examining Palantir's "Forward Deployed Software Engineers" - and separating fact from the hype!

Everything old is new again! Move over companies that have been doing this for decades such as SAP, IBM, and countless consulting firms!

https://blog.palantir.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-palantir-forward-deployed-software-engineer-45ef2de257b1

Listen as we break down Palantir's 2020 blog post about their Forward Deployed Software Engineers (FDSEs) and discover what these engineers actually do versus what the marketing claims...

Key topics covered:

What FDSEs actually do, day-to-day
How this compares to traditional consulting roles
The difference between software configuration and software engineering
Why embedded customer roles aren't new
Career advice for aspiring technical professionals

If you're interested in understanding the reality behind tech industry buzzwords, this is your episode!

#ProductManagement #SoftwareEngineering #TechCareers #Consulting #Leadership #AgileCoaching

LINKS
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YouTube: https://youtu.be/SGvJK-aruJ8
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com
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Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA217 - Extreme Ownership: Military Leadership Lessons for Professionals

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Today, we're delivering a not-your-typical-leadership-book review: "Extreme Ownership" by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin!

Ed Martin joins hosts Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel for a chapter-by-chapter review of how military leadership principles directly translate to product management, agile coaching, and team development.

The core message?

True leadership isn't about barking orders - it's about taking complete ownership, empowering others, and leading with discipline and humility.

Some quotes from our discussion include:
• It's not what you preach, it's what you tolerate
• If you can run retrospectives people actually want to attend, you've got leadership skills
• Communication isn't just part of your job as a product manager - it IS your job
• There's no 100% right solution, but leaders must act decisively amid uncertainty

Listen to discover the striking parallels between leadership skill and "agile practices" such as decentralized command and the ability to prioritize and execute under pressure. Whether you're leading a development team or coaching organizational transformation, these principles apply.

#ExtremeOwnership #Leadership #ProductManagement

LINKS

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com
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Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA216 - New Scrum Guide Expansion: Revolutionary Update or Unnecessary Complexity?

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 05:00:00 -0400

The Scrum community is buzzing about a new 55-page expansion to the Scrum Guide. Is this the depth practitioners have been asking for, or is it turning the lightweight framework into bloatware?

In this episode, Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando critically examine the "DLC" that claims the original guide was "deliberately oversimplified."

We explore new concepts like outcome vs output definitions of done, the "supporters" role, and the inclusion of complex frameworks like Cynefin.

Stick around as we debate whether these additions help teams navigate complexity or create more confusion, while highlighting crucial omissions around organizational structure and practical implementation guidance.

#Scrum #Agile #ProductDevelopment

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LINKS

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http://arguingagile.com

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3

Apple

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

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Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)

By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)

CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA215 - Why One-on-Ones Still Matter and Why You Should Have Them

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Jensen Huang has 60 direct reports and does no 1:1s, so neither should you - right?!?

Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel examine NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's claim that he champions "radical transparency" and his policy of no one-on-ones.

Join us as we explore what this means for the rest and listen or watch as we agree that one-on-ones should be employee-driven, focused on growth over status updates, and designed to build the trust that actually gets work done, as well as other topics such as:

Jensen Huang's leadership philosophy analyzed
Employee-driven vs manager-driven agendas
Building trust through private conversations
Remote work and relationship building
Practical frameworks for better 1:1s

Whether you're a product manager, team lead, or individual contributor; whether you own a snappy leather jacket or not, owning your 1:1 agenda is crucial for career development.

Now accepting all takes (hot or not) in the comments - do you vote for mass transparency or intimate coaching conversations?

#Leadership #OneOnOnes #ArguingAgile

LINKS

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

http://arguingagile.com

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Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)

By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)

CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA214 - Vibe Coding: New Dystopian World or Just Another Tool?

Wed, 28 May 2025 05:00:00 -0400

We're talking about either the terrifying or totally mundane new world of "vibe coding" - using AI to generate code without deep technical expertise.

Joining Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel for this podcast, we're happy to welcome back to the podcast Lenar Mukhamadiev, CEO of iDelsoft (https://idelsoft.com)!

Listen as we discuss how this trend is changing product development, software engineering careers, and business innovation. Stick around while we argue over resistance, how vibe coding enables faster market testing and many more points, including:

Accelerating time-to-market for new ideas
Evolving role of professional developers
Understanding business problems is more valuable than coding
Emergence of "product engineers," or not
A future where everyone is a software creator

#AIinTech #ProductDevelopment #FutureOfWork

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Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)

By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)

CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA213 - Being a Good Engineer Kinda Sucks (Reaction)

Wed, 21 May 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Do you want to hear a story about stifling growth and creativity through the lens of one developer's personal story?

You're in luck!

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel as they watch and react to Theo's YouTube video: "Being a good engineer kinda sucks," April 28, 2025.

It's a tale about the tension between excelling at your craft versus navigating organizational politics and dysfunction.

That's right, today, we're talking about themes of career development, team dynamics, and leadership, so feel free to stick around for our thoughts on these and:

The sustainability trap of overworking to meet unrealistic expectations
How organizational politics can punish innovation and excellence
The importance of product sense vs. documentation-driven development
Finding and nurturing relationships with like-minded professionals

#Leadership #ProductManagement #CareerDevelopment #TechCareers

LINKS

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YouTube

Apple

Spotify

REFERENCES
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Check Out Theo's Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VuM1GCadt4
...and his YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@t3dotgg
...and his website: https://t3.gg/

MUSIC

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Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)

By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)

CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA212 - Peak Product Management | Product Competencies

Wed, 14 May 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Who coaches PMs if Directors or CPOs don't understand how features get built?

...or don't understand how to build a strategy?

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel as we analyze Ravi Mehta's PM competency framework and debate which skills actually matter at each level of product management!

#ProductManagement #Leadership #ProductStrategy

REFERENCES

"How to Become a Peak Product Manager" by Ravi Mehta: https://www.ravi-mehta.com/product-manager-skills/

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LINKS

Arguing Agile: http://arguingagile.com
YouTube: https://youtu.be/d9byEWuGbBo
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

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Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)

By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)

CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA211 - Communication Is Product's Only Job, OR IS IT?

Wed, 07 May 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Listen or watch as Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando debate whether communication is the primary function of product managers.

We explore how and if PMs can balance effective communication across stakeholder groups while still delivering results, in addition to other topics, such as:

What percentage really is communication
The power-interest matrix for stakeholder management
Balancing narrative leadership vs technical excellence
Creating vision without authority
Making the invisible turn visible
What makes a good one-page vision documents

#ProductManagement #Agile #Communication

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REFERENCES

Arguing Agile 201: Mastering Stakeholder Communication and Management
Arguing Agile 205: Debating Impact versus Visibility in Product Management
Arguing Agile 123: PRDs
Who Moved My Cheese, Spencer Johnson, 1998
Geoffrey Moore, Crossing the Chasm, 1991
Working Backwards, Bill Carr & Colin Bryar, 2021
The Power/Interest Grid, Eden & Ackermann, 1998

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LINKS

Arguing Agile: http://arguingagile.com

YouTube: https://youtu.be/MEKYApOb4xc

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

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Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)

By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)

CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA210 - The Need for (Engineering) Speed!

Wed, 30 Apr 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Ever been in a meeting where an executive decrees: "Engineering needs to go faster!" without any nuance or understanding of the underlying issues?

What a coincidence - so have we!!!

Listen or watch as Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel discuss this common yet problematic demand. Join us as we unmask deeper organizational issues, explore how to respond to this request, and discuss the potential causes, constraints, and solutions.

Whether you're in engineering, product management, or leadership, this episode provides practical insights for addressing the "go faster" demand in ways that deliver business value quickly, under budget, and right on-time!

#EngineeringLeadership #ProductManagement #AgileTeams

REFERENCES

Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, by Richard Rumelt (book)
Arguing Agile #185 "What Companies Do Instead of Strategy"
Arguing Agile #103 "Challenges to Building Product Roadmaps"
Inspired, by Marty Cagan (book)

LINKS

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

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Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)

By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)

CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA209 - Asking for What You Need: The Superpower of High Performers

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Discover why the ability to ask for what you need is a critical skill that separates high performers from average ones.

Join Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando as we explore the "how and why" of the skill that is: making more explicit requests for support!

We dive into the dangers of hustle culture, the limitations of traditional hierarchies, and practical ways to improve your communication skills. Listen or watch to better understand how to navigate team dynamics, establish healthy boundaries, and move beyond "hope as a strategy" to get what you need to succeed; including...

Key topics:

Why hUsTlE cUlTuRe leads to burnout and diminishing returns
How to make explicit requests without appearing demanding
The importance of sharing your needs and inviting others to do the same- Practical communication skills for navigating organizational politics
Why rejection shouldn't stop you from asking for what you need

#AgileCoaching #ProductManagement #TeamDevelopment

LINKS

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

Website: http://arguingagile.com

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Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)

By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)

CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA208 - Jamie Dimon's Rant: Leadership Lessons on Trust and Effectiveness

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 05:00:00 -0400

We're listening to each and every painful, cringeworthy word from Jamie Dimon's recent rant about remote work.

Join Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando as they explore the tension between command-and-control management and outcome-based leadership.

Stick around as they argue (against and on behalf of) CEO of JP Morgan Chase, Dimon's frustration with work-from-home culture and clear issues with his leadership, trust, and organizational effectiveness, regardless of work location.

Along the way, we also discuss:

The Metrics Trap: When Efficiency Overshadows Effectiveness
Distributed Teams/Cultures: Building Sponsorship and Mentorship
Bottlenecking: Decision-Making Funnels in Large Organizations
You Can't Fake Trust: Creating Cultures of Empowerment

#Leadership #RemoteWork #ProductManagement

remote work, leadership, organizational culture, Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase, team effectiveness, decision-making, agile leadership, product management, trust in leadership, hybrid work, team empowerment, accountability, strategic leadership

LINKS

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagile
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596
Website: http://arguingagile.com

AA207 - Innovation: It's Someone Else's Job?

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Should innovation be outsourced to specialized teams, or integrated into your existing product teams?

That's what Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando are debating today!

Listen as we debate the pros and cons of separating innovation from implementation, exploring why "if you build it, you own it" should extend to innovation as well.

Join us to learn about the pitfalls of innovation theater, the challenges of knowledge transfer, and how to truly empower your teams to innovate!

#Agile #ProductManagement #TeamEmpowerment

agile, product management, innovation, team empowerment, product leadership, agile coaching, product discovery, innovation teams, product development, team collaboration, organizational silos, knowledge transfer, MVP development

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YouTube

https://youtu.be/Sn7B8zqNlnk

Subscribe on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8XUSoJPxGPI8EtuUAHOb6g?sub_confirmation=1

Apple

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3

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Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)

By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)

CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA206 - Reacting to Lenny's Podcast with Melissa Perri on Agile, Scrum, and SAFe

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel are listening and reacting to Melissa Perri on Lenny's Podcast as she makes claims about product management, agile, frameworks, and why most companies struggle with product management.

We discuss many of her claims, including:

Product Management has nothing to do with the Manifesto for Agile Software Development
Scrum is only for Large Organizations
Large Organizations Lack Infrastructure to support Product Management
Rigid Processes Can Crash Your Entire Company

...and many, many more!

Whether you're in a startup or enterprise, Silicon Valley or your average FinTech, this discussion offers practical insights on balancing process with customer-centricity.

#ProductManagement #AgileLeadership #TeamDevelopment

Tags: product management, agile coaching, scrum, kanban, product strategy, team development, organizational design, product owner, product manager, safe framework, agile transformation, continuous delivery, silicon valley, enterprise agile

References:

Lenny's Podcast with Melissa Perri, https://youtu.be/wbi9chsAHp4
Marteen Dalmijn's newsletter about Waternet: https://mdalmijn.com/p/how-a-digital-transformation-can
AA199 - W. Edwards Deming's Profound Knowledge for Transforming Organizations
AA187 - The Future of AI, According to Big Tech

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YouTube

https://youtu.be/c0htPyVTKeE

Subscribe on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8XUSoJPxGPI8EtuUAHOb6g?sub_confirmation=1

Apple

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3

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Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)

By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)

CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA205 - Debating Impact vs. Visibility in Product Management

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 05:00:00 -0400

We're exploring the false dichotomy between being good at your job and being seen as valuable by leadership!

The framework for this conversation was an eye-opening yet brutally honest post about the tactics one product manager claims to use to advance his career without delivering real impact.

We ask, "is success about making an impact or just being seen as valuable," while we explore the tactics described in the article:

Focusing on vision while ignoring execution
Using positivity to mask problems
Avoiding accountability
Dealing with the Inevitable burnout

Whether you're a product manager, leader, or team member, you won't want to miss our conversation around building sustainable career success without sacrificing integrity.

References:

Ronald Westrum: A typology of organisational cultures, 2004
AA201 - Mastering Stakeholder Communication and Management
AA199 - W. Edwards Deming's Profound Knowledge for Transforming Organizations
AA195 - Tyranny of Plans & Planning in Software Development
AA117 - You Should Do Time-Based Estimates (Article Review)
AA87 - Burnt-Out Product Managers
AP52 - Taylorism: The Principles of Scientific Management

#ProductManagement #LeadershipCulture #AgileTeams

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YouTube

Apple

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3

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Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)

By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)

CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA204 - Domain Expertise vs. PM Skills: Product Management Showdown

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Is it better to hire someone with deep domain expertise and teach them product management, or to bring in an experienced PM who can learn the domain?

Today, we're debating the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches across critical areas like business impact, product discovery, stakeholder management, and leadership!Listen (or watch) as Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel discuss why domain experts excel at identifying immediate pain points but may struggle with deeper product methodologies... or listen/watch as we discuss how experienced PMs can bring fresh perspectives while also facing steeper learning curves in specialized industries.

This podcast is all about exploring the real-world tradeoffs Product Leaders face when building product teams and providing insights for both hiring managers and product professionals!

#ProductManagement #CareerDevelopment #AgileLeadership

References:

Boiler Room (film), 2000
Marty Cagan - Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love, 2008
AA120 - Did AirBnB Fire Their Product Managers?
AA199 - W. Edwards Deming's Profound Knowledge for Transforming Organizations
AA201 - Mastering Stakeholder Communication & Management

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AA203 - Hating on Agile: Developer Frustrations with Agile

Wed, 05 Mar 2025 06:00:00 -0500

We're exploring the growing anti-Agile sentiment among developers as the agile-industrial complex has stitched together a grotesque imitation of what was once a vibrant movement.

Like Frankenstein's creation, what began with noble intentions has transformed into something both villagers and developers flee from in horror!

Before lighting our torches and brandishing our pitchforks, we examine the common complaints: lightning-rod meetings that drain life force, the monster of micromanagement wearing agile's skin, the cruel illusion of self-organization, and the chains of cross-team dependencies binding teams to their suffering.

We dissect the organizational structures that, like misguided scientists, fundamentally misunderstand the natural advantages of agility, creating abominations that shamble through corporate hallways.

#AgileLeadership #ProductDevelopment #TeamEmpowerment

References:

AA199 - W. Edwards Deming's Profound Knowledge for Transforming Organizations, 2025
Eric Ries - The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, 2011
Jeffrey Bezos - Bezos API Mandate, 2002
Who Moved My Cheese - Spencer Johnson, 1998
Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win - Jocko Willink, 2017

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AA202 - Dual Track Development (aka. Dual Track Agile): Helpful or Harmful?

Wed, 26 Feb 2025 05:00:00 -0500

We're taking a critical look at the Double Diamond model, aka. Dual Track Development, aka. Dual Track Agile.

This widely-adopted model might be leading leadership and/or teams astray, so we're taking some time to explore its limitations in real-world applications.

From the misconception of linear progression to the crucial importance of keeping customers involved throughout the process, Brian tries to convince Om that the model needs significant rethinking!

Other things we discuss are:

Why the "messy middle" is where the real magic happens
How to properly involve your whole team in both discovery and delivery
The importance of continuous customer involvement
Why organizational support is crucial for success

#ProductManagement #AgileMethodology #ProductDevelopment #Leadership #ProductStrategy

product management, agile methodology, product development, leadership, team development, double diamond, product discovery, product delivery, agile coaching, product strategy

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AA201 - Mastering Stakeholder Communication & Management

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 05:00:00 -0500

If communicating with stakeholders on a regular basis is part of your work and you're looking to improve your stakeholder management skills, this is your podcast.

We promise you'll learn practical strategies for effective stakeholder management that you can start using TODAY - or your money back!!!

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel as we use the Power-Interest grid to layout an actionable framework for communicating with different stakeholder groups.

#ProductManagement #StakeholderCommunication #AgileLeadership

References:

Stakeholder Management Tips for Product People by Roman Pichler, 2020: https://www.romanpichler.com/blog/stakeholder-management-tips-for-product-people/
Getting Stakeholder Engagement Right by Roman Pichler, 2015: https://www.romanpichler.com/blog/stakeholder-engagement-analysis-power-interest-grid/
Making Strategy, The Journey of Strategic Management by Colin Eden & Fran Ackermann, 1998
Arguing Agile #198 - Better Communication: Mastering Crucial Conversations: https://youtu.be/KgmnrkbNA8I

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AA200 - 20 Years in Tech: Lessons Learned

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 08:00:00 -0500

In this podcast, two tech industry veterans reflect and share candid insights from 20 years of navigating the ever-changing world of tech and software development.

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel as they talk strategies for recession-proofing your career, the critical importance of talking to customers, and the role leadership plays in driving organizational success.

Come for the positive experiences, but stay for the cringe-worthy tangents - we also explore the all-too-common pitfalls of tech such as confusing utilization with progress, the prevalence of Tayloristic management, and the emotional toll of accruing technical debt.

Whether you're at the start of your career or a 20-plus year veteran like us, we'd love to hear if our experiences are similar to your own and we hope you enjoy our discussion on spending 20 years in tech!
#TechCareers #LeadershipLessons #ProductManagement #SoftwareDevelopment #Agile

References
Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto
Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn
Turn the Ship Around! by L. David Marquet
The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education by W. Edwards Deming

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AA199 - W. Edwards Deming's Profound Knowledge for Transforming Organizations

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 05:00:00 -0500

In this episode, we go back to the future with the groundbreaking book by Dr. W. Edwards Deming - "The New Economics." Join us as we explore this goldmine of wisdom on leading organizations that are built to last.

This podcast is a no-holds-barred breakdown of Deming's System of Profound Knowledge and its four key elements:

Appreciation for a system
Knowledge about variation
Theory of knowledge
Psychology

Watch or listen to learn why pursuing short-term wins often leads to long-term ruin, and how to cultivate an organization-wide focus on quality as a strategic priority. With insights on leadership, teamwork, continuous improvement and more, this episode is a must-listen for managers, executives and anyone passionate about building great organizations!!!
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AA198 - Better Communication: Mastering Crucial Conversations

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 05:00:00 -0500

In this episode, we dive into "Crucial Conversations" by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler, exploring essential techniques for handling high-stakes discussions in both professional and personal settings.

Whether you're a team leader, product manager, or looking to improve your interpersonal skills, this episode offers practical strategies to transform challenging conversations into opportunities for growth and collaboration.

Listen as we discuss:

Creating safety in dialogue
Managing emotions and stories
The STATE method for persuasive speaking
Decision-making processes in teams

References:

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Empathy: A Handbook for Revolution by Roman Krznaric
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan

#CrucialConversations #CommunicationSkills #LeadershipDevelopment

crucial conversations, communication skills, leadership, team management, conflict resolution, emotional intelligence, decision making, agile, product management, workplace communication

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AA197 - The Rise of Fractional CXOs: Pros, Cons, and Red Flags

Wed, 08 Jan 2025 05:00:00 -0500

Are fractional executives the future of leadership in tech startups?

In this episode of Arguing Agile, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel unpack the growing trend of fractional CXOs. We explore the benefits and trade-offs of hiring part-time executives, including:

Access to high-level expertise and cross-industry experience
Considerations for small and medium-sized businesses
Challenges in building trust and managing multiple teams
Red flags to watch out for when hiring fractional CXOs
The importance of domain knowledge and product lifecycle understanding
Balancing executive skills with hands-on product management experience

Watch or listen to learn how to identify red flags and make informed decisions when considering fractional leadership roles.

#FractionalCXO #StartupLeadership #ProductManagement #AgileLeadership #TechIndustryTrends #OrganizationalStrategy #ProductInnovation #TechConsulting #StartupAdvice #ArguingAgile

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AA197 - The Rise of Fractional CXOs: Pros, Cons, and Red Flags
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AA196 - The Most Frustrating Question in Product Management

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 05:00:00 -0500

As a Product Manager, are you constantly asked "When will it be done?" before even knowing what "it" is?

Learn why this simple question is so problematic and how to handle it effectively. Learn strategies for educating stakeholders, collaborating on roadmaps, and focusing on delivering real value instead of arbitrary deadlines.

Don't let deadline pressure derail your product strategy. Listen now for practical tips on having better conversations about timelines and priorities.

#ProductManagement #AgileMethodology #ProductStrategy #SoftwareDevelopment #LeadershipSkills

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AA195 - Tyranny of Plans & Planning in Software Development

Thu, 26 Dec 2024 05:00:00 -0500

In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast, we dive deep into the corrosive nature of excessive planning in software development organizations.

Discover how the tyranny of plans can stifle innovation, hinder adaptability, and lead to project failures. We explore the cognitive dissonance that often plagues leadership when plans inevitably clash with market realities.

Join us as we discuss strategies for dealing with uncertainty, the pitfalls of Taylorism in modern work culture, and the importance of flexible budgeting in agile environments. Learn how to recognize pathological organizational patterns and navigate the challenges of working with narcissistic leaders.

Whether you're a product manager, agile coach, or software development leader, this podcast will equip you with valuable insights to help you break free from the tyranny of plans and foster a more adaptive, resilient organization.

agile planning, software development, product management, organizational culture, leadership, uncertainty, budgeting, narcissism, Taylorism, cognitive dissonance
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AA194 - What is an Enterprise Business Agility Coach?

Wed, 18 Dec 2024 05:00:00 -0500

What Does an Enterprise Business Agility Coach ACTUALLY Do?

Discover the crucial role of Enterprise Business Agility Coaches in transforming organizations! In this episode, we dive deep into:

How an Enterprise Coach differs from other Coaches
Working with C-suite executives to drive organizational change
Measuring culture and transformation success
Navigating resistance from middle management
Improving time-to-market and financial outcomes💡

Perfect for: Product leaders, transformation coaches, executives, and anyone interested in scaling a business or running a large-scale program.

#AgileTransformation #BusinessAgility #ProductLeadership #OrganizationalChange #AgileCoaching #EnterpriseBusiness #ProductManagement #Leadership

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AA193 - Product Lifecycle Phases: From MVP to Sunset - A Guide for Product Managers

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 05:00:00 -0500

Discover the four critical phases of product lifecycle management and learn how to navigate each stage successfully.

In this comprehensive guide, we break down:

MVP: Building your initial product and finding market fit
Growth: Scaling teams and features effectively
Maturity: Optimizing operations and maintaining market position
Sunset: Managing decline and transitioning strategies

For each category, we explore:

Team composition and changes
Evolution of Product strategies
What gets handled (and what does not)
Strategic decisions made during transitions

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel for a podcast sure to be perfect for product managers, agile coaches, and tech leaders looking to understand how team dynamics and product strategies evolve throughout a product's lifecycle.

#ProductManagement #AgileMethodology #ProductLifecycle #ProductStrategy #ProductDevelopment #MVP #ProductGrowth #TechLeadership #ProductMaturity #ProductSunset

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AA192 - Reaction: Product Management is Dead!

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 05:00:00 -0500

All Aboard the AI Hype Train!!!

Product management is DEAD! It died facing a high-noon showdown with AI, and the rumors of it's demise are spreading faster than a locomotive through the boom-town of Silicon Valley.

In this episode of Arguing Agile, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel try a daring uncoupling of the the AI hype train as they examine Claire Vo's take on whether product management is about to derail.

Listen as we navigate treacherous mountain passes following this shiny new engine, exploring:

The runaway train of AI expectations vs. reality
Why the "lone ranger" product manager is a dangerous myth
Navigating the switchyard of cross-functional collaboration
Breaking out of the Silicon Valley echo chamber
Why technical skills are just one car in the product management train

What's your ticket to the future of product management say? Drop your perspective in the comments, partner!

#AI #ProductManagement #Innovation #TeamTopologies #TechLeadership #ProductDevelopment #AgileCoaching

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AA191 - Platform Product Management in Banking/Finance

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 08:00:00 -0500

Success as a platform PM requires both technical depth and exceptional emotional intelligence to navigate complex organizational dynamics...

That goes double if you work in banking or finance!

In this episode of Arguing Agile, Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando read and respond to a question from a listener who is a platform product managers at a Bank.

Getting into the nitty-gritty of platform how-to's, this episode is perfect for product managers, agile coaches, and technology leaders working in traditional industries looking to modernize their approach to platform management!

As industries embrace digital transformation (err... product operating model), platform product managers face unique challenges, including:

How to effectively manage cross-functional relationships in siloed environments
Strategies for prioritizing platform features that deliver organization-wide value
Tips for reducing cognitive load across teams
Ways to build trust and showcase value as a platform team
Create value through standardization without weaponizing it
Build effective cross-functional relationships

#ProductManagement #TeamTopologies #PlatformTeam #AgileLeadership #Banking #TechLeadership #ProductDevelopment #AgileCoaching

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AA190 - Navigating Product-Engineering Conflicts: A Coaching Session

Wed, 13 Nov 2024 05:00:00 -0500

Have you been in a situation where engineering leadership and product management do not see eye-to-eye?

In this episode, Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel interviews and coaches Product Manager Brian Orlando on challenges product managers face when working with engineering teams, leads, and managers.

Listen/watch to learn tactics for diffusing a potentially difficult situation, including:

Strategies for effective spike work and time-boxing
The importance of frequent check-ins and demos
Spotting when tech leads aren't aligned with modern dev practices
Key takeaways from "Accelerate" and it's relevance
The value of being willing to abandon unsuccessful features

Whether you're a product manager struggling with team dynamics or an engineering leader looking to improve collaboration, this episode is packed to the tippy-top with valuable and practical advice you can start using - right meow!

#ProductManagement #Agile #EngineeringLeadership #ContinuousImprovement #DevOps

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AA189 - Inheriting a Product Backlog: 6 Tactics to Get Started

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 05:00:00 -0500

As a product manager, have you ever inherited a messy backlog?

In this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel break down 6 useful tactics you can use to tackle this common challenge.

Listen as we discuss the challenges of inheriting a product backlog and learn practical strategies for:

Aligning with company objectives
Effective stakeholder communication
Prioritization techniques
Leveraging data for decision-making
Streamlining processes and workflows
Identifying and preparing for skill gaps

If you manage a backlog, this episode provides valuable insights to help you succeed in your role!

#ProductManagement #Agile #BacklogManagement #ProductStrategy #DataDriven

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AA188 - CEOs Don't Care About Story Points: Being Better at Business

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 05:00:00 -0400

As product managers and agile practitioners, we often struggle to communicate our value to management in terms they understand.

In this episode, you'll learn how to better translate business value to management, make a case for additional resources, and overcome resistance to change in your organization.

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel as we discuss:

Translating agile metrics into business value
Making a case for additional resources in SMBs
Overcoming resistance to change in organizations
Balancing new features with technical debt reduction
Strategies for demonstrating ROI of agile practices

#ProductManagement #AgileLeadership #BusinessValue #OrganizationalChange #TechnicalDebt

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AA187 - The Future of AI, According to Big Tech

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 05:00:00 -0400

We don't always do reaction videos, but when we do, we do them right!

On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel react to a candid interview with the former Google CEO as he shares provocative insights on the future of AI, Silicon Valley's approach to innovation, and potential disruption to big tech companies.

Join us as we analyze his (somewhat) controversial statements on remote work, startup strategies, and the geopolitics of AI development. Listen or watch to get an inside look at how tech leaders think and debate ethical implications.

• AI agents and large language models will dramatically boost productivity
• Silicon Valley's "move fast and break things" mentality applied to AI
• Geopolitical competition in AI between nations
• Potential for AI to disrupt incumbent tech giants
• Ethical concerns around AI development and deployment

#ArtificialIntelligence #TechInnovation #ProductManagement #AIEthics

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AA186 - Bridging the Finance-Product Gap: 13 CFO Lies (Mostly) Debunked

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 05:00:00 -0400

As a product leader or agile practitioner, do you struggle to communicate value to your finance team?

In this episode of the Arguing Agile Podcast, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel muse on 13 common misconceptions CFOs face and how they impact product and organizational success.

Listen as we discuss:

Demonstrating the ROI of business agility
Balancing short-term gains with long-term strategy
Improving cross-departmental communication
Showcasing the value of tech investments

Learn how to improve communication between finance and product teams and how to finally bridge that pesky gap between finance and product in your organization!

CFO, product management, agile, finance, ROI, strategy, communication, organizational culture, tech investment, risk management, budgeting, leadership, business agility

#ProductManagement #AgileLeadership #FinancialStrategy #BusinessAgility

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AA185 - What Companies Do Instead of Strategy

Wed, 09 Oct 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Are you struggling with strategic planning in your organization?

In this episode, Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando walk through the common mistakes companies make developing and executing strategies.

Listen as we discuss:

The goal mirage of confusing aspirations for action
Overemphasis on planning and forecasting
The pitfalls of being a "feature factory"
Neglecting the external business environment
Mistaking operational efficiency for strategy

Learn how to identify these issues in your own organization and discover practical solutions to improve your strategic planning process.

strategic planning, business strategy, feature factory, operational efficiency, market analysis, product management, agile development, leadership, decision-making, innovation

#BusinessStrategy #ProductManagement #AgileLeadership #StrategicPlanning #Innovation

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AA184 - Illusion of Control: Battling the Ubiquitous Need for Control

Wed, 02 Oct 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Are outdated management practices and hierarchical structures holding your organization back?

In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast, Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando take the untraveled path of analyzing why the need for control is so pervasive in corporate environments.

Listen to learn:

How the illusion of control manifests
How risk aversion stifles creativity and growth
Better organizational structures than the autocratic heirarchy
How the illusion of control permeates management
The pitfalls of short-term thinking and "quarterly capitalism"
How to reach beyond vanity metrics and measure what matters

Whether you're a product manager, agile coach, or business leader, this discussion will challenge your thinking on organizational structure and decision-making.

#AgileLeadership #ProductManagement #OrganizationalCulture #BusinessAgility

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AA183 - The People vs. The Ivory Tower: Challenging Centralized Corporate Structures

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel put the controversial topic of centralized corporate structures (aka. the Ivory Tower) on trial.

Listen or watch as the hosts explore the pros and cons, including:

The pitfalls of consolidating specialized roles into "ivory towers"
How centralization affects team autonomy and decision-making
How to measure effectiveness of centralization
The importance of aligning with business goals and maintaining accountability
Alternatives to traditional hierarchical structures

#BusinessAgility #TeamAutonomy #OrganizationalDesign #ProductManagement #Leadership #ConwaysLaw #ServiceManagement

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AA182 - Switching to Kanban: How-To's for a Smooth Changeover

Wed, 18 Sep 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode of the Arguing Agile Podcast, school is in session as Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel helps Product Manager Brian Orlando understand the ways of successfully transitioning a team from Scrum (or whatever) to Kanban!

We cover key Kanban concepts, like:

Adapting and Reducing events and meetings
Understanding flow and pull systems
Setting effective WIP limits
Creating common-sense policies
Managing backlogs and estimations
Measuring success with Kanban metrics

Whether you're considering the switch or already using Kanban, this episode will help you optimize your flow!

Kanban, agile, Scrum, workflow management, WIP limits, pull system, flow, backlog refinement, continuous improvement, agile metrics

#Kanban #ContinuousImprovement #ProductManagement #SoftwareDevelopment

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AA181 - Deming's 14 Points: The Management Revolution We Needed (40 Years Ago)

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast, Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando open a door into the world of W. Edwards Deming by exploring his 14 principles for management from his seminal book "Out of the Crisis".

Whether you're in software development or manufacturing; whether you're a leader looking to transform your organization, a QA professional seeking to improve quality, or a product manager looking to delight customers - this episode is for you! As applicable today as they were in the 1980s, Deming's points provide a roadmap to improve the effectiveness of a business or organization.

Listen or watch (links in the comments) as we discuss ways to implement Deming's principles of creating constancy of purpose, ceasing dependence on inspection, driving out fear, and removing barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship.

#Deming #Management #QualityManagement #Transformation #Leadership

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AA180 - UX Research vs Product Management: Pillow Fighting in a Burning House

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Do You Really Need a UX Researcher on Your Product Team?

There are no easy answers on this podcast as we react to a provocative LinkedIn post.

On this episode, Product Manager Brian and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om debate the merits and challenges of having dedicated UX researchers on product teams.

Listen as we explore:

Are UX researchers a must-have or a luxury?
Can product managers develop research skills?
Does short-term thinking undervalue the impact of UX research?
Could UX researchers upskill product teams?

Join us for a delightfully balanced discussion about product management, UX professionals, and agile teams.

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AA179 - Winning Product Strategies & MVPs: Case Studies from Top Companies

Wed, 28 Aug 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast, Product Manager Nisha Patel joins hosts Om Patel and Brian Orlando to discuss how to develop effective product strategies.

They break down real-world examples from companies like Dropbox, Airbnb, Stripe, and more to illustrate the key components of a strong strategy. Learn practical tips for defining the right problem to solve, creating a guiding policy, and identifying measurable actions to test your strategy.

Whether you're a product manager, agile coach, or aspiring entrepreneur, you'll gain insights to help you craft strategies that drive results.

0:00 Podcast Intro
0:11 Podcast Intro: Nisha Patel & Strategy
0:45 Discussion on Product Strategies
1:15 Common Advice
2:10 Why We Don't Write It Down
3:37 Importance of Visualizing Strategies
6:11 Where Are Our Strategies?
10:23 Tools for Strategy Management
12:32 Strategy Review Cadence
14:25 Tactical Advice on Strategy
17:23 Brainstorming Strategy
19:19 Case Study: Dropbox
21:56 Building a Guiding Policy
26:36 Case Study: Doordash
29:05 Case Study: AirBnB
31:24 Testing Ideas & Strategies
35:44 The Crazy Idea Behind Uber
36:43 Case Study: Robinhood
37:56 Case Study: Kickstarter
41:29 Case Study: Zapier
42:49 Case Study: Stripe
44:33 Early Adoption of Stripe
49:12 The Importance of Defining the 'Why'
50:14 Empowering Developers and Agile Collaboration
51:55 Summary and Future Podcasts
53:16 Advice for People Stuck as a Cog in a Machine
58:41 Customer Centricity
59:55 Two Future Podcasts
1:01:17 Wrap-Up

product strategy, agile product management, product management case studies, Dropbox product strategy, Airbnb product strategy, Stripe API strategy, lean startup, product market fit, customer discovery, minimum viable product (MVP), product management tips

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AA178 - Navigating Technical Debt: Balancing Speed, Quality & User Needs

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast, Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando are joined by Alex Polyakov, CEO of Project Simple (https://projectsimple.ai) for an immersive discussion of the complex topic of technical debt.

They discuss what technical debt really means, when it can be beneficial vs harmful, and strategies for prioritizing and paying down tech debt while still delivering value to users. Learn how to have productive conversations about technical debt with your development teams and stakeholders.

technical debt, agile development, product management, refactoring, software architecture, prioritization, user needs, agile transformation, arguing agile podcast

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AA177 - What is a Platform Team? Roles, Responsibilities & Common Mistakes

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast, Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando dive into the often misunderstood concept of platform teams. They discuss:

- The definition and purpose of a platform team
- How platform teams differ from stream-aligned feature teams
- Key behaviors of effective platform teams
- Common anti-patterns and mistakes made with platform teams
- How platform teams enable greater business agility when implemented well

Whether you're a product manager, agile coach, or tech leader, understanding platform teams is critical for building high-performing organizations. Tune in to learn the do's and don'ts of platform teams.

0:00 Podcast Intro
0:11 Topic Intro: What is a Platform Team?
0:58 What is a Platform?
2:26 Stream-Aligned or Durable Teams
3:22 What the Platform Team Does
6:06 Good Behaviors: Collaboration
8:04 Good Behaviors: Fast Feedback Loops
9:57 Good Behaviors: Focus on Usability & Reliability
12:25 Bottcher's Points: the Source Article
16:36 Platform Confusion
19:15 Platform Team Product Management
21:17 Transferring or Sabotaging Cognitive Load
23:49 No Dedicated Platform Team
26:18 Customer Focus vs Platform Work
30:23 Normal (Platform) Business
32:13 Wrap-Up

platform team, platform as a product, stream-aligned teams, team topologies, cognitive load, business agility, product management, devops, enterprise agile

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AA176 - Arguing on Moving Away from Durable Teams toward Shared Services

Wed, 07 Aug 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast, Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando debate the pros and cons of using shared services teams versus fully dedicated, cross-functional teams (otherwise known in Marty Cagan circles as "durable teams").

They explore common arguments made for shared services models, such as resource utilization, cost efficiency, and standardization. Om and Brian then counter these points, discussing the negative impacts on team cohesion, context switching, and ability to deliver customer value quickly.

Understand the organizational and cultural forces that lead to shared services, and arm yourself to advocate for stable, durable agile teams.

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AA175 - Why You Need to Make Space Learn: Cognitive Load in Agile Software Development

Wed, 31 Jul 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando dive into the concept of cognitive load and how it impacts agile software development teams.

Drawing from the 1988 paper "Cognitive Load During Problem Solving" by John Sweller, they discuss:

What is cognitive load and how does it manifest on teams?
Why the mental effort required for day-to-day problem solving doesn't necessarily lead to learning new skills
The importance of making space for developers to acquire new "schemas" or patterns through activities like communities of practice and pair programming
How an overemphasis on utilization and treating problem solving as the primary means of learning can hamper a team's ability to grow their expertise
Ideas for measuring and managing cognitive load on agile teams

If you're a product manager, agile leader or coach looking to enable your teams to continuously learn and improve, this is the episode for you!

0:00 Podcast Intro
0:11 Topic Intro: Cognitive Load
1:16 What is Cognitive Load
2:36 Claim #1: Problem Solving is Heavy Stuff
6:08 A Software Development Example, #1
8:11 Claim #2 Distinctly Different Learning Mechanisms
10:48 We're Too Busy to Improve
12:27 Being More Effective
14:35 Time to Innovate
15:55 Claim #3 - Normal Work Doesn't Lend to Learning
18:32 Sprint Goals
19:45 Claim #4 - Expertise Development
22:27 Making Space for Learning
24:06 Surprise: Taylorism
25:31 Utilization & Overhead
27:24 Claim #5 - Modification is Required
28:54 Pair Programming
30:33 Measuring Cognitive Load
34:20 Wrap-Up

cognitive load agile development, agile team learning, problem solving vs skill acquisition, managing cognitive load software teams, developer utilization agile, pair programming, communities of practice agile

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AA174 - From QA Intern to CEO: Lenar's Career Journey

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast we welcome Lenar Mukhamadiev!

Lenar shares his fascinating career path from starting as a QA intern at age 20 to founding his own software development company, iDelsoft: https://idelsoft.com

Lenar discusses the challenges of being an entrepreneur, the importance of embracing failure as learning opportunities, his thoughts on the future of QA, and advice he would give his younger self.

Tune in for insights on leadership, accountability, hiring, and more!

0:00 Podcast Intro
0:12 Guest Intro: Lenar Mukhamadiev
0:56 Lenar's Background
2:14 Life at Idelsoft
4:16 QA Progression
5:39 Moving to Software Engineering
7:15 Brian's QA Journey
10:01 Challenges
12:31 Where to Play...
13:38 Success & Value
15:58 Testing Skill
17:25 Owned Outcomes
19:24 Accountability
23:06 Communication
25:11 Failure & Iterating
27:29 Interviewing
29:40 Work Experience
33:56 Future of QA
37:51 Advice for Your Younger Self
38:49 Wrap-Up

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AA173 - Product Manager Specializations: Pros, Cons & Navigating Your Career Path

Wed, 17 Jul 2024 12:00:00 -0400

In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast, Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando explore the trend of product management specializations.

We discuss the various types of specializations emerging, the factors driving this trend, and the pros and cons for both product managers and organizations.

We also share practical advice on how to navigate your product management career path amidst the pressure to specialize.

Whether you're a product manager feeling overburdened or an organization considering specialized PM roles, tune in for insights to help you make informed decisions.

0:00 Podcast Intro
0:11 Topic Intro: PM Specializations
1:53 Types of Specialization
4:14 More Examples
5:51 How Did We Get Here?
9:11 Scope Creep + Lack of Support
11:04 Agile Contributions, or Not
12:10 Future Podcast: Adding People and Teams
12:54 Technology Specialization
14:33 Changing Tech Stacks/Skills
16:30 Unburdening Yourself, Preview Edition
17:59 Pros & Cons
20:28 Pros of Not Specializing
23:04 Corporate is Weird
23:49 Context Switching
25:52 Autonomy of Leadership
26:52 Choosing to Specialize
30:04 Build Support Structures
31:40 Justifying Promotions
33:37 Final Reactions
35:07 Wrap-Up

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AA172 - Review of "Transformed" by Marty Cagan

Wed, 10 Jul 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast, Software Development Expert Ed Martin joins Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando as they review Marty Cagan's latest book "Transformed."

Listen as we discuss takeaways, critique, and commentary, including:

The evolving roles of product leaders and agile coaches
Product discovery and the tech lead's accountability
Common objections faced during agile transformations
How Marty Cagan's ideas apply to real-world product development

#ProductLeadership #AgileCoaching #MartyCagan #Transformed #BusinessAgility

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AA171 - The Shadow Backlog: How Invisible Work Derails Your Teams

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode of Arguing Agile, Brian and Om dive into the seedy reality of the "shadow backlog."

Defined as all the hidden work and side projects that don't make it into the "official" backlog, shadow backlog items end up consuming significant time and effort from development teams.

From personal passion projects to break fixes to exploratory work, we discuss the many forms the shadow backlog can take and how it impacts planning, productivity and team focus. Listen to learn how to spot the signs of a growing shadow backlog in your own teams!

agile, scrum, product management, backlog, sprint planning, technical debt, exploratory testing, side projects, passion projects, scope creep, team productivity

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AA171 - The Shadow Backlog: How Invisible Work Derails Your Teams

AA170 - How to Prioritize Individuals & Interactions (Over Processes & Tools), with Yadi Caro

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 05:00:00 -0400

The first value expressed in the Manifesto for Agile Software Development is "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools."

In this episode of Arguing Agile we are joined by Yadi Caro, host of the Hardcore Soft Skills Podcast for an exploration of practical and actionable ways to put people over processes and tools.

Listen as we discuss how to build empathy, facilitate effective meetings, foster team collaboration, and customize processes to fit your unique teams. Discover actionable tips from experienced practitioners to help your team thrive, including:

How to invest in building relationships and empathy across the organization
How to better facilitate meetings, with clear goals and equal voices
Why you should reward team success, not just individual performance
Why allowing teams to customize processes is important

agile, scrum, people over process, empathy, facilitation, collaboration, team wellbeing, psychological safety, agile coaching, product management, leadership
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AA170 - How to Prioritize Individuals & Interactions (Over Processes & Tools)

AA169 - Product Demos Gone Wild

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 05:00:00 -0400

...and other tips to Avoid Embarrassment & Improve Your Presentation Skills

In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel share hilarious product demo disaster stories and provide actionable tips to help you avoid embarrassing mishaps during your next demo.

Listen to this podcast if you'd like to learn how to better prepare, engage your audience, manage your time, and handle unexpected issues with grace.

Whether you're demoing to customers, executives or your own team, these strategies will level up your presentation game!

Keywords:
Product demos,Presentation skills,Demo disasters,Engaging audience,handling demo issues,Knowing your audience,Demo preparation tips,Improving demos,Sprint review demos,Demoing new features

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AA169 - Product Demos Gone Wild

AA168 - Why Asking for Help is Critical for Success

Wed, 12 Jun 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel explore the importance of asking for help across various roles, including developers, testers, UI/UX designers, managers and executives.

The podcast explores the common reasons people avoid seeking help, such as ego, fear of appearing weak or incompetent, and cultural factors.

Listen to this podcast if you want to discover the benefits of fostering a culture where asking for help is encouraged, and learn practical tips for instilling this mindset in your team.

Whether you're an individual contributor or a leader, this episode will provide valuable insights to help you and your organization succeed through collaboration and continuous improvement.

Keywords:
asking for help, collaboration, coaching, leadership, team culture, developers, testers, UI/UX designers, managers, executives, ego, fear, incompetence, Toyota Way, agile, scrum
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AA168 - Why Asking for Help is Critical for Success

AA167 - How to Manage Products & Services Together in Your Business

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Many companies offer both products and services to their customers, but struggle with how to effectively manage and organize these two sides of the business. In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel dive deep into the challenges and opportunities that come with delivering products and services together.

Join the hosts as they explore different organizational models, from silos to matrixed structures to customer-centric "pods". Through examples from companies like Intuit, BMW, IKEA and FedEx, the hosts illustrate how the product and service components can intersect and influence each other and how a deep understanding of how your product is being utilized can be crucial for product managers.

Whether you're in software, manufacturing, logistics or any other industry, if your company has both a product and service offering, this episode will give you food for thought on optimizing your business.

Keywords: product management, service delivery, business models, organizational structure, product teams, customer experience, Intuit, FedEx, BMW, IKEA, agile

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AA167 - How to Manage Products & Services Together in Your Business

AA166 - The Perils of "Just Build It": Why User Validation Matters

Fri, 31 May 2024 12:00:00 -0400

In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast, Brian and Om discuss the risks of bypassing user validation and prototyping in favor of quickly building and releasing features. They explore the potential pitfalls, including lack of alignment with user needs, rework, low feature adoption, and damage to company reputation.

Learn why investing time upfront in user research, wireframes and staged rollouts can save major headaches later. Even if you think a feature is quick to build, validation is still critical.

0:00 Podcast Intro
0:17 Topic Intro: Just Build It!
1:33 The Main "Pro"
4:49 Reducing Risk
8:21 Lack of User Validation
11:29 Types of Companies
13:31 Rework
16:25 Validating Ideas
18:28 Intuition vs Evidence
20:19 Smaller Course Corrections
24:12 Low/No Feature Adoption
26:34 Stakeholder Alignment
32:22 Asking for Feedback
35:39 The Right Circumstances
38:03 Wrap-Up

AA166 - The Perils of "Just Build It": Why User Validation Matters

product development, user validation, prototyping, user research, agile development, product management, MVP, minimum viable product, user feedback, wireframes, product-market fit, feature adoption, technical debt, stakeholder alignment

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By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA165 - Escaping the Feature Factory

Wed, 22 May 2024 05:00:00 -0400

We've titled this podcast: "Escaping the Feature Factory," or Unlearn Bad Habits and Advance Your Career!

If you're a developer, product manager, or in another tech role and feel stuck in the "feature factory" mindset, this podcast episode is for you. We discuss the key skills and mindset shifts needed to break out of the feature factory and advance your career in a more modern, collaborative product development environment.

Topics include:

Recognizing feature factory habits that hold you back
Developing critical emotional intelligence and collaboration skills
Embracing uncertainty and ambiguity
Letting go of control and building trust
Celebrating small wins and learning from failure

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AA164 - 10 Proven Techniques to Split User Stories

Wed, 15 May 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Does your team struggle with large, complex user stories that don't fit in a sprint? 🤔

In this podcast, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel brainstorm for 10 techniques to split user stories for better flow and faster software delivery. 💡

This episode is all about practical tips to slice stories by:

Workflow and valuable user paths
Personas and roles
System and technology borders
Business rules and exception handling
Non-functional requirements
...and more!

Whether you're a Developer, Product Manager, or Executive, we guarantee you'll walk away with actionable ideas to break down your backlog for optimal value delivery - or your money back! 🚀

#agile #userstories #backlogrefinement #storysplitting #productowner #scrummaster

0:00 Podcast Intro
0:17 Topic Intro: Splitting Stories
1:12 High-Level: Vertical Slicing
1:53 High-Level: INVEST
4:10 High-Level: Similar Sizing
7:02 By Workflow (and via Valuable Path)
8:44 Logistics Example
11:32 Mortgage Example
12:50 By Persona
14:49 Nuances of Persona
16:41 Persona Profiles
17:50 By System/Technology Border
19:58 Amazon Example
22:50 By Uses of AND/OR
25:47 By Interface
29:36 By Business Rules
31:07 Logistics Example, Revisited
33:00 Mortgage Example, Revisited
34:35 Around Dependencies
37:07 Fake Door with Feature Toggles
39:30 Spikes
43:00 Spike Example
46:17 To Capture Technical Debt
50:19 By Exception Handling
53:53 ChatGPT Example, Revisited
56:39 By NFR
59:03 Wrap-Up

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CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)
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10 Proven Techniques to Split User Stories

AA163 - Async Daily Scrum: The Pros and Cons (with Ed Martin)

Wed, 08 May 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode, we're joined by Ed Martin to discuss and debate the benefits and challenges of asynchronous daily scrum meetings.

Listen as we explore the reasons teams may want to go async, potential pitfalls to avoid, and best practices to make async standups effective. If your team is struggling with async practices, listen as we explore ways to optimize your async workflow, including:

The top reasons teams switch to async standups
Anti-patterns and pitfalls to watch out for
Best practices and tools to enable effective async collaboration
How to maintain team alignment without meeting in real-time

Let us know your thoughts! Have you tried async standups with your team?

#agile #scrum #remotework #asynccollaboration #productmanagement

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By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA162 - 5 Things to Analyze Before Shuffling Your Teams

Wed, 01 May 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Are you (or management) considering shuffling team members to improve performance?

Before you play musical chairs, explore the latest Arguing Agile Podcast (Linked in the comments) for ways to make sure you're using data, not just reacting to hearsay and emotions!

Organizational design is difficult - don't just stumble through it.

We all know shuffling people between teams can disrupt team dynamics and set teams back to the "forming" stage. Listen as Enterprise Business Agility Coach Hemant (Om) Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando discuss shuffling team members and outline 5 areas to be analyzed to be sure the data justifies change:

1. Team processes
2. Communication channels
3. Leadership styles
4. Workload distribution
5. Interpersonal team dynamics

#agileleadership #agilecoaching #teamperformance #organizationaldesign

0:00 Podcast Intro
0:17 Topic Intro: When Management Shuffles Team Members
0:48 Why the Shuffling?
2:21 Back to Forming
7:30 Om's Team-Shuffling Example
9:21 Shortcutting Storming & Forming
13:51 Skill (Re)Balancing
16:57 Observing Trends
19:33 Adding Cross-Functionality
20:35 Evaluating Feedback
23:43 What Management Thinks - Fresh Perspectives
25:58 Lacking Communication Skill
27:25 Brian's 5 Suggestions
30:14 Impact of Leadership Decisions
32:29 Leadership is Difficult
35:42 Career Growth
38:23 Conflict Resolution
40:56 Wrap-Up

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AA161 - How Company Size Impacts Business Agility (with Ed Martin)

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode of the Arguing Agile podcast, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel are joined by Software Development expert Ed Martin for an exploration how company size affects business agility.

We discuss the challenges that arise as organizations scale from 3 people to 30 to 300 and beyond, covering topics like losing the culture of experimentation, organizational rigidity, continuous improvement, and the "rule of 3 and 10".

Listen as we share real-world examples on how to maintain agility while growing your business. Listen to learn strategies for reinventing your culture, org design best practices, and the importance of having a framework to "work on the business" as you scale. Listen whether you're a founder, agile coach, or product leader and this episode will give you valuable perspectives on navigating the complexities that come with company growth!

0:00 Podcast Intro
0:17 Topic Intro: Business Agility & Company Size
0:47 Brian's Start-up Story
1:51 The Rule of 3 and 10
3:20 Proactive Work on the System
5:27 Om's Systems Example
7:05 Ed's Planning Example
8:11 Example: 3 to 30 People
11:20 Example: Growth to 300
13:57 Continuous Improvement
17:04 Shooting the Messenger
19:35 Your 100%
23:04 Losing the Experimentation Culture
26:15 Business Rigidity and Reinvention
28:16 Culture is Past Tense
30:10 Reinspection Triggers
32:53 Org Design
34:57 Gino Wickman: Traction
37:49 Working Groups
38:45 The Natural Order
44:12 Reinventing Organizations
48:37 Future Podcasts
48:55 Wrap-up

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AA160 - Onboarding New Product Managers

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Onboarding New Product Managers

In this episode of Arguing Agile, hosts Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel dive into the challenges and best practices around onboarding new product managers.

Topics include:

Communicating the company vision, mission and goals
Mapping key players, stakeholders and decision-making processes
Aligning the new PM's goals to organizational objectives
Building and owning the product roadmap
Understanding customers, segmentation and building empathy
The importance of mentorship and coaching for new PMs

Whether you're a product leader looking to optimize your onboarding or a new PM wanting to hit the ground running, this episode provides actionable tips to set up PMs for success from day one!

Roman Pichler's Stakeholder Management Article referenced in the podcast:
https://www.romanpichler.com/blog/stakeholder-management-tips-for-product-people/

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AA159 - Exploring the Evolving Role of Quality Assurance (with CEO Bob Crews)

Wed, 10 Apr 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode, hosts Hemant (Om) Patel and Brian Orlando are joined by special guest Bob Crews, co-founder and CEO of Checkpoint Technologies.

Listen as we dive deep into the critical role quality assurance plays in the agile development process, including:

The difference between QA and QC and how they fit into agile
How QA has evolved over the past 20 years
The importance of risk analysis as a QA function
How QA can bridge the gap
The impact of AI on software testing
Tips for spotting and developing top QA talent

#QualityAssurance #AgileTesting #DevOps #TestAutomation #AI

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Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)
By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)
CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

AA158 - What is Your Product Philosophy and Is That Even A Real Thing? (with Ed Martin)

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 05:00:00 -0400

What is a product philosophy and why does it matter?

In this insightful episode, Ed Martin joins hosts Om Patel and Brian Orlando to discuss how clarifying your product principles and values can align your team and improve decision-making.

Discover the difference between product philosophy, vision, and principles. Learn practical tips for formalizing your philosophy and applying it to real-world tradeoffs in features, technical debt, and go-to-market plans. Walk away with an understanding of how to establish a strong product philosophy for more cohesive, customer-centric products.

AA157 - Embracing Failure: Why "Fail Fast" Beats "Learn Fast"

Wed, 27 Mar 2024 05:00:00 -0400

"Fail fast" is used so often, it has become a cliché!

In this episode, we tackle rebranding the term "fail fast" to "learn fast" within organizational cultures. Is this a step towards promoting psychological safety and open conversations, or does it undermine the essence of embracing failure as a catalyst for growth?

Whether you're a leader, manager, or part of a self-organizing team, this episode offers valuable insights into cultivating a culture that truly values experimentation, iteration, and learning from setbacks.

0:00 Podcast Intro
0:17 Topic Intro
1:11 Negative Connotations of "Fail"
2:53 Identifying the Fixed Mindset
4:40 Management & Failure
5:40 Promoting Psychological Safety, Maybe
7:48 Directness & Alignment
9:52 Accepting the Change
11:19 Setting & Achieving Goals
13:30 The Growth Mindset
14:22 Slicing Work
18:55 Failure & Leadership Reactions
22:20 The Fixed Mindset
24:00 Acceptable Risk Taking
25:53 Self-Organization Gone Awry
28:50 Brian's Learnings
31:42 Wrap-Up

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AA156 - "Selling" SAFe PI Planning to a not-SAFe Product Manager (with Special Mystery Guest)

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode, our favorite special mystery guest joins the podcast for a comprehensive walkthrough of the PI Planning agenda so that our resident Product Manager, Brian, can be "sold" on the idea.

SAFe P.I. Planning is a critical event that aligns teams with business objectives and fosters collaboration across the organization...

...or is it?

Drawing from extensive experience, we delve into the benefits of PI Planning, including fostering relationships, securing leadership buy-in, and mitigating risks. We also discuss the challenges teams face, such as managing dependencies, handling missed objectives, and maintaining engagement throughout the intense planning sessions.

0:00 Podcast Intro
0:17 Topic Intro
0:50 Benefits of PI Planning
2:20 Big-Room and Quarterly Planning
4:35 Product Pre-Work
7:06 Portfolio Funding: Lean Business Cases
8:43 Staying High-Level
11:25 Risks and Objectives
12:58 Failing to Meet Objectives
14:12 Arguing on: Stretch Goals
17:23 Goals: Committed vs Uncommited
19:25 Slowly Moving Train-Wrecks
23:43 Benefits of In-Person, Hybrid, & Virtual
27:57 Facilitating Preparation
30:19 SAFe PI Planning Agenda, Day 1 (Pre-Lunch)
34:27 SAFe PI Planning Agenda, Day 1 (Post-Lunch)
37:04 SAFe PI Planning Agenda, Day 2 (Pre-Lunch)
39:31 SAFe PI Planning Agenda, Day 2 (Post-Lunch)
41:44 Negotiations
45:27 PI Retrospective
48:11 Keeping Leadership Engaged
52:13 Wrap-Up

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AA155 - Weaponizing Standardization

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Standardization. It's the battle-cry of managers, the world, over!

This episode explores a parallel track to our Weaponizing Efficiency episode where we explore the dark side of standardization.

In this episode, the hosts share their experiences and insights on topics such as:

The potential stifling effects of rigid processes and monocultures on innovation
The dangers of groupthink and bureaucracy in organizations
The impact of standardization on individual learning and development
The complexities of vendor procurement processes and their ramifications
The role of handoffs, sign-offs, and stage gates in impeding customer value delivery

0:00 Topic Intro: Weaponizing Standardization
1:03 Stifling Innovation
2:33 Arguing on: Stifling Innovation
5:14 A Confusing M&A Story: Standardizing without Value
9:39 What Makes You Believe...?
10:45 Driving Toward Group Think
13:08 Self-Serving Bureaucracy
15:02 Google AI Rollback
15:34 Challenging Agile Coaches
19:41 Losing Market Share
24:20 The Desire for Control
27:25 Individual Learning & Development
29:23 Try Stuff, Do Cool Things
34:45 Inconsistent Enforcement of Standards
35:26 Disingenuous Procurement Processes
40:42 Dell Laptop Example
42:12 Hand-offs & Sign-offs
47:53 Reducing Wasteful Processes
50:46 Wrap-Up

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Spotify:
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AA154 - Intuition vs Evidence (with CEO and Founder: Alex Polyakov)

Wed, 06 Mar 2024 05:00:00 -0500

Some people say you can't build products without being guided by evidence.

Some people say you can't build products without strong intuition.

We're arguing about the balance so you don't have to!

This episode, we also welcome back friend of the show Alex Polyakov, CEO and Founder of Project Simple. Alex and his company are on a mission to make Teams better by building the first ever AI Agile Software Management Platform. Go see what Project Simple is all about by visiting them at projectsimple.ai!

Connect with Alex on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apolyako

00:00 Podcast Intro
00:17 Topic Intro: Evidence vs Intuition
00:58 Relationship Between Intuition & Evidence
02:31 Intuition & Experience
04:02 Survivorship Bias
06:14 Domain Expertise + Curiosity + Leadership
09:34 OKRs Done Wrong
10:43 Alex, on OKRs
12:06 Leading vs Lagging
14:57 Experiments, Conceptually
19:10 Experiments in Business Value
20:58 Product Management (AirBnB)
25:17 Coaching Talent
27:34 Building the Perfect Product Manager
29:25 Enter the Training-Industrial Complex
31:04 Transitioning from Founder to First Product Manager
33:45 Vision & Company Founders
35:24 Examples of Failures
37:59 iPhone Example (Risk)
40:49 Risk vs Evidence
42:41 Misinterpreting Data
46:08 Wrap-Up

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AA153 - "I" Know What the Customer Needs

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 05:00:00 -0500

In agile software development, everyone loves to say they know what the customer needs... but who do you really need to listen to, and what are they really saying?

This podcast explores the different roles and their interpretations of "customer needs", from product managers to founders to the actual customer!

0:00 Topic Intro: It's What the Customer Needs
0:33 When the Product Manager or Owner Tells You
1:57 Jumping to Solutions (vs Exploring Problems)
6:43 "The Customer Said" Defense
10:04 When a Proxy Product Owner Tells You
12:02 Business Analysts & UX Researcher
15:37 Proxy Cons: Decision Making Delays & Bottlenecks
20:37 When Your Boss Tells You
23:28 Red Flag on Idea Validation
26:08 When Sales Tells You
30:49 Negatives of Sales
33:28 When a Founder Tells You
34:53 Founders: 24/7 Type of People
39:09 When the Customer Directly Tells You
42:03 Process & Stakeholder Management
45:54 Customers Don't Know Your Systems
48:04 Wrap-Up

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AA153 - "I" Know What the Customer Needs

AA152 - Weaponizing Efficiency

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 05:00:00 -0500

Weaponizing Efficiency: Is it really helping your software development, product, and teams?

Efficiency is crucial, but at what cost? This episode digs deep into the dark side of "weaponized efficiency" in software development, product management, and team & business agility. We discuss how seemingly well-intentioned practices can stifle creativity, breed fear, and ultimately hurt value creation.

Join us for a thought-provoking discussion that will challenge assumptions about efficiency and equip you with strategies to push back against pedantic optimization efforts.

0:00 Topic Intro: Weaponizing Efficiency
0:41 Standardizing Creativity out of the Org
4:37 Fear-Based Management
7:33 Garbage Metrics, Discouraging Peering
11:31 Where Ideas Come From
14:43 Financing Siloes
17:29 Learning is Wasted Time
19:49 Driving Costs (and Value) Down
24:07 Working ON (versus IN) the Business
25:53 Real Efficiency Gains are Outside Development Teams
29:13 Making/Saving Money
33:33 Wrap-Up

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Spotify:
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AA151 - Hardware & Software Products and Teams: Agile in Manufacturing

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 05:00:00 -0500

If your product has a combination of hardware and software, this is the podcast for you!

This podcast is all about agile in the manufacturing world with manufacturing expert and consultant to the stars, Clint Murt!

Clint joins Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando for an exploration of a realm where just creating great software isn't enough. We quickly discover that, when hardware enters the picture, complex compounds exponentially.

Special shout out to the Everything Electric Show and the Fully Charged Podcast for the clip of Ford CEO Jim Farley discussing issues around software in the automotive industry

0:00 CEO of Ford Jim Farley on Software in Manufacturing
1:23 Clint's Intro & an Overview of Manufacturing
3:38 Dependencies
5:40 Arguing on: Dependencies & Ecosystems
8:33 Challenging Agile Tropes on Dependencies
10:43 Compounding Problems
12:17 Short Term Metrics
14:57 Upfront Cost
17:52 Sales Running Ahead
21:57 User Experience
25:20 Inventory Management
30:00 Embedding with Customers
35:27 Multi-Team Collaboration
37:54 Quality
41:34 Summarizing the Podcast
43:10 Six Sigma & Lean/Agile
44:30 Wrap-Up

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AA151 - Hardware & Software Products and Teams: Agile in Manufacturing

AA150 - Things You Don't Say Out Loud in Agile (with Mike Miller)

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 05:00:00 -0500

Senior Product Coach Mike Miller is back on the Podcast, joining Brian & Om for a fun and lightweight podcast discussion about the unspoken realities of agile software development!

Get ready to talk about all those elephants in corners - from the unspoken challenges teams experience, to budgeting woes, to inflated titles, to unclear goals and value propositions!

0:00 Topic Intro: Things You Don't Say Out Loud in Agile
0:19 Project Managers Retitled to Product Manager
2:40 Product vs Project
4:17 Truer for Scrum Masters?
10:33 Middle Management is Unnecessary
18:41 Peering is Rare
22:45 Systems over Agile Coaching
27:25 Annual Budgeting is King
34:50 Backlog Managers are the Norm
38:36 PO as Delivery Manager
40:21 Product Goals (Do they Exist?)
43:11 Strategy (It's Hard, and also Rare)
47:23 More on Backlogs & Prioritization
50:25 Customer Value - what Value?
52:05 Value Must be Defined
55:10 PO/SM with Technical Knowledge
58:48 The Typical Answers
1:02:50 Wrap-Up

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AA150 - Things You Don't Say Out Loud in Agile

AA149 - Positive Indicators of Agile Team Effectiveness

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 11:00:00 -0500

In this episode, we answer an interview question that Brian has started to notice Product Managers stumbling over: "What are some indicators you would look for to know if an agile team is working effectively?"

0:00 Topic Intro
1:49 Velocity
4:39 Delivery and Forecasting
6:21 Flow Metrics (Cycle Time, Lead Time, WIP)
7:50 Say-Do Ratio
10:17 Different Uses for Say-Do
11:31 Retro Improvements
14:48 Impediment Resolution
16:45 Roadmap Categorization & Finance
19:54 Backlog Health
22:51 Customer Satisfaction and Value Confirmation
26:47 Surveys
28:09 A Rant on Steering Feature Factory Culture
29:56 Team Satisfaction (Niko Niko)
33:27 Team or Service NPS
36:29 Bug Leakage / Escaped Defects
40:27 Training (L&D)
43:55 Leads Kanban: People Development
47:01 Meeting Duration & Effectiveness
49:23 Wrap-Up

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AA148 - An Introduction to Software Development Finances

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 07:00:00 -0500

This podcast is your ultimate introduction to the cryptic, mysterious, and sometimes clandestine world of software development finance.

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel as they explore the finance-side of the house with special guest and CPA, Newton Owi!

Listen as we discuss the ins-and-outs of software-finance, including an explanation of Capex vs Opex, an overview of capitalization, an in-depth review of Internal vs External Use Software, and a discussion of Technical Feasibility. We wrap by reviewing strategies for R&D Budgeting and why, how you might save money on MVPs, and it wouldn't be the Arguing Agile Podcast without an in-depth discussion of how Cross-Functional Teams benefit from having access to financial expertise.

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AA147 - Creating and Launching New Software Products (0 to 1)

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 05:00:00 -0500

Have a world-changing product idea but don't know how to get it to users? This no-nonsense episode of the Arguing Agile podcast breaks down the REALITY of building products from the ground up.

Listen as two industry veterans discuss market research, MVPs, user feedback, and go-to-market strategies so that you can avoid costly mistakes and boost your chances of success.

0:00 Topic Intro: 0 to 1
0:36 Hey Kid, I Got This New Idea!
1:55 What Problem Are We Trying to Solve?
3:42 Identifying a Market and/or Audience for MVP
7:18 Research & Product Market Fit
8:25 Data-Driven Culture (or Not)
12:56 Team Members Talking Directly to Customers
14:23 Strong Opinions, Loosely Held
17:29 Interview Your Customers (and Competitor Customers)
20:19 MVP-to-Pilot
24:43 Realtime Alpha/Beta Feedback
27:42 Alpha/Beta Misconceptions
29:06 Alpha Partners & Clarity of MVP
32:27 Leveraging (Technical) Debt
34:46 Usability
37:53 Monetization
41:07 Go to Market Strategies
45:40 Find or Create Your Audience
48:32 What We Learned
50:19 Wrap-Up

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AA147 - Creating and Launching New Software Products (0 to 1)

AA146 - Our Most Viewed Podcasts and Clips

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 05:00:00 -0500

Ever wondered about why you hunger for an episode on Release Planning or why Brian's Spotify rant struck a chord?

Get the inside scoop at this retrospective feast! We'll examine the recipes for our most popular content from 2024, revealing the juicy trends and themes that tickled your fancy. Plus, we are giving a sneak peek into future episodes, inspired by your binge-worthy favorites!

0:00 Topic Intro
0:46 AP17: Scrum Master's Role in Release Planning
2:41 Back-up Communicator
6:27 Playing the Role
10:55 Acceptance Criteria
12:51 Sprint Review Checklist
14:51 Tricky AC & Stories
20:00 Agile vs Traditional Software Budgeting
26:04 Roadmap Features and Milestones in Agile
30:33 Gantt Charts
33:38 AA120 - Did AirBNB Fire All Their Product Managers?
38:46 Build vs Buy (or Extend)
40:07 AP2: Brian Hates on Spotify & Capital One
45:07 Take-Aways

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AA145 - Why Incompetent Men Become Leaders

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 09:00:00 -0500

Why Do Incompetent Men Rise to the Top? ️

This week's #ArguingAgile #Podcast tackles Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic's 2013 HBR article on this very real issue with #leadership.

Read the Article:
https://hbr.org/2013/08/why-do-so-many-incompetent-men

0:00 Topic: Incompetent Men in Leadership
0:37 Ratios of Men to Women in Management
3:03 Management vs Leadership
5:04 We Can't Measure Leadership
7:53 Downfall of Bad Managers
10:10 Personality Disorders
11:50 Short Term Thinking
13:31 Women Leaders
14:55 Humility Fails to Impress
16:52 Is Hiring Broken?
18:42 HR, Taylorism, and the Ivory Tower
21:17 Leading with Emotional Intelligence
24:29 Systemic Problems
25:55 The Wrong Conclusions
29:00 Discrimination
30:26 Wrap-Up
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AA144 - Your Scrum Manager Should Be... Your Manager?

Wed, 27 Dec 2023 05:00:00 -0500

Buckle up fellow agilists because this episode we're asking the question - should your next Scrum Master be your Manager?

Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando are breaking the working agreement for this week's podcast to review an article posted on Scrum.org by Ryan Ripley titled: "Your Next Scrum Master Should Be Your Manager."

Read the Article:
https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/your-next-scrum-master-should-be-your-manager

0:00 Topic Intro
1:16 Article Premise
3:34 Why the Change?
4:29 Positional Authority
6:18 What to do Instead
8:03 Managing Change
10:54 Badly Run Companies
13:16 These Problems Happen Anyway
15:07 Alignment
19:50 Leveraging Authority (or Not)
22:21 Training and Mindset
26:29 Scrum Masters as Managers
29:22 Building Trust and Expertise
32:33 Role Conflicts & Positional Authority
36:26 Perception of Getting Things Done
37:36 The Scary Part of Town
40:14 Weekend Warriors vs Professionals
44:36 Wrap-Up

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AA143 - How Ego Kills Team Empowerment and Products

Wed, 20 Dec 2023 05:00:00 -0500

Is ego the silent assassin in your team's success story? Tag a friend who needs to hear this conversation!

In this blistering episode of the Arguing Agile Podcast, Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando crack open the Pandora's box of ego in the workplace and its devastating impact on team dynamics, product development, and overall success.

A big thank you to Jeff Gothelf whose recent article titled: "Ego Killed the Empowered Product Team" served as the inspiration and backdrop for this episode.

Read the Article:
https://jeffgothelf.com/blog/ego-killed-the-empowered-product-team/

0:00 Topic: Ego Killed the Empowered Product Team
0:15 Ego and Experience
2:09 Start with Why
5:22 Reading the Intro
6:13 Humility: The Oxygen for Empowerment
7:46 Ego as a Glass Ceiling
11:59 Challenging Ideas
15:03 Ego in Strategy and Sales
17:09 Collaborative Strategy and Vision
21:50 Ego, but also Bad Systems
24:53 The Tony Roberts Band
27:03 Soften the Executive Ego
29:04 Process Change: Product Impact
32:21 Learning from Evidence
34:52 Finishing the Article
35:46 The Unmovable Object
39:05 Customer Involvement
40:53 Think About YOUR Ego
43:08 Wrap-Up

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AA142 - What Technical Skills Should a Scrum Master Have

Wed, 13 Dec 2023 05:00:00 -0500

The question came up recently at a community event: "What Technical Skills Should a Scrum Master Have?"

Brian didn't answer the originally posed question, turning it into "What skills should a SM have," and that bugged him so much, he wanted to turn the actual question into a podcast!

On this episode, Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando discuss the corporate atmosphere that may be behind this question, as well as answering the re-worded question, and even delving into some pros and cons of the Scrum Master having technical skills.

0:00 Topic Intro: What Technical Skills Should a SM Have?
0:23 Om's Response: Should Haves
1:39 Om's Example
2:28 Brian's Counter-point
4:53 Desire for Knowledge
7:50 Additional Value via Skills
11:35 More Examples (New Dev Laptop Example)
14:31 Speed to Knowledge
16:21 Barriers to Initial Employment
19:12 Om's Counterpoint: Curiosity & Willingness to Learn
21:32 Product Managers & the BA Skillset
23:35 Skills a SM Should Have
24:36 Programming Knowledge/Skill
26:54 Self-Imposed Barriers
28:58 Public Opinion vs Reality
31:30 Is a SM Entry Level?
35:44 You Get What You Pay For...
37:13 ...but Entry-Level Can Be Done

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AA141 - Minimum Viable Product

Wed, 06 Dec 2023 05:00:00 -0500

Minimum Viable Product as made famous by Eric Reis in the Lean Startup is barely recognizable and likely unusable due to the proliferation of different concepts associated with the term.

Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando discuss and debate what MVP is, what it's supposed to be, and try to discern any usefulness from the jargon that seems to have coopted and repurposed "Minimum Viable Product!"

0:00 Topic Intro: MVP
0:18 Why Talk About MVP?
1:16 Discussion Framework
3:14 Users/Market Want Everything
5:18 Arguing on the Dropbox Video "MVP"
10:31 Terminology Hang-ups
13:02 Platform Compatibility
15:18 Release Planning (Alpha, Beta, Production)
17:18 Laundry List of Assumptions
20:09 Agreeing on the Obvious
21:43 The Case Against Expansion of the Term MVP
24:47 Assuming Risk (or Gambling)
27:12 Skipping the Learning
29:48 Wireframes
30:41 Arguing on: What is a Product (Again)
34:03 Running Out of Money
35:44 Summary: Test Feasibility
39:29 Wrap-up
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AA140 - The Backlog Has 500 Bugs!

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 04:00:00 -0500

HELP! Our Backlog has 500 Bugs and we feel like we're never going to dig ourselves out!!!

Remain calm...

On this episode, Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando walk through how a company or shop might get to this point, and discuss some strategies to help dig yourself out of this deep, dark hole!

0:00 Topic Intro: 500 Bugs in the Backlog
0:28 Initial Reactions
2:44 Reasons
3:55 Process
5:10 Rogue QA, or the Perception Thereof
7:18 It's Done, But...
8:53 Customers Pay the Bills
10:12 Culture - the 3 (or 4) "P's"
11:28 The Business of Prioritization
13:39 A Strategy for Digging Out
15:59 Involving Customers/Stakeholders
17:41 Another Strategy - Categorization
19:30 Pushing Back on Customer Involvement
21:04 Rank Ordering and Closing Bugs As-Is
24:28 Definition of Done
28:36 Program DoD
29:11 The Restaurant Analogy
33:04 Customer Validation
37:10 Surveying Customers
40:02 Podcast Summary
41:44 Wrap-Up

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AA139 - We Have No QA

Wed, 22 Nov 2023 05:00:00 -0500

Recently, a small audience was shocked to learn that Product Manager Brian Orlando has no team members in the permanent role of QA (or Testing).

On this episode, Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando discuss why the audience reacted like Brian just kicked their dog, and what it takes to get a hypothetical team to the same point.

0:00 Topic Intro: We Have No QA
0:26 The Backstory
1:46 It's What We've Always Done
2:43 Handoff Disfunctions
4:55 Efficiency
7:27 Brian's Programming Story
8:52 Unpacking Brian's Tirade
10:00 What Are Testers Doing?
12:21 Real Example of Collaboration
14:49 QA and Customers
16:57 Process Improvement
19:18 Customer Verification
22:14 Cross-Functionality vs. Penny-Pinching
25:19 Team Collaboration vs Silos
27:02 Brian's Rant on Silos
30:47 Summary & Key Takeaways
33:10 Wrap-Up

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AA138 - Interview with Software-Engineer-turned-CEO and Founder, Alex Polyakov

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 05:00:00 -0500

On this week's podcast, we're joined by Alex Polyakov. Alex is the CEO and Founder of Project Simple. Alex and his company are on a mission to make Teams better by building the first ever AI Agile Software Management Platform and solving the ever-growing list of problems and frustrations that come with Jira. Go see what Project Simple is all about by visiting them at projectsimple.ai

...or connect with Alex on LinkedIn!

Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando sit down with Alex to talk about his journey from Software Engineer to CEO and Founder, the frustrations of Jira, and many, many other topics.

0:00 Guest Intro
0:33 Alex's Journey
3:01 Raising Funding
4:44 Fear of Failure
6:08 Learning New Skills
9:58 Sponsorship & Mentorship
12:35 Rotating Roles
13:36 Making a Difference
15:25 Strategy and Problem Solving
19:15 Start-Up Success Factors
20:58 Investing
23:57 Early Investors
25:48 Jira
30:07 Better Concepts and Systems
33:06 Better Ways of Working
36:40 Delegation and Ownership
38:47 Visibility
40:40 Wrap-Up

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AA137 - Estimation is Evil by Ron Jeffries

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 05:00:00 -0500

We're reviewing Ron Jeffries article: "Estimation is Evil" from the February 2013 issue of the Pragmatic Programmers magazine.

This article is mostly known for being the source most people quote when they say the inventor of story points is sorry he created them, or that the inventor of story points doesn't like story points. We dig into this claim, reading the article and summarizing and pontificating on key points.

Join, Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando as they time-travel back to the not-so-good old days of 2013 (and before)!

The source article:
https://ronjeffries.com/articles/021-01ff/estimation-is-evil/

0:00 Topic Intro: Estimation is Evil by Ron Jeffries
1:14 Article Opening: A Historical Snapshot
7:07 Undistinguished Teams
8:45 "All Our Requirements" is Wrong
11:06 80/20 Rule in Requirements
14:11 Forcing the Answer
16:05 Contracts in Agile
18:11 Forecasting & Stretch Goals
24:52 Asking for "Better" Estimates
28:28 Financing Software
31:41 How Much Do You Want to Spend?
35:24 Relative Estimation (the Soundbite Section)
40:17 Two Ways to Go
44:58 Article Conclusion
52:33 Summary
54:02 Wrap-Up

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AA136 - Selling Management on Retrospectives

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 05:00:00 -0400

How do you "sell" management on Retrospectives?

This question was posed to the group at a community networking event and we thought it was such a deep question, we'd bring it into the podcast!

On this episode, Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando discuss ways to bring up retrospectives and way to engrain them into the culture of your organization.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:14 Om's Initial Reaction
0:42 Om's First Pitch
1:52 A Manager's Fallacy
4:25 Escaping Middle Management Purgatory (ROI)
5:38 Start Small
7:38 One on Ones
8:28 Business Alignment
11:40 Aligning Teams
16:38 Not Visible = Not Urgent
17:49 Communities of Practice & Getting Help
19:43 Marketing Continuous Improvement
21:35 Pushback: Management Fiat
23:44 Team Empowerment
27:09 Om's Story
30:29 Wrap-Up

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AA135 - The Most Common Disagreements You'll Get Into as a Scrum Master (Part 2 of 2)

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 05:00:00 -0400

In this podcast, Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando discuss the most common disagreements, arguments, and spirited discussions that Scrum Masters find themselves in throughout their careers.

There were so many topics, we had to split this podcast into two!

0:00 Topic Intro: Most Common SM Disagreements
0:35 Impediment Disagreements
2:59 Using the Definition of Done
6:34 Building Communication
10:53 Meeting Fatigue
15:20 More Effective Retrospectives
17:43 Example - One Cause of Meeting Fatigue
20:53 Cultural Resistance
26:58 Personality Clashes
28:56 Scrum Master Value
32:47 Conflict and Perspectives
34:13 Wrap-Up

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AA134 - The Most Common Disagreements You'll Get Into as a Scrum Master (Part 1 of 2)

Wed, 18 Oct 2023 05:00:00 -0400

In this podcast, Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando discuss the most common disagreements, arguments, and spirited discussions that Scrum Masters find themselves in throughout their careers.

There were so many topics, we had to split this podcast into two!

0:00 Topic Intro: Most Common Disagreements
0:34 Today's Framework
0:59 Hourly Estimates
3:04 Relative Estimation
7:13 Re-Estimating After Discovering New Info
11:27 Scope Creep
17:50 Role Confusion
20:23 Aligning on Role Clarity
25:15 Pressure for More Velocity
26:47 Overcommitment
28:47 Measuring Value Delivered
33:33 Technical Disagreements
39:27 Wrap-Up
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AA133 - Do Infrastructure Teams Need Product Management?

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 06:00:00 -0400

In this episode, we explore an article titled "Do Infrastructure Teams Need Product Management."

Join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel as we discuss the realities of Infrastructure or Platform teams and the reasons they team might or might not have a Product Manager.

Click here for the Source Article.

0:00 Topic Intro: Do Infrastructure Teams Need Product Management
0:26 Reading the Article
1:29 Om's Initial Take
3:13 Arguing on Observation #1: Seasoned Teams
4:37 Why So Scarce?
5:51 What is Culture?
9:00 Statement #2 - Solving Different Problems
14:01 Reframing the Argument
15:25 Examples from the Article
17:13 Going Over Each Point
18:49 Brian's Example of One Product, Multiple Teams
21:16 Common Use & Politics
27:26 Executive Interrupts
34:37 Listen with Empathy
35:07 Aligning with Strategy
39:29 Multiple Teams & the Bigger Picture
43:04 Article Conclusion
45:11 Brian's Call to Action
46:03 Om's Summary
48:53 Podcast Summary
50:31 Wrap-Up

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AA133 - Do Infrastructure Teams Need Product Management?

AA132 - Who Should Product Management Report Through?

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 05:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel discuss the reporting structures of Product Management and dive into an article on the subject by Product Consultant, Jason Knight.

https://arguingagile.com/

Jason Knight's Full Article: "Falling in Love with Problems, and who SHOULDN’T Product Management report through?," published Feb 20, 2023.

0:00 Topic Intro: Who Should and Shouldn't Product Management Report Through
0:17 Jason Knight's Newsletter Article
2:08 Sidebar on "Bad Executives"
2:53 Founders and Company Size
3:56 Chief Marketing Officer
5:34 Om's Experience
7:12 Arguing On the CMO
10:41 Power Dynamics
12:07 Hot Take: Working with Sales
14:39 Chief Operating Officer
16:11 Experiences with the COO Cons
19:01 Pros of COO
21:02 Realities of the Operations
22:29 Customer Focus & Centricity
23:46 Chief Technology Officer
25:18 Arguing on the CTO Role
28:38 Shadow Roadmaps
32:01 Progression of the CTO Role
33:32 Chief Executive Officer
34:47 Cold Realities of Product Management
36:58 Testing Ideas
38:47 A Big Pro of the CEO
40:28 Article Conclusions
41:30 Arguing on CPOs
43:16 Unique CPO Requirements
46:49 Wrap-Up

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AA132 - Who Should Product Management Report Through?

AA131 - EVERYTHING IS PRIORITY ONE!!!

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 09:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel discuss the reasons why everything is always priority one in some teams and software development organizations, their experiences in these organizations, and what might be done.

https://arguingagile.com/

0:00 Topic Intro: Everything is Priority One!
0:34 Not Touching This...
2:10 Unclear Product Expectations
7:00 Games with Metrics
10:33 Delegating to the Team
12:09 Misaligned Goals and Strategies
21:50 Team Overcommitting
26:45 Impact of Culture
29:55 Ineffective Inter-Team Communication
37:37 Artificial Urgency or Pressure
42:42 Technical Debt
46:31 Wrap-Up

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AA131 - EVERYTHING IS PRIORITY ONE!!!

AA130 - Exploring Quality Assurance (QA) and Testing in Agile Software Development

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Dive into the world of Agile software development, quality assurance, and testing in this knowledge and experience-packed podcast episode! Join a former QA Manager turned Product Manager and an Enterprise Agility Coach as we explore key topics around agile development and testing!

#AgileDevelopment #QualityAssurance #TestingInAgile #SoftwareQuality #TechDebt #CrossFunctionality #AutomationTesting #ShiftLeft #ScrumGuide #TechnicalProductPeople #SoftwareBugs #ReleaseProcesses #PodcastDiscussion #AgileMindset #EngineeringMindset #podcast

0:00 Topic Intro: Testing and Agile
0:16 Quality in the Scrum Guide
2:44 Tech Debt
4:15 Cross Functionality
6:23 Analytical & Engineering Mindset
10:29 Testing Mindset
11:25 Unburdening Development
14:50 Aligning Product and Quality
18:18 Technical Product People
22:01 Experiences with Bugs
26:15 Grades of Service
29:22 Shift Left
34:07 Automation
37:15 Advanced Release Processes
43:01 Wrap-Up

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AA129 - Agile Complaints, Gripes, and Pushback

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 05:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel responds and discusses some typical complaints or gripes with agile practices and agilists in general.

0:00 Topic Intro: Gripes with Agile
0:26 Om's Immediate Response
2:25 Agile Has No Deadlines
5:08 Lack of Product
7:30 Giving Deadlines
9:43 No Documentation
11:47 Formality of Handoffs
16:36 No Long Term Planning
21:31 Systems Design & Architecture
25:20 Locking Down Scope (Scope Creep)
28:04 Inadequate Testing
32:36 Wrap-Up

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AA128 - Change Management with Stormy Dickson

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 05:00:00 -0400

If everybody needs change management, then why are we so bad at it?

Today, returning Arguing Agile guest Stormy Dickson stops by for an in-depth discussion on change management, including:

Why Having a Coach is a HUGE Bonus
A Summary of "Leading Change" by John Kotter (from AA60)
Where Change Typically Breaks Down
The Importance of Setting and Communicating a Solid Vision
The Importance of Short Term, Quick Wins
What Happens When Leaders Fail
Moving Forward with Assumption versus Evidence
Consolidating & Anchoring Your Gains
and on being Brave Enough to Lead the Change

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AA127 - Deep Dive on Agile Transformations with Two Agile Coaches

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 08:00:00 -0400

Product Manager Brian Orlando has the absolute pleasure of sitting down to talk agile transformations with the dynamic duo of Agility Coaching - William Kremner and Om Patel!

Listen as we discuss the pain points that organizations face that lead them to consider agility and as we offer advice on how to overcome these challenges.

Pain points aside, we also banter about:

Aligning Stakeholders with Change
Avoiding "Bubbles of Agility
Courage in #Coaching
Experimentation
The Importance of Small Wins

0:00 Topic Intro: Why Are We Going Agile?
1:21 Pain Points
4:27 Considering the How
8:46 Arguing on Alignment
12:20 Fragile Bubble of Agile
15:21 Arguing on: Fragility
17:18 Courage & Coaching
19:38 It's Great, but Not Now
25:14 Experimenting Your Way to Success
29:41 Effects of Company Size
33:06 Product Skills
34:43 Diminishing Conviction
37:47 Small Wins
40:18 Avoiding Disaster
44:04 Coaching or Leading, Based on Maturity
47:16 Mitigating Risk Liability
50:06 Wrap-Up

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AA126 - Pros and Cons of Offshoring Software Development

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Offshoring in Software Development

0:00 Topic Intro: Offshoring
0:28 Cost of Labor
3:06 Not So Pure Cost
5:31 Product Quality
9:08 Larger Talent Pool
12:16 Replacing Employees (Attribution)
13:50 Time Zones (24/7 Development)
19:36 Irreconcilable Time Zone Differences
21:37 Less Support Staff
24:30 Missionaries, Not Mercenaries
25:52 Collaboration & Culture
31:19 Partners
33:31 Real Perspectives on Hiring Mercenaries
38:03 Counterpoint (Shoe Store Example)
41:52 Wrap-Up
42:40 Being "Southern"

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AA125 - Working with Multiple Teams as a Scrum Master or Product Manager

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Are you a Scrum Master or Product Manager serving on multiple teams?

Are you feeling overwhelmed, or have you noticed certain problems that you can't quite put a name to? It could be that you've got one team (or a couple teams) too many!

On this episode, Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando discuss the effects of serving on multiple teams.

We discuss some situations and conditions that mitigate the effects of overload, and many that cause overload!

0:00 Topic Intro
0:20 Warning Indicators
1:12 Team Maturity
5:12 Org Structure
8:55 Level of Experience
12:57 Time Commitments
17:28 This One Scrum Master Trick...
18:30 Communication & Collaboration
22:19 Stakeholder Management Red Flags
24:11 Product Complexity
28:28 Our Advice
31:14 Wrap-Up

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AA124 - Blockers, Impediments, and Dependencies

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 05:00:00 -0400

The team constantly scans for impediments. The scrum master should be "causing the removal of impediments."

...but how?

In this episode, Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando deep dive into the world of impediments.

Are impediments the same as blockers?

Is a dependency an impediment?

How do we deal with organizational design and communication between teams as an impediment?

What happened to Brian's hair?!?

All these discussions and more, on this episode of Arguing Agile!

0:00 Topic Intro
0:38 Blockers & Impediments - The Difference
2:51 Tech Debt
4:35 Dependencies
11:22 Organizational Design Problems
13:11 Making Decisions
16:24 Silos Are Evil
21:36 Technical Impediments
22:26 Intra Team Communication
23:54 Technical Dependencies Again
27:39 Communicating with Other Teams
29:58 Ad Hoc, Scaled Refinements
35:46 Wrap-Up

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AA123 - Product Requirements Document in Agile Development

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 09:00:00 -0400

This episode promises to broaden your understanding of the Product Requirements Document's (PRD) significance as you join an experienced agile coach and a seasoned product manager as they deconstruct the PRD in Agile Software Development.

Delve into real-world examples like the Amazon Six Pager to understand how these documents contribute to clarity and alignment within the team.

Explore the importance (or not) of helpful documentation and check out Brian's Miro Board in action and how it challenges the traditional PRD

0:00 Topic Intro
1:12 What Is the PRD?
1:52 Amazon Six Pager Example
5:58 Reflecting on the 6-Pager
7:40 Aha! Example
9:21 Product School Example
10:41 Clarity & Alignment
12:35 Helpful Documentation
13:52 Brian's Opinions
16:31 Worst Case Scenario
19:14 Marty Cagan 4 Risks
20:52 Brian's Miro Board
25:30 Challenging the Miro Board
27:30 Updating the PRD
29:48 Deconstructing the PRD
32:29 Conclusions

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AA123 - Product Requirements Document in Agile Development

AA122 - What to Do When the Scrum Master and Product Owner are the Same Person

Wed, 26 Jul 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Ayo is back to talk about his experience with the same person serving as both Scrum Master and Product Owner.

With a different take on this topic, Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando explore what to do if you might be in this position rather than the textbook concept of "should" or "can" one person play both roles.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:42 The Textbook Answer
2:14 Ayo's Experience
4:16 Brian's Start in Product
7:38 Om's First Product Experience
8:18 Conflict of Interest
10:38 Doing More, Coaching Up
14:24 Split Accountability
17:13 Wearing Multiple Hats
19:15 Justifying the Job (Not the Role)
21:05 Critiques of the Scrum Guide
22:41 Management Expectations
25:17 Show Me the Money
28:29 How to Ask for Help
34:07 Before-and-After
36:27 Wrap-Up

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AA121 - Self Organization Gone Bad

Wed, 19 Jul 2023 09:00:00 -0400

What happens when self organization goes off the rails?

Join another riveting episode as your hosts - an agile coach and a product manager -dive deep into the fascinating world of self-organization within agile teams!

From cancelling sprint events to dealing with conflicts, your hosts explore various subjects that impact team dynamics and project success!

Discover valuable insights on leadership's viewpoint, the product's role, feedback loops, communication, and more!

Learn how to address decreased collaboration, anchor strong personalities, and tackle power imbalances to foster a truly self-organized and adaptable team!
0:00 Topic Intro
1:35 Cancelling Sprint Events
4:14 Leadership's Viewpoint
6:24 Product's Role
7:44 Organizational Roadmap
10:56 Decreased Collaboration
13:34 Anchoring & Strong Personalities
16:20 Inequality / Power Imbalance
17:47 Not Meeting Goals
20:09 Feedback Loops
24:12 Communication & Coordination
27:30 Coordination Assistance
30:34 Not Adapting to Change
34:44 Conflict
37:52 Wrap-Up

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AA121 - Self Organization Gone Bad

AA120 - Did AirBnB Fire Their Product Managers?

Wed, 12 Jul 2023 05:00:00 -0400

The CEO of AirBnB Brian Chesky made some (probably unintentional) waves when he announced at Figma's Config 2023 that he had eliminated the role of Product Manager.

In this podcast, we watch and respond to the entire talk. We dig past the clickbait and discuss the context behind his remark.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:35 Curtis's Breakdown
1:16 Config 2023 with Brian Chesky: Intro & Ordinary World
2:00 Discussion Break 1
2:55 Config 2023 with Brian Chesky: Call to Adventure
4:18 Discussion Break 2
7:47 Config 2023 with Brian Chesky: Refusal of the Call
9:00 Discussion Break 3
11:00 Config 2023 with Brian Chesky: Meeting the Mentor
11:54 Config 2023 with Brian Chesky: Crossing the Threshold
13:19 Discussion Break 4
18:12 Discussion: A Vision for Org Transformation
21:08 Config 2023 with Brian Chesky: The Approach
21:54 Discussion Break 5
23:12 The Clickbaitey Part You Saw on LinkedIn
24:12 Discussion Break 6
27:03 Arguing On: Centralizing Decision Making
30:39 Config 2023 with Brian Chesky: The Ordeal
31:37 Discussion Break 7
33:27 Config 2023 with Brian Chesky: The Road Back
33:51 Discussion Break 8
35:17 Config 2023 with Brian Chesky: The Return
36:01 Discussion Break 9
37:03 Design Driven Strategy
38:17 Discussing: Design Driven Strategy
40:48 Growth for Growth's Sake
43:00 Shared Services Model
46:01 Where is the Value?
47:57 Arguing On: Roadmaps
51:08 The Power of Stories and Narratives
52:45 Thinking Like a Business Owner
55:24 User Journey Maps
58:02 Closing Statements
1:00:26 Summary
1:03:39 Wrap-Up

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AA120 - Did AirBnB Fire All their Product Managers?

AA119 - Software Development Methodologies

Wed, 05 Jul 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Today we're answering more fan mail!

In this podcast, we answer Mitch's question by discussing the different software development methodologies available and what happens when management forces a methodology on a team.

We cover the pros and cons of each methodology, as well as some of the common pitfalls that can occur when a methodology is forced on a team and we might even share tips for better aligning a software development methodology with your team(s)!

0:00 A Real Intro
0:12 Topic Intro
1:20 Waterfall
5:30 The Insidious Nature of Waterfall
7:41 Dual Track Agile
10:45 Mandated Waterfall
13:19 Common Waterfall Drivers
16:49 Slide to Mediocrity
21:06 Mandated Scrum
25:39 Brian's First Scrum Experience
27:58 Questionable Scrum Practices
31:18 Waterfall to Agile
33:28 Customizing Scrum
35:23 Kanban
37:46 Leadership Kanban
44:31 Lean
46:35 XP
53:58 Wrap-Up

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AA119 - Software Development Methodologies

AA118 - Scrum Master to Project Manager Career Transition

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 05:00:00 -0400

With all the layoffs facing agile professionals, Scrum Masters might be looking at open Project Manager positions.

If you're a Scrum Master, moving to Project Management - this podcast will walk you through some of what you might expect.

0:00 Topic Intro
1:00 What's a Project Manager
3:22 Position Decline
7:56 The Contracting Market
9:37 Scrum Master Development
13:24 Consultant Agile Coaches
14:34 Skills to Learn
17:25 Doing Things from Scratch
21:35 Managing Risks
26:40 Scaling
28:38 Scrum Master Benefits
32:16 More Scrum Master Benefits
34:23 Dealing with Customers
37:20 Should You Move?
39:42 Wrap-Up

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AA118 - Scrum Master to Project Manager Career Transition

AA117 - You Should Do Time-Based Estimates (Article Review)

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Should we all just be promising and committing to dates when asked?

Today, we're reacting to an article that seemed to express the opposite opinion of our our Roadmaps episode. On further inspection, we find that it's not exactly what it seemed to be at first glance.

Our Roadmaps Episode: AA113 - Debating Outcome-Based vs Output-Based Roadmaps

A step back into time about the XBox One Launch:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/11/spencer-microsoft-almost-abandoned-xbox-brand-after-the-xbox-one-launch/

...and another...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2015/09/09/microsofts-former-xbox-head-xbox-one-launch-problems-were-predictable-and-preventable/?sh=322bcd9d49de

...and another...
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-microsoft-bungled-the-xbox-one-launch-2015-8

0:00 Topic Intro
0:45 Reading the Article
2:24 Moving Along...
5:21 Slinging Dates
8:10 Deadlines & Shell Games
11:00 Valid Date Discussions (or Are They?)
13:09 Being Late is No Big Deal (Unless It Is)
16:07 Accountability Issues
17:55 Cut the Scope, Make the Schedule
20:25 A Basic Untruth
21:45 Questions, Not Statements
25:19 Summarizing the Article
27:31 The Blame Game
29:01 Suggestions for Estimation
30:59 Wrap-Up

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AA117 - You Should Do Time-Based Estimates (Article Review)

AA116 - Breaking Labels: The "Agile Purist" Stereotype

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Have you ever been referred to as an Agile Purist?

We have - and today, we're talking about this derogatory label! Who might you hear this from? Why might they say it? What can (and should) you do when you hear it?

0:00 Topic Intro
0:43 Why You Hear It
2:24 Executives
4:39 Pragmatic Management
6:25 Brian's Pushback
7:21 Project Managers
8:49 Product Managers
10:09 Engaging with the Statement
12:01 The Empathetic First-Step
13:26 Examples: What is Agile
15:51 Consultants and/or Vendors
21:06 Siloed Team Members
24:37 Quality Assurance & Testing
27:15 Training and Adapting
30:27 Summary & Wrap-Up

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AA116 - Breaking Labels: The "Agile Purist" Stereotype

AA115 - Going from Scrum Master to Product Manager (and why you should)

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Both Product Manager Brian Orlando and Product Manager Tricia Barnes have been recommending to our favorite Special Mystery Guest that she consider transition her career towards Product Management.

On this episode, we talk about the benefits, advantages, and concerns of a Scrum Master moving into a Product role.

Bonus points if this has been your career journey - we'd like to hear from you in the comments!

0:00 Topic Intro
0:12 Less Stress
4:32 Growth for Scrum Masters
12:33 Leadership Skills
15:44 Accountability & Decision Making
20:41 Accountability & Communication
26:09 Compensation
30:47 Agile Experts
33:46 Equity, Permanent Roles, & Consulting
35:10 Business Analyst
37:07 Ad-Hoc Salary Searches
39:07 Communication, Empathy, & Advocacy
42:23 Career Advancement
46:35 Accepting Responsibility
47:55 Summary
48:46 Wrap-Up

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AA115 - Going from Scrum Master to Product Manager (and why you should)

AA114 - Working at a Sustainable Pace

Wed, 31 May 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Both the agile manifesto and the scrum guide have references to working at a sustainable pace. On this episode, we're talking through what that means, what it certainly doesn't mean, and what things you need to help you work at a sustainable pace.

0:00 Topic & Guest Intros
1:04 What the Book Says
1:53 What is Sustainable?
2:46 Brian's Story
4:46 Time to Decompress
5:55 Lisa's Story
8:26 Systems Effect on Sustainability
10:36 Stormy's Story
14:05 Quality of Work
15:17 Stormy's Software Example
17:45 Sustainably Unsustainable
20:58 Measuring or Avoiding Burn-out
23:50 Pricing
27:07 A Self Inflicted Problem
29:19 Org Size
32:04 What is Needed to Sustain Pace?
36:10 Sharing and Aligning on Values
38:41 Guiding Culture
40:12 A Changing Pace
43:46 Summary
44:42 Wrap-up

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AA113 - Debating Outcome-Based vs Output-Based Roadmaps

Wed, 24 May 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Join us as we delve into a lively debate on the merits of outcome-based roadmaps versus output-based roadmaps. With examples, strategic discussions, and practical insights, we explore what makes outcome-based roadmaps the far superior option for teams, stakeholders, and company success. From prioritization and communication to continuous discovery and handling milestones (aka. deadlines), this podcast covers nearly every counter-point you'll hear. We hope, after listening, you'll come away with a deeper understanding of why outcome-based roadmaps are the winning formula for driving impactful results.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:38 Order off the Menu
3:21 Outcome-Based Roadmap Example
5:30 Output-Based Roadmap Example
7:24 Focusing on the Number 1 Priority
12:54 Communication
18:15 Continuous Discovery
20:44 Milestones
22:49 Better for the Teams and Team Members
27:58 Better for Stakeholders
31:29 Summary

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AA113 - Debating the Superiority of Outcome-Based Roadmaps

AA112 - Master Agile Estimation by Evolving Beyond It

Wed, 17 May 2023 05:00:00 -0400

In this information-packed episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel dive deep into the process of evolving a software development team past spending significant time on estimation to becoming so proficient that estimation becomes unnecessary. In this podcast, you'll learn invaluable tips, techniques, and strategies to help your team streamline their estimation process, reduce unknowns, and enhance collaboration with stakeholders. From breaking down work through vertical slicing to learning stories and transferring skills - get ready to learn how to transform your team!

0:00 Send Us Your Questions!
1:55 Evolving a Team
2:56 Why Estimate?
6:05 Breaking Down Work (Vertical Slicing)
10:09 Learning Stories Reduce Unknowns
18:18 Transferring Skills
22:32 Team Talks Directly with Stakeholders
26:23 Product Manager/Owner Problems
28:59 Watch Throughput, Cycle Time, & Lead Time
35:17 Summary
37:07 Wrap-Up

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AA112 - Master Agile Estimation by Evolving Beyond It

AA111 - Exploring AI in Health Care (with Stormy Dickson)

Wed, 10 May 2023 05:00:00 -0400

How will AI impact Health Care?

On this episode, Product Manager and Registered Nurse Stormy Dickson joins us to talk about AI. We take opposing views on AI and it's impact (both past and potential future) on the medical field.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:50 End of an Era?
3:52 Is this a New Era?
6:23 Replacing Doctors, or Not
9:29 AI's Limits
11:20 Data Labeling is Learning
15:52 Better Doctors Enabled by AI (until it kills someone)
18:15 AI Doctors Mean AI Laywers
19:13 Small Disruptions
22:48 Development: Prone to Disruption
25:31 Interacting with People
27:57 Mechanical + AI = Breakthrough
30:09 Market + Ethics
32:11 Creating New Jobs and Markets
34:09 Confidence and Nuance
36:25 Brian's Final Thoughts
37:16 Stormy's Final Comment
38:01 Om's Final Comment
38:38 Ask a Question at ArguingAgile.com

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AA111 - Exploring AI in Health Care (with Stormy Dickson)

AA110 - Project Manager to Product Manager

Wed, 03 May 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Is it possible to go from being a Project Manager to a Product Manager?

On this episode we dig into the possible advantages and disadvantages a Project Manager might have moving into Product Management.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:59 Concerns
4:44 Operations Experience
7:39 Stakeholder Management & Communications
10:21 Influence
11:13 Expanded Business Awareness
13:24 Disadvantages: Uncertainty
16:00 Risk Management
20:03 The Tyrrany of Planning
22:12 Blame Game
27:18 Leadership vs Management
30:37 Growth Experience
32:17 Ways to Get Hired as a Product
37:50 Newly Minted MBAs

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AA110 - Project Manager to Product Manager

AA109 - 3 Types of Teams (from Post-Capitalist Society by Peter Drucker)

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel discuss the three different types of teams described by Peter Drucker in his 1994 book: Post-Capitalist Society.

0:00 Intro
0:18 Today's Topic
1:35 Peter Drucker on Teams
3:05 Why This Book?
5:41 Team Transformation is Agile Transformation
8:17 Existing Team Models
11:01 The First Team Type
12:51 Misapplying the Model
15:29 Tight Specializations (Back-End & Front-End)
17:58 UI/UX
19:51 Summarizing the First Example
22:09 The Second Team Type
26:48 Out of Sync Org Design
29:38 The Third Team Type
33:52 Which Type is Management Structured to Support?
36:09 Wrap-Up

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AA108 - Breaking into Penetration Testing and Career Paths, with Steve Kline

Wed, 19 Apr 2023 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode, Lead Web Application Penetration Tester Steve Kline joins Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel to discuss the field of penetration testing.

In addition to discussing how people break into pen testing, we talk about commonalities in career paths, differences in training and certifications, and the assumption of risk (or not).

0:00 Topic Intro
0:28 Breaking In
4:53 Getting into Pen Testing
9:13 Journey to Pen Testing
13:29 Jumping Straight In (No Experience)
17:30 Arguing on NFRs
18:54 Appetite for Risk
27:22 Org Structure of Pen Testers
30:09 Business Viability
31:21 Musing on QA to Pen Testing
34:33 Implications of AI
39:35 Advice for Breaking In from Steve
43:45 Advice for Breaking In from Om
47:06 Advice for Breaking In from Brian
51:49 A Final Note on Mentors

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AA108 - Breaking into Penetration Testing, with Steve Kline

AA107 - Sharing Team Members (Non-dedicated team members)

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 05:00:00 -0400

In this episode, we go over the reasons team members might be shared or otherwise not dedicated to one scrum team.

0:00 Intro
1:11 What "The Book" Says
3:36 Supporting Everything, Forever
7:01 Scaling
9:56 Runaway Success
12:33 Development and Support
15:38 How Do You Visualize?
17:56 Have the Larger Conversation
20:22 Two Boards: One Kanban, One Sprint
24:29 Being the Maintenance Developer
26:12 First-Draft Support Triage
31:05 The "Hey Buddy" Backlog
34:29 Confrontation
39:02 Valuation in the Backlog
43:08 Track Metrics
48:02 Tell a Story with Those Metrics
49:56 Leadership's Motivation

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AA107 - Sharing Team Members (Non-dedicated team members)

AA106 - Imposter Syndrome in Product Management

Wed, 05 Apr 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Are you a Product Manager or Product Owner?

Do you sometimes feel like you are an imposter?

Join Product Managers Stormy Dickson and Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agility Coach Hemant (Om) Patel as they talk about the reasons, and what can be done to minimize or overcome imposter syndrome.

#impostersyndrome #productmanagement #career

0:00 Topic Intro
0:12 Empowerment
1:33 Push-Back on Empowerment
5:12 Being "New" At The Company
9:48 Choose Responsibility
12:47 Future Leadership Panel Interview
14:38 Influence
16:34 Politics or Leadership?
19:58 Being a Better Communicator
23:59 Bringing People Together
28:27 Repeating Yourself
30:33 Money Metrics
34:17 AARRR Pirate Metrics
37:39 Being Responsible for Money
39:19 Dated Accounting Models
41:31 Challenging on Financial Literacy
43:07 Never Stop Learning
45:24 Wrap-up

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AA106 - Imposter Syndrome in Product Management

AA105 - Where Have All the Scrum Masters Gone?

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 05:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Scrum Master Ayo Eyo joins Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agility Coach Om Patel to talk about the value a Scrum Master brings to an organization - and to answer the question, where have all the Scrum Masters gone?

0:00 Topic Intro
0:33 Ayo is Back!
1:14 Surfing TikTok
2:41 Why Does This Seem Prevalent
5:43 Essential SM Skills
10:00 Why Do We Need a SM, What Do They Do
12:26 Go Faster
14:34 Taylorism Brick Laying Example
16:35 Show Me the Metrics
19:43 Impediments and Dependencies
21:48 How Management Thinks
25:38 Responding to Management
28:50 Title Creep
31:07 An Initial Plan
35:07 Gino Wickman: Traction
37:18 Nico Nico
42:07 Retrospectives
45:15 Advice for Executives (Applies Here Too)
46:38 Do I NEED This
47:46 Losing Sponsorship
49:43 Accountability for Continuous Improvement
53:31 Baselines, Trends, & Extrapolations

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AA105 - Where Have All the Scrum Masters Gone?

AA104 - Creating a Mission, Vision, & Strategy

Wed, 22 Mar 2023 05:00:00 -0400

In the previous episode (here: https://youtu.be/T1doj980NuE) we explored the things that need to be in-place before a great Product Roadmap can be built. In this episode, we use those concepts to create a Mission, Vision, Strategies, and Goals for our organization and product, the Arguing Agile Podcast!

#productmanagement #agile #career

0:00 Topic: Crafting a Mission, Vision, & Strategy
1:13 The Existing Mission/Vision
2:20 Crafting the Vision
4:08 Going One Step Deeper
5:56 The Original Mission
7:09 Working on the Mission
9:26 Roman Pichler's Product Vision Board
10:22 Assumption-Based Vision/Mission
11:39 Forming a Coherent Mission
13:30 Completing Mission
16:06 Kernel of a Good Strategy
18:19 Sidebar: Strategy in the Real-World
20:09 How This All Fits
21:22 Strategy #1
22:23 Saying No
23:50 Continuing Strategies and Separating Goals
27:19 Identifying Redundant & Missing Strategies
29:18 Now, the Roadmap
31:08 We Probably Should Have Cut This Section
31:29 Wrap-up
32:43 Another (Unnecessary) Wrap-Up
----------------------
Watch us on YouTube:
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----------------------
AA104 - Creating a Mission, Vision, & Strategy

AA103 - Challenges to Building a Product Roadmap

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Building and maintaining a Product Roadmap can be an infinitely complex task - or it can be easy. What are the challenges and how might we overcome them are the questions we tackle in this episode of the Arguing Agile Podcast.

#productmanagement #agile #career

0:00 Why This Topic?
1:24 Starting in the Right/Wrong Place
3:24 Down the Hierarchy
6:01 The Difficulty of Mission & Vision
8:00 Building Alignment
9:56 Alignment & Incentives
13:02 Speaking Different Languages
16:19 Disagreeing on Mission/Vision
19:26 Delivering on Strategy
21:21 Examples of Mission & Vision
24:20 Build Me A Roadmap
26:22 Roadmap Format Examples
30:04 Takeaways
32:14 Why Don't I Just Make It Up Myself?
35:03 Step Back for Perspective
39:35 Future Podcast Musings
41:56 Shaky Wrap-Up
----------------------
Watch us on YouTube:
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----------------------
AA103 - Challenges to Building a Product Roadmap

AA102 - Backlog Anti-Patterns

Wed, 08 Mar 2023 05:00:00 -0500

An anti-pattern is a common response to a recurring problem that is usually ineffective and risks being highly counterproductive.

On this episode, we take a look at 13 Backlog Anti-patterns!

0:00 Topic Intro
0:28 1. Prioritization by Proxy
4:36 Tangent on "By Proxy"
5:49 2. The Oversized Product Backlog
11:16 3. Outdated Issues
13:58 4. Everything is Detailed and Estimated
16:42 5. INVEST?
20:14 6. Missing Acceptance Criteria
22:02 7. 100% In Advance
26:35 8. No More Than a Title
30:41 9. Storage for Ideas
34:28 10. Part-Time PO
35:48 11. Copy & Paste PO
37:17 12. Dominant PO (Spoiler Alert, We Skip It)
38:43 13. The "I Know It All" PO
41:52 Go-Back: 12. Dominant PO
45:29 Wrap-Up
----------------------
Watch it on YouTube
AND
Subscribe to the Arguing Agile Podcast on YouTube

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Google Podcasts:https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNzgxMzE5LnJzcw

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----------------------
AA102 - Backlog Antipatterns #agile #productmanagement #podcast

AA101 - Accountability, Prioritizing Technical Debt, & Product Cannibalization

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 05:00:00 -0500

On this episode, we take three arguably unrelated topics from our list that didn't get their own episodes and bring them together. We believe that each of these topics deserve a bit of attention and we present them here in the style of the Jeopardy category: Potpourri!

Welcome, to the mélange de conversation agile: Accountability, Prioritizing Technical Debt, & Product Cannibalization.

0:00 Intro
0:18 Topic 1: Agilists Never Take Accountability
2:22 What is Accountability
4:43 Product Accountability
6:06 Mindset, Failure, and Blame
7:49 Defending the Declaration
10:02 Self-Management
12:05 Scrum Master as Leadership
13:43 Topic 2: Product's Input on Technical Matters
15:52 Digging Into an Example
18:41 Pitching the Idea to Product
19:52 Challenging Product
23:37 Craftsmanship & Code Comments
28:31 Topic 3: Multiple Products & Cannibalization
30:49 Word & Excel as Examples
33:58 Vision, Strategy, & Goals
36:59 I'M A (Data) WIZARD
39:19 Products that are Everything to Everyone
41:29 User Segmentation
44:47 Wrap-up
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AA101 - Accountability, Prioritizing Technical Debt, & Product Cannibalization

AA100 - Mindset by Carol Dweck, PhD (with Ed Martin)

Fri, 17 Feb 2023 08:00:00 -0500

On this episode, we talk about the book Mindset by Carol Dweck, PhD with guest Ed Martin.

0:00 Two Quotes
0:19 Topic Intro - Mindset
1:32 The Fixed Mindset
3:05 Growth Mindset
4:25 Changing Your Mind
5:35 Being Flawless
8:05 Doing Hard Things
9:51 The Drawing Example
11:56 Failure WILL Happen
12:58 Continuous Learning
13:49 Bowling Example
15:37 Business Equivalent of the Bowling Example
17:25 Failure & Feedback
19:02 Getting Around Negative Type Praise
20:57 Coachable People & Leaders
23:15 Remote Work
27:00 Remote Work: Example of Mindset
29:27 Blame = Failure
32:32 Learning Over Blame
35:09 Sailboat Retro
37:12 Stormy-cast
38:22 Women in STEM
42:34 The Scrum Master's Dilemma
45:15 Chapter 5 - Mindset & Leadership
48:52 Brutal Bosses
51:37 The Gemba Walk & Culture
54:47 Taylorism & Rewards
56:39 Profit Sharing
58:11 HR
1:00:04 Mindset for Managers
1:01:25 Where Will Leaders Come From
1:06:43 Crossing the Chasm (of Leadership & Being Remote)
1:10:53 Choosing Mindset
1:14:20 Wrap-Up

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AA100 - Mindset by Carol Dweck, PhD (with Ed Martin)

AA99 - How to be a More Respected Agile Coach

Fri, 10 Feb 2023 08:00:00 -0500

Do you want to know all the secrets to being a better, more respected Agile Coach?

If so, then this podcast is for you! In this episode, Enterprise Agile Coach reveals the secrets of Agile Coaching success to Product Manager Brian Orlando.

0:00 Intro
0:21 Topic Intro
0:36 Have a Vision
3:12 What's a Vision?
5:21 Courage
7:29 Courage, but with Impact
12:17 Asking for Help
13:57 Communicate Like a Doctor
17:25 Scrum Master Coaching Metrics
21:20 Projecting Confidence
24:36 Evidence = Confidence
27:45 Enthusiasm is Infectious
29:59 Mindset
31:48 Communicating Through Questions
37:29 Process Vision
38:54 Summary
39:55 Wrap-Up

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AA99 - How to be a More Respected Agile Coach #ArguingAgile #agile #podcast

AA98 - Are B2C and B2B Product Management Different Skills?

Fri, 03 Feb 2023 08:00:00 -0500

Do B2C and B2B Product Managers need different skills?

Product Manager Brian Orlando kicks this podcast off by telling the story of how he once missed out on an opportunity because of this question. Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel joins to weigh in on this discussion, adding how B2B and B2C might be change the way teams work.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:59 Reading the Post
1:31 Core & Product-Specific Skills
3:09 Skills vs Traits
6:32 Building the Argument
9:32 Feedback
12:34 Contracts
13:49 B2B Stakeholder Management
15:49 The PM Books Experiment
18:48 Finding the Early Adopters
22:52 Common Pro-Difference Points
25:57 Differences
32:19 Metrics
33:39 Dealing with People
36:25 User Personas
40:06 Building Crap - A Risky Portfolio
42:33 Let's Talk Strategy
43:51 Logical and Rational Reasoning
48:09 Custom Requests
54:37 Conclusion
57:12 Wrap-up

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AA98 - Are B2C and B2B Product Management Different Skills? #ArguingAgile #agile #podcast

AA97 - The What & the How: Two Sides of Software Development

Fri, 27 Jan 2023 07:00:00 -0500

In the agile software development discipline, the customer is represented by two separate yet equally important groups: The Business, who brings WHAT to build, and the team(s), who decide HOW it gets built. These are their stories.

Cue the Law and Order "DUN-DUN!"

On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel talk about the two cycles that exist in product development, the "what" and the "how." We discuss how they should function in small, medium, and large businesses and the common dysfunctions that growth brings to the cycles.

0:00 Topic Intro: The How & the What
1:34 Small Companies
3:40 The First Product Manager
4:43 Small Company Issues
9:27 Process Changes
10:28 Selling Brian & Om's Small Business
13:29 Brian's Logistics - My New Company!
15:11 Dispatchers & Drivers, a Love Story
17:30 Segmenting by Expertise
20:20 Focus - Owning Product
22:27 Enter Product - Enter Problems
25:40 Starting New (or Like New)
27:47 Getting Outside Help
30:25 Coaching Leadership
33:09 The Ideal Scenario
36:49 Multi-Product How/What
40:13 Rapid Expansion or Growth
41:52 Now, You're BIG
49:19 Summary

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AA97 - The What & the How: Two Sides of Software Development

AA96 - Stages of Company Decline, or When Companies Hate Their Customers

Fri, 20 Jan 2023 07:00:00 -0500

In this episode, we take a look at the book, How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins.

Using a completely fictitious example ripped directly from the headlines like we're some kind of aspiring crime show writers, we explore how the baffling moves made by our example company, Lizards and Wizards LLC, actually signal the stages of the decline that Collins describes.

https://www.jimcollins.com/books/how-the-mighty-fall.html

0:00 Intro
0:24 5 Stages of Company Decline
1:14 Example Company
2:23 Building a Market
4:19 Time Passes, Culture Changes
6:40 New Culture, Bad Metrics
9:39 Hubris, Born of Success
13:09 Denial of Risk and Peril
14:35 Book Examples
16:04 Peak Ascendency to Blockbuster
18:04 Optimizing for the Company, Not the Customer
20:33 Let's Fix These Problems
23:46 Customer-Obsessed, Product Mindset
26:24 Fixing the Culture
29:59 Summary
31:01 Wrap-Up

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AA96 - Stages of Company Decline, or When Companies Hate Their Customers

AA95 - Project-Led to Product-Led (with Product Coach Mike Miller)

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 07:00:00 -0500

Today, we're talking about the things we don't talk about - transformations!

On this episode, Product Coach Mike Miller joins Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel to talk about moving from a Project-led organization to one that is more Product-led.

0:00 Failed Intro
0:13 The Real Intro
0:36 Where Did This Come From?
1:44 What's Wrong with Projects?
2:56 Physical Products and Risk Tolerance
7:11 Services that Also Have Products
9:34 Products with Services
11:30 Brian's Product-Led Pitch
12:29 Exploring Manufacturing Roots
14:53 Arguing on Silos
16:52 Customer Delight
19:11 Project-Led Impact
23:13 Crossing the Chasm
25:08 Breaking Annual Budgeting / Breaking Command-and-Control
27:42 Customer Centricity, Product Definition
29:15 Autonomy
31:18 You Can't Scale Bad Stragegy (or No Strategy)
33:24 Starting with Product Management
37:34 Two Different Worlds
39:26 Top Things to Do
41:59 Fix Budgeting or Nothing Will Stick
47:19 Leadership - Learning

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AA95 - Project-Led to Product-Led (with Product Coach Mike Miller)

AA94 - Don't Say Collaboration

Fri, 06 Jan 2023 07:00:00 -0500

The most successful leaders have the ability to get people working together.

Why is it then, so many organizations have cultures where people are discouraged from working together (for example, development teams where they don't peer program)?

On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel talk about getting people to work together without using the word collaboration.

0:00 An Interesting Exchange...
1:05 Who Benefits from this Podcast?
2:17 Everything is Priority-One
4:09 Why the Problem?
5:51 Chaotic Organizations
8:43 Transparency vs Covert Backlogs
11:27 A Theoretical (but very real) Scenario
13:41 Om's Response to the Theoretical Scenario
17:29 How to Focus
19:11 How to Focus - Business/Leadership Edition
21:10 Alignment & Communication
23:30 Mergers & Acquisitions (Product End-of-Line)
24:55 Blockers vs Impediments
30:52 Example of Impediments
33:20 Scrum Masters & Impediment Removal
35:45 Streams of Work
38:19 Assigned To - How it Should Work
42:00 Accountability & Business Categories
44:35 Challenges to Collaboration
45:46 Promting the Team To Collaborate More
47:50 Testers
49:27 The View that XP Work is "Not Work"
51:47 Changing the Mindset
55:01 Wrap-Up

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AA94 - Don't Say Collaboration

AA93 - Being a Positive Advocate for Agile

Fri, 30 Dec 2022 07:00:00 -0500

Do you consider yourself an advocate for agile and for positive change?

On this episode, Product Owner and Registered Nurse Stormy Dickson joins Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel to talk about what makes a good agile advocate.

0:00 Intro - Being a Good Advocate
0:08 Om's Take
1:15 Stormy's Take
2:32 Metrics
3:36 Keeping People Busy
4:54 An Experience (Keeping People Busy)
6:34 Scientific Method, By Another Name
8:42 Being Empowered
11:22 Deeper Thinking on Culture
13:54 Thinking on Motives
16:07 Who Advocates for Agile
18:51 By Developers for Developers
21:28 How the SM Role was Designed
22:21 Reading Tweets
23:45 Continuing, Hostile Territory
24:52 Tweet 22
25:07 Project Manager By Another Name
27:38 Tactics for Advocating
31:31 Steps for Success
35:21 An Alternate Take
37:33 Gambling Big
39:46 Getting Outside Help

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AA93 - Being a Positive Advocate for Agile

AA92 - Life without a Scrum Master

Fri, 23 Dec 2022 07:00:00 -0500

Does your team or org have a Scrum Master or Agile Coach?

Many do not.

Organizations without Scrum Masters have many common challenges and in this episode we discuss those challenges in-depth!

Listen as Product Manager and Registered Nurse Stormy Dickson joins Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel to discuss what life is like without a Scrum Master.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:23 Metaphors!
2:26 Challenging the Analogy
3:30 Team Development
5:10 Who is Leadership? Small Companies.
7:07 Who is Leadership? SMBs.
8:14 Segue: Scaling Bad Practices
8:55 Who is Leadership? SMBs. (Part 2)
10:06 Now, We Are Going to Be Agile
12:02 Brian's Response
14:40 The Cost of No Scrum Master
15:51 Product with No Scrum Master
17:19 Separating Product from Process
19:46 ...sCrUm MaStErS sHoUlD bE tEcHnIcAl
22:50 Process vs Product and Operations
24:53 Cognitive Load
26:57 What Really Matters?
29:33 Sharing Learnings
30:59 Product Involvement in Process
35:42 Being Comfortable Letting Go
38:11 Qualitative and Quantitative Questions
41:40 Part Time Scrum Masters
43:14 Definition of Done
45:55 Soft Skills and Checklists
48:01 "Work Yourself Out of a Job"
50:45 Wrap-Up

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AA92 - Life without a Scrum Master

AA91 - Going from Product Owner to Product Manager

Fri, 16 Dec 2022 07:00:00 -0500

Do you want to be a Product Manager and have been doing the role of Product Owner on a Scrum Team?

On this episode, Product Manager and Registered Nurse Stormy Dickson joins Product Manager Brian Orlando to talk about her transition from being a Product Owner (as a job title and role) to being a Product Manager and the difference she has noticed.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:25 Starting with Teams
2:16 Stormy's Experiences with Self Managing Teams
5:26 Brian's Questions...
6:48 Change Triggered by Crisis
9:20 Brian's Take: PO vs PM Job Roles
10:29 Strategy
11:42 Learning New Skills
13:54 Stunted Growth
18:30 Coordinating Strategy
21:17 Communicate Like a Doctor
22:10 View on Career Paths in Product
23:29 Product Responsibilities (with Graphics)
25:28 Continuous Discovery, Customer Empathy
26:51 Validate the Most Important Problems
29:06 A Typical Product Situation
30:53 Being Overextended
32:02 Lobbying for Change
34:06 Bob Galen's 4 Quadrants of Product Ownership
34:38 Good Business Metrics
36:08 Brian's Experiences
39:54 Suggestions for Transitioning from PO to PM
42:38 Taking a Leap
44:27 Mentorship and Sponsorship

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AA91 - Going from Product Owner to Product Manager

AA90 - Org Culture (with Stormy Dickson)

Fri, 09 Dec 2022 07:00:00 -0500

On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel are joined by Product Manager Stormy Dickson to talk about culture, incentives, and the challenges of trying to change organizations.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:50 Engrained in the Culture
4:52 Pondering Large Companies
7:40 Challenging Organizations
10:31 Big Cultural Red Flags
11:50 Changing Your Organization
13:35 Sidebar on Dunbar's Number
15:08 Start with Yourself
17:52 Bad Apples
20:41 Incentives
23:39 Diversity
25:32 Walk the Gemba
26:59 Breaking Down the Org (Dunbar's Number, Part 2)
30:54 Same Company, Different Cultures
33:39 Training
37:57 Incentives & Erosion
39:36 Long Term vs Short Term
43:15 Product Incentives vs Process Incentives

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AA90 - Org Culture (with Stormy Dickson)

AA89 - Agile Interviewing Red Flags (with Tricia Barnes & Surprise Mystery Guest)

Fri, 02 Dec 2022 08:00:00 -0500

Today, we're joined by Product Lead Tricia Barnes and our favorite Scrum Master Surprise Mystery Guest to talk about red flags to watch out for when interviewing for roles on agile teams.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:14 No Scrum Peers in the Interview
1:59 When Product "Runs Things"
3:19 First Scrum Master Hire
6:07 Being "Methodology Agnostic"
7:36 Putting the Interviewer to Work
10:25 Different Perspectives
12:42 Recognizing Burn-Out & Chaos
16:29 Conflating Velocity and Business Value
20:33 Showcasing Business Value
22:37 No Passion for Project
27:33 Lack of Leadership Buy-In
30:23 Segue on Hardware
32:26 Scrum - It's Not for Everyone
34:29 Agreeableness / People Pleasers
37:33 Jessica's Summary

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AA89 - Agile Interviewing Red Flags (with Tricia Barnes & Surprise Mystery Guest)

AA88 - Contracts in Agile Software Development

Thu, 17 Nov 2022 07:00:00 -0500

There's a line in the Agile Manifesto: "Customer collaboration over contract negotiation."

This episode will help familiarize you with contracts because contracts are not just something that should be "done by somebody else."

0:00 Topic Intro
0:45 Master Service Agreements
3:13 Three Agreements Types
7:09 Time & Materials
8:58 Fixed Price Contracts & Agile
12:52 Boot-making Example (Fixed Price)
16:24 Grades of Service
18:54 Grades of Service & Agile
20:23 Fixed Price - Penalties
23:23 Fixed Price - Incentives
24:33 Fixed Price - Simplistic Approach
26:41 Minimizing Risk - Paying for Value Delivery
28:30 Pivoting? Build it In!
32:55 Agile & Contracting - A Common Theme
36:52 Time & Materials
41:06 Mitigating Risks with "Plus, Plus"
42:47 Shifting Goalposts
44:57 Spirit of Agile in Contracts
47:50 Wrap-Up

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AA88 - Contracts in Agile Software Development

AA87 - Burnt-Out Product Managers

Fri, 11 Nov 2022 09:00:00 -0500

On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel read through and discuss a recent article authored by a (clearly burnt-out) Product Manager.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:28 Reading the Post
3:38 Meaningless Work
8:42 Building the Wrong Thing (aka. Failure)
10:32 Building the Wrong Thing, Continued
13:33 Blame Game
17:28 Burn-out or Failure to Coach?
20:38 Culture Eats Strategy
23:14 Continuous Discovery
27:10 Being Not Good at Anything
29:46 Never Read the Comments
32:09 Making a Case with Data
34:55 Getting Cut
40:48 Wrap-up

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AA87 - Burnt-Out Product Managers

AA86 - New Product Owners and Product Managers

Fri, 04 Nov 2022 08:00:00 -0400

You've been either hired or promoted as a new Product Manager or Owner. Congratulations!

What should you do next? What might you expect? What can you do to ensure success?

On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel talk about what it's like to be a new Product Owner or Product Manager.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:35 Why/What
3:59 Starting with Why
6:16 Starting Points
11:27 Crossing the Chasm
14:08 Do You Have the Skills?
19:44 Being a Good Leader
24:07 Starting Fresh/New
30:26 Feature Parity with Competitors
35:31 Feature Toggles & A/B Testing
38:42 Starting without a Team
45:11 A Different Spin on this Podcast
48:27 Wrap-up

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AA86 - New Product Owners and Product Managers

AA85 - Deadlines in Agile

Fri, 28 Oct 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Let's talk about deadlines!

Why do people say that agile doesn't do deadlines? Why do people commit to dates without engaging the team? Finally, what are better ways to handle deadlines?

On this episode, join Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel as they talk through deadlines.

0:00 Intro
0:22 Why Deadlines
1:33 Agile Can't Do Deadlines
5:02 Committing when You Can't Deliver
6:58 WIFM
9:22 Seemingly Random Dates
13:17 Sales as an Example
18:34 Roadmap for Sales
21:52 A History of Milestones...
24:30 Phase 2: What to Do?
26:13 Reframing Deadlines (Brian's Bad Advice)
28:57 Exploring Through Refinements
32:33 Enabling Teams from Team Topologies
35:18 Pushback
38:33 Bring in the Customer
47:51 The Cutting Room Floor

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AA85 - Deadlines in Agile

AA84 - Stakeholders in the Scrum Events

Fri, 21 Oct 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Have you ever been asked to invite someone outside of the Scrum Team to one or more of the Scrum Team's Events?

On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel go event by event to talk about when it is right to invite stakeholders to your Scrum Events, and when it is "not right!"

0:00 Topic Intro
0:20 Daily Scrum, by the Book
2:48 Daily Scrum, the Real World
6:49 Uninvited Guests
9:58 Disciplined & Undisciplined Stakeholders
14:35 Sprint Retrospective
16:56 Outsiders in the Retro
18:51 Sprint Review
23:03 External vs Internal Stakeholders
26:48 Sprint Planning, by the Book
28:05 Sprint Planning, the Real World
31:47 Backlog Refinement
34:42 Optional Scrum Team Attendees at Refinement
37:22 Wrap-up

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AA84 - Stakeholders in the Scrum Events

AA83 - Agile Doesn't Work Here

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 07:00:00 -0400

How many times have you heard "agile doesn't work here?"

On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel talk through the typical reasons (some legitimate, some excuses) for the statement "agile doesn't work here."

0:00 Topic Intro
0:53 Two Common Issues
5:11 Ego and/or Fear
6:51 Leading with Vision
11:07 Fear of Failure
14:31 Institutionalized Inability to Trust
19:25 What can be Done?
22:07 Agile Sponsorship & Enablement
24:29 Middle Managers
28:33 Incentives & Sales
34:36 Sales & Incentives, Continued
37:51 Incentives for Development
39:35 Self Managing Teams & Salaries
45:49 Dedicated Teams (aka. Durable Teams)
48:26 Hoodwinked into Agile
52:32 Brian's Hoodwinking Experience
57:23 Investing in $uccess
59:20 Wrap-up

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AA83 - Agile Doesn't Work Here

AA82 - What does a Scrum Master Do All Day (Part 3: the Org)

Fri, 07 Oct 2022 07:00:00 -0400

"What does a Scrum Master do all day?"

If you are in an organization where you hear this question, you are aware that people are failing to realize that one third of the Scrum Master's responsibilities are about coaching the organization.

On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel talk about how a Scrum Master spends their day coaching the organization, or, as Om likes to say, "Coaching Up!"

0:00 Topic Intro
0:33 Coaching the Organization
4:03 What do you Do All Day?
6:36 Scrum Adoption - Upstream/Downstream
11:20 Leading, Training, Coaching
15:35 Coaching & Mentoring
18:46 Coaching & Mentoring, without a Scrum Master
21:28 Planning & Advising Scrum Implementations
24:20 Metrics
31:09 Changing Behavior at a Glacial Pace
38:03 Empirical Approach to Problem Solving
41:12 What Makes You Think...
47:14 Discovery Experiments
50:00 Empiricism without Scrum Masters
55:02 HR
57:08 Removing Barriers

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AA82 - What does a Scrum Master Do All Day (Part 3: the Org)

AA81 - What does a Scrum Master Do All Day (Part 2: the Product)

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Outside of the daily scrum, what does a Scrum Master do all day?

One third of the Scrum Guide's answer to this is "Serves the Product Owner," and that is what this entire episode is about!

Join Product Owner and Registered Nurse Stormy Dickson with Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel to talk about how a Scrum Master spends their day serving the product owner.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:45 Effective Product Goal Definition
4:51 Clarity in Goal Definition
11:36 Lack of Strategy
22:46 Finding Techniques without Help
29:49 Clear and Consice: A Discovery Story
38:39 Clear and Concise
44:07 Be Empirical: Get Metrics
46:58 Empiricisim Without a Scrum Master
49:31 What is Empiricism
51:37 Facilitating Stakeholder Collaboration
58:10 Extending Product via Soft Skills

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AA81 - What does a Scrum Master Do All Day (Part 2: the Product)

AA80 - What does a Scrum Master Do All Day (Part 1: the Team)

Fri, 23 Sep 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Outside of the daily scrum, what does a Scrum Master do all day?If you've ever been asked this question - this is the podcast for you!

On this episode, Scrum Master Ayo Eyo joins Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel to talk about how Scrum Masters spend their day while serving the team.

Special shout out to Product Owner and Registered Nurse Stormy Dickson who just happened to be in the neighborhood and joined us for the last half!

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AA80 - What does a Scrum Master Do All Day (Part 1: the Team)

AA79 - The Case Against Psychological Safety, with Stormy Dickson

Fri, 16 Sep 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Have you ever been in an organization where psychological safety was ridiculed or derided?

On this episode, Product Owner and Registered Nurse Stormy Dickson joins Product Manager Brian Orlando to see if a case can be made against psychological safety.

0:00 Topic Intro
1:47 Unearned Autonomy
6:25 Empowered Teams, but Incentivizing Individuals
11:01 A Shield Against Accountability
14:33 Incentives via Consensus
19:46 Transparency in Financials
24:32 Prioritization
30:27 Stormy's Summary
33:50 Decision Making (Consensus vs Lobbying)

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AA79 - The Case Against Psychological Safety, with Stormy Dickson

AA78 - Building the Wrong Thing, with Senior Scrum Master Ted Wells

Fri, 09 Sep 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Have you ever been handed a feature to build rather than a problem to solve?

Have you ever built a feature touted as the next big thing only to find out that it was never used or needed?

On this episode, Senior Scrum Master Ted Wells joins Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel as they talk about building the wrong thing.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:35 Product-Led and Sales-Led Organizations
4:14 Visionary-Led Organizations
6:59 Working Backwards
11:03 Arguing Against
16:10 Order-Taker or Waiter Product People
20:43 The Need for Refactoring
26:28 The Challenge with Technical POs
34:30 Measuring "Failure"
43:29 One Week Sprints
52:05 Incentives and Illusory Progress
56:37 Wrap-Up

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AA78 - Building the Wrong Thing, with Senior Scrum Master Ted Wells

AA77 - Technical or Not? Backgrounds of Product Managers or Owners

Fri, 02 Sep 2022 07:00:00 -0400

In Product Management, does having a Technical Background help or not?

On this episode, Product Owner and Registered Nurse Stormy Dickson joins Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel to explore how the background of a Product Manager (or Product Owner) may benefit or hinder.

0:00 Imposter Syndrome
0:35 Start with Why
4:30 Navigating Difficult Situations
8:27 Stormy's Experiences
12:37 Constantly Starting Over
14:49 Making the Transition
17:46 Partnering with Tech Leader
22:14 Creating Culture
27:18 Learning to Fly
29:24 Pro's of the Non-Technical PM
36:38 Courage is a Value
40:57 Stereotypes & Assumptions
45:49 Soul Searching

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AA77 - Technical or Not? The Backgrounds of Product Managers or Owners

AA76 - Product Owner vs Product Manager

Fri, 26 Aug 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Is there a difference between a Product Owner and a Product Manager? And if the answer is yes (surprise, it is), what is the difference?

On this episode, Product Owner and Registered Nurse Stormy Dickson joins Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel to explore the differences between Product Owners and Product Managers.

0:00 Topic Intro: PO vs PM
0:19 Mike Miller Definition
3:06 Collaboration in Product Roles
6:35 Strategic vs Tactical
12:06 Heirarchy Driven by Incentives
15:32 Brian's Counter-point
18:43 Role vs Job
22:58 Technical Product Owner
28:27 Domain Knowledge
39:52 Working with Users
45:54 Prioritization & Vision
50:22 Separating PM from the Founders
59:53 Agile Leadership
1:01:22 Wrap-Up

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AA76 - Product Owner vs Product Manager

AA75 - Definition of Done

Fri, 19 Aug 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Beyond what is in the Scrum Guide, how do we work with the definition of done?

On this episode, Product Owner and Registered Nurse Stormy Dickson joins Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel to explore the definition of done.

0:00 Topic Intro
1:28 Defining Definition of Done
5:14 Breaking DoD
8:44 Contributing and/or Ignoring
13:39 Adapting or Extending the DoD
18:41 Who Prompts a Revision?
20:53 The Hawthorne Effect
23:46 Back to Revisions
25:56 The First DoD
31:25 Stormy's Summary
35:35 No Silver Bullet

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AA75 - Definition of Done

AA74 - Bad Certification Experiences & Maybe Bad Certifications...

Fri, 12 Aug 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Have you had a bad experience with a certification or certification class?

On this episode, Product Owner and Registered Nurse Stormy Dickson discusses her bad experience with the CSPO certification. Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel ask questions and wonder what could be changed within the system to make sure these kinds of things don't happen.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:21 Stormy's Certification Experience
7:26 How Did We Get Here?
14:28 Scrum Master Experience
25:47 Organizational Change-Agents
39:12 Experts Teaching Experts
41:44 Base Level for Entry
48:14 Making Money While Being Ethical
52:21 Filtering into Industry
56:58 Let's Talk Fixes
1:01:11 Making Cultural Changes
1:06:23 Leadership
1:08:28 Base Curriculum
1:10:39 Better Curriculum
1:14:02 Pseudo Product Managers
1:16:47 Badmouthing Jira
1:21:59 Wrap-Up

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AA74 - Bad Certification Experiences & Maybe Bad Certifications...

AA73 - Should Velocity Always Be Increasing, Forever?

Fri, 05 Aug 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Is Velocity a number that should go up and up, forever? What does it mean when Velocity goes down? On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel talk about the ups and downs (pun intended) of Velocity.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:43 Should Velocity Perpetually Rise?
3:03 Let's Argue About: Metrics
7:27 Sustainability and Circling the Drain Faster
12:32 Seeking Justification
15:55 Decreasing Team Size to Speed Up
20:52 Reasons to Increase Velocity
25:42 Standardization/Equalization Between Teams
27:51 More on Bad Metrics
33:42 Business Value
39:15 Stability, an Example
45:08 Dips in Velocity - Where is Product?
50:33 Summarizing the Topic
53:19 Tracking Variance
59:10 Wrap-Up

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AA73 - Should Velocity Always Be Increasing, Forever?

AA72 - Gantt Charts in Agile Software Development

Fri, 29 Jul 2022 07:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel talk about Gantt charts. What is a Gantt chart, why do people do them, what purpose do they serve in agile software development, and why they're terrible and you should never do one.

0:00 Introductory Banter
1:00 Topic Intro
2:52 Deciding How We'll Argue
4:05 What is a Gantt Charts and it's History
10:05 Unknown Tasks
15:46 Dependencies
20:50 Changing Plans
24:46 Compiling the Gantt Chart
32:00 Lean Principles & Adjusting Plans
35:39 The Case Against Gantt Charts
42:00 Planning for Capacity
48:03 Gantt Charts and Roadmaps
52:17 Product Focus & Story/Release Mapping
57:27 The Feeling of Control
1:00:59 Systems Thinking
1:02:35 Gantt Charts vs Burn-down
1:07:09 Don't Do Gantt Charts
1:10:59 Brian's Hot-Take
1:15:38 Wrap-Up

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AA72 - Gantt Charts in Agile Software Development

AA71 - Career Paths to Product Management

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 07:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Product Owner and Registered Nurse Stormy Dickson stops by to discuss her journey to Product. Additionally, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel muse on the different ways people find themselves in Product.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:38 Path to Product
3:27 Assumptions
9:04 First Job PM - Things to Watch
13:36 Trying to See the Other Side
18:38 Journey Starting with Domain Experience
24:09 Discover Users, Build Empathy
35:11 Comparing PMs
37:51 PM vs PO
45:14 Getting Stuck in the Tactical World
52:58 The Skill to Challenge Things
59:22 Suggestions for Your Past Self
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AA71 - Career Paths to Product Management

AA70 - Working with Finite Resources

Fri, 15 Jul 2022 07:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel talk through working within the confines of limited or finite resources.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:22 The Problem
2:42 Team Member Sharing
8:11 Architects
13:12 UI/UX
18:22 Testers
25:50 Faux Fixes
33:19 Team Agility Radar
38:37 Centers of Excellence
41:19 Fixes: Understand Vision
47:49 Fixes: Contractors
51:15 Fixes: Decentralizing
57:13 Wrap-Up

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AA70 - Working with Finite Resources

AA69 - Gatekeeping Agile

Fri, 08 Jul 2022 07:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel talk about the sticky topic of Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters gatekeeping agility and thereby lowering trust in agile software development theory and practices, all around.

0:00 Topic Intro
1:53 The Post, Part 1
3:46 Arguing the Post
8:37 Supporting Arguments
15:46 Mindset & Psychological Safety
20:57 The Article, Part 2 (Part
25:41 Meet them Where They Are
34:24 Trainers
40:42 Coaches with Technical Backgrounds
47:38 Arguing on the Last Points (Part 3)
57:17 Wrap-Up

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AA69 - Gatekeeping Agile

AA68 - Dealing with Conflict, with Special Mystery Guest

Fri, 01 Jul 2022 07:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel are joined their favorite Special Mystery Guest to talk about something that most people are bad at - dealing with conflict.

0:00 Topic Intro
1:00 Scaled Retro Example
6:37 One-on-Ones
8:56 Conflict Avoidance
12:42 Saying "No"
18:57 Learning on the Job
23:53 Problematic Coworkers
31:53 Scrum Master Assertiveness
41:02 Scrum Master Saying No, Continued
51:29 Finger Pointing
1:00:53 Dealing with "the Higher-Ups"
1:08:57 Focus on Problems
1:11:32 Involving HR
1:18:02 Encountering Sociopaths
1:25:16 Jessica's Summary
1:28:17 Wrap-Up

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AA68 - Dealing with Conflict, with Special Mystery Guest

AA67 - Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow

Fri, 24 Jun 2022 07:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Product Manager Brian Orlando pitches Enterprise Agile Coach Om Patel on the team optimization suggestions from the book, Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow (2019), by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais.

Team Topologies Website

0:00 Topic Intro: Team Topologies
1:58 Stream-Aligned Teams
3:50 Why this Book?
7:25 Cognitive Load
12:46 4 Fundamental Topologies
20:22 Platform Teams
22:47 Arguing on Team Topologies
25:16 3 Core Interaction Modes
30:30 Case Studies
31:21 Om's First Reaction
33:16 Re-summarizing the Book
35:40 Ratios
39:05 Teams' Responsibility for Commercial Viability
43:02 What We Learned
51:18 Riffing on Non-Development Teams
55:31 Why It's Worth Reading

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AA67 - Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow

AA66 - Personal Agility & the Great Resignation, with Joey deVilla

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 23:00:00 -0400

When we think about unmitigated optimism and unwavering positivity, we think of none other than the unflappable - Joey deVilla!

On this episode, we talk about how the great resignation has affected us and how a commitment to personal agility helps people and companies through tough times.

0:00 Intro
0:24 Topic Intro
0:59 Reasons for In-Person Gathering
4:19 Team Bonding, Positive Vibes
8:40 Work, Life, & Sustainability
15:50 Interviews: Vetting Companies
19:55 Segue on Microsoft
25:51 Learning
31:12 Time to Think
37:34 Evolution of Technology & Skills
44:55 Solving Problems
47:51 Personal Agility
53:24 Monkeys, a Banana, and a Ladder
1:02:18 Returning to the Office
1:08:43 The Future
1:13:00 Wrap-Up

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AA66 - Personal Agility & the Great Resignation, with Joey deVilla

AA65 - The Perfect Sprint Review Agenda

Fri, 10 Jun 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Does a perfect Sprint Review agenda exist?

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel ask this very question and try to figure it! Using some original content from one of our favorite Agile Coaches out there, Vibhor Chandel, we review and revise our way toward a Sprint Review agenda that we are excited to try with our teams, and that we hope you'll try with yours.

Vibhor Chandel's Original Post

Vibhor Chandel on LinkedIn and YouTube

0:00 Sprint Review Simplified (Topic Intro)
1:01 Brian's Current Agenda
2:20 Why a Sprint Review
5:15 Facilitating the Event
7:25 Arguing Facilitation
11:34 1. Intros
15:20 2. Sprint Goal
24:08 Tangent: Recording
27:09 3. Outcomes
37:14 4. Credits
38:40 5 & 6. Demo & Feedback
50:49 7 & 8. Release Progress & Close
57:04 Revised Agenda Review
59:15 Wrap-Up

Our Sprint Review Agenda (from this Episode):
----------------------

Introductions (if necessary, 5 mins max)
1. Names
2. Roles
3. Location (if distributed)
Sprint Goal
1. What was it?
2. Success/Partial Success/Failure?
3. Accept failure as a team
4. Changes made to the sprint goal during the sprint
Demo & Feedback (repeat, for each item)
1. Walkthrough of the Work Done (& Discoveries made)
2. Actual Demo
3. Collect feedback
4. Record feedback
5. Thanks
Close
1. Sprint Goal for the next Sprint (if known)
2. Date for the next Review
3. Give Shout-outs to individuals
4. External teams/individuals that helped
5. Thank everyone for coming

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AA65 - A Better Sprint Review Agenda

AA64 - Bad Agile Experiences, with Curtis Lembke

Fri, 03 Jun 2022 07:00:00 -0400

What creates bad experiences with agile; what do they look like, and how to we deal with them? On this episode of Arguing Agile, Curtis Lembke is back, joining Brian Orlando and Om Patel to talk through Bad Agile Experiences and why some people just totally against agile.

0:00 User-First Mindset
4:44 Introductory Banter
5:14 Topic Intro - Bad Agile Experiences
9:09 Why People Resist
12:25 Laggards & the Late Majority
15:52 What about Steve Jobs?
18:43 Product Cannibalization
23:58 Create Your Competition
26:44 Input, Output, & the Environment
30:27 Musings on Auto Production
32:45 Self Management
36:36 Bad Actors
44:20 Mindset
49:21 Scrum Master Titles
54:04 Leads and Scaling
1:02:39 Who is the Expert?
1:06:51 Biases & Starting from a Negative
1:13:14 Guard Rails
1:17:58 The Case for Waterfall
1:24:46 Agility, How We Learn
1:29:50 Budgetary Risk Avoidance
1:35:22 Wrap-Up

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AA64 - Bad Agile Experiences, with Curtis Lembke

AP63 - Better Scrum

Fri, 27 May 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Do you feel Scrum is not helping you to more effectively create software or solve problems? Do you feel Scrum is just another form of managerial control? Do you feel Scrum is not helping your organization be or remain agile?

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss experiences and share tips to make scrum more effective - thereby producing more value.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:21 Seek First to Learn and Evolve
2:51 Work on Team Accountability
7:56 Get Help (Don't Hide Failures)
11:10 Last Thoughts on Retros (Mostly)
13:32 Future Podcast Ideas
14:33 Don't Shortcut Scrum Event Times
19:17 More on Shortcutting Sprint Planning
22:22 Sprint Planning, Arguing Points
25:48 Continuous Team Building
29:47 Build and Use Finite Goodwill
33:07 Use the Vision(s) to Set Better Goals
37:11 Tips on Changing the Goal/Focus
40:59 Stop Starting, Start Finishing
46:19 Either Clear Blockers or Put Them Aside
52:40 Agree on "Done"
55:50 Wrap-Up

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AP63 - Get More Value from Your Scrum

AA62 - Failing to Accomplish the Sprint Goal

Fri, 20 May 2022 09:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel talk about what occurs when a team fails to meet the agreed on Sprint Goal.

What do you do when a team does not meet the Sprint goal? How do you decide if a Sprint has failed or not? Does your culture promote learning from failures, or is failure a four letter word? We talk through all these things, and more!

0:00 Intro
1:09 Sprint Goals
4:18 Quality of the Sprint Goal
11:22 Tracking Successes and Failures
15:44 Trending Failure
18:21 Partial Success
21:16 Wrong Software or No Software?
22:12 Holding the Team Accountable
24:24 Blame Game Culture
26:20 Effective Planning (During Planning Time)
30:08 Being Available During "The How" Planning
32:45 Taking Accountability, An Example
37:09 Stretch Goals
41:21 Part Time Scrum Master
43:07 Shared Learnings (Both Failures & Successes)
47:21 Future Podcast - Group/Program Retro
49:23 Failure Culture
52:38 Finding Failure
55:42 Wrap-Up

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AA62 - Failing to Accomplish the Sprint Goal

AA61 - Experiences in Corporate Buyouts (Mergers & Acquisitions)

Fri, 13 May 2022 07:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel talk through their experiences in corporate buyouts (aka. a merger or acquisition). Why do they typically happen? How do you know they're about to happen? What to expect when they do happen?

...and, most importantly, what we've seen in our combined 8 experiences going through M&As on both the acquiring side and the acquiree side. Also, acquiree isn't a real word, but then, aren't all words made up?

0:00 Intro
0:36 Topic Intro - M&A
1:46 Three Reasons Acquisitions Happen
5:55 Warning Signs of an Acquisition
12:07 More Warnings: Resignations & Stock Manipulation
15:26 What to Expect, Here We Go
16:00 Media Blitz
19:06 Don't Panic & Stick Around
21:41 Or Don't Stick Around
23:40 Nothing is Going to Change
29:56 Feeling Left Out, Lost, or Listless
35:47 Controls & Cost-Cutting
47:51 Loss of Perks or Benefits
52:41 Being the Acquirer
55:48 Byzantine Financial Controls
1:04:40 Pay Attention to Debt
1:07:12 Your Culture will Change
1:12:05 Sticking Around
1:15:37 Wrap-Up

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AA61 - Experiences in Corporate Buyouts (Mergers & Acquisitions)

AA60 - Leading Change with Curtis Lembke

Fri, 06 May 2022 07:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Curtis Lembke returns to talk about change! We all know change is hard - successful change cannot be managed, it requires capable and driven leaders. Curtis and Brian talk through (most of) John Kotter's eight-step change process, outlined in his 1995 book, "Leading Change."

Find Curtis on LinkedIn!

0:00 Intro & Banter
0:24 John Kotter: Leading Change
1:55 1.) Establish a Sense of Urgency
8:44 Business Value
20:12 Speed to Market vs. Quality Solution
27:17 Sabotaging Urgency
31:40 2.) Create a Guiding Coalition
35:55 Blockers: When Executives Clash
40:24 Failing to Establish a Coalition
42:58 3.) Develop a Vision and a Strategy
47:27 Crafting Vision: Leadership vs. Management
1:00:02 4.) Communicating the Change Vision
1:05:32 Sabotaging Vision Communication
1:12:32 5.) Empower Employees
1:19:16 Fear is a Blocker
1:23:54 Wrap-Up

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AA60 - Leading Change with Curtis Lembke

AP59 - New Teams with Agile Coach Caurie Waddell

Fri, 29 Apr 2022 07:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Agile Coach Caurie Waddell stops by to discuss her experiences working with new teams.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:38 Newly Formed Teams
4:23 Changing Behavior
7:39 Fix the Problems
12:16 Planning Improvement
14:57 Just Tell Me What to Do
17:09 The WoLF (Working on Latest Fire)
20:07 New Team (with Agile Experience)
22:46 The Hard Work is Outside the Team(s)
24:43 Middle Managers
27:36 Discovery & Product
29:39 Resistance - A Podcast Series?
34:38 Agility & the Customer
37:06 A New Team (To You)
41:26 New Team to You (with Agile)
42:59 Leaving Things "on the Table"
48:08 Why New Teams are Added
50:42 Uh, oh (SAFe!)
57:31 Reinventing the (Deming) Wheel
1:04:22 Team of Teams Example
1:09:39 Caurie's Final Thoughts

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AP59 - New Teams with Agile Coach Caurie Waddell

AP57 - Can We Fix Certifications? with Brent Breaux

Fri, 22 Apr 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Episode 57 is very special for us because we got to sit down with one of our favorite agilists - an individual who has quite literally been on our guest list since episode ONE - Brent Breaux! In this episode, we discuss the Certification Industry and the different ways that it fails the typical team member. We also muse on what a "better" or more helpful training regimen might look like or include.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:57 The Market, As-Is
4:47 Certification Treadmill
7:17 Certification via Mentorship
11:29 Innovation in the Certification Industry
15:26 SAFe
17:38 Fundamentals
20:58 Management & Organizational Agility (or lack thereof)
25:15 Incremental Value - an Untapped Market
27:32 Five Whys to Management
30:22 Business Technologists
32:49 Can Large Enterprises Really "be Agile"
35:38 Short Term Management
41:19 Value of Agile Skillsets in "the Business"
43:55 Back to Agile Values & Principles
47:18 Benefits or Improvements to Certs
50:22 No Thanks, We're Too Busy!
55:19 The Path to Product Management (a Future Podcast)
57:21 Wrap-Up

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AP57 - Can We Fix Certifications? with Brent Breaux

AP58 - Article Review: "Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt on why in-office work is better"

Fri, 15 Apr 2022 07:00:00 -0400

In this episode, Brian and Om read through an article making its rounds on LinkedIn right now titled: "Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt on why in-office work is better: 'I don't know how you build great management' virtually." Listen as we discuss the points of the article, react to its contents, and argue about what it all means (or doesn't mean).

Will Om be able to talk Brian off the ledge? Find out - only on the Agile Podcast!!!

The article:
https://www-cnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/04/05/ex-google-ceo-eric-schmidt-on-why-people-should-return-to-the-office.html

0:00 Topic Intro
0:43 Article First Impressions
3:20 We Have Tools & Methods
6:50 PrOvEn EfFeCtIvEnEsS (of Being In-Office)
10:48 Face-to-Face, but with a Purpose
15:03 Telecommunication vs. Telepresence
17:52 Disdain for Young(er) Professionals
21:16 Working from the Sofa
24:42 Fear of the Future
29:18 Leading the Way in Software (or not)
33:55 Bad Reasons for Returning
35:42 Article Summary
37:46 Free Feature Idea (for Google Board Members to Consider)
39:25 Wrap-Up

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AP58 - Article Review: "Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt on why in-office work is better"

AP56 - Business Value (Who, What, When, Why, & How)

Fri, 08 Apr 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Are you a Product Manager or Owner who needs a metric separate from Velocity that better represents value delivered to the customer? Well then, this episode is for you! In this episode, we discuss Business Value - what is it, how to use it, why to use it, when to use it, and who assigns it.

0:00 Topic Intro - Business Value
1:22 A Different Kind of Metric
4:28 Business Value = 0
10:15 Jira-Related Example
11:41 Who Assigns Business Value?
14:47 Communicating Why
17:18 Involving Others in Business Value
20:35 Pricing, Risk, and Collaboration
24:47 When to Assign
27:58 Negative Value
29:54 Which Scale to Use
32:59 Assigning via Community
38:05 How to Start
42:02 Better Conversations with "the Business"
47:35 Conclusion
50:01 Wrap-Up

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AP56 - Business Value

AP55 - Can a Scrum Master Skip Meetings?!?

Fri, 01 Apr 2022 07:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel are joined by our favorite Special Mystery Guest to ponder an important question that does not get asked enough - does a Scrum Master really need to attend every single Scrum event (and every non-scrum event) that involves their team?

0:00 Intro & Topic Intro
0:32 What Else Are You Doing?
3:58 Scrum Events without the Scrum Master
6:12 Scrum Master and Refinements
11:07 Three Teams is Two Too Many
13:33 Can You Skip Sprint Review?
16:35 Fact Checking Time
18:08 Essential Scrum Master Event
19:59 Tangent on Taking Advantage of Commitments
26:06 Scaling without Scaling
30:21 Not Doing Three Question Stand-Ups
35:38 PO Protecting Psychological Safety
36:20 Brian as a Scrum Master
38:06 Different Ways into Product Manager/Owner
43:10 Communicating and Importance of the SM
46:44 Hold Leadership Accountable with Kanban
49:25 Positive Influence through Visualization
53:57 Wrap-Up
54:15 Blooper Reel

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AP55 - Can a Scrum Master Skip Meetings?!?

AP54 - Anitra Pavka: Sr. Product Owner

Fri, 25 Mar 2022 07:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel talk with Sr. Product Owner Anitra Pavka about her experiences across the software development and agility field - from Web Developer, to Business Analyst, to Scrum Master and Agile Coach, to Product Owner/Manager and beyond.

...and BEYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOND!

0:00 Intro
0:22 Anitra's Background
3:57 Exploring Cultures
6:48 Agility Enters the Picture
11:58 Learning by Trying
13:09 Creating Great Teams
16:17 Resistance, Perfection, and Bad Actors
19:56 Agile Aggravations
23:09 Job Descriptions in Agile (they're getting worse)
26:25 Improving Agile
29:02 Adding Perspectives to Agile
33:46 Intentional Exclusion
36:23 Changing Agile: Systems Thinking & Agility at the Top
42:06 Being an Organizational Change Agent
44:58 Advice
49:25 Influences and Influencers
54:55 Forming Trust and Teams
58:45 Coaching Up (Coaching the Organization)
1:03:33 What's Next for Anitra
1:04:13 Wrap-Up

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AP54 - Anitra Pavka: Sr. Product Owner

AP53 - Service Manager: Brian Fidalgo

Fri, 18 Mar 2022 07:00:00 -0400

What is a Service Manager? What do they do? On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel are joined by Brian Fidalgo to talk about what it is like to be a Service Manager.

0:00 Intro
0:18 What is a Service Manager?
2:49 Is it a Large Company Thing?
6:37 Is It Like Scaled Product?
12:53 Organizational Alignment
16:10 Day in the Life
19:24 Quality and Control/Influence
23:24 Similarities in Dance & Music
29:20 Acronyms (SLA and OLA)
33:40 Elements of Process and Product
39:00 Like a Program-Level Scrum Master?
45:10 Brian Hones In!
48:38 Background of a Service Manager
51:34 Working with Vendors
54:47 Desire to Learn and Help
59:41 Love of Your Job
1:04:19 Challenges of the Job
1:08:03 Building Relationships
1:10:31 Career Progression of a Service Manager
1:15:49 Focusing on Outcomes
1:22:49 Advice for Future Service Managers
1:23:55 Wrap-Up

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AP53 - Service Manager: Brian Fidalgo

AP52 - Taylorism: The Principles of Scientific Management

Fri, 11 Mar 2022 07:00:00 -0500

This episode of the Agile Podcast is all about Frederick Winslow Taylor and his invention: Scientific Management. The father of Management Consulting, Taylor wrote a book called the Principles of Scientific Management which became (in our opinion) the cornerstone of management theory for the majority of the post-Industrial era into the current day.

Join Brian Orlando and Om Patel, with special guest Alfonso Guerra, as we delve into the world of Taylorism!

0:00 Intro & Taylor's History
4:32 First, Some Context
7:16 Opening Thesis
10:00 Scientific Management, Process Overview
11:22 Taylor's Biggest Problem: Soldiering
17:27 Management in Scientific Management
20:03 Relevance to Software Development
23:26 Back to the Point
28:19 Midvale Steel and Background Affinity
33:29 Three Years Later... (Parallels in Change Management)
35:51 Jumping Ahead (Future Podcasts)
38:02 Results of Three Years of Experiments
41:38 Who Plans the Work
44:59 Collaboration is an Assumed Proficiency
51:25 Poaching Workers
54:01 The Price of Waste
57:06 Finding New Methods of Working
1:03:50 Skipping the Ball Bearing Example
1:05:16 Problems with Profit Sharing
1:08:26 Assumptions on Human Nature
1:12:40 Supporting Silos
1:17:53 Learning New Skills (Side-Track)
1:23:23 Management Roles in Scientific Management
1:25:44 Modern HR
1:29:49 The Villain, Henry Gantt
1:34:03 Jumping Ahead in Podcasts
1:35:12 The Disciplinarian, HR and Finance
1:40:01 The Need for the Disciplinarian
1:43:19 Not-Agile Transformation
1:46:45 Taylor's Warnings on Misapplications
1:49:23 Good and Bad Workplaces
1:51:08 The Taylor Manifesto
1:54:03 Quality, Effectiveness, and Taylorism
1:55:55 Scientific Management and Knowledge Work
1:59:04 Looking at Taylorism with a Modern Lens
2:03:24 Brian's Thoughts...
2:05:02 Om's Thoughts...
2:07:32 Alfonso's Thoughts...
2:10:42 Overall Summary
2:15:01 Bad Education, Bad Management, and Bad Metrics
2:19:53 Wrap-Up
2:22:00 Thanks for Listening!

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AP52 - Taylorism: The Principles of Scientific Management

AP51 - Challenges of Product Management (with Tricia Barnes)

Fri, 04 Mar 2022 07:00:00 -0500

On this Episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel are joined by VP of Product Tricia Barnes for a brief discussion about challenges frequently encountered by Product Managers.

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AP51 - Challenges of Product Management

AP50 - Estimation (Hours vs. Story Points vs. Flow)

Fri, 25 Feb 2022 07:00:00 -0500

In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss the dreaded topic of estimation in agile software development. We discuss the pros and cons of each type of estimation, starting with time/hours-based estimates, then moving to story points and finally flow (or #noestimates).

0:00 Intro
0:18 Topic Intro
1:28 Why Estimate?
3:15 Real Deadlines... Sometimes...
5:13 Why Estimate? A Product Viewpoint
7:49 Estimation or Guess
10:59 Guesses, Demands, & Tricks
13:36 "Pick a Date" Behavior
15:44 Methods of Estimation: Hours (or Time)
22:44 If You Have to Estimate in Hours...
24:24 Other Games with Time Estimates
27:59 The Evils of Individual Time Metrics
32:26 Relative Estimation: Story Points
36:23 Forgetting About Risk & Complexity
41:19 Doing Story Points Right
42:58 Flow-Based Estimation (aka. #NoEstimates)
46:39 Breaking Stories - the Secret to Success in Flow
50:23 Flow in Kanban
53:52 Delivery of Business Value
59:45 Future Business Value Podcast
1:02:40 Wrap-Up
1:02:53 Blooper Reel

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AP50 - Estimation (Hours vs. Story Points vs. Flow)

AP49 - Should a Scrum Master be Technical (and why its the wrong question)

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 07:00:00 -0500

In this very special episode of the Agile Podcast, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss a question that we have all heard many, many times: "Should a Scrum Master be Technical." We discuss this question in-depth, and why its the wrong question to ask. We also talk about the underlying "real" question fueling this inquiry and explore what it really might mean!

0:00 Topic Intro
0:54 SM Required Skills
2:50 Who is Asking?
5:07 Technology Background as a Hindrance
7:36 Technology Background as a Benefit
9:52 Technical Experience as Domain Expertise
11:23 Product Managers Replacing Too Many Positions
14:38 Understanding Risk
16:22 The Better Debate Question
19:46 Technical Agility
22:10 Podcast Idea: Technical Agility and DevOps
24:46 Abilities of an Enterprise Agile Coach
26:20 Quick Aside...
26:51 Business and Technical Agility?
30:49 Business Agility - Why?
34:18 Change Agents
35:15 Business Agility Skill on a Technical Team
37:56 Topic Wrap/Summary
39:23 Wrap-Up

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AP49 - Should a Scrum Master be Technical (and why its the wrong question)

AP48 - Anti-Patterns in Your Agility, Part 1

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 07:00:00 -0500

In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel sit down with our favorite mystery guest - Jessica! Doing the hard work for us (as normal), Jessica brings the patterns she has observed emerging as trends throughout her career that hold back or damage agility... and we do our best to discuss both sides of each!

0:00 Intro (but, a real intro)
0:25 Scrum Master Managers (but, evil ones)
7:25 Non-Evil Scrum Master Managers
11:39 Peer and Community Responsibilities
15:39 Quick Animal Anecdote
16:32 Standardization (not velocity)
24:29 One Big Advantage of Distributed Models
26:14 Other Indicators: Quality
27:32 Backlog Troubles
34:56 Backlog Troubles, Part 2 (Not Enough Stories)
39:38 Product Push-back on Sprint Reviews
42:52 Sprint Review Pushback - the Counterpoint
49:24 What's the Point? - Value in Sprint Reviews
54:58 Breaking Up the Sprint Review
1:00:06 Wrap-Up
1:00:38 This Tea!

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AP48 - Anti-Patterns in Your Agility, Part 1

AP47 - Acceptance Criteria in User Stories

Fri, 04 Feb 2022 07:00:00 -0500

In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss Acceptance Criteria! Focusing on the most granular part of a Story, we discuss what Acceptance Criteria is and what it is not. We also discuss how Acceptance Criteria can be used to empower or improve your Sprint Reviews and discussion with users or stakeholders.

0:00 Intro
0:01 Today's Topic: Acceptance Criteria
1:36 Backlog Items and Negotiating
4:02 Challenging AC / Definition of Done
6:26 Finding User Personas / Finding Value
8:17 Transparency Powering Dialogue
13:32 How the Scrum Master Might Help (or Not)
18:16 Acceptance Criteria (Main Points)
22:19 Scope Creep via Acceptance Criteria
26:16 AC and Integrating or Not
30:14 AC as Sprint Review Agenda
34:04 Culture and Facilitation Affect AC
42:26 Sprint Review Agenda
44:40 The "When Will it Be Done" Question
47:25 Different AC, Different Work Item (or Issue) Types
49:43 Tools and Epics: Jira / Azure DevOps
52:57 Multiple Teams, One Backlog
56:40 Team vs Product/Business Thinking
1:00:41 Product Team (Product Working Together)
1:03:52 Using Value Streams to Avoid Silos
1:06:32 Wrap-Up
1:06:52 Post

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AP47 - Acceptance Criteria

AP46 - Article Review: We Should Stop Trying to Make Scrum Fit for Every Situation

Fri, 28 Jan 2022 06:00:00 -0500

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel take a look at an interesting article titled: "We Should Stop Trying to Make Scrum Fit for Every Situation" by Willem-Jan Ageling.

Link to the Article:
https://medium.com/serious-scrum/we-should-stop-trying-to-make-scrum-fit-for-every-situation-f04d90cdd117

Source:
https://seriousscrum.com/

0:00 THEME MUSIC!
0:16 Topic Intro - SeriousScrum
1:05 Why We Chose This Article
1:49 #1 One Product
3:47 Examples to Test Rule #1
7:36 Break to Talk About Component Teams/Owners
12:21 Summary - One PO, One Product Backlog
13:16 No Product (...but they're delivering something)
15:50 #2 Verifying Value Regularly
17:10 Example - Building a House
21:06 #3 Knowledge is Emergent (Start Before You Know)
22:31 Example - MVP Space Shuttle
25:25 #4 One-Month Increment, Max
28:00 Increment Does Not Equal Production
33:52 #5 Product Teams
37:23 Future Episode - Collaboration
38:36 Organizations Pushing Back on Teams
40:42 #6 Stakeholders Should/Must be Involved
45:46 Article Conclusion
47:08 Our Summary
49:59 Wrap-Up

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AP46 - Article Review: We Should Stop Trying to Make Scrum Fit for Every Situation

AP45 - Better Cross-Team Collaboration

Fri, 21 Jan 2022 06:00:00 -0500

In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss the glue that holds programs, scaled teams of teams, and even small groups of teams together - collaboration! Even small companies and teams have problems talking, working with, and coordinating with other teams. If you've had issues getting teams to work together, this episode is for you!

0:00 Topic Intro
1:31 Challenges to Teams of Integrated Teams
4:57 The Integration Problem Agenda
6:30 But We Know the Problems
11:21 Rotating People
14:30 Reading "Team of Teams"
19:41 Surprise, its a Scrum Master
22:22 An Example of Integrating Teams
26:50 Building Trust & Cohesion, an Example
32:13 Low Value Integration Attendees/Members
36:20 Effective Integration, by Scrum Event
45:33 Back on Topic
46:38 Scaled Sprint Planning
49:21 Scaled Planning
51:50 Scaled Daily Scrum
56:07 Scaled Sprint Reviews
57:59 Scaled Retrospectives
1:04:42 Summarizing...
1:08:10 Musings on Agile HR and Finance
1:10:45 Wrap-Up

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AP45 - Better Cross-Team Collaboration

AP44 - Product Managers and Their Teams

Fri, 14 Jan 2022 06:00:00 -0500

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel sit down to discuss Product Manager focused ways of doing business where the only constant on the Scrum Teams are the Product Manager and the Developers. We discuss shared services supporting this model of development and talk about examples where divorcing the discovery work from the team led to disaster!

0:00 Intro
0:05 Team Structures
3:13 The Plan for No Scrum Masters
7:01 Agile Coaching and Training Budgets
13:22 Cost of NOT Doing Something - A Future Podcast
15:17 Bothering Users
18:13 Shared Services Models
26:05 Alternatives to Shared Services
29:23 One Product Manager, One Team
33:06 Developers and Customers
35:50 Surprise, You're Waterfall Again
38:19 Diluting Product & Discovery Coaching
41:41 Product Managers and Technical Debt
45:04 Non-Software Product Managers, with Examples
50:33 HR Segue (A Future Podcast)
53:48 Expanding the Agile-in-Waterfall Bubble
56:29 Brian's Data Product Example
1:05:27 Kicking Out the Smartest People in the Room
1:08:42 Wrap-Up

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AP44 - Product Managers and Their Teams

AP43 - Similarities between Software Development and Animation with Alfonso Guerra

Fri, 07 Jan 2022 06:00:00 -0500

Brian Orlando sits down with Alfonso Guerra to discuss the similarities between software development and animation. While in-flight, we also discuss an array of developer-centric topics such as bad metrics, good and bad dev leads, making time to be creative, and how developers learn.

0:00 Alfonso's Introduction/Background
0:49 Brian's Background
2:36 Measuring Development
5:50 Programming Languages
7:00 College & Programming
8:33 Developers and Bias
11:04 Example of a Bad Metric
14:48 The Programming Dark Ages
18:54 Mantras to Write On Walls
21:14 The Illusion of Life (Animation)
24:23 Similarities with Animation
29:19 Everything Old is New Again
33:06 Tying Stories together through Books
36:54 Permission to Fail
41:18 Peer Programming
45:55 Good Dev Leads
48:35 Segue on Automation Best Practices
52:31 Basic (Deming) Quality & the Lean Startup
58:21 Efficiency Thinking Doesn't Win Academy Awards
1:01:27 Product Viability of Disneyland
1:05:46 Example of a Systemic View
1:07:00 Customer Experience vs Developer Experience
1:08:51 Learning from Experiences/Mistakes of Others
1:13:19 Pomodoro
1:15:10 Getting Out of Efficiency Conversations
1:16:46 Differing Corporate Values vs. Behaviors
1:21:00 Quality and Development Standards
1:24:23 Certifications, Money, and asking Why
1:28:25 User Behavior
1:29:44 Component vs. Feature Teams
1:33:20 A Perspective on BAs
1:37:28 Doing Work "No User Asked For"
1:41:53 Cost Cutting until Indentured Servitude
1:46:04 Function Points and Metrics
1:49:11 Stakeholder Interruption Cost
1:52:16 Being Scared of Code Reviews
1:56:13 Fixed vs Growth Mindset Example
1:58:01 Leadership Ability & Training
2:02:33 Shared Experiences, Shared Themes
2:07:13 Wrap-Up
2:07:44 Secrets of Podcast Editing

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AP43 - Similarities between Software Development and Animation with Alfonso Guerra

AP42 - Agile Podcast Year-End Retrospective

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 06:00:00 -0500

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss the product that is the Agile Podcast! We discuss what we've learned this year, what future ideas do we have up our sleeves for shows and guests, and what changes to the product are we thinking about...

0:00 Topic Intro
0:35 Clip-show VS Podcasting
3:30 Product Discussion: 5-Minute Monologue
5:15 Clips from the Agile Podcast
6:42 Takeaway - Splitting Channels
9:43 Clips and Production "Tricks"
13:06 Product Goal of the Podcast
15:26 Future Guest, Curtis Round 2
17:33 Future Guests, by Role
22:33 Future Topic: Non-Agile Companies
24:11 Future Topic: Spotify Model
29:49 Future Topic: Trainers without Experience
31:47 Future Topic: Spotify, Again
36:54 Other Future Topics
39:20 Tangent on Asking for a Pay Raise
40:27 Process of Doing the Podcast
43:04 Remote Guests
44:08 Future Topic: Product Blind-spots
45:33 Wrap-Up

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AP42 - Agile Podcast Year-End Retrospective

AP41 - Testing in Agile Software Development

Fri, 24 Dec 2021 06:00:00 -0500

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel talk about the discipline of testing in agile software development.

0:00 Topic Intro
1:08 Scrum Only Has Developers, Right?
2:56 Developers and Testers, Working Together
4:50 How the Best Teams Work
7:48 When to do Estimation?
10:00 Cross-Functional Transition
14:11 Componentized Feature Teams - a New Nightmare
19:23 Business Alignment of Testers
22:33 The Evil Agile Podcast
23:46 Difference Between Testers and Software Engineers
26:29 Teams, Training, and Testers
29:11 Hearing that Point Again
31:12 Tester Career Evolution
35:08 Brainstorming on Moving Testers under Product
37:50 Difference in Product vs Development
40:21 No ROI in Training Our People
44:10 Equality in Metrics
48:06 Automation in Testing
50:10 Failing at Automation
53:21 Automation: Lead by Example
55:42 Minimum Expectation of Quality
58:15 80/20 Rule and Quality
1:00:58 Podcasting - An Automation Example
1:02:30 Once You Automate... (BDD)
1:04:19 Skill-set of a Business Analyst
1:07:28 Building a Career on the Quality Mindset
1:12:13 Wrap-Up
1:12:40 Random SQL Story

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AP42 - Testing in Agile Software Development

AP40 - Interview with Agile Coach: Caurie Waddell

Fri, 17 Dec 2021 06:00:00 -0500

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel sit down with our favorite Agile Coach - Caurie Waddell. We talk through topics such as having a rockstar vs. collaborator team member, dealing with management, Scrum Masters having (or not having) technical skills, as well as negative and positive experiences in Product.

0:00 Intro
0:32 We Only Hire Rockstars
3:25 Example of a Dysfunctional Rockstar
7:19 Management Interference (and what it looks like)
11:11 Choose Your Agility Battles
16:50 Team on an Island
19:45 How NOT to "Go Agile"
22:20 SM without Technical Experience
26:00 Technical Skill to Avoid Blockers
29:37 POs without Domain Knowledge
32:21 Dividing the PO and PM Roles
36:46 Problem with Discovery
42:53 B2B vs. B2C, a Usabity Story
48:29 Not Realizing You Are a Change-Agent
51:47 Negative Experiences
57:04 Wrap-Up

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AP40 - Interview with Agile Coach: Caurie Waddell

AP39 - Being More Effective with Surprise Mystery Guest

Fri, 10 Dec 2021 06:00:00 -0500

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel sit down with our favorite Surprise Mystery Guest! Today, we are talking about Sprint Reviews in addition to a dizzying array of other topics including the victim mentality, biases, more effective push-back, a different take on diversity, and muse on why management is so often under-skilled.

0:00 Product Gets What Product Wants
2:31 Effect of Org Placement on Effectiveness
4:40 Pushing Back on Taking More Work
7:22 Setting Expectations (i.e. Saying No When You're New)
8:58 Being a Victim & Reclaiming Agency
12:02 Pushing Back
14:00 The Problem with Corporate Podcasting
14:47 Not Passing Along Your Pain & Defects
15:51 What is Coaching "Up"
17:45 Tips for the One-on-One
20:25 It's Not Stalking (But It Kinda Is)
21:59 Dirty BA Tricks (To Get People's Time)
24:23 The Power of Positive Intent
25:46 A (Totally Not Creepy) Story About Grabbing People's Time
27:10 Most Effective Language for the Culture
28:33 Consulting and Burnout
30:58 More on Positive Intent and Self-Reflection
32:51 Mentor/Mentee Relationships
36:20 Soft Skills are Hard. Hard Skills are Easy.
38:12 Masculine and Feminine Energy
40:08 Musings on Diversity
42:02 Incompetence at the Top
44:31 Thoughts on Management Training
46:24 Musings on Introversion vs. Extroversion
46:57 Sprint Review - No Business Stakeholders
48:55 Sprint Review - Customer Collaboration
50:31 Sprint Review - What to Actually Show
51:52 Sprint Review - Breaking Up the Review
54:03 Sprint Review - Product Owner Running the Demos
56:16 Sprint Review - Developer Attendance
58:53 Sprint Review - Are We Delivering the Right Product?
1:00:22 Wrap
1:00:45 Post-Wrap ASMR Gag-Reel

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AP39 - Being More Effective with Surprise Mystery Guesturprise Guest!

AP38 - Why I'm Done Being a Scrum Master

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 06:00:00 -0500

In this Episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel talk about why Brian is done with being a Scrum Master. We discuss the skills Scrum Masters need to gain and grow to be effective and how teams can use Scrum Masters effectively to help them succeed.

0:00 Done Being a Scrum Master
3:09 Middle Managers in Sprint Reviews
4:13 Get Ready to Deal with This...
8:42 Things Scrum Masters Do
10:31 Assumed Coaching Expertise
12:16 Coaches & Technical Skills
16:00 Let's Try It...
20:20 Continued, Scrum Master Activities
22:15 What Product is Desperate for Help With
27:33 What Protecting the Team Looks Like
29:17 Oh Yeah, and Scaling...
30:47 What's Going on Here?
32:18 Music Analogies
34:58 Scrum Masters to Transfer Skills
41:21 Replicate Success
43:26 Wrap-Up

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AP38 - Why I'm Done Being a Scrum Master

AP37 - Agile Horror Stories with Scrum Master Jamie Leatherman

Fri, 03 Dec 2021 06:00:00 -0500

On this episode, Brian Orlando sits down with Scrum Master Jamie Leatherman to talk about what we've learned from some of the more negative experiences in our careers so that you can hopefully avoid them and maybe even learn from our mistakes!

0:00 Intro
0:30 Victimhood, Authority, & the Scrum Master
3:06 Project Management in Disguise as other Roles
4:25 Story of Undermining Product Managers
5:59 A SAFe Implementation Love Story
9:28 Scaling Broken Promises
10:27 Histrionic (Brian Can't Pronounce It)
12:34 Busy Work
14:48 Women Who Aren't Taken Seriously
16:00 Just One of the Boyz...
17:58 Pseudo-Scrum / Pseudo-SAFe
21:18 What "Terrible" Looks Like
24:15 Driving Fear Out
25:48 The Hero Developer (or Lead)
28:56 More Examples of the Hero Developer (or Lead)
30:01 If You Could Change Something...
35:33 Doing Things Differently
37:26 Dealing with Pushy Stakeholders
38:43 Replacing Authenticity with Shapeshifters
42:00 wE'Re LiKe A fAmIlY...
44:09 Vetting Out Egomaniacs
46:19 Interview Red Flags
48:09 Disarming Ego
51:53 Wrap-Up

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AP37 - Agile Horror Stories with Scrum Master Jamie Leatherman

AP36 - What can Software Development Teams learn from Air Disasters?

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 11:00:00 -0500

What can agile software development teams learn from Air Disasters? On this special "what can we learn" episode, Brian Orlando looks at the history of the research done to increase the safety of modern commercial aviation through training air crews to better work together.

0:00 Intro
0:19 Poor Decisions
1:02 Effectiveness vs. Efficiency
1:49 Some Background
2:22 Concepts
3:13 Theories of Practice & of Situation
5:13 Role Restrictions & Over-Differentiation
6:42 Advocacy & Inquiry
7:53 Questions to Ask When Things Go Wrong
8:48 Learning New Theories
10:11 Working with Overly Restrictive Roles
11:10 Advocacy & Inquiry Exercise 1
13:06 Advocacy & Inquiry Example 2
13:59 Advocacy & Inquiry Example 3
15:01 Summary & A Caution Word
16:24 Wrap

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AP36 - What can Software Development Teams learn from Air Disasters?

Agile Podcast E35 - Splitting Teams

Fri, 26 Nov 2021 06:00:00 -0500

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss splitting teams in Agile Software Development. When should you split, how to split the team, when you may not want to split and times when you may want to un-split. Un-split isn't even a real word...

0:00 Intro
0:24 Should we Split?
2:54 Length of the Team Stand-Up
6:25 Ideal Team Sizing
9:01 Real Story of a Team Split
11:12 Team Split - the Undesirable Norm
13:14 Calling any Maintenance Developers!
13:42 Going Back to Forming
15:56 Balance of Changing Team Members
17:59 Realities of Productivity and Extra Team Members
19:25 Pragmatic Team Sizing and Splitting
24:25 Leadership and Vision
27:07 Team Split - How Do We Do It?
31:35 Brian's Clarifying Segue
33:00 More on How to Split
35:33 Consulting/Shared Team Members
37:24 How NOT to Split
38:56 Management-Directed Team Splits
41:51 A Radical Approach
45:03 Consolidating Two Teams into One
47:26 Tracking Unimportant Things
50:03 Looking Out for Only Yourself
52:17 More on Team Consolidation
55:10 Avoiding Consolidation for the Wrong Reasons
57:46 Daily Scrum and the Scrum Guide
59:15 Meeting Tool Wish-List
1:01:07 Wrap-Up
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Agile Podcast E35 - Splitting Teams

Agile Podcast E34 - Reaction to "Agile is Dead" by Dave Thomas

Tue, 23 Nov 2021 06:00:00 -0500

In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel review and react to the GOTO 2015 talk by Dave Thomas: Agile is Dead.

Agile is Dead - Pragmatic Dave Thomas - GOTO 2015
https://youtu.be/a-BOSpxYJ9M

0:00 Intro
0:36 Agile Is Dead - Opening
0:58 Agile is Dead - Rational Unified Process & History
2:54 Agile is Dead - Point 1: Agile is an Adjective
4:33 Discussing Point 1
5:17 Agile is Dead - Point 2: Nouns Sell
6:23 Discussing Point 2
7:51 Agile is Dead - Point 3: Fear Sells
8:31 Discussing Point 3
9:26 Driving Fear Out of the Organization
15:24 Agile is Dead - Point 4: Cool Sells
16:17 Discussing Point 4
18:56 Fear and Doubt
21:21 Agile is Dead - The Main Point
21:45 Discussing the Main Point
24:58 Side-Discussions on Consultancies
27:02 Agile is Dead - Selling Scaling
27:19 Discussing the Selling of Scaling
27:42 Agile is Dead - Agility: What and How
28:11 Discussing Agility: What and How
29:46 Applying Inspect and Adapt - How Children Learn
31:12 Agile is Dead - No Rules are Universal
31:45 Side-track Discussion on Good vs Bad Slideshows
32:22 Agile is Dead - All Rules are Contextual
32:56 Discussing Context and Uniqueness
34:14 Agile is Dead - Wrap
34:31 Discussing the Wrap-Up
36:05 Wrap-Up

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Agile Podcast E34 - Reaction to "Agile is Dead" by Dave Thomas

Agile Podcast E33 - QA Engineering with Michael Iglesias

Fri, 19 Nov 2021 06:00:00 -0500

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel sit down with Senior Test Engineer Michael Iglesias to discuss QA Engineering.

0:00 Intro
0:11 QA Engineering vs QA Testing
2:23 QA Engineering Value vs Development Management's Ego
4:48 The Value of QA Automation
7:13 How Creativity Happens?
9:23 Collaboration & Creativity
11:51 Pragmatic Planning Approaches
15:20 Spike Work
18:16 Spike Work - A Real Example
19:56 One Benefit of PO at the Daily Scrum
23:42 This Segue was Slick
24:58 Continuous Education & Improvement
26:40 Learning: On Your Own Time
29:59 Learning Organizations
32:49 When the PO doesn't value Technical Work
38:05 When New Learning Happens
39:29 Solving Business Problems or Building Features
42:16 Real Stories of Product Mismanagement
47:50 Why do Critical Conversations Get Shut Down?
49:55 More Productive Conversations
53:36 Speak to Stakeholders in Their Own Language
56:29 The 20/80 Rule (Not the Good Kind)
1:00:18 Simplifying Complexity and Learning
1:02:11 Pushing for More Learning in Your Culture
1:06:16 Using Utilization to Benefit Learning
1:11:49 Utilization, Learning, and Middle-Management
1:15:56 Wrap-Up

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Agile Podcast E33 - QA Engineering with Michael Iglesias

Agile Podcast E32 - Reaction to the MBA/CSPO Pathology

Mon, 01 Nov 2021 10:00:00 -0400

In this episode, Brian Orlando talks Product Management as he walks through and reacts to two articles from Marty Cagan - the CSPO Pathology and the MBA Pathology.

CSPO Pathology: https://svpg.com/the-cspo-pathology/

MBA Pathology: https://svpg.com/the-mba-pathology/

0:00 Topic Intro
0:20 First Product Manager
0:56 CSPO Pathology: Different Types of Software Teams
3:27 CSPO Pathology: PO vs PM
5:32 CSPO Pathology: Delivery is Just One Small Part
6:45 CSPO Pathology: Process over People
7:39 CSPO Pathology: Training and Time
9:46 CSPO Pathology: Innovation
11:26 CSPO Pathology: Main Ideas
15:20 Product Managers vs. Product Owners
17:05 MBA Pathology: Intro
18:06 MBA Pathology: Required Unlearning
20:35 MBA Pathology: Management vs. Leadership
21:44 MBA Pathology: Being "The Boss"
23:00 MBA Pathology: Playing Nice with Others
24:19 MBA Pathology: Command and Control
27:01 MBA Pathology: Summary
29:08 Wrap-Up

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Agile Podcast E32 - Reaction to the MBA/CSPO Pathology

Agile Podcast E30 - User Acceptance Testing in Agile

Fri, 29 Oct 2021 06:00:00 -0400

In this Agile Podcast, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss User Acceptance Testing. Is it necessary in Agile Software Development and if it is, what should it look like in Agile Software Development?

0:00 Topic Intro
0:28 Is it Needed?
5:52 Exploratory Testing for Confidence
7:53 Typical Testers "Owned" by Development
10:23 Who is Involved?
12:15 Responsibility/Accountability for the UAT
16:49 Roadmaps and UAT
19:50 Rolling UAT into DoD
21:21 Design Thinking UAT
23:12 Isn't This Roadmap Item Just a Gantt Chart?
24:21 Marrying the Incremental with the Whole
25:38 Personas to Accelerate UAT
27:57 Risk of User Personas - Silo'd Thinking
34:20 UAT Expectations & Metrics
37:07 Brainstorming for Metrics
39:14 Escaped Defects, Business Value, Missed Opportunity
41:45 Measuring Stupid Things
43:47 Better UAT Metrics
45:40 Arbitrary Metrics and Deadlines
47:09 UAT Triage
51:01 Product Manager/Owner Quagmire
53:08 Best UAT Story
55:18 Include the Right People
56:55 One Last Talk on Metrics
59:50 Wrap-Up

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Agile Podcast 30 - User Acceptance Testing in Agile

Agile Podcast E31 - Project & PMO Cultures

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 15:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss work cultures where Projects are prevalent, such as in the traditional PMO (Project Management Office). The discussion begins with a healthy round of what it takes to change cultures and progresses toward the intent and design of most project-based cultures.

0:00 Topic Intro
0:29 Project-Based Cultures
2:58 Change and Culture
4:12 Changing Organizational Culture
5:19 3 P's of Changing Culture
7:31 Only Management can Change the System
10:03 PMO Pros and Cons
10:56 Not Everyone is Comfortable Trailblazing
12:45 Executive Teams Should be a Cross-Functional Team...
14:28 But, Executive Teams are Usually just Silos for Budgeting
17:17 Developer Thinking vs. Tester or Product Thinking
19:37 Goals of the PMO
21:20 PMO Standardization
23:43 Sanitization vs Uniqueness
24:54 PMOs and Quality
26:56 PMO Culture - Pros & Cons
28:51 Change is Difficult
31:15 Real Example of Project over Product
33:12 Problems with Siloed Budgeting
36:11 Comment and Like, Pretty Please!
36:30 CTO who owns Product (isn't an Excuse)
38:25 Save Money by Confirming Assumptions
41:57 Offshoring for the Wrong Reason
45:05 PMOs and Generating New Ideas
48:25 Adapting versus Controlling
53:24 Successful Offshoring
55:17 Offshoring Product
58:08 Are Consultants Different?
59:42 A Unique PMO/Project Issue?
1:02:52 Middle Management Squashes the Best Ideas
1:05:28 Wrap-Up
1:06:18 Shout Outs (more wrapping up)

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Agile Podcast E31 - Project & PMO Cultures

Agile Podcast E29 - Review of "Agile" Job Descriptions

Fri, 22 Oct 2021 06:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel review real job descriptions in the agile Software Development space. We've chosen a selection of current job roles to review in order to identify red flags, raise questions to ask in an interview, or to point out what we think are good or bad jobs.

0:00 Topic Intro
1:04 How Companies Write Job Descriptions
2:09 Process for this Podcast
3:06 Scrum Master Advisor
7:04 Business Analyst & Release Train Engineer!
14:09 Senior Scrum Master
16:45 Requirements in Job Descriptions that are actually Wish Lists
17:38 Senior Scrum Master, Continued...
20:28 Senior Scrum Master & Project Manager
24:30 Lead Scrum Master
27:10 Agile Coach / Scrum Master
31:55 Technical Product Owner
37:37 Senior Development Product Owner
41:19 How some Job Descriptions are Written
43:24 Senior Development Product Owner, Continued...
46:44 Product Manager
49:34 Discussion of the Word Oversee in Job Descriptions
51:13 Product Manager, Continued...
55:43 Delivery Manager
58:04 Agile Coach
1:01:14 Senior Agile Coach
1:05:06 Enterprise Agile Coach
1:09:05 CTO
1:15:08 Wrap-Up & Audience Homework

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Agile Podcast E29 - Review of "Agile" Job Descriptions

Agile Podcast E28 - How to Spot a Good or Terrible Lead

Fri, 15 Oct 2021 01:00:00 -0400

Also available on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/52JsdZf0yec

Agile Podcast E28 - How to Spot a Good or Terrible Lead

Agile Podcast E27 - All About Agile Coaching, Part 2

Fri, 08 Oct 2021 01:00:00 -0400

Agile Podcast E27 - All About Agile Coaching, Part 2

Agile Podcast E26 - All About Agile Coaching, Part 1

Fri, 01 Oct 2021 07:00:00 -0400

In this episode of the Agile Podcast, Brian Orlando and Om Patel walk through the basics of Agile Coaching including the path to becoming an Agile Coach, the difference between Scrum Masters or Team Coaches and Enterprise Agile Coaches, and where Agile Coaches should be aligned within an organization.

0:00 Intro
0:14 Topic Intro
2:52 Paths to being an Agile Coach (or SM)
4:23 Scrum Masters from Outside the Industry
5:43 Preconceived Notion Background Theory
11:28 Preconceived Notion Theory Continued - QA
16:41 Experiment Log Template
20:04 Ideal Placement in the Organization
27:49 Coaching Circle Diagram
30:45 Agile Coaching at the Enterprise Level
35:51 First Exec Experience
39:51 Agile Coaching Competency Framework
43:47 Wrap-Up

Source Referenced in the Podcast:
https://dandypeople.com/blog/agile-coaching-in-a-nutshell/

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Agile Podcast E26 - All About Agile Coaching, Part 1

Agile Podcast E25 - Challenging the Status Quo

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 07:00:00 -0400

In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel are joined by a Special Mystery Guest to talk about Challenging the Status Quo. We discuss typical issues Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches experience in their role as Change-Agent including out-of-control Systems, working with Vendors, and the burden of redundant reports and meetings.

0:00 Intro
0:14 Contracting-to-Perm
3:10 Ignoring Expertise (that You've Paid For)
6:14 Contracting & Perm - More Differences
8:13 Continuing to Challenge the Status Quo
9:39 Time for Budgeting
11:44 Manually Created Scrum "Reports"
14:41 Bashing on Jira & ADO
16:52 More Challenging the Status Quo
19:29 Vendor Teams
22:47 Corporate vs Start-Up (Big vs Small)
26:15 Scrum Master at a Small Company
29:01 Difference Between Status and Status Reports
31:11 Carry-Over Work
34:39 When Teams Over-commit Consistently (another Podcast)
36:16 Segue on Market Position
38:06 Right and Wrong Ways to Challenge
40:48 High "C" DISC Personalities
45:56 Out of Control Systems
52:33 Aaaaand, a break for Taylorism
54:12 Back to Controlling Systems
55:22 Wrap-Up
56:25 After-Wrap (I might cut this, or not)

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Agile Podcast E25 - Challenging the Status Quo

Agile Podcast E24 - Career Profile: Om Patel (Enterprise Agile Coach)

Mon, 13 Sep 2021 08:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Brian Orlando interviews co-host Om Patel about his storied career, starting from his first job to his big break into business agility.

0:00 Intro
0:15 Tell Me About Yourself (Career Summary)
3:15 First Job
10:20 Entrance to Agility
17:41 Agile Principles
18:40 Enterprise Agile Coaching
24:10 Working at the Big-Four
31:23 Another Agile Transformation (Sweden/Australia)
33:52 Career Highlights/Landmarks
41:27 Customer Centricity
45:30 Things to Change
47:37 People that Stand-Out
57:33 Advice for Yourself
1:02:10 Validate Your Decisions
1:03:51 Conclusion

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Agile Podcast E24 - Career Profile: Om Patel (Enterprise Agile Coach)

Agile Podcast E23 - Director of Agile Product Owners: Mike Miller

Mon, 06 Sep 2021 21:00:00 -0400

On this episode of the Agile Podcast, Director of Agile Product Owners: Mike Miller graces us with his presence. Mike discusses the ins and outs of Roadmaps, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), building and/or transitioning to Agile cultures, and a host of other related Product Management topics.

0:00 Introduction
0:29 Roadmap from Scratch
3:30 MVP
7:06 Business Value
10:45 Production Metrics & Alignment
14:43 Back to MVP
16:55 Maturity by Doing It
18:42 Minimum Functional Product (aka. Walking Skeleton)
20:28 Role, Accountability, or Full-Time Job
23:51 The Science on Teams is In!
26:15 Cut-Throat Cultures
31:23 Build Trust with Active Listening
33:53 Borrowed vs Permanent Product Owners
35:31 Agile - "To Be" or "To Do"
37:41 Product Management - Show Me Proof
42:16 PO Training
45:01 Splitting PO & PM
48:31 Context Switching, Multiple Products with One Team
51:06 Break for the Agile Ambush
51:49 Podcast Purpose - Sharing
53:40 Good Feedback vs Listening/Watching Yourself
55:45 Start, then Experiment
1:01:20 Portfolio Management
1:05:08 Gap in Agile Knowledge
1:06:57 Cost and the Product Manager
1:12:22 Budget Shell Games
1:17:47 Taylorism Rears its Ugly Head Again
1:19:52 Wrap-Up

Agile Podcast E23 - Director of Agile Product Owners: Mike Miller
#agilepodcast #productmanagement #productowner

Agile Podcast E22 - Interview with a Scrum Trainer: Fred Mastropasqua

Tue, 31 Aug 2021 16:00:00 -0400

In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel sit down with Certified Scrum Trainer: Fred Mastropasqua.

0:00 Intro
0:17 Scrum Guide Change Process
3:32 Different Orgs Using the Scrum Guide
4:57 Infinite Customization of Scrum
7:29 Segue about Podcast Editing
10:56 Agile Podcast Market
13:24 Agile Purists
16:17 Agile Budgeting (It's Important)
18:51 Issues - When it's Project not Product
22:20 Being Face-to-Face
26:10 Org Changes to Implement Scrum
28:50 Underwater Leadership
31:47 People in Scrum Classes
34:01 Scrum Preconceived Notions
36:10 Meta: Agile Coach & Scrum Master Positions
38:17 The Process Coach
40:23 Meta: The Word "Coach"
42:07 What to do with Project Managers
46:00 Finding & Fitting into the Right Role
50:33 Difference between SM & PO
52:33 Natural Talents & Coaching
55:53 Non-Creatives in Creative Fields
58:57 Allowing Creative People to be Creative
1:02:54 No vs. Yes, And...
1:06:02 Wrap-up

Link to Captain David Marquet's Wiki (author of Turn the Ship Around):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Marquet

Military Leadership talk by Thomas E. Ricks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE

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Agile Podcast E22 - Interview with a Scrum Trainer: Fred Mastropasqua
#agilepodcast #scrumtrainer #scrumtraining #scrumworks

Agile Podcast E21 - Interview with a Scrum Master: Curtis Lembke

Mon, 23 Aug 2021 10:00:00 -0400

In this episode, Brian Orlando talks with Curtis Lembke. Curtis is a Scrum Master at a Big Four Financial Firm with experience ranging both small and large organizations across several different business domains. We discuss the nature of Business Analysts and their relationships with Product Owners, different metrics that leadership and managers may ask for (and what they should be asking for), and the nature of work as it relates to Agility.

0:00 Business People & Developers Working Together
1:58 BA as an extension of the PO
5:40 BA is not a Substitute PO
8:10 Product Owner vs Product Manager
9:41 Working Smarter
13:21 Backstory Time (Logistics/Trucking)
16:28 Side-track - Weigh Station Bypass
17:53 Customers Paying for Roadmap Items
20:53 Multiplying White Label Mobile Apps
24:11 Hard Deadlines and Agile
26:14 Product Value vs Product Features
29:41 First Product Owner at a Start-Up
33:26 Success and Problems Scale Equally
37:12 Pre-Roadmapping Story
39:38 Roadmapping - What actually happened
42:35 Form Teams to Follow Roadmaps
44:34 Example of an Overloaded CTO
47:11 Roadmapping In-Person
48:24 Throughput and Stakeholders
50:16 Measure Satisfaction over Velocity
51:27 More on Satisfaction (NPS)
53:52 Adoption Rate & Fake Doors
55:12 Lean Startup
57:47 When Execs ask about Throughput
1:00:01 Reasons to Show Throughput
1:02:18 Backlog Health
1:06:35 Customer Satisfaction Can't Be Gamed
1:07:31 Measure Both: Money & Adoption
1:10:09 Ego or Measuring the Wrong Things
1:12:27 Ego or Bad Learned Habits
1:14:36 Wrap-up

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Agile Podcast E21 - Interview with a Scrum Master: Curtis Lembke
#agilepodcast #scrummasterinterview #agilemetrics

Agile Podcast E20 - Twelve Principles of Agile

Tue, 17 Aug 2021 13:00:00 -0400

In this episode, Brian Orlando strips the normal conversations around Agility back to the basics by walking through each of the 12 Principles of the Agile Manifesto.

If you are in an organization and are finding dedication to agility (from team members or leadership) lacking, this podcast may be helpful to you! Use it to help create a more concrete list of items you can use to help start those critical conversations that need to take place in order for you to be a more effective change-agent.

0:00 Topic Intro
1:11 (1) Early and continuous delivery...
3:13 (2) Welcome changing requirements...
5:19 (3) Working software frequently...
7:07 (4) Business people and developers...
8:53 (5) Build projects around motivated individuals...
10:59 (6) Face-to-face conversation
15:18 (7) Working software... primary measure of progress
18:20 (8) Maintain a constant pace indefinitely
21:51 (9) Technical excellence and good design...
25:03 (10) Simplicity...
29:28 (11) Emerge from self-organizing teams
32:03 (12) Team reflects on how to become more effective...
33:43 Wrap-up

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Agile Podcast E20 - Twelve Principles of Agile
#agilepodcast #agileprinciples #businessagility #agileprojects

Agile Podcast E19 - Metrics for Agile and Transformations

Sun, 08 Aug 2021 20:00:00 -0400

In this episode of the Agile Podcast, Brian Orlando talks about the different types of metrics that software development organizations use.

0:00 Topic Intro
1:21 Flow Rate/Velocity/Forecast
3:16 Percent Committed vs. Delivered
5:28 Team Satisfaction
9:01 Customer Satisfaction
10:11 Prompting for NPS
14:08 Percent of Healthy Accounts
16:08 Transaction Length & Abandoned Transactions
21:43 Backlog Health
26:21 Roadmap Features vs. Technical Features
30:12 Bug Leakage & Triage
35:16 Training Metrics
38:53 Wrap-up

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Agile Podcast E19 - Metrics for Agile and Transformations
#agilepodcast #agilemetrics #agiletransformation

Agile Podcast E18 - Undermining Your Agility with Ego

Sun, 01 Aug 2021 18:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss one of the main threats to not only Agility and Agile Transformations, but general business ventures - ego. This episode was also an experiment in (bad) lighting and cityscape background; we plan to be back in our normal space next week.

0:00 Introductory Banter
0:33 Topic Intro
2:10 Why have Project Managers
5:10 Transformation Challenges
8:06 Sabotaging Agility
9:57 Challenging Gantt Charts
13:40 Utilization Disguised as Capacity Planning
15:41 Work Assignments Destined for Failure
17:46 Management via Threat
20:16 Working with Other Cultures
25:36 Awareness of Undermining
30:07 Satisfy Outcomes not Egos
36:03 Transformation Metrics
37:55 Side Discussion - Technical Deliverables
42:55 Reasons to Silo
46:52 Takeaways
50:38 Wrap-up

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Agile Podcast E18 - Undermining Your Agility with Ego
#agilepodcast #agileproblems #agilesabotage

Agile Podcast E17 - Scrum Master's Role in Releases (Planning & Deployment)

Thu, 29 Jul 2021 15:00:00 -0400

In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel explore the Scrum Master's role in Software Releases. This includes both Release Planning and the actual Software Release Deployments.

0:00 Topic Introduction
2:05 Facilitating Release Planning
5:47 Team's Role in Release Planning
9:50 Scrum Master in Deployments
12:58 Working from your Email
14:27 Tell the Story of Progress (or not)
17:24 Backup or Redundant Communicator
20:10 Large Team vs. Small Team Releases
21:33 Scrum Master Shielding the Team
23:05 Deployment Failures
27:50 Insulate Teams from Noise
30:20 Stop Doing Manual Release Notes
34:01 Topic Review / Summary
35:59 Non-Automated Deployments
36:46 Wrap-up

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Agile Podcast E16 - Communities of Practice

Thu, 29 Jul 2021 15:00:00 -0400

In this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss Communities of Practice and how they can benefit you and your organization.

0:00 Differences: COI/COP/PMO
3:34 The What (Definitions)
7:03 The Why (the Benefits)
10:03 How to Start
14:50 Challenging the Detractors
16:45 Community Outreach
18:51 COP vs. COI
23:01 Break for #noestimates
27:34 Work Item Sizing & Flow
32:45 COP Example Topic
39:09 Open Cultures
40:54 Trust & Critique
46:44 Starting a COP
52:07 Wrap-up

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Agile Podcast E15 - Customizing Your Way Out of Agile

Tue, 20 Jul 2021 20:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Brian talks with Om Patel about when companies customize their implementation of Agile. We discuss our observations and share our experiences with companies that began as Agile organizations and then sub-optimized their agility and also companies that were never Agile to begin with who have customized their implementations of waterfall in order to appear Agile.

0:00 Banter on Consultancies
0:57 Customizing Your Way Out of Agile
4:12 Length of Scrum Events
6:42 High Performing Spring Planning
8:48 Poor Sprint Planning
11:41 Confirmation Bias (Every Team is Different)
13:19 Fundamentals (by the book vs. figure it out)
15:05 Teams - Component vs. Feature
19:37 Clarity of Roadmap Progress
23:18 Rebranding Waterfall to Trick Execs
24:28 Siloed Development Management Mind-Set
28:10 Pressure's Effect on Quality & Culture
31:34 Outdated Management Theories
34:11 Taylorism: the Seeds of Command & Control
37:38 That Won't Work Here
41:11 Example of Customizing Out of Agile
43:30 Dashboards, Not Status Reporting
47:22 Roadmaps & Long-Term Planning
49:00 Budget Toward Outcomes
52:04 Wrap-Up

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Agile Podcast E15 - Customizing Your Way Out of Agile
#customizingagile #agilepodcast

Agile Podcast E14 - Solo Q&A on Product Management & Product Ownership

Sat, 10 Jul 2021 18:00:00 -0400

In this episode of the Agile Podcast, Brian Orlando answers some questions from comments and feedback (mainly) about Product Ownership.

0:00 Non-relevant Intro
0:28 CSM & CSPO in a Consultancy
1:55 Aligning on Problems, not Solutions
3:45 Connect with Company Direction
4:34 Prioritizing & Being Accountable for Prioritization
6:47 Building Consensus
7:58 Project Example where Consensus Building was Important
10:05 Back to Building Consensus - Leveraging Relationships
12:11 Avoid Becoming a Feature Factory
14:20 Encompassing both Business & Technical Needs
16:26 Should Scrum Teams Share Events (Ceremonies)
18:53 Shared Sprint Planning
21:55 Issues with Having Both Multiple Teams & Products
24:56 Team Size - Sub-optimizing the Team for the PO
27:44 Team Size - Final Thoughts

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Agile Podcast E13 - Leadership and Stories from the Military

Mon, 05 Jul 2021 22:00:00 -0400

On this episode, Brian Orlando talks with William Lee about their careers in the United States Air Force. Also discussed are the topics of the old GI Bill versus the new, Post-9/11 GI Bill, separating from the military, and some random stories from our military service. We try to tie the topic back to Agile via a roundabout discussion of Leadership as we see it in the Military and in Corporate America. Quick, ask me how well I think we did on that...

0:00 GI Bill
4:33 Being Away
9:24 Separating (Getting Out)
13:55 Air Force Promotions (pt1)
15:28 Unintentional Side-track
16:53 Everyone's a Kid when F-18's Take Off
19:28 Shift-work & the A-Players
24:09 Landing without Lights at Night
25:45 Air Force Promotions (pt2)
27:28 Saudi Tourism
29:57 Mostly about Australians
39:06 Missing Shipments
40:52 Leadership
42:05 Leadership (Open Door Policy)
44:31 Leadership (Corporate America)
47:34 Systems Taking Control
51:14 Lead Start-up
57:41 Training
1:04:23 Onboarding
1:08:14 Corporate HR
1:12:17 Quick Wrap-up

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Please Subscribe to our YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8XU...
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Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...

Google Podcasts:
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0...

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYO...

Amazon Music:
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/ee3...

Stitcher:
https://www.stitcher.com/show/agile-p...

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Agile Podcast E13 - Leadership and Stories from the Military
#airforce #military #agilepodcast #leadership

Agile Podcast E12 - Career Progression in Agile

Fri, 02 Jul 2021 12:00:00 -0400

n this episode, Brian Orlando and Om Patel talk about career progression. Starting from college and progressing to Enterprise Agile Coaching and everything in between, we review the tips, hurdles, and strategies to get you where you want to go.

0:00 College
4:59 Impact of Bad Instructors
7:15 Career Starting Paths
9:40 A Tangent about RPG/Mainframes
12:03 Weirdness
12:55 Career Path into Agility
16:40 What is an Agile Coach
20:16 Value over "Metrics"
22:44 Stability and Quality over Quantity
23:55 Confrontation & the Scrum Master
27:20 When to Coach
31:30 Agile Coaching Backgrounds
33:57 Learn by Shadowing
37:47 Building your Network
43:42 Technical vs. Non-Technical in Agile
48:32 Scrum Master Backgrounds
49:25 Where to Go In Your Career
53:20 Big Thinking
55:22 Team vs. Enterprise Coaching
59:12 You Can't Force Change
1:02:40 Wrap-up

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Also available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYDwhir6KE4

Please Subscribe to our YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8XU...
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Agile Podcast E12 - Career Progression in Agile
#agilecareers #agilepodcast #agilecareerdevelopment

Agile Podcast E11 - How You Know it's Time to Quit

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 20:00:00 -0400

Brian Orlando and Om Patel talk about the times when you know its over. This episode we're joined by two special guests!

0:00 When its Time (Om)
1:59 Outstaying Your Welcome
5:51 Car Talk
7:57 Intangible Company Value
9:59 More Car Talk
11:14 Little Things Add Up
12:13 A New Guest
12:44 Feeling Stagnant
14:52 Your Ego & Titles/Roles
16:46 The Case for Stagnancy
19:20 Inauthenticity at Work
22:27 When its Time (Tricia)
25:15 Abuse, Trauma, & Personality Deficits
28:15 Toxic People/Politics & Growth
31:40 No-Win Scenarios
33:54 Now Back to the Topic
35:10 Imposter Syndrome
37:55 Pitching Product Management to a Scrum Master
39:53 The Reason for Brian's Rant
40:33 Extraverted Thinking vs. Extraverted Feeling
42:03 Imposter Syndrome (Continued)
43:24 Scrum Master as a Low-Rent Program Manager
45:34 Wrap Up (& Topics We Didn't Get To)

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Also Available on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKC6O8Tqa4U
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Agile Podcast E10 - Big Organizations vs. Small Organizations

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 21:00:00 -0400

Brian Orlando and Om Patel talk about the differences between working within Big Organizations versus Small Organizations (for the most part).

0:00 Introductory Banter
2:01 Doing it All Yourself
4:55 Creating & Agreeing on a Roadmap
7:00 Clashes with Traditional Project Management
10:58 Leads in Large/Scaled Organizations
16:12 Having an Agile Coach at the Lead Level
18:34 When Brian was a Matrixed Resource Manager
22:09 Planning for a Team of Leads
28:13 Example of Non-DEV Work & Tracking it
34:06 Combined/Program Sprint Reviews
36:15 Large vs. Small, the Main Difference
39:00 Planning in LESS, Nexus, SAFe, and others
48:07 Delivering Program/Roadmap Deliverables
51:46 Executing successful UAT / BAT
58:30 Different Metrics
1:01:00 Wrapping up...

Also available on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irf-3GZy3lg

Agile Podcast E9 - Working within the PMO

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 15:00:00 -0400

Brian Orlando and Om Patel talk about working within the confines of the PMO! Whether it is the Project Management Office, the Product Management Office, or some combination thereof, in this episode, we cover it all.

0:00 What is a PMO (Project Management Office)
7:45 Traditional PMO, Day in the Life
13:12 An Agile PMO
18:38 Retrofitting a PMO to encompass Agility
25:13 Nobody wants to do Maintenance Forever
30:50 Agile PMO Operations
40:22 Changing the PMO
47:03 What is a PMO (Product Management Office)
54:47 When the What became the How
56:21 PMO Responsibilities & Career Paths
1:01:01 The Ideal PMO
1:07:43 Communicating Clearly & Getting Help
1:12:43 Bad Life Advice
1:14:01 Customer-centric Approaches
1:19:28 Sprint Demo Clarification
1:22:11 Wrap-up

Also available on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeAzzklnfZM

Agile Podcast E8 - Sprint Reviews and Sprint Planning (and Backlog Refinement)

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 15:00:00 -0400

Brian Orlando and Om Patel go back to basics in part two of our walkthrough of each of the Scrum Events! In this episode, we talk about the Sprint Review and Sprint Planning. We discuss our experiences and the different ways to approach and facilitate each event. We also briefly discuss Backlog Refinement which it totally not an "event."

0:00 Design Thinking & the Sprint Review
10:48 Musings on the Sprint Review Purpose
17:40 Summarizing the Sprint Review
27:27 Mainly Nonsensical Banter
28:21 Sprint Planning - the Methods
33:54 Sequencing/Prioritizing Work
39:39 Detour through Micromanagement City
46:56 Refinement Types
52:38 Ideal Refinements
56:00 Topic Wrap

Also available on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxeu3OzPdOE

Agile Podcast E7 - The Daily Scrum and the Sprint Retrospective

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 14:00:00 -0400

Brian Orlando and Om Patel go back to basics in part one of our walkthrough of each of the Scrum Events! In this episode, we talk about the Daily Scrum and the Sprint Retrospective. We discuss our experiences and the different ways to approach and facilitate each event.

0:00 Daily Scrum - 3 Questions
13:36 Daily Scrum - Walk the Board
19:37 Why Do the Daily Scrum at All?
28:47 Daily Scrum for a New Team
33:44 Retrospectives
42:45 On-Demand Retro May Have Helped
51:00 Faux Statuses
56:06 Stopping the Line
1:03:43 Retro Topic Wrap

Also available on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHxmvad9W50

Agile Podcast E6 - Agile Budgeting

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 14:00:00 -0400

Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss the riveting topic of Agile Budgeting! In this episode, we compare and contrast Agile budgets versus Traditional budgets. We also discuss the effects budgets have on timelines as well as walk through several examples that could affect budgets (some more than once).

0:00 Budgeting for New Projects
4:01 Old School Budgeting
12:40 The Value Stream Approach
17:10 The Start-Up Scenario
26:26 Timeline effect on Budgets
30:54 Team Stability effect on Budgets
35:42 Capitalizing Scrum Projects
44:46 Release Management & PO Time Balance
49:32 Summary & Wrap

Also available on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_4scdtlAgU

Agile Podcast E5 - All About Agile Teams

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 13:00:00 -0400

Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss topics related to Agile Teams. In this episode, we talk about team size and its effect on team effectiveness, as well as how to measure the business value of the teams' output.

0:00 Utilization Fallacies
8:25 Team Size (Sub-Optimizing)
16:31 Team Size (When to Divide)
21:55 Tracking Business Value
29:28 Effects of Changing Team Members
37:40 Dedicated vs. Distributed Scrum Master
42:25 Agile Testers

Also available on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1H74LuQZUk

Agile Podcast E4 - Psychological Safety

Thu, 20 May 2021 15:00:00 -0400

Brian Orlando and Om Patel talk at length about Psychological Safety. Later on, Brian and Om are joined by a Special Surprise Guest to talk about the challenges of joining a new team and about unlearning habits as a Scrum Master. Also, our apologies for the audio/video sync problems that plagued this episode. There were some gear issues that will be resolved after some changes.

Contents:
0:00 Psychological Safety
9:02 Jarring pivot to talk "about the podcast"
12:21 Psychological Safety, Part 2
15:55 Executives and Budgeting (and rambling)
25:01 Implementing/Destroying Psychological Safety
34:02 Another non-intro Intro and our Working Agreement
36:40 Joining an Existing Team
43:30 Challenging your Team
51:43 Unlearning Habits

Also available on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEtb70nGz9o&t=2179s

Agile Podcast E3 - Organizational Agility & Scrum Masters

Thu, 13 May 2021 22:00:00 -0400

Brian Orlando and Om Patel discuss Agility and some common challenges that organizations face before Brian takes off on a rant for the rest of the Episode about Scrum Masters; why we need them, and why people think they don't.

0:00 Agility & Toyota
12:23 Organizational Challenges
17:26 Can't Afford a Scrum Master
26:06 Let's Rotate our Scrum Master
36:59 More things a Scrum Master helps with...
44:45 Personal/Professional Disappointments
57:12 Final Thoughts on the Scrum Master

This American Life Article on NUMMI (2010)
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/403/nummi-2010

Also available on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3DI--lIO2s

Agile Podcast E2 - New POs, Not Getting Fired, and Meet them Where They Are

Sat, 03 Apr 2021 09:00:00 -0400

Brian sits down with Om for ROUND 2! In this Episode, we discuss some different methods to handling Sprint Planning, how not to get fired as a "effective" Scrum Master (hopefully), and "Meet them Where they Are" as a mantra.

0:00 Intro
2:26 Sprint Planning & a New PO
15:33 Division of Planning What & How
35:05 Leads outside of the Teams
47:54 Tips for Not Getting Fired
1:05:25 Agile Delivery Lead
1:16:48 Brian Hates on Spotify's App (not the model)
1:23:40 Meet Them Where They Are...
1:41:00 CI/CD & Managing Releases

Agile Podcast E1 - The First Episode

Sun, 28 Mar 2021 09:00:00 -0400

Brian Orlando and Om Patel sit down to talk about anything and everything; including Story Mapping, Story writing, roles in SAFe, and offshore Scrum Masters.

0:00 Product Owners and Scrum Masters
10:11 Story Mapping (Part 1)
25:38 As a System Stories
31:55 Story Mapping (Part 2)
39:18 Coaching Tools
42:22 Nerdy BA Stuff
46:00 LinkedIn Click-baiting
48:57 SAFe
58:18 Hiring the Right People
1:10:46 Offshore Scrum Masters
1:24:40 Wrap-Up and Future Guests