Kickstarter launched for Lean Coffee card decks
UPDATE: They’re done! More info here. – – – – I’ve been talking up my Lean Coffee Conversation Starters since the early part of this year, mostly in face-to-face discussions. The decks I have been envisioning would each contain the best and most popular topics from my over three years of hosting local meetups, as well as a number of sessions up and down the West coast and throughout the Midwest. Once summer hit, I poured much of my time into producing these decks: cultivating the right questions, getting the design and layout right, and running tests with printers and…
30. Agile Community Events on the Beach
Theme: Agile Community Events Dr. Dave (@DrCorneliusInfo) joins Vic (@AgileCoffee) for a beautiful morning on Huntington Beach discussing all manner of Agile community events: Agile Opens (and other open space uses), coaching retreats and camps, lean coffees, hackathons. Dave talks about the 5Saturdays model, and we tell how to find, get involved and host these activities. This is one of my favorite episodes. In addition to the excellent scenery and the superb company, I very much enjoy talking about community events. Not only do I believe that community is important and fulfilling, but I have a penchant for organizing these…
29. Frederic Laloux and Dr. Clare Graves Walk into a Bar
Announcing the brand new Podcast Topic Index. Search and sort to find any topic discussed on our podcasts. Victor is once again joined by Dale Ellis (@theDigitalDale), Jason Kerney (@JasonKerney), Zach Bonaker (@ZachBonaker) and Garrett Borunda (LinkedIn) at the Cape Rey in Carlsbad for a lively morning of Agile and Coffee. In this episode, our Agile heroes discuss: Dale reports on the 2015 Scrum Gathering in Phoenix #SGPHX Is PO the only Agile product mgr model? With whom do Agile principles take root? Frederic Laloux’s Reinventing Organizations and Dr. Clare Graves’ Colour System Intentional practice (at Hunter Industries) kanban, personal kanban, Trello active listening Uncle Bob…
28. “Agile” Under the Microscope
Victor is joined by Dale Ellis (@theDigitalDale), Jason Kerney (@JasonKerney), Zach Bonaker (@ZachBonaker) and Garrett Borunda (LinkedIn) at the Cape Rey in Carlsbad for a lively morning of Agile and Coffee. In this episode, our Agile heroes discuss: Agile tools to give Voice to a Teams “Agile is a cancer” Erik Meijer’s presentation The Hacker Way – a Rational Alternative for Agile (explicit content) in which he claims that “Agile is a cancer that we have to eliminate from the industry” Agile Is Dead (Long Live Agility) by Dave Thomas (manifesto signatory) The Failure of Agile by Andy Hunt (manifesto signatory) Shu Ha Ri by Alistair…
26. Visiting the Agile Open Northwest
This episode is composed of two separate sessions. The first part was recorded on location at the 9th Annual Agile Open Northwest (Portland, OR) with Ben Sherwood, Michael Wolf, Alicia Lanier and Ian Savage. For the second part, I returned to the home studio and was joined by Dale Ellis, Jon Jorgensen, Brett Palmer and Larry Lawhead. Between the two sessions, we dove deep into the following topics: Facilitation Tools – Groupwork cards Adaptive Action and Agile – aka What? So what? Now what? One more huge shout of gratitude to Ian, Alicia, Michael and Ben, to Diana, Tündér, Ainsley and…
24. How to Budget for Agile Software Development
Vic is joined by Brett Palmer (@brett_palmer), Jon Jorgensen (@waterscrumban) and Larry Lawhead (@LarryLawhead) for a lively morning of Agile and coffee. Today our heroes discuss the following topics: Agile Budgeting – Larry lent his copy of Agile Estimating and Planning to his CEO. Will he get it back? The power of Standing for Agile – getting the team to arise Mike Lavery (@baconPhilosophy) asks about tips for moderating the initial Product Backlog meeting Framework Regression pain – when can a team create a circle of excellence? Initial product backlog mtgs are always the toughest with new teams. Are there best practices for moderating the meeting?#askAgileCoffee —…
Kafka, Agile Coach
At the latest lean coffee, we had two cards with a similar question: how do you neutralize the bad apples / stop the eye-rolling? Later that night I remembered something I thought might apply, so below I try to craft it into a parable. (This post offers a huge tip of the hat to Robert Anton Wilson whose first chapter of “Quantum Psychology” describes a similar “parable about [this] parable”. Chapter nine of “The Trial” by Franz Kafka includes this central tale which Wilson treats as zen koan.) There was once a young scrummaster who had achieved some early success.…
Roadmapping with Coffee and Hats
Does your IT organization make a practice of yearly roadmapping? Mine does. The current shop, the previous one, the one before that, and on and on. Just about every technology department I’ve been a part of does some form of yearly roadmapping exercise. The one characteristic that they all share? They’re drudgery. The process of creating a roadmap seems a staple of the yearly business cycle, but that doesn’t mean that it has to suck. I work with technology folks who, independent of the sales pipeline, are asked to list, size and prioritize some set of initiatives that are either wanted…