The odds are pretty good, that at some point, probably recently, you’ve thought to yourself “why is my organization so full of bullshit?”You have probably run into a few of the items that Jesper Boeg has recently been talking about on LinkedIn. Things like every team should standardize, or you’ve seen issues with the way your team is tracked, or everyone is so focused on processes over the people on the teams.This week, Jesper Boeg joins the show and dives into his recent series on LinkedIn about all the Agile Bullshit he’s seen over the years and what your team can do about it if you keep stepping in it.Topics:• 03:09 – The Origins of Agile Bullshit• 04:19 – Standardized Agile team mechanics are critical for organizational success• 10:47 – Managers should be trained to stay away and trust teams• 18:39 – Agile scaling frameworks are a good idea• 21:50 – Achieving sprint goals is a good indicator of an effective team• 33:17 – Once on the Agile track, teams will keep improving• 41:57 – The entire organization should be Agile • 49:37 – A fixed cadence of retrospectives is the best way for teams and organizations to improveHelpful Links:• Find Jesper on LinkedIn• agileupgrade.comAbout Jesper:Jesper is the author of three books, “Real Life Agile,” “Priming Kanban”, and “Level Up Agile With Toyota Kata“ as well as a well-known speaker at numerous national and international conferences. Jesper has helped more than 250 teams, across 50+ organizations and trained more than 3000 people in Agile, Kanban, Scrum, Toyota Kata, and Lean Product Development, since 2006. He is now the principal consultant at Agile Upgrade who provides training, consulting, mentoring, and coaching – helping organizations in their Lean/Agile transition.—–
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Being good at your craft doesn’t mean you’ll be good at other things. Just because you’re a great developer, designer, or product manager doesn’t mean you’ll be good at presenting complex and technical ideas to an audience.The fact is, public speaking is a skill just like any other. You only get better by doing it. This week, Neil Thompson, author, and host of Teach the Geek joins the show to offer some insights into how to be a better speaker. He also discusses some things to avoid so that you don’t end up a sweaty mess on stage.Neil also answers the age-old question: Does picturing the audience in their underwear really work?Topics:• 02:06 – About Neil• 05:24 – Being good at a technical skill doesn’t make you good at other things• 05:52 – What are the benefits of being a good public speaker?• 11:18 – How do we know if we’re bad speakers?• 12:43 – Talk to the executive’s assistant to know what their priority is• 14:33 – Get your audience comfortable• 15:49 – How do we create a psychologically safe environment when presenting?• 19:14 – Use stories and analogies to frame context• 20:56 – Advice for becoming a better speaker• 22:14 – Does visualizing the audience in their underwear actually work?• 22:51 – How do we practice speaking?• 25:44 – How do we stop using filler words?• 27:34 – Record yourself to practice• 36:54 – Stop doing these things when presentingHelpful Links:• Find Neil on LinkedIn• teachthegeek.com• Teach the Geek Podcast• Buy the Teach the Geek BookAbout NeilAfter one too many failed presentations, Neil Thompson, an engineer, knew he had to improve. He did so, and now he works with technical professionals like himself to improve their communication skills. He hosts a podcast, the Teach the Geek podcast, interviewing technical professionals about their public speaking journeys. He is also the author of the book, Teach the Geek to Speak: a No-fluff Public Speaking Guide for STEM Professionals—–
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Many times, the hardest part of our jobs is not finding the right solution. Too often, the hardest part of our job is selling the right solution to our stakeholders. In Tom Greever’s book, Articulating Design Decisions, he discusses how to do just that and provides some solid tactics on how to get stakeholders on board with your complex, technical decisions.This week, Derek and Jeremy talk with Tom and explore how these techniques can be used not only by designers but by people in other types of technical roles as well. Whether you’re an architect discussing the benefits of one vendor’s offering over another, a software engineer interested in changing front-end frameworks, or a product manager hoping to change the ingrained processes of a mature team, the tactics laid out in Articulating Design Decisions can be used to help you convince stakeholders to hop on board your gravy train to delivering great software.Listen through to the end to find out some top-secret details on how O’Reilly chooses their cover animals, whether or not being good at articulating decisions makes you a better lover, and if Tom prefers Star Trek over Star Wars. Topics:• 07:50 – Your ability to articulate your solutions might be more important than your ability to design a solution.• 10:20 – Other technical roles can use the same tactics laid out for designers.• 12:00 – The way we relate to people on our teams has a direct influence on how they react to our work.• 12:22 – We need to have empathy for our stakeholders.• 14:40 – Write user stories for stakeholders.• 16:45 – Don’t worry about consensus. Get support to move forward.• 18:30 – Have a clear understanding of who makes decisions on various parts of our work. • 19:18 – Look for a path to move forward.• 20:23 – Highlight the risks or consequences of doing something we don’t recommend. • 22:22 – Have some sort of goal and a way to measure it.• 25:01 – Have more shared experiences with stakeholders to build relationships.• 26:55 – The Office can teach us about building relationships.• 28:38 – Breaking the ice can break the tension.• 30:02 – TOP SECRET: How O’Reilly chooses animals for their books.• 32:01 – The meaning of the rose-ringed parakeet: Tom’s Version• 36:20 – Does being a better articulator of design decisions make you a better lover?• 37:10 – This or That with Tom• 42:10 – Where to buy the bookHelpful Links:• tomgreever.com• Purchase Articulating Design Decisions on Amazon• The Office – Chili’s Meeting• The wild parrots of New Orleans—–
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