Software Process and Measurement Cast

SPaMCAST 547 returns to our standard staggered approach with a discussion of work entry. The majority of work entry issues are caused by eight problems. The eight problems often occur in clusters and are a reflection of organizational culture. Knowing that there are eight problems is useful so that you can do something about them! Also this week, Kim Pries, the software sensei is back and goes full curmudgeon. Kim states "After 40+ years of software work and lies, I get disgusted when I see yet another rehash of so-called tools that purport to do something valuable. The multi-colored risk analysis "tools" are essentially worthless. To date, I have never seen one of these catch or forestall idiocy on the part of a supplier or a customer. There's no fixing stupid!" Re-Read Saturday News This week we are re-reading Chapter 4 of Thinking, Fast and Slow, The Associative Machine. This chapter begins a deeper dive into the nuances of system 1 thinking. If you do not have a favorite, dog-eared copy of Thinking, Fast and Slow, please buy a copy. Using the links in this blog entry helps support the blog and its alter-ego, The Software Process and Measurement Cast. Buy a copy on Amazon, It's time to get reading! The installments: Week 1: Logistics and Introduction - http://bit.ly/2UL4D6h Week 2: The Characters Of The Story - http://bit.ly/2PwItyX Week 3: Attention and Effort - http://bit.ly/2H45x5A Week 4: The Lazy Controller - http://bit.ly/2LE3MQQ Week 5: The Associative Machine - http://bit.ly/2JQgp8I Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 548 will feature our interview with Heidi Helfand. Heidi and I discussed teams and her book Dynamic Reteaming: The Art and Wisdom of Changing Teams. It is time to challenge the conventional wisdom that in agile (or any walk of life) that you need to keep your teams "the same" in order to be successful.

SPaMCAST 546 features our interview with Michael Milutis. Michael and I talk about putting people back in charge of their careers. Michael provides advice that every listener can put to use immediately and in the long run. Michael's Bio: Michael Milutis is an INFP and IT generalist committed to human capital development and continuous learning within a shifting technology landscape. He works with technology organizations from around the world to develop innovative learning cultures and he coaches individuals and teams so that they can develop continuously, grow personally, and realize their highest potential. Since 1997, Michael has worked in marketing, new business development, and L&D for Computer Aid, Inc (CAI), an international IT services and support firm. He is also the creator and director of CAI's "Great IT Professional", an organization devoted to continuous learning and career development within the global IT community. Michael speaks around the world and his keynote presentations focus on digital transformation, adapting to change, continuous learning, workforce engagement, corporate mindfulness, and human self-actualization. You can connect with him on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/michaelmilutis Re-Read Saturday News This week we re-read Chapter 3 of Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. One of the core themes in this chapter is the concept of ego depletion. Ego depletion is a theory that self-control, as a form of system 2 thinking, draws from a finite pool of mental resources. When the pool is low, so is self-control. Whether the triggering mechanism is ego depletion or something else is not as important as the observable impact – when people are under mental stress they don't always make the most thoughtful decisions. If you do not have a favorite, dog-eared copy of Thinking, Fast and Slow, please buy a copy. Using the links in this blog entry helps support the blog and its alter-ego, The Software Process and Measurement Cast. Buy a copy on Amazon, It's time to get reading! The installments: Week 1: Logistics and Introduction - http://bit.ly/2UL4D6h Week 2: The Characters Of The Story - http://bit.ly/2PwItyX Week 3: Attention and Effort - http://bit.ly/2H45x5A Week 4: The Lazy Controller - http://bit.ly/2LE3MQQ Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 547 will return to our standard staggered approach with an essay on work entry. The majority of work entry problems are caused by eight problems. The eight problems often occur in clusters and are a reflection of organizational culture. Knowing that there are eight problems is useful when they can be recognized. We will also hear from Kim Pries, the Software Sensei!

SPaMCAST 545 we have an interview with Cheryl Hammond, Jenny Tarwater, Faye Thompson, and Linda Podder. We talk about Launching New Voices, Women in Agile, planned activities at Agile 2019 and more. There is a lot of good advice and ideas if you're new to speaking or if you are a seasoned speaker. There is a call to action at the end of the interview. 2019 Women in Agile Conference site https://www.agilealliance.org/events/women-in-agile-2019/ Cheryl Hammond Cheryl Hammond, a.k.a. @bsktcase, has a couple of decades' experience as a software leader in the private and public sectors. She ran her team's successful adoption of Scrum-ban for a mission-critical regulatory compliance project under multi-agency state and federal government oversight, mentored former COBOL devs into true-believing unit-testing XP evangelists, and turned a threatened software product at risk of litigation into a lean, revenue-generating flagship offering in nine months, all of which leads her to believe that anything is possible. She is not sorry for her many biases, including strong preferences for servant-style leadership and team-based, holistic problem-solving and a strong aversion to agile zealotry. Whether consulting or in-house, Cheryl endeavors to make life suck less for software delivery organizations and the humans who inhabit them. Faye Thompson With more than twenty years of project delivery experience, Faye Thompson is a consultant coach and scrum master. With a focus on an agile mindset and continuous improvement, Faye has had a positive impact in the financial services, healthcare, advertising, automotive and aviation industries. Passionate about using innovative solutions to drive business value, she supports workgroups as they transform themselves into highly engaged and energized teams. Faye enjoys serving on the board of directors for the Central Ohio Agile Association and as President of the Women in STEMM Alumni Society of The Ohio State University. She spends her free time volunteering as an emergency medical responder and public affairs coordinator for the American Red Cross. Jenny Tarwater Jenny Tarwater is an International Speaker, Agile Coach, and Trainer local to the Kansas City, Missouri area. Jenny has over 23 years of corporate experience bringing business teams, technical teams, and sponsors together to reliably deliver large-scale development projects with her disciplined approach of cultivating success and growth in people, process and products. Jenny has a passion for driving the adoption and understanding of Agile values, principles, and practices, and her endless motivation drives her involvement in cultivating the "small company startup culture" across organizations large and small. Jenny is a kinetic leader, partner, and consummate student who brings enthusiasm and awareness to projects and keeps teams focused and delivering success in rapidly evolving and dynamic environments. Linda Podder Linda Podder is a passionate learner and experienced Scrum Master at Hyland Software in Westlake, OH. She was instrumental in helping launch Hyland's first SAFe implementation and continues to work with additional SAFe programs as they launch. Linda loves encouraging her teams to explore, innovate, and celebrate their failures just as much as their successes. She is also passionate about empowering her teams to achieve technical excellence through Agile engineering practices. Outside of work, she loves to game with her family and take pictures of her fluffy black cats. Re-Read Saturday News Today we continue the re-read of Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. This week we re-read chapter 2. Chapter 2 tackles the relationship between effort, attention, and thinking slow. Thinking slow, system 2 thinking, requires effort. That effort must be marshaled and directed which requires attention. The more effort needed, the more attention needed. Attention is a finite resource, therefore, the more we spend on system 2 thinking, less attention available for everything else. A word of warning, don't do higher math while driving! If you do not have a favorite, dog-eared copy of Thinking, Fast and Slow, please buy a copy. Using the links in this blog entry helps support the blog and its alter-ego, The Software Process and Measurement Cast. Buy a copy on Amazon, It's time to get reading! The installments: Week 1: Logistics and Introduction - http://bit.ly/2UL4D6h Week 2: The Characters Of The Story - http://bit.ly/2PwItyX Week 3: Attention and Effort - http://bit.ly/2H45x5A Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 546 will feature our interview with Michael Milutis. Michael and I talked about putting people back in charge of their careers. Michael provides advice that every listener can put to use immediately and in the long run.

SPaMCAST 544 features our interview with Jeppe Hedaa. Mr. Hedaa and I discuss his new book, Nucleon: The Missing Formula That Measures Your IT Development Team's Performance. Our discussion centers on the book but also touches on meritocracy and why you want top performers on a team. This is a wide-ranging interview with thought-provoking ideas as we talk about Nucleon! Jeppe's bio: Jeppe Hedaa has been working with complex systems development for more than 30 years, serving the largest IT development departments. He is the CEO and owner of 7N, who is an agent for top 3% IT specialists. 7N has departments in the US, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Poland, India and Denmark. In September 2018 he published the book "Nucleon: The missing formula that measures your IT department's performance", where he describes how to calculate a hard number for an IT team's performance that could best be compared to that of horsepower in a car. In the book, he also measures the factors that hold back an organization's delivery and identifies the most impactful areas for improvement. Our review of Nucleon: http://bit.ly/2XQvB9T Nucleon: https://www.nucleonformula.com/ 7N: https://www.7n.com/ Buy a copy of the book: https://amzn.to/2DNJBJZ As a reminder - I am doing a workshop on value chains at QAI Quest 2019 (May 13 - 19 in Chicago). Do you need a discount? Register at www.qaiQuest2019 using the code Speaker10. Let me know and we will do a hangout with Jeremy and myself! Re-Read Saturday News Today we continue the re-read of Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. This week we tackle chapter 1. The core of chapter 1 is the definition of fast and slow thinking. This is also known as system 1 and 2 thinking. These are the characters in Kahneman's book. Software development is a constant stream of choices and decisions, so determining which decisions can safely be driven by judgment and which require conscious choice is an important part of any process improvement or transformation. If you do not have a favorite, dog-eared copy of Thinking, Fast and Slow, please buy a copy. Using the links in this blog entry helps support the blog and its alter-ego, The Software Process and Measurement Cast. Buy a copy on Amazon, It's time to get reading! This week's installment: Week 1: Logistics and Introduction - http://bit.ly/2UL4D6h Week 2: The Characters Of The Story - http://bit.ly/2PwItyX Next SPaMCAST We are going to veer off course a bit for SPaMCAST 545. By rights, 545 should be a magazine show with columns, discussion, and essays, however, on April 24th I had the great fortune to interview Cheryl Hammond, Jenny Tarwater, Faye Thompson, and Linda Podder. We discussed Launching New Voices, Women in Agile, planned activities at Agile 2019 and more. There is a time-sensitive call to action in the podcast next week.

SPaMCAST 543 features our essay on value chains. In this essay, we tackle the mixed up world of Value Chains, Values Streams and Process Maps. This isn't a vocabulary test but mixing the words up can cause a mess. Let's solve the problem. As a reminder - I am doing a workshop on value chains at QAI Quest 2019 (May 13 - 19 in Chicago). Do you need a discount? Register at www.qaiQuest2019 using the code Speaker10. Let me know and we will do a hangout with Jeremy and myself! In the SPAMCAST 543, Gene Hughson's returns with a new entry in his Form Follows Function column. Gene and I are beginning what turned out to be a three column set on solution architects. Today we begin by discussing just what the heck is a solution architect is and does! Re-Read Saturday News These days, every time I start a new book I am reminded that once upon a time I did not read the introduction or front matter in books. I suspect there are things I still don't know or only learned about from the school of wandering into doors at night because of my choice, When I originally read Thinking, Fast and Slow I was still in the habit of not reading introductions. The introduction discusses how the ideas that became the book were developed by Kahneman and his longtime co-contributor, Amos Tversky (Tversky died before they probably would have jointly won the Noble Prize). Kahneman describes the book as a "book about the biases of intuition." Topics in the introduction include life, death, bias, heuristics, and behavioral economics. If you do not have a favorite, dog-eared copy of Thinking, Fast and Slow please buy a copy. Using the links in this blog entry helps support the blog and its alter-ego, The Software Process and Measurement Cast. Buy a copy on Amazon, Its time to get reading! This week's installment: Week 1: Logistics and Introduction - http://bit.ly/2UL4D6h Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 544 will feature our interview with Jeppe Hedaa. We will discuss his new book, Nucleon: The Missing Formula That Measures Your IT Development Team's Performance. Jeppe provides evidence and a framework that suggests that there are predictable factors that drive performance in IT organizations. Tough and interesting ideas are on the menu when we talk about Nucleon!

SPaMCAST 542 features our interview with Kevin Rush. Mr. Rush has developed an innovative approach to facilitate sprint/iteration planning. Kittens, exploding kittens, and fat cats are used to help teams probe whether the team understands the story and if the story is broken down well enough for the team to reduce the risk of failure. All change agents talk about making changes at the team level but many fail to change how they work, Kevin suggests that experimenting with different approaches is eating our dog food. Way too many pet metaphors, but a great discussion. Kevin's Bio Kevin is a certified Scrum Master and Agility Enablement leader at Hyland Software. Before coming to Hyland he worked as an innovation consultant and coach with for-profit and nonprofit organizations throughout Northeast Ohio. A graduate from DeVry University he spent time as Technology Coordinator for several local school districts before transitioning to ministry then back to tech! When he's not working with teams and organizations he spends his time with his beautiful wife, Sondra, and their three beautiful daughters. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kezrush/ Email: kezrush@gmail.com Twitter: Kezrush Re-Read Saturday News I am declaring the poll for the next book in the Re-read Saturday over. The results are: Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman 64.29% The Power of Habit - Charles Duhig 21.43% The Stuff of Thought - Steven Pinker 14.28% High Output Management - Andrew S. Grove 0% I am very surprised at the results; I added Thinking, Fast and Slow to round out the poll. My copy of the book is 500 pages and 38 chapters long and has a copyright of 2013. Next week we will discuss our approach to the re-read and dispense with the front matter (15-page introduction). I reference the book all of the time. My memory is that the book is crammed with ideas, I will need your help calling out the parts of the book that resonates with you. If you do not have a favorite, dog-eared copy of Thinking, Fast and Slow please buy a copy. Using the links in this blog entry helps support the blog and its alter-ego, The Software Process and Measurement Cast. Buy a copy on Amazon, Its time to get reading! Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 543 will feature our essay on value chains. We will tackle, Value Chains, Streams and Maps - What a Mess! I am doing a workshop on value chains at QAI Quest 2019 (May 13 - 19 in Chicago). Do you need a discount? Register at www.qaiQuest2019 using the code Speaker10. Let me know and we will do a hangout with Jeremy and myself! SPAMCAST 543 will include Gene Hughson's Form Follows Function column. Gene and I begin a three column set on solution architects. We start by discussing just what the heck is a solution architect is and does!

In SPaMCAST 541 we discuss using guardrails in decision making. Guardrails are a tool to ensure alignment with the organization's goals and objectives and to keep people on the right path. Well-formed guardrails conform to five attributes that help teams and individuals make decisions. Our second segment features Jon M Quigley and his Alpha and Omega of Product Development column. Jon discusses reciprocal agreements and their impact of on teams and products. Re-Read Saturday News We continue our poll to decide on the next book in the Re-read Saturday Series. We will announce the next book on Saturday 13 April 2019. Make your opinion known! What are you reading during our interregnum? Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 542 will feature our interview with Kevin Rush. Mr. Rush has developed an innovative approach for facilitating sprint planning. Kittens, exploding kittens, and fat cats are used to help teams probe whether the team understands the story and if it is broken down well enough for the team. Kevin is a Scrum Master at Hyland Software.

SPaMCAST 540 features our interview Mark Kilby and Johanna Rothman. Johanna, Mark, and I discussed their new book, From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams, Collaborate to Deliver (Buy your copy here: https://amzn.to/2Omur23). Distributed agile teams are a fact of life; Johanna and Mark provide an extraordinary amount of wisdom for making distributed teams exceptional. Johanna's Bio Johanna Rothman, known as the "Pragmatic Manager," provides frank advice for your tough problems. She helps leaders and teams see problems, resolve risks, and manage their product development. Johanna was the Agile 2009 conference chair and was the co-chair of the first edition of the Agile Practice Guide. Johanna is the author of 14 books that range from hiring, to project management, program management, project portfolio management, and management. Her most recent books are From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams (with Mark Kilby) and Create Your Successful Agile Project: Collaborate, Measure, Estimate, Deliver. Read her blogs, email newsletter, and more information about her books at www.jrothman.com Mark Kilby Bio With over two decades of experience in agile principles and practices, Mark Kilby has cultivated more distributed and dispersed teams than collocated teams. He has consulted with organizations across many industries and coached teams, leaders, and organizations internally. Mark also co-founded a number of professional learning organizations such as Agile Orlando, Agile Florida, Virtual Team Talk, and the Agile Alliance Community Group Support Initiative among others. His easy-going style helps teams learn to collaborate and discover their path to success and sustainability. Mark shares his insights on distributed and agile teams in dozens of articles in multiple publications. Most of his latest ideas and developments can be found on www.markkilby.com Re-Read Saturday News We have been re-reading Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point over the past 10 weeks. When considering how I would wrap up the re-read I had to fight the urge to parrot back the findings Gladwell identified in the conclusion: a few people are critical and that people's biases matter. Real life intervened and I applied the ideas in the book! We need to choose the next book in the Re-read Saturday Series. Steven Adams has requested a referendum on the next book. Mr. Adams has always provided sage advice, therefore, a poll we will have! The poll will be open for two weeks. Vote for your two favorites. Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 541 will feature our essay on guardrails. We will discuss using guardrails in decision making. Guardrails are a tool to ensure alignment with the organization's goals and objectives and to keep people on the right path. Well-formed guardrails conform to five attributes that help teams and individuals make decisions. We will also have a visit from John M Quigley who brings his Alpha and Omega of Product Development column to the podcast.

SPaMCAST 539 features our essay titled, Assessment and Continuous Process Improvement. Assessments and continuous process improvement are intertwined. Assessments being both a source of ideas and a tool to validate change and other experiments. Other essays that have appeared on the SPaMCAST blog on agile assessments include: Assessment and Continuous Process Improvement - https://bit.ly/2UU8mdI Components Of A Solid Assessment Plan https://bit.ly/2YsHqnM Assessments: Being or DOing https://bit.ly/2HGOEiK An Assessment: A Mall Map For Change https://bit.ly/2TX8BbJ We will also have part 2 of Susan Parente's discussions on distributed agile. This week we will focus on tools. Susan reminds us that unless you spend time building trust and learning how to communicate, a tool won't solve a communication problem. Re-Read Saturday News This week we conclude the re-read portion our tour through Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point by tackling both the conclusion and the afterword. The Tipping Point is a theory that viral change—epidemics, in Gladwell's word—can be caused and shaped by few actions and people. The Law of the Few tells us that connectors, mavens and salespeople can affect whether or not a concept, idea or movement moves across the tipping point and becomes an epidemic. Check out the current entry of Re-Read Saturday at www.tcagley.wordpress.com I have had several excellent suggestions for what to read next, right now the leader in the clubhouse is The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Thoughts? Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 540 will be a TREAT. My interview with Mark Kilby and Johanna Rothman will be featured! We discussed their new book, From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams, Collaborate to Deliver (Buy your copy https://amzn.to/2Omur23). Distributed agile teams are a fact of life, Johanna and Mark provide an extraordinary amount of wisdom for making distributed teams exceptional.

SPaMCAST 538 features our interview with Ben Linders. Ben and I talk about his new agile assessment game. Ben's game and the book that supports the game provide teams and individuals with a tool for introspection and process improvement. This is not Ben's first visit to the podcast. Ben's last visit was in November 2017 (SPaMCAST 470) to discuss what drives quality in software development. Ben Linders is an Independent Consultant in Agile, Lean, Quality, and Continuous Improvement, based in The Netherlands. Author of Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives, Waardevolle Agile Retrospectives, What Drives Quality and Continuous Improvement. Ben is the creator of the Agile Self-assessment Game. The book supporting the Self-assessment Game can be found at https://www.benlinders.com/the-agile-self-assessment-game/ As an adviser, coach, and trainer he helps organizations with deploying effective software development and management practices. He focuses on continuous improvement, collaboration and communication, and professional development, to deliver business value to customers. Ben is an active member of networks on Agile, Lean, and Quality, and a well-known speaker and author. He shares his experiences in abilingual blog (Dutch and English), as an editor for Culture and Methods at InfoQ, and as an expert in communities like Computable,Quora, DZone, and TechTarget. Follow him on Twitter: @BenLinders. Re-Read Saturday NewsWe continue our re-read of The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Chapter 7 of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point (remember to stop borrowing your best friend's copy and buy a copy of the book for yourself!), is another case study. This time we explore the ideas of how tipping points happen by considering teen suicides and smoking. We have two more weeks in this re-read. I would like your suggestions to help guide the next book. Check out the current entry of Re-Read Saturday at www.tcagley.wordpress.com Next SPaMCASTSPaMCAST 539 will feature our essay titled, Assessment and Continuous Process Improvement. Assessments and continuous process improvement are intertwined. Assessments being both a source of ideas and a tool to validate change and other experiments. We will also have a visit from Susan Parente who brings her Not A Scrumdamentalist column to the podcast!