All Things Agile - Episode 005 - Mary and Tom Poppendieck Interview

01/25/14 • -1 min

Agile Instructor - Coaching for Agile Methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban

I am thrilled to present a wonderful interview with Mary and Tom Poppendieck. They are true legends in the Agile and Lean Software Development movement. Checkout today's episode where we discuss challenges facing many organizations such as: product vs. project mindset, globally distributed teams, and equipping teams for success. We also discuss their latest book, The Lean Mindset. Please consider picking up the book to learn more about these topics in greater detail.
Please check out their website: poppendieck.com to learn more about Mary & Tom and their insightful work. Many thanks to Mary and Tom for investing their time for this podcast and for their contribution to our industry.
All Things Agile - Episode 005 - Mary and Tom Poppendieck Interview
Transcript:
Welcome to the All Things Agile Podcast. Your destination for tips and interviews with the leaders in the world of Agile. Don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, and please check out our sponsor: TeamXcelerator.com. And now, here’s your host: Ronnie Andrews Jr. Ronnie: Hello everyone and welcome to the All Things Agile Podcast, Episode 5. I’m very excited to present to you a wonderful interview with lead software legends Mary and Tom Poppendieck. Before I begin, a quick reminder that this podcast is for informational purposes only and accepts no legal liability. So let’s get started! One of the goals for this podcast is to interview and feature influential leaders in the Agile space. Today’s guests are just that – Mary and Tom pioneered the Lean Software development movement, with their groundbreaking book Lean Software Development and Agile Toolkit. It’s a classic among Agile literature. In 2013 they also released ‘The Lean Mindset – Ask the Right Questions’. Mary and Tom travel the globe, speaking at conferences and consulting with many of the world’s top companies. It’s an honor and a pleasure to have them on the All Things Agile Podcast. Without further ado, let’s welcome Mary and Tom! Well, thank you for joining me today Mary and Tom, I really appreciate it. Why don’t we go ahead and get started with a few questions. During my own career, I have worked at several Fortune 500 companies. And I’ve often found that large organizations tend to be project-focused, rather than product focused. For example, I have seen environments where software development is treated as a black box, and it can sometimes have a throw-it-over-the-fence mentality. I would love to hear your thoughts on integrating software development as part as a holistic product chain. Mary: If you look back to the early 90’s, I was a manager in the early 90’s and there were very few of my colleagues that could even type. Typing wasn’t something that you learned, unless you were going to be a secretary. The idea of doing email and stuff was so difficult that when the internet first came, many managers sat down their secretaries to do their email typing. Eventually that went away. But if you look at industries that were formed before technology was widespread, like banks and insurance companies and those kinds of industries, you’ll find that this technology area was separated out from the mainstream for two reasons: one reason is because the managers of the line businesses simply were not comfortable with technology; and another was that computer technology was considered something that was expensive and should be centralized in order to reduce costs. Well, today, computer technology is not the same. It is the fundamental basis for competition for almost every company that uses it. Thanks to the kinds of products that they offer, or the things that help them be competitive – if you take a look at the new companies like Google and Facebook and Amazon and those companies, computer technology is a fundamental competitive advantage. And if that’s true, then it needs to be manage, at least what’s done, in the line organization, rather than in some side-organization that is in side to the line organization. So if you look at the companies I’ve just mentioned, they don’t have a central IT department. They have the line organizations responsible. That doesn’t mean that they don’t think about IT costs, but they think about them as product development costs. So now, the things that people develop that are helping the company become more competitive and disting...

Previous Episode

All Things Agile - Episode 004 - A New Hope

Today's episode is centered around some exciting news. I am launching a new venture, Team Xcelerator Inc., which will focus on Agile team software. The AgileInstructor.com blog and the All Things Agile podcast will be moved under the Team Xcelerator umbrella. I am very excited about the possibilities. Please checkout the podcast and send me your thoughts and product feature input using [email protected]m. Also, don't forget to please post a kind review in iTunes. We really appreciate your time and support :)
All Things Agile - Episode 4 - A New Hope
Transcript:
Welcome to the All Things Agile Podcast. Your destination for tips and interviews with the leaders in the world of Agile. Don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast in iTunes and please check out our sponsor: TeamXcelerator.com. And now, here’s your host: Ronnie Andrews Jr. Hello everyone and welcome to the All Things Agile Podcast, Episode 4. Today’s title is ‘A New Hope’. This is paying homage to the classic Star Wars title, but before we begin, a quick reminder that this podcast is for informational purposes only and accepts no legal liability. So let’s get started. As an Agile coach, I’m frequently searching for tools to help myself and others utilize Agile methodology successfully. Candidly, I haven’t found many tools which truly reflect the needs that I have seen over the years. Rather than let this frustration remain, I decided to start a new company: Team Xcelerator Inc. to tackle common challenges for Agile teams. You have undoubtedly heard references to Team Xcelerator a few times already. I want to take a few moments to talk about it in more detail. Everything is still very early stages, but I’m hopeful that many Agile practitioners will come to love it. A goal of mine is to develop a product which reflects the global nature of today’s workforce. Almost all development teams are now spread across the world and this trend is only continuing to rise. The use of Agile itself is also on the rise. However, many organizations are still struggling with learning and how to adapt Agile, including the fact that teams or departments may implement Agile differently. Many of the products that I’ve seen on the market are really just project management tools. We still have a lot of work remaining, but it is a goal of mine to develop Team Xcelerator into a cloud-based web tool which will enable teams to specifically focus on Agile success. I also intend for Team Xcelerator to be affordable. I want to encourage teams to utilize the tool and achieve success. It will be targeting organizations of all different sizes, including young startups to industry veterans. I can’t release too many specifics at this time, but I did want to take a moment and let my audience have advance notice of this new platform. I’m also interested in your input to ensure that it better conforms to your needs. As the episode title alludes to, it is a new hope for me and for the world of Agile; an opportunity to create a platform for Agile professionals, by Agile professionals. And I hope that you’re excited about this recent product news as I am – and remember: you can check out my blog using the website agileinstructor.com and feel free to contact me using [email protected] and feel free to include product comments that you may have regarding Agile tools. I would love to be able to take in your input and ensure that we have product features that will truly meet the needs of our audience. Also, don’t forget to visit our previously discussed sponsor: TeamXcelerator.com which makes this podcast possible. And thank you once again for joining me for this quick podcast – join me for Episode 5, we’re having an exciting interview with Mary and Tom Poppendieck who are the innovators of Lean Software. You don’t want to miss it! Remember – it’s time to accelerate your team, today!
Thank you for listening to All Things Agile. We look forward to you subscribing to the podcast on iTunes and leaving a kind review. Thanks and God bless!

Next Episode

All Things Agile - Episode 006 - Jeff Sutherland Interview

I am pleased to share an interview with Agile pioneer, Jeff Sutherland. Jeff is a founding father of Scrum and Agile. He is a noted author and speaker. Jeff provides insight to many of the largest organizations in the world. In this episode, Jeff addresses some of the tough issues facing today's organizations. Please take a moment to listen using the link below or subscribe to the podcast using this link.
Please visit Jeff's website: scruminc.com to learn more and check out available courses. During the episode, Jeff mentioned several great books which are linked below for your convenience. Please take a moment to pick up a few copies for your Agile teams.
Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time
All Things Agile - Episode 006 - Jeff Sutherland Interview
Transcript:
Welcome to the All Things Agile Podcast – your destination for tips and interviews with the leaders in the world of Agile. Don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes and please check out our sponsor: TeamXcelerator.com. And now, here’s your host: Ronnie Andrews Jr. Ronnie: Hello everyone and welcome to the All Things Agile Podcast. I’m very excited to announce that today’s guest is Jeff Sutherland. He’s a true legend in the world of Agile, especially Scrum. He’s a founding father of Scrum and also an original participant in the Agile Manifesto. I’m very excited to have him on today’s show and I’m hoping that he can shed some insight into how implement Agile teams in larger organizations. So let’s go ahead and get started. First off, thank you Jeff for joining us today! Regarding my first question, I’d like to know what is your input or advice on how to implement Agile successfully in today’s global workforce where we often have teams that are spread across the globe: India, China, etc. How can we implement Agile successfully even if our teams are globally distributed? Jeff: Well, first of all, Scrum simplifies their already complex Waterfall implementations. So Scrum is easier to implement globally than traditional approaches. I’ve worked with many skilled firms over many years – the first one was actually IDX, now GE Healthcare, which was a competitor to McKesson and in fact, the head of marketing – Pam, at IDX who worked with me, implementing Agile there, went on to become the CEO of McKesson; she might still be there, I don’t know, I haven’t checked recently. But she was probably there when you were doing your Agile transformation. But IDX, at the time, had 8 business units. Each business unit had a minimum of 3 products. Many of them were acquired technologies, acquired companies, mainly in the United States, but some teams that I’ve worked with were in Europe; but scattered all over the place. So we scaled Scrum in a big way. One of the best teams was actually in 3 locations across the continent. So I’ve written about at least a half a dozen papers on good distributed implementations of Scrum, and Scrum is the only way of doing software that allows you to actually scale up without losing productivity per developer. As soon as you start to scale Waterfall, the productivity per developer goes down. It starts to drop radically once you get more than 6 people, which is why we keep Scrum teams small. But by keeping Scrum teams small and then using the scalability mechanism that we do, we actually have several case studies now which are the only ones every published showing that you can scale globally and when you scale, you can get linear scalability by adding teams. Of course, you have to do Scrum well. Now, one of the problems with any kind of distribution – Microsoft did a study on this a few years ago in a process group – and they found that in every case, in 10 years of doing Microsoft distributed development, in every case, it delayed the project, it increased the project risk and it increased the dysfunction on the teams. And so, any time you distribute, those are the 3 things that you have to deal with. And as I’ve said, Scrum can effectively deal with all of them, but only if you run a very good Scrum locally. Then you can distribute it. If you distribute a bad Scrum, then you magnify the dysfunction when you distribute. But that’s also true with Waterfall. So, in the worst case, Scrum is better than Waterfall. Ronnie: Okay – and maybe just a follow-up question to that: In your opinion, when an organization is looking to adopt Scrum and globally distribute, have you found that it’s easier to sort of treat the teams all as equals, if you will? Each o...