The Modern Agile Show

Episode 21 of the Modern Agile Show features an interview with John P. Cutler, expert product manager, systems thinker, prolific writer and thought leader. John recalls when he first came across Modern Agile and what inspires him about it. We discuss the question, “Is Modern Agile most applicable for individuals or teams/organizations?” We look into how John experiments and learns rapidly in order to deliver value continuously. We discuss which Modern Agile principle we’d start with and John answers the question, “What is your biggest frustration when working with a new organization?"

Episode 20 of the Modern Agile Show features an interview with David Hussman, veteran agile leader, product geek and founder/CEO of DevJam. We discuss his talk, "Learning in Product: How Wrong are You Ready to Be?" We reminisce about Extreme Programming and the nature of the early community that formed around it. We discuss how to handle known vs. unknown software work, how we change the way we work when moving from complicated to complex efforts, as well as what David’s been up to in the Chaos community.

Episode 19 of the Modern Agile Show features an interview with Brian Beckman, physicist and principal engineer in robotics at Amazon. Brian met Richard Feynman when he was a child and teenager and became greatly inspired by him. Brian tells a marvelous story that illustrates how serious Amazon is about investing in “customer obsession” and how the company embraces experimentation to discover faster, safer and cheaper ways to serve customers. He explains the necessity of Amazon’s drone delivery service, how it won’t be deployed until it’s safe, as well as why and when Amazon transitioned to microservices. Finally, Brian answers my question, “are people psychologically safe at Amazon?"

Episode 18 of the Modern Agile Show features an interview with Jennifer Marsman, an expert in machine learning and artificial intelligence and a principal software development engineer at Microsoft. Jennifer spoke at YOW! 2017 about her experiment to use machine learning to analyze brain wave data to determine if people were telling the truth. She explains how supervised machine learning and deep learning via neural networks are helping make people awesome. Finally, she explains how Microsoft’s culture is changing, including how they are encouraging people to conduct experiments and have a growth mindset.

Episode 45 of the Modern Agile Show features an interview with Esther Derby, CEO of Esther Derby Associates, and the author of Behind Closed Doors, Agile Retrospectives and 7 Rules for Positive, Productive Change. Esther explains how well-intentioned management often achieves superficial change by rolling out packaged processes on top of existing organizational structures and management policies. She describes how micro changes offer a better starting point. Esther asks her clients questions that identify what exactly is contributing to negative patterns, and in turn exposes the system to the system. Her questions inspire people to naturally begin making improvements, a “change by attraction” approach, in which people are attracted to change rather than being forced into it. She points out how change rarely happens when people feel "downstatused" or defensive or when change is demanded via coercive or positional power. Micro-shifts are an alternative to “extreme disruption” and while some may think they are slow, Esther finds that such changes are the most effective way to achieve big results.