Couverture de Agile Mentors Podcast

Agile Mentors Podcast

Agile Mentors Podcast

De : Brian Milner and Guests
Écouter gratuitement

À propos de cette écoute

 The Agile Mentors podcast is for agilists of all levels. Whether you’re new to agile and Scrum or have years of experience, listen in to find answers to your questions and new ways to succeed with agile.© 2023 Mountain Goat Software
Les membres Amazon Prime bénéficient automatiquement de 2 livres audio offerts chez Audible.

Vous êtes membre Amazon Prime ?

Bénéficiez automatiquement de 2 livres audio offerts.
Bonne écoute !
    Épisodes
    • #154: The Underpowered PO with Barnaby Golden

      #154: The Underpowered PO with Barnaby Golden
      Aug 20 2025
      Join Brian and Barnaby Golden as they dig into a surprisingly common roadblock in Agile teams, the underpowered product owner, and how it quietly derails decision-making, flow, and team momentum. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian welcomes Agile coach and community contributor Barnaby Golden to explore the risks and ripple effects of placing a product owner in the role without the authority to own it. They discuss the stark difference between empowered and underpowered product owners, why availability without authority is a setup for frustration, and how misalignment at the leadership level creates more theater than agility. From trust gaps to political decision-making, Barnaby and Brian unpack the hidden reasons teams get stuck and what it takes to create real, empowered ownership that delivers actual value. References and resources mentioned in the show: Barnaby Golden #104: Mastering Product Ownership with Mike Cohn #3: What Makes a Great Product Owner? With Lance Dacy How to Engage and Help Busy Product Owners by Mike Cohn What Happens When For Product Owners Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one.Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Barnaby Golden is an experienced Scrum Master and Agile Coach with a knack for helping teams truly live Agile, not just adopt it. Lately, he’s been diving into the real-world use of AI—helping organizations, including nonprofits, turn tech hype into practical, high-impact tools with smart governance Auto-generated Transcript: Brian Milner (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors, we're back. This is another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm here with you as always, Brian Milner, and we have a very special guest with us today. We have Mr. Barnaby Golden with us. Barnaby, welcome in. Barnaby Golden (00:14) Thank you, it's good to be here. Brian Milner (00:16) Very excited to have Barnaby here. Barnaby is an Agile coach, also a Scrum Master. He is known to us because he is part of our Agile Mentors community. And he is an active member there and has weighed in on several issues and helped people and mentored people through things there. So we wanted to share some of the wisdom of the crowd that we have there at Agile Mentors. Just a few select people that have really contributed. and giving us some really good advice there with the podcast audience as well. So you guys can kind of hear what kind of stuff is there on the Agile Mentors discussion forums. But we were talking about topics here with Barnaby about what we were going to talk about and he proposed one that I really found intriguing. It was focusing around the underpowered product owner, the underpowered PO. And I think that's probably a good place for us to start then, Barnaby. Why don't you kind of just explain to everyone what that idea is, what you mean by the underpowered PO. Barnaby Golden (01:12) Sure, of course. So in fact, what I'll do is I'll explain it by giving you the opposite, which is what does a good, effective, powerful product owner look like? And I was working for an organization a few years back, it was a publishing organization. And we had the head of the editorial team was the product owner for a particular Scrum team. Brian Milner (01:16) Okay. Barnaby Golden (01:38) And this head of editorial had a lot of power and influence in the organization. They were pretty much a decision maker in terms of the products that the team was building. And I remember a particular conversation where the team was talking to this product owner and the team said, look, we know you want to get this, this release out this week, but we've got some technical debt. really need to fix it. And I remember the, this guy saying, look, okay. I'm going to let me think about this for a second. Okay. I can make the decision on this, which is, yep, you can have your time. I'll communicate with others within the organization. The release will be delayed. And that was such a powerful moment because in that second, the decision was made. The product owner trusted the team, the team completely trusted the product owner. And it felt slick and efficient and worked really well. Conversely, I've worked in organizations where in some way, surprisingly enough, product owner is seen as quite a junior role. So I've seen the situation where you have a whole hierarchy of product people and the...
      Afficher plus Afficher moins
      30 min
    • #153: Getting Real Buy-In for Agile Transformation with Scott Dunn

      #153: Getting Real Buy-In for Agile Transformation with Scott Dunn
      Aug 13 2025
      Join Brian and Scott Dunn as they unpack what “buy-in” actually means and what it takes to move from surface-level support to genuine commitment in this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian is joined once again by Scott Dunn to tackle a listener-chosen topic: how to get real buy-in for Agile initiatives, especially when shifting from a non-Scrum environment. They explore why buy-in isn’t about enthusiastic cheerleading or deep Agile knowledge, but about leaders and teams aligning on desired outcomes. From the cost of performative support to the emotional side of change, Brian and Scott share practical strategies for securing support at all levels of the organization. Along the way, they dive into influence tactics, the importance of shared purpose, and how co-creation—not compliance—drives lasting change. Whether you're guiding a large transformation or simply trying to influence up, this episode will help you rethink how to earn trust, build alignment, and inspire meaningful momentum. References and resources mentioned in the show: Scott Dunn Elements of Agile Assessment Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one.Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Scott Dunn is a Certified Enterprise Coach and Scrum Trainer with over 20 years of experience coaching and training companies like NASA, EMC/Dell Technologies, Yahoo!, Technicolor, and eBay to transition to an agile approach using Scrum. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian Milner (00:01) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And I also have with me today someone that you probably know pretty well because he took over this podcast for about a month there. Mr. Scott Dunn is with us. Welcome in, Scott. Scott Dunn (00:19) Hey, thanks Brian. Yes, that podcast takeover was a lot of fun. So thank you for that opportunity. That was a hoot. Had a great time. Brian Milner (00:25) Absolutely. Well, I don't think I publicly thanked you for that. just ⁓ a public thanks. Scott Dunn (00:28) No, you didn't. No, not even an email. Not even a Slack message. Brian Milner (00:33) Well, very public thanks to you for doing that. Those episodes were great. I enjoyed them and it was fun to be a listener. It was fun to listen to it and just kind of hear the conversations and be a fly on the wall for those. So thanks again for doing that. Scott Dunn (00:47) Yeah. Yeah. It's a real treat. Brian Milner (00:48) We're having Scott on we kind of ran an experiment on this one because we were Scott was teaching a class for mountain goat and We thought maybe we'll just see what the class thinks so we pulled the class to see what topic do you want us to talk about and We thought we'd just go with the winner the winner that came out of that class was how to get buy-in How do you get buy-in in a? move from a non-scrum place to a Scrum kind of way of working. How do you get buy-in in the organization and buy-in from others? So when I was thinking about this as a topic, I think the first thing that popped in my head Scott about this was What do we mean by buy-in? So what does that mean to you? Scott Dunn (01:33) Right. So sometimes what I'm hearing is people saying like, buy in, you know, they, I would hear a common complaint, like they don't get it. They don't understand. don't, for me, buy in isn't that they need to understand agile or scrum and these types of things and how it works. Buy in is they get, they give their support kind of regardless. So my favorite example of that is walking into, this is a multi vendor effort we're doing on a Salesforce implementation. And we'd asked for the VP of the whole thing to come down and say some words before we had our first retrospective. You can imagine it's going to be kind of heated with different vendors trying to make each other look bad or whatever. And he'd said, yes. So we're coming down into this, you know, big high stakes meeting. And I just remember him saying, you know, I'm so excited to be doing this for you all. It's great. And he kind of falls in and looks at me says, what am I doing again? Cause he didn't, he didn't know, he didn't know what a retrospective was. He just knew he was asked to come and do something around that. And to me, Brian, Brian Milner (02:21) ...
      Afficher plus Afficher moins
      34 min
    • #152: The Five Pillars of Real Agile Improvement with Mike Cohn

      #152: The Five Pillars of Real Agile Improvement with Mike Cohn
      Aug 6 2025
      Join Brian and Mike Cohn as they unpack the five essential pillars that take Agile from “just the motions” to meaningful, measurable impact. Plus, get a behind-the-scenes look at their revamped course built for real team transformation. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian is joined by longtime collaborator and Agile thought leader Mike Cohn for a deep dive into what really makes Agile stick. They explore the five foundational pillars—mindset, practices, roles, teamwork, and support beyond the team—and share stories of what happens when teams get them wrong (like obsessing over story point math or demoing a copyright update in a sprint review). Along the way, they introduce the newly available Working on a Scrum Team public course and explain why it’s designed for entire teams, not just isolated roles. Whether you're new to Agile or knee-deep in transformation, this episode will help you rethink how to build an Agile approach that actually works. References and resources mentioned in the show: Mike Cohn #80: From Struggling to Success: Reviving Agile Teams with Mike Cohn Scrum Team Roles and Responsibilities Working on a Scrum Team Course Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one.Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Mike Cohn, CEO of Mountain Goat Software, is a passionate advocate for agile methodologies. Co-founder of Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance, he thrives on helping companies succeed with Agile and witnessing its transformative impact on individuals' careers. Mike resides in Northern Idaho with his family, two Havanese dogs, and an impressive hot sauce collection. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian Milner (00:00) Welcome in, Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. Thanks for joining us. I'm with you, as always, Brian Milner. And today, I have the one and only Mike Cohn back with us. Welcome in, Mike. Mike (00:12) Thanks, Brian. Good to be here. Brian Milner (00:14) Always happy to have Mike on the show and really appreciate Mike making time to come on. Wanted to have Mike on because there's some things Mike's been talking about recently that are really interesting and people have been asking a little bit about this and I thought maybe it'd be just a good opportunity to talk through some of the stuff that Mike's been writing about. I know you spent, Mike, a lot of time helping teams to not just do Agile but to really get solid results from it. to see impact from it. And I know the topic you've been talking about recently is sort of these five pillars of supporting real agile improvements, the mindset, practices, roles, teamwork, and support beyond the team. So I thought maybe we could just dig in and drive through those and maybe learn a little bit about those as we go. Obviously also to talk a little bit about the exciting new course that's being launched here, the working on a Scrum team course, because I know that was originally just for private classes, right? And now it's being open to the public. Mike (01:23) Yeah, we've done working on a Scrum team as a private class for probably 20 plus years. It's been kind of our main offering to private clients. But we're hearing from a lot of people that they have one team and they can't really get a private class approved with the budget and such. So what we're doing is going ahead and making that course available as a public course. So two people from your company, five people from another company all in the same class the way we've done our certified courses for decades. And so we're going to start offering this as a public course. And the exciting thing there is that it's really meant to be a team-based class, where things like Scrum Master training, great class, but it's really meant for the Scrum Master, right? And working on a Scrum team is really designed, and you and I helped you and I design this course together, but it's designed to be something that is a whole team training, right? So good for anybody on a team. Brian Milner (02:16) Yeah, yeah, it's been really great teaching those in the private classes and I'm excited to think about the public being able to come in and take that now. Let's talk a little bit about these pillars and, I think people are gonna be really intrigued by the ...
      Afficher plus Afficher moins
      40 min
    Aucun commentaire pour le moment