Friday, June 24, 2016

Roman Pichler : Strategy and Product Ownership

Roman Pichler, one of the leading voices in Agile Product Ownership has released a new book, Strategize: Product Strategy and Product Roadmap Practices for the Digital Age. Roman's new book presents a number of tools and techniques Product Owners and Product Managers can use to gain a deeper understanding the product(s) they are developing in order to stock and maintain a better product backlog.

This was a special treat for me. I've been saving up questions for this interview for long time and Roman was kind enough to tolerate all of them.



Show Notes
  • Why the wrote Strategize 00:26
  • Adding Product Strategy to Agile Planning 2:46
  • Vision to Strategy to Roadmap 5:37
  • How to use the Go Product Roadmap to feed Release Planning 6:00
  • Who you need to create the Roadmap? 8:40
  • How Strategize should help Product Owners and Product Managers 10:30
  • Is the focus on Product Ownership increasing and maturing? 11:50
  • Explaining the difference between and Product Owner and a Product Manager? 15:20
  • The key elements of Product Strategy  19:20
  • Aligning products across the portfolio 21:24
  • Product Owner at the Portfolio level 23:00
  • How often should you update your Vision Board and Roadmap? 24:05
  • How important is it that Team Members know the Product Vision? 25:50
  • If there was one misunderstanding about Product Ownership that you could fix, what would it be? 27:54
  • How to get in touch with Roman 30:00
If you'd like to get in touch with Roman, you can reach him at http://www.romanpichler.com
If you'd like to pick up a copy of Strategize, you can find it here.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

IHG Product Ownership Outside of Software

In this LeadingAgile SoundNotes podcast IHG's Rebecca Williamson and LeadingAgile's Russ Pena talk about the role of Product Owner and how it has evolved through IHG's adoption of Agile on a project that has nothing to do with software... they are using it to redesign hotel rooms.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Howard Sublett : Creating and Supporting Community

Click here to go straight to ProjectsatWork interview

One of the most challenging issues faced by any organization is how to support and care for the individuals who work there. This challenge takes on a whole new level of complexity in the context of a consulting organization with staff who spend most of their time on the road away from their families and from one another. There is no specific formula for how to protect your most valuable resource (the people) from turning into burned out, disconnected road warriors who check out and eventually bail in search of something better.

In this interview, Howard Sublett, the Director of Community Development at Solutions IQ and Dave Prior discuss how Howard advocates in support of the people who are in the field and the importance of maintaining empathy for members of the community. Dave and Howard also talk about how Howard’s approach to life and work all focus around the idea of being of service to others and the importance of planning your life (and work) so that you are able to take advantage of the magic that interruptions provide.

Click here to go straight to ProjectsatWork interview

Show Notes:
  • How Howard describes what he does 0:38
  • You can’t create community in a vacuum 2:50
  • Where Howard’s empathy comes from 4:45
  • On the road 6:40
  • What you do is a very subtle thing 7:45
  • Planning for the disruption 9:20
  • Being open to disruption in all areas of your life 10:50
  • Taking the chance to build a deeper connection 12:06
  • The lens you see the world through 13:12
  • Learning to be more open? 14:10
  • Maintaining the Introvert/Extrovert balance in your organization 15:22
  • How to maintain the level of openness even when ti doesn’t always work 17:00
  • Journaling 18:45 Diving as a meditative practice 19:45
  • Getting in touch with Howard 21:26
Click here to go straight to the interview

Monday, June 20, 2016

Friday, June 17, 2016

New Ways to Subscribe to DrunkenPM Radio Podcasts

    Listen to Stitcher   

The Power of Accountability Partnerships w/ Katrina Coker

In this LeadingAgile SoundNotes Podcast, Katrina Coker shares information about how working with an Accountability Partner has been beneficial both in her work, and in personal areas of her life. This is one of the most interesting interviews I have had the pleasure to be a part of. Katrina is very open about how having someone hold her accountable has challenged her. She also talks about how her spiritual practice resonates in her professional life.

Click here for the podcast and show notes


Wednesday, June 08, 2016

In Memory of Jean Tabaka

Jean Tabaka passed away this week. It's a very sad thing and the Agile feels a little broken right now. I was lucky enough to get to interview Jean a few times. The results are below.

While I always feel incredibly fortunate to get to do the podcast interviews with people, there are some folks who are just a complete blast to get to talk to every time. Jean was one of these people. I am grateful for the conversations. I learned a lot, she made me laugh, and she had no qualms about giving me sh17.

Thank you Jean.


Jean Tabaka BV from BigVisible Solutions on Vimeo.

Agile 2015 Video Podcast - Jean Tabaka from Agile Alliance on Vimeo.

Friday, June 03, 2016

How IHG is Using Agile for Hotel Room Redesign - LeadingAgile SoundNotes

A LeadingAgile SoundNotes Podcast... I interviewed LeadingAgile Transformation Consultant Russ Pena and IHG Project Manager Daniella Huang about how IHG is using Agile to redesign hotel rooms. The work they are doing is a great example of how Agile has been extended far beyond software.

This is the 1st of a series of 4 interviews with folks from IHG about their use of Agile.

Click here for the blog post and podcast