Agile - Trends and What Does It All Mean? - Recorded January 5th, 2018
To get to the web page of the radio show, click here.
To download the mp3 file, click here.
To subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, click here.
00:01:06;00
- 00:01:30;10
Welcome
to 2018. Welcome to another year of The Work/Life Balance. And we're hitting
this year in stride. A lot of people are very cold in the United States as we have
single digit temperatures across the United States. Several of my friends that
I've talked to are digging out of snow. So we hope it's warm and toasty where
you are. But we're glad that you've joined us for another episode of The
Work/Life Balance.
00:01:30;10
- 00:02:10;20
We've
got a lot of exciting things planned for 2018, and we already running are
already starting to fill up our speaking calendar, so we will let you guys know
about how that is coming along and keep you guys posted on that. We've got some
exciting guests that are going to be coming up in the future shows here. We've got
John Gates that is going to be on the show. Paul Cumming's. Nicole Tubiolo is
going to be on. We've got Scott Ambler scheduled to be on the show. We've got a
repeat performance from Todd Nesloney. If you've heard that one in the past
we're going to be doing another live show from John Maxwell got Kupe
Koopersmith that’s going to be on the show. So we've got a lot of fantastic
guests lined up.
00:02:10;25
- 00:02:45;20
A
lot of cool things coming but I thought I would start 2018 with just me in just
kind of back to the way the show originally started. And I wanted to share just
some thoughts and journeys as I had time to reflect at the end of 2017. I
always take the last week of the year off. There are some special days in there
for my family. It's my daughter's birthday. Of course, we have the Christmas
and New Year. But I always like to take that last week off and just really
reflect on what the year meant to me, as well as, what did I learn and what I
see for the upcoming year.
00:02:45;22
- 00:04:00;28
And
as I was doing that, I would say the overwhelming trend for me in 2017, professionally,
was my journey through Agile. You know we've done a few shows on our job but
wanted to kind of give you definition of Agile. If you guys are already
starting to roll your eyes, please stay with me because I promise this is going
to be a lot more fun than that. But, you know I see things in life cycles and I
see a lot of cycles in it. I see a lot of cycles in business and we're in the
midst of a cycle right now with Agile and Agile transformations. So, my journey
through Agile began in a few years ago. I bumped into a couple of people that
were on the forefront of this new methodology and they were saying things like
you know we can't tell you when we're going to be done because we're Agile. I
can't tell you how much it's going to cost because we're adj out in the biggest
one that I ran into was hey we don't need project management anymore because
we're Agile and obviously as a project manager for 20 some odd years that was
very scary to me and a lot of things that they were saying didn't seem right to
me.
00:04:01;12
- 00:04:10;13
It
didn't sound right to me. And so, what I decided to do is start a certification
journey in really understand this methodology.
00:04:10;28
- 00:04:28;23
And
so, in this past year I went and got my ACP as sort of a practitioner through
PMI. I became what's known as a certified Scrum Agile master which is a deep
dive into 17 different methodologies. I got my safe certification.
00:04:28;29
- 00:05:23;11
And
so really just did a deep dive and all these different methodologies so that I
can understand what was happening and then right at the end of the year in, I
won't say the company, but what was interesting is one of the companies that
came up to us and said hey we're Agile now, we don't need project management. That
was, literally I want to say four years ago, that they told us that I got a
news article from a friend of how poorly they're doing. Several of the stores
are closed. A lot of people are being laid off and it looks like a brand that's
been around for quite some time is now going away and that gave me pause
because you know again this whole adaptation of you know we're going all in on
this one methodology. The only way to go and the end result is that that wasn't
a problem with Agile.
00:05:23;13
- 00:07:19;01
It
was a problem with the Agile list, and it was a problem with the way that they
did the implementation. So, I wanted to start to dive in a little bit further
on some of the details, and this speech and these thoughts started to bubble up
for me when I started to do some reflection and really, what that is that you
know…look, change is hard, but you can't simply change the words in and all of
a sudden behavior changes. And so that's what I'm seeing. First and foremost,
any in some of these large scale Agile transformations, they think that if they
adopt new words or new terminology that all of a sudden, they're going to get
different results. But the biggest thing is that you have to change behavior. Like,
for instance, if I want to lose weight I can't simply say well I'm going to now
deem sugar as a vegetable and therefore I'm going to lose weight. It doesn't
work that way. I can't keep doing the same thing I'm doing. Change the
terminology and then expect different results. You have to change behavior with
it. When I started to do that reflection, I was journaling, and something
popped in my head and it's actually an old comedy routine. And it was done by
George Carlin. It was done several years ago. But it is always stuck in my
head. And he did this comedy routine which was beautifully done. Of course, I
had a lot of social commentary around it about euphemisms and, you know, a
euphemism is simply substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for
one that may offend or suggest something, and he went through this whole
tirade. So, for instance he brings up and this is George Carlin, this isn't me
but, he brings up the fact in the Bible it says that Jesus healed the cripples
yet that that's a term that's seen offensive.
00:07:19;01
- 00:07:53;26
Now
that we can't say the word cripple you don't use the word cripple. We now call
them physically challenged. And it's not handicapped, it's handy capable, and
he goes through all of these. Even says you know one of my favorite ones he
used to use that he brings up is how airlines talk and the fact that they say pre-board.
He goes, “What does that boarding before you get? You know before you board
news that boarding before you board”. Why do we use pre-board. But the point
still made. You know he says it at some point in our lives. Toilet paper became
bathroom tissue and none of us were consulted.
00:07:53;26
- 00:09:09;16
It
just became a nicer term and easier term and I feel like Agile can be somewhat
of a euphemism for a lot of the things that are happening. And I get that, and
I am deriving it that based on how things were perceived and presented to me
when I went through training. When I went through training, I was told that project
management is very command and control, and that Agile is very open in that you
know in Agile the teams make all the decisions and you know it's very light and
fluffy. And I started to get this picture in my brain, as I was going through
training, that all project managers are just huge Godzilla lizards that are
just walking through and crushing it, killing cities and doing stuff like that
in everybody that's working in Agile or just simply, you know, butterflies living
in these communal farms. Everybody smiles all day at each other and it's always
sunny out. It's always perfect weather when you're working an Agile job but if
you're working on a standard project management you're in this industrial
factory and there's smokestacks coming out.
00:09:09;28
- 00:11:28;16
And
life is horrible. It's command and control and the big boss comes out with a
cigar and stomps on you. And I'm sitting there listening through these training
classes going,.” That's not what I know”. But that's the way they're training people,
and I'm sitting there going, “Man, if I was a brand-new developer or brand new
person, this is is my introduction into I.T. That's not what I know. That's not
how I know these things.”. So, the whole euphemism thing came up. You know for
me the way people were trained, the way people are using things, and so I found
a few euphemisms of my own. So, if you guys know Agile or if you know project management,
what's funny is, as I was going through all of these, Agile discussions. It was
interesting to see what was happening in Agile. So, for instance they were training,
and they said you know one of the first steps that you do is groom planning and
begin planning is where we all get together and decide what the objectives are
that we're going to be accomplishing, and I was like, “Yeah that sounds a whole
lot like a work break down structure session.” And they say, ”Yeah and then we
have these things called retrospectives and that's where we all get together
and discuss what worked what didn't work how can we improve how can the team
gel not going to stop,” and I was like, “Yeah that sounds like lessons learned.
That's a technique that we've had in project management,” and they say, “Yeah,
we have these things called up where we get together, and you know we stand up
and we say this is what we did. This is what we're going to do. These are the
impediments that are in our way.” I was like holy that sounds a whole lot like
a status. And you know we have scrum masters though and that's what we have.
And I was like what kind of the project manager is like so what you've done is
you've taken all the ceremonies that have worked for ages. We've wrapped them
up in new names changed the rules a little bit. We call it a new methodology.
Excuse me I said but you. So we've come up with a bunch of new words. They
sound nicer. We've described a methodology that's butterflies and communal
living and it's sunny always. How is that going to work.
00:11:29;12
- 00:12:56;07
And
that's where the rub comes in. My point being is I'm not saying it's wrong;
it's just a different language. But my point in going through this in learning
this and reflecting on this is that these techniques have been around for
years. So why have the other techniques not worked. Why have the other things
not worked and Agile started to take hold. Well first of all Agile soul is that
you know the team makes decisions. Well there's still got to be strategy to the
organization. At the end of the day you still have to track something costs. You
still have to have funding for value. It can't be just Wild Wild West and
everybody decides. There are still customers there are still requirements.
There's still accountability. So again, as we're changing these words and
changing these terms and everybody's got a little bit of a different term
depending on which flavor of aisle you're going after, there's still got to be something
that clicks and works. And so we're going to dive into what that something is
and I'm also going to talk about what really has been around for years and what
we keep kind of playing around with and also kind of what has led us to this Agile
boom. What are some of these cycles that have led us here? So we hope to hang
around with us continue to talk about Agile. Call and chime in. I'd love to
hear from you as we kickoff 2018.
00:16:00;15
- 00:16:45;17
We
appreciate you tagging along on this Friday afternoon as we're discussing
Agile; just some of my reflections on the journey I went through this past year
and in trying to tie it all together with everything that I've learned
throughout my career and in grabbing onto what's really happening in the
industry with that child. I want to make sure that we're clear that I'm not
negative towards Agile. I think it's a phenomenal thing and anything that an organization
is going to grab onto to change behavior. Let's go. Let's do it. But I just
want to make sure that we're being clear, also, that it's not this this new
thing or this latest greatest model that is, you know, a brand new never been
done before.
00:16:45;25
- 00:17:10;26
And
I wanted to talk through cycles now to of kind of maybe what has led us to this
point. Because if you look at it first of all I mean almost everything that's
coming out now in any of these methodologies really over the last. I want to
say almost 80 years is coming either you know from adapted model Walter Shuu or
Deming right.
00:17:10;26
- 00:18:09;22
So
Deming actually adopted his model from alter shoe art and you've got the plan
check act model and I mean PMI is built off of that. You know six sigma has got
some of that either that you know and all of that is built into that. But
essentially you know you've got a four-stage model that says we're going to
plan. We're going to do. We're going to check and then we're going to act on
that piece. And essentially now all we're working with is the cycles and the
waste in between. Now one of the coolest things I learned. You know Agile is
again, though that's coming out of lean and lean six sigma is how to reduce you
know work cues and values and the fact that you know in projects one of the
biggest flaws is that we try to plan every task you know two years in advance
and then we get ticked off that there's changes to that. You know how clairvoyant
can you be.
00:18:09;22
- 00:18:50;10
But
the point being here is there's frustration, and the frustration is that
there's continually missed targets, there's continually missed budgets and
something's got to change. And so if you look at the evolution of I.T. I mean
when we really first started coming out we're talking 60s and 70s. We consider
that the Dark Ages of I.T. If you look at this cycle, and look business would
come in they describe a problem and then they would just sit and wait it took
whatever it took people didn't really understand what was happening, we had
limited technology. And you were just at the mercy of it.
00:18:50;12
- 00:19:45;24
It
just kind of was what it was and then you started to move into kind of a stage
2 which started to develop you know around the 80s, the late 70s early 80s,
when we consider that kind of a tokenism period. So basically though we were
just redeveloping the apps that were already created, the applications and
systems to take advantage of new database technology networks, were coming out.
We were able to start to really start to use some of the technology that was
available but then Stage 3 came around in this late 80s. It is really kind of
the payback period. And so this is after years of frustration, lack of control,
some landmark books came out by you know Charles Handy and Peter Drucker, Tom
Peters in senior management just started to look at how they were investing in
computers and systems and turned it into a cost center.
00:19:46;07
- 00:21:46;28
And
it started to lead to a lot of these top down approaches and controlled
approaches of I.T. And that's been leading us to this stage for which is that
the partnership model, and people have been trying to figure out this partnership
model for a while, and partnership is supposed to be a shared recognition
between business and I.T. where you know it is not a cost center but revenue
generating and we're starting to see some really good signs of that. Now you're
seeing the ones that do it well and the ones that aren't the ones that are
doing well, we're starting to see that being marked by what we call digital
disruption and the aspects of social media the ones that are figuring out how
to partner their I.T. departments and their business very well are the ones
that are digitally disrupting industries that have been doing these top down
management approaches forever, and that's where Agile is really getting the
buzz right. I mean, to be fair, Agile is
getting the buzz in the adaptability of the market the reaction to the consumer
the speed to market to be able to react and people are trying to figure that
out. Problem is, you've got some of these companies that have been running top
down and command and control for so long that you know you're turning the
Titanic. You can't really adjust as quickly as some of these newer, leaner
startup models and that's where are you. Here we have this startup mentality.
Well the startup mentality just means, in all honesty, really a lot of decentralized
decision making. They've got models in place where Agile can thrive because
they've decentralized so many decisions. It's easier for them to make. So, the
issue becomes, you know, for this large huge, conglomerate organization; how do
we start to decentralize or trust a lot of our employees to be able to make
these decisions?
00:21:46;28
- 00:22:27;04
That
to me, though, has nothing to do with Agile. It has to do with management
philosophies and trusting your knowledge workers and understanding that you
know, the whole point of me creating a show called The Work/Life Balance, and
trusting your employees. And that's been something we've been pushing you know
for 15 years now. That's not Agile and new and cool. That's just trusting your
smartest people in the room to do what they do. But at the same time again
coming back to the topic at hand. All right, what's the answer. How is it why is
Agile really taking hold. Well first of all let's talk about the things I like.
00:22:27;11
- 00:23:06;21
One
of the coolest things that that I think is taking hold of Agile, and why I
think is becoming very successful, is that it does have a very clear contract
if you do it well and you do it right. Let me boil all of the big talk and all
the training and all the other stuff down to a very, very simple covenant. That
covenant says that regardless of everything that's going on, we're going to
allow you to change as much as you want to change. But once we commit to a
sprint, which is a two week interval or a three week in a row of four week
interval, whatever you guys have decided in your company, but most likely it's
a two week interval.
00:23:06;22
- 00:24:32;18
You
don't change it. So basically, the covenant is between an executive and either
the product owner scrub management, or whatever, that simply says once we
commit to this line of work then this team gets to focus for two weeks and just
produce that work. So essentially what we're saying is limit the interruptions
allow them to focus and produce value. With that being said, that one covenant,
if you can achieve that can actually change an entire organization. I mean,
let's boil everything else down and whether you're Tumba story points in
estimation and all those other crowd. That's what it really comes down to; whether
or not you can get the executives to say, once we commit to this sprint, it's
not going to change, and we agree we can change future sprint so we can add
requirements and we can do all this other stuff. But essentially and I think we
need to make t-shirts that just simply say don't touch my sprint because once
that sprint is committed it's done. So, the problem is in traditional project
management is that those are 18 month projects, and we try to do all the
definition and planning in the very first few weeks. Well, things do change in
18 months. Markets do react in 18 months, and the fact that we think we can be
clairvoyant enough to identify all of the work and figure out how much it's
going to cost.
00:24:32;29
- 00:27:25;20
So
essentially using a Lean Six Sigma model, if you're reducing the work queues
and you're reducing the cyclical time to say we're going to basically fund a
quarter and we're going to fund a team not a project and we're going to work in
two weeks sprints in increments and once we commit that's what we're going to
do then. It's amazing what you actually can accomplish that has been the
promise of Agile. However where I think Agile goes off the rails is when the
very first entry point is, you know, somebody coming in and saying, “Well the
first thing you need to do is train every single person in this entire
organization and Agile that group is
selling you training.” They're not really selling you a methodology or they're
not really selling you a way to be successful. To me they're just selling you
training. So, I'm always wary of that and six sigma, right? I don't know what
value there was in six sigma to have you know that where, you know, everybody
needs to be, you know, yellowed out certified look, you know, 60 percent 70
percent of those people never even cared. They click click click click yeah.
Past the yellow belt. There was no value in that. Your higher value was in the
people that were really going after the black belts and the master black belts.
Same thing here. People just want to be able to come in to work and do what
they want to do and get out. So, you know, committing to the entire
organization to be Agile, you know, train top to bottom. I think is nuts. But again,
that's my opinion and I'm allowed to say because I have my own radio show and
get a chance to air my opinion for 60 minutes a week. But the point being,
anybody who just comes in and says, “Let's train everybody top to bottom,” is
selling training. That's what they're selling, not necessarily the promise of a
new day; selling training that's what they do. But these cycles have continued,
and their cycles are all based on the same piece, right? We're all still doing
playing do check act. But I really think what's happening now is, through the
evolution of I.T., people are. We're still at this stage for a partnership and
still trying to figure it out. The ones that have figured it out, digital
disruptors; the ones that haven't figured out are starting to fade away. And I
think we really need to pay attention to some of these trends. So, having said
all of that. Right. So now I've gotten out of my training. I've got now what I
think is happening out there how I think we got here. What I want to do next is
start to reveal to you some of the key trends that I'm seeing in Agile and
where I think some of the big pushes are going to be in, even some of the
things that are pretty advanced as far as when you start to talk about why we
got here how people are looking at some of the tools and some of the advanced
uses of tools with Agile. So, we're going to be doing that right after the
break. You've been listening to The Work/Life Balance with Rick Morris we're
talking Agile we'll be right back.
00:30:31;10
- 00:30:36;02
And
we are back to The Work/Life Balance. Before we go forward. I did have a couple
of shout outs.
00:30:36;02
- 00:31:42;04
You
know we do want to promote, make sure that we are promoting the almanack book
to which you can find at Amazon or at GR8PM.com. We've been blown away by the
response to that book, and we're certainly appreciative to all of you that are
reaching out to us. That book continues to sell very, very well that can tell
different authors. Talking about Agile and scaling, Agile to the enterprise.
And we're very excited about how that book has been performing. Also wanted to
say thank you to John Deaver of Cinepear. If you go to our rsquaredconsulting.com
website, there's a new video there on the front page that he helped us put
together, and if you follow us on social media, all the videos that we've been
putting out via PM minutes and all the other ones have been done by Cinepear.
They did a fantastic job. We appreciate the partnership with them. I did want
to react to a question that I did just receive on Twitter though one of the
questions was, you know Agile seems to be more successful than not, wanting me
to respond on that.
00:31:42;13
- 00:31:48;27
And
I think that that's true, and I think it's like anything else. I think it's
like a diet program.
00:31:48;27
- 00:37:22;16
You
know as you walk through the aisles of a grocery store. You know you see all
the US magazines, People magazines, and all that stuff and it's just littered
with diets that work, right? Here's all the diets that work. Here's every diet
program that works. But it's the same thing. I think I said earlier, which is
if you don't change that behavior it doesn't matter what diet plan you're
trying to follow, you have to change your behaviors for it to work. And I think
for every person that they throw on the cover, in cover of said people, and for
every great diet story there's, you know, 40 stories that nobody's going to
read about where those diets and probably 400 stories that diets don't work.
And I think it's January 5th which means that probably about three point seven
million people in the United States that have already failed their New Year's
resolutions on diet. So yeah I think Agile is very successful if there's a
commitment to the behavior. I think any methodology is really successful if
there's commitment to the behavior. And I say that coming from somebody who
implements, you know, systems for a living. You know a lot of people look at
the software that we sell and the implementations that we do as a cure all for
their for their issues, and software is not going to solve, you know, core
business issues that you're having it in. One of my favorite things to say is
that we want to design to the 95 percent, not that 5. What I mean by that is,
you know, most of our organizations already know that, you know, there's 5
percent of the company that are off the rails or are going to, you know, follow
processes are that their problem children versus dealing with those 5 percent.
They want us to design, you know, in our software a way to deal with them, you
know, in the system. And I'm like, “Why do we need to put in all these checks
and balances and notifications and all this stuff into the software that's
going to hinder the other 95 percent and their jobs just because you don't want
to deal with the 5 percent?” Yeah, I don't get that in. It's kind of the same
thing that has evolved, you know, in I.T. departments if you look at I.T. in
their evolution and we went through the four stages. But just look at how they
formed and, even though it's supposed to be a cohesive group and a revenue
generating group, they really don't run as cohesive departments. They run as
functions and then those functions tend to run on their own and they tend to
then, you know, work on their own and develop their own systems and then those
systems don't talk to each other. So, for instance, you have a support group
and that support group generally uses a helpdesk tool and you know they open
tickets track issues and that kind of thing. And those issues could have
development things. Well then your development team uses some sort of badge out
tools, so they're using Agile central or using version 1 or Jira something like
that. They want to work in their system and then your finance department has
their big ERP and then you know you've got. Then your project management team and,
so they're doing things by spreadsheets or whatever. But at some point, all of
this information is got to compile and compare. And so, you know if a ticket
opens up and support that needs to easily flow to your development, that it has
to get in you're planning, your project managers need to have things that
easily go to development, developers got to do it all it's got to tie together.
But for years people have been buying different tools that satisfy just their
need. And now there's this huge integration issue that's happening within
platforms. And so, when we enter an organization and we're looking at what, you
know, is a whole and as a business you start dealing with well, you know, this
faction is not going to want to use, that faction is not going to want to use
it. So this is just for us and I think that that is something that is really
the next frontier of I.T. and Agile. And so I think one of the biggest promises
of Agile in terms of methodologies it's forcing I.T. to not look at only how
they plan and operate but also how they do dev ops. And that's such a large
component of being Agile. I think one of the favorite quotes I ever heard came
from Curtis Timely and he's the product manager for CA PPM, which we're very
proud to have as a sponsor for us, and he has all the time. Are you doing
Agile? Are you doing Agile theater, and him when you ask what do you mean? And
he says, “Well, you know, if you're doing Agile that means, you know, you're
fully ready to develop and deploy code all the way to production and that could
mean even releasing code prior to you know the sprint end date you release on
demand. That's fully developed and deployed and ready to go; Agile theater
means you've just created Agile teams. But, you know, you're just developing
code in an Agile way but if you can't deploy it and impact that an invaluable
wage or a customer then that's Agile theater.
00:37:22;28
- 00:37:29;10
And
because you know so many I.T. groups are so chopped up.
00:37:29;21
- 00:39:18;13
I
think that that's, you know, a big piece. I think one of the other things that
we're running into and we see quite a bit out there is the lack of readiness to
commit to the methodology and again that's the same point that we were just
making is that must change behavior. So, for instance you know we see a lot of
customers that say we want to go out but we still want everybody to track time.
And I know that's crazy for me, because up to two years ago I would have told
you unless everybody in the organization is tracking time then you're not going
to get to the productivity numbers that you need to. So, I was big big big big
big on time tracking, and I still am unless you have a way in which you can
track productivity numbers and things of that sort but in adj out you have that
way. You know you have committed sprint's committed story points to them
whether or not they got completed and velocity numbers and things of that sort.
So, and there's even ways that you can derive costs we can even capitalize by
story point things like that, and if you want to see how to do that you can
pick up the almanac volume to book to we talk about exactly that how to
capitalize and do capital and expense buy story point within the book. But
coming back to the specific point, you know, we talk to clients who say, “
Yeah
we're Agile but we want them all to fill out time sheets and we're like what
then that's not an Agile practice. I mean then you're having to break out the,
you know, teams to individual people. They have to track times to specific
tasks such not an Agile practice that's not really Agile. So are we going Agile
or aren't we? I mean if we're going Agile, then it's a team based team
reporting team productivity and we are all going that way or we're not right.
00:39:18;13
- 00:40:11;27
But
it's not we can't just dip the toe in the water where they're committing to the
methodology and going forward or we're not. So, it's no different than, you
know, and I'll beat this analogy to death; no different than, hey I'm going on
a sugar free diet except for the three slices of chocolate cake that I'm going
to eat at night. You know you're either committed to it and you're going to go
after it or you're not. But those are the same people that's going to turn
around and go, “Yeah we tried adj out but it didn't work. And I tried to diet,
but I didn't see results so I'm off that you know sugar free diet.” It's like.
Yeah. Did you ever really go sugar free. Yeah, I don't drink except for you
know the bottle of wine at night. Come on. You're either IN or you're out. But
you can't have it both ways so easily. That answer the question. And I know I
went on a little bit more of a tirade than I anticipated but it's a good
question.
00:40:11;28
- 00:40:18;25
I
enjoyed it. You know. But that leads to the bigger discussion here as well.
00:40:18;26
- 00:41:01;19
And
we've got a little bit of time to deal with it. As you're changing we talked
about euphemisms; we talked about the cycle. There is the other big elephant in
the room with that. And that's people started talking about story points, and I
always refer to one of my favorite conversations I had with the naturalists as
we were trying to convert things to costs, and we said you know this story
points it's a two week sprint so we're going to end for 80 hours per person.
Multiply that by cost to get to accosts, and she says she can't do that. So why
when we do things by story points? I get that, but we still have to infer this
to a cost. Well you can't do that. Why? Because we do it by starting points. So
long story short, I came back to her, and it's like well can I cut you a check
and story points.
00:41:01;22
- 00:41:32;01
Can
we pay you in story points. And so, I think that there is the commitment to
methodology. You can't tip a toe in the water, but there is still a translation
that has to happen. So, I think the largest trend that we're going to be
looking at especially in 2018 is the emergence of hybrid, and hybrid is going
to be the emergence of the proper hybrid in the translation, because at the end
of the day, you can't go to a CFO and show a reporter story points. They've
still got to see dollars at the end of the day.
00:41:32;01
- 00:43:17;26
A
company is still going to fund initiatives right, whether you call it a project,
whether you call it features where they called, you know, backlog whatever.
There's still got to be we are paying X amount of dollars to get X amount of
value out. What I love is the fact that we're not necessarily funding projects
anymore. We may not be funding, you know people are funding teams, but I do
like the fact that everything is starting to lean towards value. What is the
amount of money that we're funding? What's the amount of value that we're
getting in return? Because if we start to use the term value and we really
started to translate that term value, then I.T. can be referred to as value.
And I really think that that becomes that euphemism that works in our favor. So
instead of trying to be always happy, go lucky and change all these different
terms. If we can get the term out of it being a cost center and it being a
value center in this is the value of the project. This is the value of the
work. This is the value of the deliverable. Then I think, when it comes time
for funding and time for budgets and everything else, then things are starting
to be seen in a whole different light. And that's one of the most important
things I think that we can go after. So, I know we've covered quite a bit.
We've covered the evolution of I.T. We've covered the evolution of my view of Agile.
We've even come up with some euphemisms of all that has confused you. Hey, it's
been that kind of Friday for me as well but I'm welcome to fielding your
questions answering the phones. Anything that you guys have. But we've got one
final segment we're going to, and do that next right here in The Work/Life
Balance with Rick Marrs.
00:46:19;15
- 00:46:44;13
And
we're back with the final segment of The Work/Life Balance for the first show
of 2018. Already hit 2018 running. We're going to be in Louisville Kentucky
next week, I believe with 21st and 22nd. We're going to be doing some keynotes
for Sivertsen International right here in Birmingham, but we'll be working with
that organization. We'll be in Nashville the week of the twenty ninth.
00:46:44;13
- 00:48:37;18
It
got a lot of exciting and then of course I'm sorry but February 16th we'll be
going back to Orlando to be with the international certification with the John
Maxwell team. So, a lot of exciting travel coming up. A lot of exciting events
coming up, so we hope that you'll hang out with us for all of those. And again,
upcoming shows, we're actually going to do a panel interview next week. We've
got a new book coming out. We had John on the show with how leaders improve
previously. But we're going to get Jeff Grady and I believe Sasha Linda can
help, if said her name right, but we'll make sure we get it right for next
week. And Steve Williams, John Gates on the show discussing their book and
their research on how leaders improve. So that will be coming up next week.
We'll also have Paul Cummings which is good. He's got a great book that was
just released by Wiley. We’ll be discussing about that on the show January 19th,
and then we'll have one of the coauthors of The Almanac. Nicole is going to be
joining us on January 26 and then looking forward as well. February 2nd we're
going to have, as we were doing this Agile show, we booked Scott Ambler who is
really the founder and disciplined, Agile has got a great consulting practice
around that, we've had some fantastic conversations, Scott NYE around this very
topic that I was discussing today. So, can't wait to have him on the show and
I've already prepped him that I was going to throw a lot of these comments that
I've got around Agile and would love to hear how he reacts and responds to some
of the things that I've heard in the open market. So, with that we've
appreciated everybody hanging around with us. You know I wanted to give some
closing comments around Agile.
00:48:37;19
- 00:50:04;08
Look,
I love the fact the greatest thing about Agile, I'll say this, is that there
seems to be a lot of passion around it. And to see passion and ownership within
the development world and developers around it that I completely enjoy. So
regardless of, you know, if you want me to, the whatever methodology you want
me to call it, if there's passion around planning there's passion around
understanding. You know what each other is doing and supporting each other in a
team environment. I'm all on board. The communication around it in some of
those ceremonies built if they're bought into, and people are really doing it
and really getting value out of it as a teamwork based system, I think there's
tremendous value in that as well. Those are some of the biggest things that I'm
catching, as well as I said before in the earlier segment, the covenant between
executives and developers in making sure that we're not touching this sprint
and that we actually can focus and achieve and accomplish something versus
trying to do 17 projects at once. When I started The Work/Life Balance, in one
of my biggest, you know, runs for the last 20 years, is the fact that I think
the number one issue that faces almost every organization on the planet is
you've got too many projects not enough people.
00:50:04;24
- 00:50:18;13
And
so, I don't care what we call the methodology. I don't care how we structure a
methodology, as long as our biggest focus is that we are focusing on the people
who actually do the work for our companies.
00:50:18;13
- 00:51:12;12
We've
got way way, way too much work planned. And what happens without any kind of
methodology or portfolio management is that companies try to start and do every
project. And they don't finish any of them well. So again, I don't care what
you call it as long as there is a profound focus that's protecting our most
precious, our most precious, resources which are the people that do the work
right. Those are the people are going to give you the results. So, don't sit in
some stuffy room and sit there with some spreadsheet and decide people's
futures, or go, “Yeah they can be 180 percent allocated.” Everybody's over
allocated. Who cares, because that is truly what's going to disrupt your
organization. And that's truly what's going to be the detriment to your
organization. If you treat people with respect you treat people for the
knowledge that they can bring.
00:51:12;13
- 00:51:56;23
You're
really going to reap the rewards. And if you want to call that Agile, and if
you want to develop a methodology that's going to expound on who they are and
what they can provide for you, then that's the successes. So if Agile is the
answer to that, for you and your organization, then I'm on board. Let's rock. Let's
call it if you want to call it. You know some fluty-do thing, then I'm with that
as well. But the point being is that people, at the end of the day, is where
this success or failure of your organization is going to be, and how you treat
and respect them is where the success or failure is going to be for your
organization. And that's it. Methodologies aside, what you call it aside,
that's what's going to be and that was the point of The Work/Life Balance in
the first place.
00:51:56;24
- 00:52:57;18
Why
I started to do this radio show is to expose this listening audience not only
to different methodologies and different thoughts but also to people that we're
going to expose us to different ways of doing things. To leadership. To
different aspects. And we'll hopefully continue to do so throughout 2018 if you
continue to bless us with the opportunity to fill the airwaves. So, I have
appreciated this audience. I appreciate the following in the love that we get
on Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and all the other things. Please continue
to reach out to us Rick A. Morris. You can find me at break 8. Morris and
LinkedIn. You can find me at Facebook at the same as well always reach out to
Rick A. Morris and you'll find all of us on social media there. We also post
our calendar where we're going to be at rickamorris.com, so we're going to be
speaking in anywhere near you. Please come find us let us know that you listen
to the show.
00:52:57;18
- 00:53:23;15
We're
also working on getting this show out on Alexa so it can be on the podcast
there. So, listen for that announcement shortly, as that should be done in a
moment. And we've got some exciting announcements that we'll be releasing
across the show over the next couple of weeks. So again, reach out to us. We
love you guys and we'll talk to all of you next week right here in The
Work/Life Balance. You've been listening to Rick Morris.
