Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they chat with Jurgen Appelo about the crisis in the agile community.

We explore how the agile job market has changed with diminishing roles for agile coaches and scrum masters. And we discuss what people can do now that the agile consulting and training gold rush is over. We talk about the poor quality of agile practices in organizations claiming to have done agile. And the need to improve further, to get the benefits available. And we talk about the evolution and rebranding of agile practices and the impact of AI on the industry.

Gain valuable insights into the future of agile, the importance of adapting to change and strategies for sustaining relevance in a shifting market.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they chat with William Malik about the Haier operating model. Haier, a Chinese appliance giant, transitioned from a failing state-owned enterprise to a highly profitable publicly owned organisation with over 5,700 micro enterprises and $50 billion in revenue.

We explain how Haier uses an internal marketplace to allow microenterprises to trade goods and services with each other, based on a value added mechanism and smart contracts. An approach based on the philosophy of RenDanHeYi, where managers release control and support teams to achieve their potential to create valuable solutions within an open environment.

William makes a compelling case for the benefits of a decentralized agile organizational model in driving high innovation and performance.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they chat with Steve Spear, author of a High Velocity Edge, Wiring the Winning Organization and Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System.

We discuss how good leaders create a system that makes it easy for people to do quality work when and where it’s needed by continually asking, what’s the problem and how can I help?

Steve explains how to use a developmental leadership approach with collaborative problem solving, workflow visualization and iterative improvement to become a high performing organization with an unbeatable competitive edge.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they chat with Gene Kim, leader of the Enterprise Technology Leadership Conference and author of the Phoenix and Unicorn Projects.

Gene describes how DevOps research shows that excellent socio-technical leadership is critical to team success and failure. He explains how technical leaders can dramatically increase team effectiveness by improving the organisational architecture and wiring to support independence of action, rapid feedback and simplification while maintaining stability and security.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they chat with Arnold Stroobach about the Buurtzorg organisation, which decentralised its management and administration to small cross-functional self-managed teams that deliver in-home medical care.

Buurtzorg is the Netherlands largest provider of home care with 16,000 clinical staff in more than 1500 local self-managing teams supported by only 50 admin people and 45 coaches at the company’s headquarters. Buurtzorg’s model allows the organisation to deliver health care at 40% less than traditional service providers with much better health outcomes and client satisfaction.

Arnold explains Buurtzorg’s origins methods, and success. Their team structure, responsibilities and roles. And the potential for other organisations to decentralise management to deliver services much more efficiently and effectively at scale.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they chat with Chris Jones from the Silicon Valley Product Group about the product operating model, emphasising the importance of cross-functional agile product teams.

He shares insights on transitioning to a product model. The value of rapid experimentation, product leadership and common pitfalls. And he discusses successful examples of product transformations at Adobe Cloud and Train Line in Europe.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they chat with with Woody Zuill about mob programming.

Woody explains the concept of mob programming where a cross-functional software development team focuses on completing one feature at a time. Woody describes how mobbing has increased the effectiveness of development teams he’s worked with by 10 times while rapidly increasing team learning, capability and skills. Tune in to learn about the practical implementation of mobbing techniques to improve your product development.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they discuss product management with John Cutler, famous for his newsletter The Beautiful Mess.

We dive into the purpose of product management as a driver of profitable growth. And we discuss how to use the north star framework to align your organisation around common goals. We examine how to use product roadmaps to communicate and prioritize plans and discuss how critical it is to be an open, honest, and effective leader. And finally we look at whether agile is critical or useless in product management. Join us as we uncover the insights and best practices product managers need to be more effective.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they discuss UX research with Dr. Nick Fine. Nick explains what to expect from a UX researcher, how to do user research well, and the challenges that researchers have to overcome to obtain valid results. Whether you’re a product manager, designer, or developer this episode is packed with actionable insights, real world examples and expert tips to enhance your understanding of UX research and its role in creating high value, digital products and services.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they discuss the Vanguard method with Ibbi Hussain, one of the founding architects of this revolutionary approach to organisation change. Ibi describes how the Vanguard method uses systems thinking, service design, and occupational psychology to make profound improvements to call center performance. Join us as we navigate through the philosophy of change, the importance of leadership. And practical insights into implementing sustainable improvement within organisations.

Welcome to our 100th episode.

In this episode, we talk about what we’ve learnt from our guests about agile, product development and leadership. We discuss what the podcast is about and why we started it. We unpack our critical take on fake agile and discuss agile leadership and product development. Join us as we take a deep dive into the insights, experiences and conversations that have shaped our podcast ovr the last 99 episodes. And here’s to another hundred episodes of cutting through the nonsense and bringing you the advice you need to succeed.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they chat with Evan Leybourn from the Business Agility Institute about business agility. We discuss how to define and measure business agility, examples of agile organisations, and the struggle with traditional bureaucratic models. We delve into the different types of leadership, the nature of internal cultural and political changes, and the challenges faced by organisations in adopting and implementing agility.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they chat with Ron Westrum about how organisational culture drives innovation and disaster. We discuss generative, bureaucratic and pathological cultures, using real-world examples from NASA, Boeing and others. This episode highlights the importance of leadership integrity, openness, honesty, the free flow of information, and a mission-focused approach to achieving organisational goals. Listen for insights on identifying and promoting a generative culture, dealing with bad news, the role of technical maestros, and much more.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they chat with Jack Skeels about agile for digital and marketing agencies. Jack advocates for reducing the managerial overhead in organisations to promote productivity and improve communication. We discuss common hurdles in agile implementations. The value of a manager as a sports coach. The importance of scoping the work. Over managing and how real change must start from the top. This episode is full of practical advice and critical insights into organisation dynamics. This conversation is especially useful for those seeking to implement agile in a more holistic, efficient, and outcome oriented way in a service provider.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they discuss objectives and key results with Adrian Howard.

Adrian explains how OKR’s can be used as a strategic instrument for aligning goals within your organisation.  We walk through common pitfalls and misconceptions emphasizing the importance of using OKR’s focused on outcomes rather than outputs. We discuss the potential for using OKR’s with vendors. The idea of paired metrics. And how OKR’s can serve as indicators of underlying problems within your organisations culture and structure.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as discuss business agility and the heart of agile with Mike Leber. 

We talk about how the heart of agile liberates you from rigid process frameworks by focusing on collaboration, delivery reflection and improvement.  We talk about how the agile industrial complex has turned agile into a heavyweight waterfall process.  And how innovation is happening outside the traditional agile bubble.  And lastly, we talk about agile leadership. If you’re interested in getting to the heart of agile and exploring business agility.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they chat with Jason Knight on the state of product management. 

Jason shares his insights and experiences on the responsibilities of a product manager, the evolving nature of the role. Differentiating buyer and user features the importance of testing and validating ideas. Supporting cross-functional teams and fostering a mindset of continuous improvement.  Jason shares insights from his experiences and discussions with thought leaders and provides advice for those navigating the product management field.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they chat with Michael Lloyd about dysfunction mapping.

Whether you are new to the agile world or a seasoned professional, you’ll find valuable insights as we delve into understanding team dynamics, honing the coaching process. And the essential principle of iterative hypothesis testing. Join us as we learned the power of mapping dysfunctions to unveil powerful solutions in agile environments.

In this episode, we talk to Bianca Grizhar about developing digital products in China. We discuss the cultural differences between Germany and China, and how Scrum improved team collaboration. We talk about the benefits of working directly with people offshore in cross functional, cross organisational teams. Whether you’re a product manager or a developer, this episode is packed with practical advice that will help you work more successfully with your offshore teams.

In this episode, we talked with with Gabrielle Benefield, the inventor of the Mobius loop, an outcome focused product development framework.  Gabrielle shares her journey in agile product development from Silicon valley to Yahoo.  And the importance of focusing on outcomes of outputs and improving decision speed. We discuss why organisations don’t focus on outcomes, the problem with contracts and scaling an outcome based approach. And finally, we talk about how you can use an experimental approach to bring an outcome driven, focus to your organisation.

In this episode, Murray Robinson chats with Maarten Dalmijn about Sprint Goals. We discuss how sprint goals should act as a primary mission for a sprint, around which everyone’s tasks should revolve, rather than focusing on individual deliverables. We talk about challenges to implementing this approach, the importance of measuring outcomes over output, and the need for competency and trust in the team. This conversation highlights the importance open dialogue with stakeholders, and the necessity of adaptability in the face of uncertainty.

In this episode, we talked to Joe Justice about how Tesla and Space X have developed a new operating model based on self-organizing teams that continuously discover, deliver, and improve to achieve a thousand year goal. It’s like the most radical combination of open space agility, OKR’s, Continuous Discovery, Continuous Delivery and Continuous Improvement, you can think of. Whatever you think of Elon Musk, these companies are way ahead of most other companies and accelerating further. Tune in for a fascinating discussion about how Tesla and Space X work.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they chat with Ivar Jacobson about Essence; a standard to develop patterns and pattern libraries that is being used by Scrum, SAFE, Lean and Kanban organisations. We discuss object oriented software engineering, use cases, UML, RUP, Essence and AI assisted method coaching. Join us to hear from one of the founders of the software engineering industry.

Join Murray Robinson, Shane Gibson, and special guest Stephen Bungay to discuss how military principles like “Mission Command” can be applied to manage teams effectively in uncertain conditions.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they dive into a discussion with Jose Corella on how leadership principles from the US Air Force can find applications in civilian organisations.

Join hosts Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Jen Pahlka, founder of Code for America and author of "Recoding America". They discuss the current challenges faced by governments...

Join hosts Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Jeff Patton, an advocate of agile and lean ways of working and author of the book “User Story Mapping.” In this episode, we focus on the concepts of product thinking and user story mapping.

Join hosts Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they sit down with special guest Ryan Lysne, a Product Director at Amazon, responsible for the Amazon app, the content creator economy, and worldwide...

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they discuss the nuances of agile transformations with management consultant expert, Peter Lam. We delve deep into: 🔹 The value and effectiveness of...

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they delve into a comprehensive discussion on agile project management with certified scrum trainer, Jem ‘Jelly’ D’jalel.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson as they engage in an insightful conversation with Willem-Jan Ageling on agile project management and leadership.

Understand the importance of a goal-oriented leader who supports and empowers their team, and the common anti-patterns to avoid.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Fredrick Carleson, who has successfully managed a 1500 person SAFe program in a Swedish government department. We explore the challenges of Safe and it’s alignment with Agile values so you can decide if SAFe is right for you.

In this discussion, Frederick emphasises the importance of agile leadership, autonomous customer focused teams and the need to address root cause problems within your system asas you scale. Join us for a fascinating and critical discussion of SAFe.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Scott Ambler about the Disciplined Agile Toolkit

Guests Jared SpoolShane GibsonMurray RobinsonResources https://leaders.centercentre.com/ Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Jared Spool about user experience design. We...

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Joshua Kerievsky about his new book “Joy of Agility”. In this podcast we talk about the poor state of agile today. Commodification, fake agile, dark scrum and water-scrum-fall. Real agility should be a joy to work in. Agility doesn’t mean process frameworks, it means moving with quick, easy grace and being quick, resourceful, and adaptable. Use mantras and stories to get the message across. Be quick but don’t hurry. Be poised to adapt. Be balanced and graceful.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Mirco Hering where we dive into the world of DevOps. 

Join us as Mirco shares his insights on the essence of DevOps and its implementation challenges, from redefining DevOps beyond tools to the importance of feedback loops. Mirco sheds light on the goals and misconceptions surrounding DevOps. Discover how DevOps aligns with agile principles and explore the role of professional services firms in driving agile and DevOps transformations. Join us as we share practical advice for adopting DevOps practices effectively.

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with former Royal Marine Commando Ben Ford about how agile practices mirror modern military practices in the field. We discuss John Boyd’s OODA loop and the value of an accurate model of one’s environment for good decision making. And we discuss mission command and the value of leadership training to develop an effective approach for orders, planning, delegation, and review.  We hope this episode provides food for thought on how you can utilise some of these military leadership principles to enhance your agile practices in the software product development world.

Guests Mark Jørgensen ChaudhryShane GibsonMurray RobinsonResourcesJoin Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation with Mark Jørgensen Chaudhry about visualising your work so you can identify...

Join Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson in a conversation on the “Spotify Model” for scaling agile teams. We cover the role of leadership team structures. Tribe dynamics and the importance of coaching and support during organisational change.  We share our experience with implementing this model in organisations and some of the anti-patterns. Join us to learn how to use the Spotify model to scale your agile organisation successfully.

In this episode we discuss invitational coaching with Michael Delemaza, the differences between coaching and mentoring and the challenges faced in transforming traditional organizations into agile ones. We also talk about the importance of clear communication and alignment at the executive level, as well as dealing with politics and resistance within organizations.