SummaryIn this conversation, Dave Prior and Kate Kaiser discuss the challenges faced by non-technical project managers, particularly in overcoming fear and embracing difficult conversations. Kate shares her experiences in project management, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness, communication, and building trust with clients. They explore s…

SummaryIn this conversation, Dave Prior and Val Hinze discuss the evolution of project management roles, the importance of creating a supportive PMO structure, and the significance of servant leadership in fostering a healthy work environment. Val shares insights on how Mighty Citizen has redefined project management to focus on career growth, clie…

SummaryIn this conversation, Dave Prior and Sara Doubleday discuss the complexities of managing change within creative teams, the integration of AI in creative processes, and the importance of maintaining human connections in a remote work environment. Sara shares her experiences with team mergers, the challenges of efficiency versus human connecti…

SummaryIn this episode, Jimi Fosdick joins Dave for a conversation about his journey from traditional project management to agile. They discuss the challenges of applying traditional project management to software development, the importance of understanding the context and problem domain when choosing project management approaches, and the misuse …

In this conversation, Dave Prior and Richard Chang discuss the challenges that product owners face when they don't receive the support and direction they need from their leadership. They explore strategies for product owners to navigate these situations, including having open and honest conversations with leadership, running experiments to validate…

SummaryIn this conversation, Si Alhir discusses the concepts of agility, resilience, and anti-fragility and how they relate to navigating stress and achieving growth. He emphasizes the importance of embracing stress and using it as a tool for adaptation and evolution. Si also highlights the need for balance between order and disorder, and the dange…

SummaryIn this conversation, Dave Prior and Colleen Johnson discuss the concept of cumulative flow diagrams (CFDs) and their practical application in Agile methodologies. They explore the significance of CFDs in understanding work in progress, cycle time, and throughput. Colleen provides insights into the interpretation of CFDs and the implications…

SummaryIn this conversation, Si Alhir and Dave discuss the Art of War, its application in transformation work, and the naturalness and unity found within its wisdom. They explore the concept of taking whole, the relationship with the environment, and the role of the Sage Commander. Si shares personal experiences and insights, emphasizing the transf…

SummaryIn this conversation, Dave Prior is joined by Jeff Leach and Sandra Cain to discuss the question of whether coaching has killed Agile. They explore the role of coaching in Agile transformations and the challenges that arise when underqualified coaches are thrust into coaching roles. They also discuss the difference between coaching and consu…

SummaryThe conversation explores the concept of being a hero or a villain in a team and how awareness of one's role can lead to more intentional actions. The guests, Jesse and Carl, share their perspectives on this topic. Jesse discusses his experience running an agency and how he developed a marketing approach for supervillains. Carl talks about h…

SummaryIn this conversation, Dave Prior interviews Chris Hadnagy and Dr. Abbie Maroño about social engineering and human hacking. They discuss the definition of social engineering and how it differs from human hacking. They emphasize the importance of intent in social engineering, with the goal being to influence someone's actions for their benefit…

I’m testing out the AI Generated Summary…In this conversation, Dave Prior and Scott Sehlhorst discuss the importance of improving the product plan while executing it. They explore the common problem of companies jumping straight into execution without considering what they should build and why. Scott emphasizes the need to shift from a mindset of c…

Alan Dayley is back to help me continue the quest of figuring out why so many companies are struggling with PI Planning or quarterly planning. During the interview, we discuss some of the reasons organizations struggle with this type of planning. We address the topic from the perspective of senior leadership, why they want it, how they often approa…

You’ve decided to take a Scrum certification class. Now the question is, which one? If you are looking for something like Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Product Owner, there are so many options to choose from that it can be overwhelming. All of them should result in certification and price is certainly a concern. But there are a number o…

Keeping up with what is happening in AI is no small task. You probably know some folks who spend a lot of free time learning how to bend (insert AI flavor of the week) to their will, there are folks who are preaching to anyone who will listen about all the amazing things that are right around the corner, and then there are the folks who just period…

If you are on one of those teams that has made a habit of dragging unfinished work from one Sprint to the next... YOU NEED TO STOP! When you get to the end of a Sprint and have work that isn't done, you can't show it to the stakeholders in the Sprint Review. If you don't show it to Stakeholders in the Sprint Review, you can't get feedback. And if y…

At the Modus Institute, Jim Benson and Mark Kilby have created a new offering called Successful Distributed Teams. This new course focuses on how to build strong remote teams, how to create a humane, healthy balance of productivity and accountability, and what tools you can use to make it all work. In this interview, Jim and Mark join me to discuss…

A few weeks ago I interviewed Gil Broza about his new book, “Deliver Better Results: How to Unlock Your Organization's Potential". The book was designed to quickly provide actionable practices that organizations can utilize to improve their value delivery system. It focuses on understanding the fitness for purpose of your system of delivery, and ho…

Gil Broza joins me for a podcast about his new book, “Deliver Better Results: How to Unlock Your Organization's Potential". During the interview, Gil and I discuss how he designed the book to quickly provide actionable practices that organizations can utilize to improve their value delivery system. Our conversation includes details on how to unders…

With the state of Agile as it is today, I find myself frequently wondering, “Is this the Darkest Agile Timeline”? Things have been getting a bit bleak lately in the Agile space. With the layoffs, the job market, and the fact that the business world has change fatigue and is tired of not getting what they expected from a way of working they’ve mostl…

There seems to be a current trend where organizations that say they are doing PI planning or quarterly planning are making a decision for the teams about what must be delivered in the time box. The teams just accept the commitment because they either feel they do not have the agency to push back and say no to some of it or are too busy trying to fi…

What do you do when your Scrum Master’s understanding of their role seems to be less about acting as a servant leader to the Scrum Team and more about making the team to work in a way that is most convenient for them? In this episode of the podcast, Jeff Howey joins me to talk through the real-life case of a Scrum Master who seems to have lost thei…

For the video version of this podcast: https://youtu.be/pnmbdAxskXoWhen an organization has taken the decision to switch an Agile way of working, they often get so caught up in trying to adopt the various practices and processes that they forget to stop and ask the question, “Is this providing the business outcome we need?” Remembering to keep that…

On Friday, December 8, The Agile Alliance is hosting a MiniCon on the Future of Artificial Intelligence. During the event, Mark Kilby will be hosting a roundtable discussion with the speakers to explore the ways AI is poised to impact how we work and what it will take to utilize it in an ethical and responsible way. Mark joins me in this episode of…

Agile is going through a lot of changes right now. The changes aren’t so much in what it is and how it works - that seems to be a bit stable at the moment. The changes stem more from how adopters feel about it, their ideas about much agile they need, what they need to achieve it, and what kind of support they want getting there. As the space works …

With each new round of layoffs, the existential crisis facing the agile coaching community deepens. Alan Dayley joins me to discuss how the community is retrospecting on this moment and whether or not it is asking the right questions. Over the past year, a number of high-profile organizations have made a decision to let go of their agile coaches. T…

Louder Than Ten is a Vancouver-based Project Management Training and Consulting company. L>10 was founded by Rachel and Travis Gertz, and for the past 14 years, everything they have done has been centered around fostering healthy and humane ways of working together and managing projects. There aren’t many organizations in the digital agency space t…

As long as there have been agile teams there has been the challenge of putting people together and getting them to actually be agile. You can send them off to a class and teach them Scrum or Kanban, or bring in team coaches, and that helps, but it doesn’t address one fundamental issue. Most people have not taken (or been given) the time they need t…

Getting people to open up to one another and connect at work is not an easy thing. It wasn’t easy before the world went remote, and now that many of us are somewhere in the middle of being half remote and half in-person, it’s not getting any easier. But if we can get to know each other a little better and a little deeper, we will foster stronger co…

AI is everywhere now. You can’t have a conversation that involves the future of work without heading down the rabbit hole of how Chat GPT and tools like it are changing the workspace. For some, it is a very exciting time. For others, it is scary as hell because it is so hard to figure out how it will impact our work. In this interview, Zach Stone i…

Times are weird in the land of Agile. More and more big companies are letting go of the people they’ve brought on to help them adopt agile practices, or replacing their Scrum Masters with Technical Program Managers, or creating a homegrown version of Agile by taking an established framework and bailing on the practices they don’t like. Is this just…

Jardena London is on a mission. After spending years helping organizations transform, adopt agile, and achieve business agility she realized there was something missing. Soul. Yes, change was happening, but at what expense? Were people any more able to bring their whole selves to work, authentically show up, rise to the challenge of the day, and fu…

Agile 2023 is almost here! Mark Kilby, Tim Nolan, and I are putting the final touches on our session Tuning Your Distributed Team with a Right Environment Exercise. We are looking forward to sharing some of the things we learned in Modus Cooperandi’s Lean Agile Visual Management Certification program. The workshop will be held at Agile 2023 on Tues…

Artificial Intelligence and its impact on the Agile and Project Management space has become a conversation most of us are now having daily. There are a number of products already on the market and more coming every hour. In the same way that several years ago everyone had an app, now everyone wants to have a product leveraging AI. Snehal Talati, th…

Johanna Rothman is one of my favorite people to interview and in this episode, she’s back to talk about her new book Successful Independent Consulting: Relationships That Focus on Mutual Benefit. The book is full of insights and practical tips not just for consultants but anyone looking to establish themself and make their presence known in their p…

I’ve done several podcast interviews over the past few months about Flow Metrics. These podcasts are all pretty much aligned around the fact that if you want metrics you can rely on to predict what to expect from your teams in the future, nothing is perfect, but flow metrics are better than velocity.Since most of the people I meet while I am coachi…

In the classes I teach and the podcasts I record I talk frequently about how deeply Sun Tzu’s The Art of War has impacted the way I understand the opportunities that show up in my life. Once you get past the title, you can begin to understand how it is really a book about collaboration. I have MANY translations of the Art of War in my apartment but…

Join us in this new episode as we welcome back Ross Beurmann, who takes us on an exploration in IT funding, and how the way we fund IT impacts how work gets done and the outcomes it delivers. Drawing inspiration from his thought-provoking LinkedIn post, Ross advocates for making intentional decisions about how we fund IT projects and products, ensu…

Get ready for an electrifying episode of DrunkenPM Radio as I welcome the esteemed James Grenning to unravel the world of Test Driven Development (TDD). Agile 2023 is just around the corner, and during the conference, James will be leading a workshop called "Your First Test-Driven Development." While TDD is not a new concept, it remains unfamiliar …

Are you tired of endless meetings, indecision, and lack of progress? Do you want to learn a powerful problem-solving technique that will help you transform your digital business? If so, you won't want to miss this exciting podcast episode!Join Dave Prior as he interviews Atif Rafiq, a change leader who has worked with some of the biggest companies …

ChatGPT was used to create the blog post to go with this podcast...Are you ready to step into the future of work? Join Marty Bradley and Dave Prior for a mind-blowing conversation about the power of Artificial Intelligence!In this podcast, you'll learn how Marty has teamed up with AI to write a book and create epic briefs, and how this cutting-edge…

What do you do when you and your fellow product owners are competing for limited resources (human and otherwise) within your organization and senior leadership seems unwilling or unable to align around strategic priority for the company and create clarity on what the most important things to work on are. Is it okay for leadership to just wait for t…

This episode of the podcast is all about Facilitation. Fellow Certified Scrum Trainer, Anu Smalley joins me to talk about a brand new Scrum Alliance certification called: Agile Coaching Skills - Certified Facilitator (ACS-CF). During the conversation Anu and I discuss what the certification focuses on, what you can expect from someone who has it, a…

Connecting with new people can be a challenge. More for some than others. In work, and in life, knowing how much to share, where the line is, what it is okay to ask ... this was always tough. And when every team on the planet suddenly became a distributed team.. the stakes got higher. And as welcoming as the solutions are for some, they have the op…

PMI Chair Jennifer Tharp joins me for this episode of the podcast from Venice, Italy where she is making the most of being a remote worker . During our conversation, we cover a wide range of topics including:- What is the best movie about project management - What fictional character best represents your inner project manager- Has the profession of…

The Future of Project Management This episode features Howard Sublett as we discuss where Project Management and Agile are headed in the future. Howard is the former CEO of the Scrum Alliance. He’s been working in the space for years and has been doing consulting work since leaving SA. During the conversation we explore how the agile transformation…

There is a massive difference between being a group of people who work together and being a high-performing team. It doesn’t matter if you are working in an agile organization or one that is more traditional, a group of people who share an understanding of how they work, why they work, and how they can show up and support one another every day are …

PMI Fellow Ricardo Vargas joins me in this episode of the podcast to talk about Artificial Intelligence, Chat GPT, and the Future of Project Management. During our conversation, I got the chance to dig deeper into some of the ideas raised in his recent HBR article "How AI Will Transform Project Management." Whether you are working in a traditional …

In this episode, my good friend Chris Li joins me for a conversation about Sprint Goals. While Chris and I are aligned on the importance of having a Sprint Goal, we approach the creation of it in different ways. During this conversation, you’ll get a detailed breakdown of how each of us shows up for the Sprint Goal conversation, when, and how it ha…

In “Lead Without Blame: Building Resilient Learning Teams” Diana Larsen and Tricia Broderick present tools, techniques, and strategies you can employ to transform the way you approach leading teams. Throughout the book, they present case studies and examples from their own experiences that showcase the impact you can have by fostering a psychologic…