Get Agile Podcast

Join Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita as he sits down with Alexey Kryvitsky, Certified Scrum Trainer, Certified LeSS Trainer, and co-creator of Org Topologies. Together they discuss how to avoid making the implementation of the Agile framework as an organizational goal. Alexey introduces the concept of Org Topologies as a mapping technique to help companies discover where they are, where they want to be, and how to get there. He discusses two dimensions of the map, which are the scope of capabilities and the scope of work. Then he explains each of the four levels on both axis.

Intent-Based Leadership is a way of leading when we give control based on technical competencies and organizational clarity. Created by David Marquet, author of “Turn the Ship Around” it was popularized in the Agile community by Jenni Jepsen. Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita interviews Jenni, on why Intent-Based Leadership works, and how to apply it.

“You need to make a distinction between which direction you’re going and what you’re going to do as a first step,” says Viktor Grgic, Certified LeSS Trainer. In this episode of the Get Agile podcast Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita talks with Viktor about his approach to LeSS transformations. He shares his experience in finding people responsible for organizational structure, with whom he starts conversations on the identification of the problems to solve, not the symptoms to address. Victor explains how he educates decision-makers on the root causes of the current situation and helps companies identify the starting groups. He shows how the feature team adoption map helps define the first steps in the LeSS adoption, and how the team self-designing workshops are used to define new company structure. Companies finish the workshop with both clear goal in mind and the first steps to take, or where they want to be in one year. Viktor emphasizes why owning the change by the group is critical to the success of the transformation, and why the most difficult part of the adoption happens after the workshops.

“There’s no better or worse, there’s more awareness and choice,” says Pete, explaining the Leadership Agility model. He describes three main stages of self-awareness as a leader: Expert, Achiever, and Catalyst. Together, Tomasz and Pete look at each stage’s main characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses, analyzing how these leaders behave, make decisions, or create a strategy. Pete explains what hollow leadership is and how leaders shape culture. He also clarifies how reflections help leaders grow and how they can get feedback from peers, using systemic approaches such as 360 reviews, or informal feedback sessions.

Finally, they discuss leaders’ behaviors during stress and where the firefighting culture might be coming from.

Zuzi shares her story of becoming Scrum Master, what was her greatest challenge, and the biggest change she needed to make. She tells how coaching helped her on her path and how she now works with executives to help them find their dreams. They also discuss how confidence and courage are necessary for leaders to try new things, and how different types of leaders work with their teams.

“The biggest responsibility of leadership is to ensure that promises keep on working on time,” says Angel Diaz-Maroto, Certified Enterprise Coach, and Certified Scrum Trainer. During his recent visit to Warsaw, Poland, he joined Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita to discuss the elements of reliable promises. Together, they look at building promises in a dynamic, agile environment, and how to create these on task, output, and outcome levels.

Angel explains how reliable promises build trust, which creates a culture of responsibility that leads to responding to customers’ needs and delivering results. He shares his thoughts on how promises work with the OKR method. Building on that, they discuss how different people react to challenging and stressful targets, and what can be the consequences of creating an unrealistic goal. Finally, Angel explains how the leader can move the organization from one that fails to deliver on promises to a company that creates (and deliver on) realistic goals.

“Time is your most valuable currency,” says Peter Stevens, co-author of the “Personal Agility” book. “How you choose to spend this currency says a lot about what you care about.” In this episode of the Get Agile Podcast, Peter joins Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita to discover the patterns behind Personal Agility.

Peter explains how to discover things that really matter and how to navigate between them. He shows why it’s not a process to follow, but a set of patterns, and what are the six powerful questions to ask during the “celebrate and choose” event. They also discuss what is the role of the celebrity coach, and how they can help with Personal Agility.

Last but not least, they look at how to extend Personal Agility beyond a single person to the team o organizational level, how to create alignment between stakeholders, and how to improve company effectiveness by reducing time spend on endless meetings.

During the LeSS Conference in Warsaw, Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita interviewed Bas Vodde, co-creator of LeSS. They discuss the consequences of defining the product from the customer perspective versus the technology perspective, and how broader product definition impacts both the organizational structure and the need for collaboration between teams. They look at how private code limit cooperation and learning, how to maximize individual and team learning, why it’s important from the company perspective, and how developers can start building the habit of continuous knowledge creation.

“Agile has crossed the chasm,” said Lyssa Adkins during the conversation with Tomasz Wykowski in Dublin. It was almost five years ago so they’re returning to this conversation to define Agile’s landscape and see how it evolved over the last few years. Lyssa, the co-founder of Agile Coaching Institute, currently focuses on helping leaders understand the changes happening around them. Listen to their conversation to learn why she avoids working with the leadership team from the agile perspective, why she doesn’t do what she’s often asked for, and what she does instead.

Tomasz and Lyssa also discuss how Agile has evolved over the years, and how the nature of the change has changed as well. They’re looking for potential new areas to apply patterns created in software development and how it impacts what Agile Coaches do and focus on.

The war in Ukraine often leads to frustration and feeling of powerlessness. This special episode of the Get Agile podcast was recorded less than 48h after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Tomasz Wykowski from ProCognita discusses with Christopher Avery how the Responsibility Process can be applied to address anxiety caused by a conflict between what we want and what we have. Listen to their conversation to learn how to avoid laying blame, justifying, or feeling guilt and understand what you want to take full Responsibility instead.