Digging into the best minds in Agile to find what really works
Talking Agile over a cup of coffee. I love learning from other people’s experiences.
If you are passionate about Agile you’re probably always wondering how you can make your implementation just that little bit better. So imagine if you could ask some of the leaders in Agile in Australia today what they think actually works – not just what the theorists proselytise. What would you ask?
Fortunately for me, a series of fortuitous events brought me into contact with Michael Simonetti, an accomplished Agile practitioner who is a delivery manager at AKQA overseeing an agile program of work focused on an e-commerce digital transformation. He gets to see patterns and problems on a large scale. He also gets to compare squads in real time to see what’s working and what’s not.
I met Michael for the first time over a cup of coffee in a bustling café called Kettle Black.
I had prepared a list of questions, largely based on my own Agile passions and frustrations of which there are many! I’ve worked on a bunch of Agile projects in retail, government, higher education and superannuation. I’ve seen how each project surfaces different challenges based on the software tools, make-up of the team, scale of the project, stage of the project, and the maturity of the Agile set-up. But I’ve never had oversight of work being done concurrently across multiple Agile teams, so it was great to talk about this with Michael and get his perspective.
As soon as we introduced ourselves. ordered coffees and started talking I pretty much tossed my questions out the window because the conversation flowed, and themes emerged of their own accord.
Our conversation meandered through topics such as:
Scrum master versus Agile coach
The importance of trust
The evolution of Agile roles
The need for top-down support for Agile
A possible middle ground between Agile and waterfall
Talking with Michael helped me cement some of my own thinking about Agile, but I also learned things I hadn’t experienced and hadn’t expected. So I thought others in the Agile space might enjoy hearing what we discussed.
I plan to write a series of blogs covering some of the topics we discussed. The first being ‘Stop writing “Scrum master/Agile coach” on your CV’. Each week will be a new topic and I would love you to follow along if you are a practitioner. I would also love for you to provide your own perspective and share problem areas you’d like me to delve into.
The goal is to improve the overall theory and practice of Agile, I look forward to learning and contributing to the community.
Cheers - Kylie
P.S. If you are an experienced Agile practitioner and would like to be interviewed please send me a private message.