Agile's growing popularity over the last 20 or so years causes some organizations to get it wrong—they apply a bandage when full-blown sustainable solutions are required. But many companies are getting it right with patience, commitment, collaboration, and amazingly intelligent and creative agile leaders and experts to guide them. Many of these experts are sharing their knowledge through podcasts, allowing anyone to learn from their experience.
I have always enjoyed listening to podcasts and even considered creating one. I used to listen to them while driving to and from work, but surprisingly, I listen to them more now, even though I'm working from home.
As with books, there are a lot of scrum and agile podcast options you can choose when you want to learn more. The following are my top three favorite agile podcasts; they provide me a lot of value, and they're well worth my time. I hope this list helps you decide which agile podcasts to start listening to.
1. Scrum Master Toolbox
Scrum Master Toolbox is a daily podcast that's produced and hosted by Vasco Duarte. Vasco is a prolific agilist, creator of the #noestimate movement, and author of the book NoEstimates.
Vasco speaks with scrum masters, agile coaches, agile transformation leaders, product owners and managers, developers, and others. The format definitely draws you in; Vasco is highly engaging, and his questions are thoughtful and thought-provoking.
Along with his amazing guests, Vasco digs into some very poignant and provocative topics in the agile space, such as scrum, kanban, Extreme Programming (XP), scaling agile, product owner dynamics, agile transformations, software development, psychological safety, scrum team metrics (e.g., velocity and sprint burndowns), and commitments like sprint goal and definition of done.
You come away from Vasco's podcast with the ability to grow your network by connecting with your peers and hearing different experiences and perspectives. This helps you inspect and adapt, make changes in the way you work, or just enjoy good conversations on intriguing topics.
Some of my favorite episodes are:
- Turning product owner fears into better collaboration tools, featuring Daniel Lenhart
- Small steps to improvement, even when you don't know what would work, featuring Mahesh Jade
- Key questions to consider as a scrum master, featuring Ben Maynard
- The large backlog as a PO anti-pattern, featuring Samantha Menzynski and Brian Zeibart
- The PO and the scrum master as the dynamic duo to help teams succeed, featuring Samantha Menzynski and Brian Zeibart
- How to help the PO focus on value, featuring Charles Rodriguez
- The missing vision anti-pattern in business changes, featuring Mandy Sunner
Badass Agile
Badass Agile is another great podcast with a bit of a different flare. I would describe host Chris Williams as "a little edgy," so the episodes are a bit edgier as he drives you to become a true agile badass. By listening, you are taken into the heart and mind of someone with an extensive agile background, who has worked with many large organizations and has been instrumental in transforming organizations, teams, and people.
Chris emphasizes being agile over doing agile. In each episode, he reflects on experiences, mindsets, habits, and current trends. You can't get a lot of what you hear on his podcast anywhere else (or at least not easily). I come away from each episode feeling very motivated, invigorated, and ready to put what I have learned into my daily practices.
Some of my favorite episodes include:
- Finding the leaks
- Agile means freedom
- Coaching is teaching
- Not just for IT
- What agile has done for me
- Break rules
3. Troubleshooting Agile
Troubleshooting Agile is another great podcast that I listen to regularly. It "is a weekly problem-solving session hosted by Douglas Squirrel and Jeffrey Frederick on software delivery and team productivity." Douglas and Jeffrey are masters of the agile domain, and they share their knowledge in their podcast and their book, Agile Conversations.
In the podcast, Douglas and Jeffrey explore a variety of agile topics to find solutions to related issues.
Some of my favorite episodes include:
- Pandemic productivity
- Measuring teams
- War and peace and IT
- DevOps for the modern enterprise
- Making output visible
- Troubleshooting checklists
- Why can't we ship today?
- Learning through case studies: The 4Rs
Happy listening!
If you are an agile or scrum professional (or hope to be), I recommend listening to these podcasts. Most importantly, if you are new to agile, scrum, or other agile methodologies like XP, Less, Crystal, etc., you can't go wrong by adding these to your podcast queue. Podcasts are the perfect way to consume knowledge when you are driving, working out, in your office, or just chillin' in the comfort of your bed.
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