By Agile Conversations authors Douglas Squirrel and Jeffrey Fredrick Congratulations—you’ve decided to improve trust with someone at work. It could be the project manager who sets deadlines without consulting you, or that customer who’s complaining endlessly that you don’t deliver sufficient quality, or the star salesperson who sells features the company can’t deliver. Whoever it is and whatever the symptoms of the lack of trust, the first rule is—SLOW DOWN. When we talk to clients about … [Read more...]
A Note from the Authors of Agile Conversations
Hello friends! After years of research, learning, and practice, we’re so glad that we can finally bring you Agile Conversations. It started for us in a small study group, seeking to improve our own communication skills. Encouraged by our initial success, we began working with others. Now, after working with more than 100 companies and thousands of individuals, we’re confident these skills can radically and rapidly change the dynamics in an organization. Along the way we’ve seen far too many … [Read more...]
Conversations: Humanity’s Secret Weapon
Adapted from the upcoming Agile Conversations by Douglas Squirrel and Jeffrey Fredrick. Our Special Power In his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari explores what has allowed humans to become the dominant species on the planet. His answer is that we have a special kind of communication, unique among animals. Many animals can communicate the idea “Run away from the lion!” through barks, chirps, or movement. Building on top of that, the development of human and … [Read more...]
Why the Full Stack Engineer Is Problematic
Excerpt from the DevOps Enterprise Forum Paper Full Stack Teams, Not Engineers, by Jason Cox, Christian Posta, Cornelia Davis, Dominica Degrandis, Jim Stoneham, and Thomas A. Limoncelli. Can you possibly be good at everything? In the digital era, the sheer quantity of tools, frameworks, programming languages, and methods/models overwhelms the brain. Technologies come and go, and learning a new technology often involves intense effort. Learning a new environment and domain knowledge takes … [Read more...]
Getting Your DevOps Enterprise Summit Presentation Submission Accepted (2020 Edition)
In 2017, I wrote this post (Getting Your Presentation Submission Accepted For DevOps Enterprise Summit In 2017) with some tips on getting your DevOps Enterprise Summit presentation proposal accepted. In that video, there is a link to a fantastic one-hour video that I did with fellow programming committee member Damon Edwards (co-founder of Rundeck), and Margo Cronin, whose submission we had accepted in 2016 when she was Head of Technology Architecture at Zurich Insurance (and now at AWS!). In … [Read more...]
Gene Kim Q&A with the Authors of Team Topologies
Gene: Every company loves an org chart, but why are they really so misleading Matthew and Manuel: Org charts are management-focused constructs, meant to funnel lines of reporting from the bottom to the top—the typical hierarchical pyramid. The fundamental problem is extrapolating this construct and assuming it actually represents the lines of communication in the organization, alignment of business goals and decision making power. This misinterpretation still happens in most … [Read more...]
Q&A with Mark Schwartz and Gene Kim
Recently, Gene Kim had a chance to speak with Mark Schwartz about Mark's new book, War and Peace and IT, Business Leadership, Technology, and Success in the Digital Age: Gene Kim: What inspired you to write a book about IT management for business leaders? Mark Schwartz: I meet with executives from over a hundred large enterprises each year. It’s amazing how patterns emerge: so many of them are trying to transform digitally, trying to find new sources of growth and to survive disruption—and … [Read more...]
Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework
IT Revolution is excited to announce the release of our latest book, Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework. Dr. Mik Kersten, CEO of Tasktop, has written a book that every business, big or small, will need to read if they want to survive the Age of Software. Tech giants, startups, and digital natives are disrupting every market. No one is immune. And just as happened in the Age of Manufacturing, any business that doesn’t rise … [Read more...]
A Recent Discussion With DevOps Leaders
The excitement for the DevOps Enterprise Summit Las Vegas (#DOES18) continues to build as October draws closer! Recently, the amazing DOES18 community came together for a live CrowdChat. During the hour-long discussion, DOES18 speakers, programming committee members, and others from the software delivery community covered topics from leadership, modern infrastructure, popular resources and favorite experiences from DevOps Enterprise Summits past. Hosts of this discussion … [Read more...]
Insights for Spanning the Divide Between Business And Technology
The DevOps Enterprise Summit London 2018 conference may have come and gone, but the wealth of information springing forth from before, during, and immediately after the show continues to flow. Indeed, while the conference itself is an absolute treasure trove of knowledge-sharing and collaboration, one of the most amazing outcomes of DevOps Enterprise is its ability to inspire and facilitate discussions of important industry topics for years to come. One of the hot topics surrounding the … [Read more...]
