Chuck talks about how this Kanban metric can be used by scrum teams to improve their velocity. Flow efficiency is touch time divided by time in process. Support the showBy Chuck Durfee

On today's episode, Chuck talks about Lent and sacrifice. He talks about how agile teams can apply this idea for continuous improvement. Support the showBy Chuck Durfee

Today, Chuck brings a controversy from work to the podcast. He makes a case for the ability for development managers to attend daily standup. He talks about the policy that brought this topic to mind, as well as a critique of how the policy was rolled out. Support the showBy Chuck Durfee

In this episode of the Agile Chuck Wagon, Chuck talks about objectives and key results. This framework is useful when cascading goals down to others.By Chuck Durfee

Chuck talks about the research of Anders Ericsson in his book Peak, and explains why deliberate practice is better than just good enough for skill improvement and mastery.By Chuck Durfee

This short episode introduces the short OHIO framework for handling information only once using the 4 T's (tackle it, task it, toss it, transfer it).By Chuck Durfee

To start season 7, Chuck talks about a personal retrospective technique based on Zig Ziglar's seven spokes on his Wheel of Life. The idea is, people are balanced if they enjoy success in these seven areas: Mental Spiritual Physical Family Financial Personal CareerBy Chuck Durfee

Chuck looks back on Season 6 of the Agile Chuck WagonBy Chuck Durfee

In this episode, Chuck relates ten tips for having better conversations from a TED talk by Celeste Headlee.By Chuck Durfee

Chuck talks about techniques the US military uses to make emails easier to process and act upon.By Chuck Durfee

In this episode, Chuck talks about Pareto's Principle and how perfect is the enemy of the good.By Chuck Durfee

Emotions are just signals. When you are having trouble getting past one, it can be helpful to have a job aid. In this episode, I discuss ten action signals identified by Tony Robbins.By Chuck Durfee

In this episode, I talk about looking through my bullet journal for a set of questions I discussed in the last episode (ACW: Procrastination). I was surprised at what I learned from my past self.By Chuck Durfee

I put off recording this episode this morning, so I decided to record an episode about procrastination and how I got past it. In this episode, I refer to: Endorsement from Badass Agile ACW: Mel Robbins's 5-second ruleBy Chuck Durfee

In today's episode, Chuck talks about the Cynefin sense-making framework by Dave Snowden. It classifies problem spaces into five categories: Obvious, Complicated, Complex, Chaotic, and Disorder.By Chuck Durfee

Chuck recently lost his earbuds, and that led to a discussion of dependencies. He talks about their impact and a way to overcome some dependencies by thinking about them as creative constraints.By Chuck Durfee

No episode this week, just a short message from Chuck wishing everyone a happy new year.By Chuck Durfee

Since the Agile Chuck Wagon release happens on Christmas Day this year, I recorded a short episode about Christmas. I read from Luke 2:1-18 ESV.By Chuck Durfee

Today, Chuck talks about Jean Tabaka and some facilitation wisdom he learned from her about clearly articulating instructions for a group activity. Let them know what, when, who, how, and pause for questions.By Chuck Durfee

Chuck talks about the hierarchy of work items, and what level of estimation is useful for each. Keep in mind what you are using the estimate for.By Chuck Durfee

In today's episode, Chuck picks a marketing topic: the consumer buying decision process. He talks about the five steps (problem or need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase, and post-purchase behavior). Then, he contrasts marketing a service to marketing a physical good.…

In this episode of the Agile Chuck Wagon, the topic is benchmarking. Chuck talks about the four kinds of benchmarks for computer programs, as well as things you need to control in order to get reproducible results. He then compares agile team metrics to these kinds of benchmarks and these factors to control.…

To kick off season 6, Chuck talks about the equipment and process he uses to record the podcast. The majority of the episode is his podcast recommendations. If you'd like a list of podcasts he mentions, contact him by email (chuck at agile chuck wagon .com) or Twitter (@AgileChuckWagon or @ChuckDurfee).…

In this episode of the Agile Chuck Wagon, Chuck reviews season 15. As is the norm, this is an unscripted conversation reflecting on the last 4 months of the show.By Chuck Durfee

In this second part of two, Chuck talks about how to set up and conduct a successful delegation.By Chuck Durfee

In this first part, Chuck talks about delegation and questions to ask yourself about whether it's appropriate to delegate a task.By Chuck Durfee

Tired of ineffective meetings? In this week's episode, Chuck talks about a classification tool by Graham Jones from his book, Top Performance Leadership. His leadership communication grid describes what channels of communication are most effective for a kind of message. Listen about structured vs. unstructured channels, and informal vs. formal ones…

In today's episode, Chuck talks about his own personal monthly retrospective. He describes the starfish retrospective format he uses, and the benefits of doing a periodic, personal retrospective. If you'd like to see an example, just ask! This episode is sponsored by our friends and generous backers on Patreon. Sponsors are needed to help the podca…

Today, Chuck talks about how a magazine ad from the late 80s and some listener feedback led to some improvements in the podcast. He also talks about ways to vary your daily ritual in the field of agile ceremonies. This episode is sponsored by our friends and generous backers on Patreon. Sponsors are needed to help the podcast grow and thrive. Sign …

In today's episode, Chuck talks about the design pattern called event sourcing. It's used when you need to know not only the current state of a system, but how it came to be that way. It's a lesser-known pattern that's encountered in a variety of places: libraries, chess games, bank accounts, databases, and version control systems.…

In today's episode, Chuck talks about an accounting topic, financial statements. He introduces the idea of a statement of cash flows, balance sheet, and income statement. He talks about assets, liabilities, equity, and other accounting terms. After hearing this episode, maybe the quarterly earnings report will be a little more interesting.…

Today, Chuck talks about the statistics concepts of bias and variance, which are used to measure predictive models. Bias measures how well the model fits the data, and variance measures how much the model changes when inputs change. He then uses bias and variance to make a comparison of agile methodologies, whose estimation and planning practices c…

This episode features the 4 D's of receiving feedback: defensiveness, denial, discounting, drama. Chuck uses an example of an employee who shows up late for a meeting to talk about what each of these might sound like. The inspiration for this episode is a TEDx talk by Alison Whitmore.By Chuck Durfee

In today's episode, Chuck talks about the STARS model. It's introduced in The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins. The STARS model is used to help leaders transition into new positions. STARS is an acronym for start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, and sustaining success. This episode is sponsored by our friends and generous backers on…

This week is a short episode about a facilitation technique for helping a group of people learn each others' names.By Chuck Durfee

In today's episode, Chuck talks a marketing topic: the 10 ways you can grow a business. He talks about what a company might gain from each strategy, using illustrative examples of each type. He also includes the podcast itself as a running example through the podcast. Photo by Nikola Jovanovic on Unsplash This episode is sponsored by our friends an…

As in previous episodes on word choice, Chuck talks about issues that can arise when leaders use the words 'right' or 'wrong' in their speech. He then talks about alternatives that address those shortcomings. This episode is sponsored by our friends and generous backers on Patreon. Sponsors are needed to help the podcast grow and thrive. Sign up to…

In today's episode, Chuck talks about the Relationship Ecosystem that Morag Barrett describes in her book Cultivate. It's a model to classify work relationships into four categories: ally, supporter, rival, and adversary. In this episode, Chuck introduces the classifications. This episode is sponsored by our friends and generous backers on Patreon.…

Starting season 5, Chuck talks about the STATIK framework to introduce Kanban as a delivery process. The framework comes from David Anderson's book Kanban. This episode is sponsored by our friends and generous backers on Patreon. Sponsors are needed to help the podcast grow and thrive. Sign up today!…

Chuck looks back at season 4. Listenership is up, and so is sound quality! This episode is sponsored by our friends and generous backers on Patreon. Sponsors are needed to help the podcast grow and thrive. Sign up today!By Chuck Durfee

On this episode of the Agile Chuck Wagon, Chuck addresses a social media storm. Recently, a prominent member of the agile community has been making sexist comments about female software programmers. This is a timely example of inappropriate behavior, and Chuck uses the BECOME process to formulate a response. Photo by Ian Espinosa on Unsplash This e…

At Mile High Agile 2018, Mike Clement introduced Chuck to the idea of sparrow decks in Mike's presentation about code smells. In this episode, Chuck talks about sparrow decks, what they are and how they can be used to build an awareness of a distinction between two items. This episode is sponsored by our friends and generous backers on Patreon. Spo…

At Mile High Agile 2018, Chuck talked to Mike Clement about the podcast's agile certification series. From that conversation came the inspiration to talk about a couple alternatives, extending the ideas of Udacity's nanodegrees and Seth Godin's alt-MBA program. This episode is sponsored by our friends and generous backers on Patreon. Sponsors are n…

Today, Chuck talks about how to recognize a fellow agilist using behavioral interview techniques. He also shares some wisdom of the crowd around good interview questions. This topic stems from an open space session he led at Mile High Agile 2018. This episode is sponsored by our friends and generous backers on Patreon. Sponsors are needed to help t…

This week, Chuck talks about the emerging practice of mob programming, in which a group of three or more people collaboratively write code around a single keyboard and monitor. While this may sound wasteful at first blush, the practice can accelerate learning. This episode is sponsored by our friends and generous backers on Patreon. Sponsors are ne…

Today, Chuck talks about the conflict escalation model of Freidrich Glasl, which contains three levels of conflict, with three stages each. In addition, Glasl gives techniques for deescalating conflict based on which stage you find yourself. If you've ever wondered when to get your manager or HR representative involved in an issue, this episode is …

This week, Chuck describes the Hungarian algorithm, which is a way to solve the issue of fairly distrbuting tasks among an equal number of workers. He talks about how he used it as a volunteer lead for the Explore DDD conference last year. This episode is sponsored by our friends and generous backers on Patreon. Sponsors are needed to help the podc…

As a follow-up to a prior episode, Chuck talks about BECOME, a step-by-step approach to respond to an incident of inappropriate behavior as a teachable moment when possible. The name is an acronym for the six steps in the process: Behavior, Emergency, Context, Options, Myself and Enact. The material for this episode is drawn from the book, "Encoura…

Chuck talks about ways to respond to inappropriate behavior, a topic that unfortunately concerns many leaders in agile spaces like scrum masters. The material for this episode is drawn from the book, "Encouraging Appropriate Behaviour" by Murray Irwin. This episode is sponsored by our friends and generous backers on Patreon. Sponsors are needed to …

In today's episode, Chuck talks about Little's Law from queuing theory, which plays a prominent role in lean and Kanban. Queuing theory comes up a lot in our society, so you may learn something about shopping and driving as well. This episode is sponsored by our friends and generous backers on Patreon. Sponsors are needed to help the podcast grow a…