Episode 10 wraps up our first “season” of the Scaling Tech Podcast! Every 10 episodes, Arin and David will do a recap episode of lessons learned from our guests. In this special episode of the Scaling Tech Podcast, we review some of our favorite clips from our first nine episodes. This includes interviews with notable agile experts such as Daniel Vacanti, Sanjiv Augustine, Lyssa Adkins, and Bill Wake, covering all sorts of topics including agile coaching, test automation, Kanban, and how to deliver more value to your users!
If you are new to the Scaling Tech Podcast, this episode will provide a quick way for you to get a sense of all our guests so far. You can use the links below to find the show notes and links for each of these episodes for the guests and topics you want to explore next!
This will be our final episode of 2022. We’ll be back in January 2023 with more episodes and fantastic guests on the Scaling Tech Podcast!
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Show notes with links to jump ahead are below
Show Notes from Episode 10 – Lessons Learned and Recap
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- 00:00 Introduction – Arin and David introduce the 10th episode of the Scaling Tech Podcast. Arin notes that this episode is like our version of an Agile Retrospective. Retrospectives are meant to be frequent and short reviews of what a team has learned, what has gone well, how they can improve, and so on. In that spirit, Arin and David are going to do something similar every 10 episodes of the Scaling Tech Podcast, and review the lessons learned from recent guests.
- 02:35 Episode 1 – Our Origin Story. Arin and David briefly touch on the first episode, which did not have a guest, but if you’re interested in learning more about the journey that David and Arin have been on over the last 10 years, and how they got to this point today, then definitely check out episode 1 to learn more about their story of founding AgilityFeat.
- 03:14 Episode 2 – Daniel Vacanti – Predictability and Kanban. Dan spoke with us about a wide range of Kanban topics, but in this clip Dan talks about choosing between Scrum and Kanban … or rather, that you don’t have to choose between Scrum and Kanban!
- 05:39 Ep 3 – Sanjiv Augustine – Managing for Value Delivery. Sanjiv Augustine is a thought leader in agile leadership, and one of the many interesting points he made is about how the pandemic has accelerated the demise of the project model, and that’s why we need to learn to manage for value instead. In this clip, we hear what Sanjiv had to say about the definition of a Value Management Office.
- 10:38 Ep 4 – Dave Haeffner – From QA to Software Developer. Episode 4 was a really fun conversation with our old friend Dave Haeffner, who has worked in a wide variety of roles from QA to Test Automation and Selenium Consultant, and now to being a Software Developer. We talked with him about that journey, and one part of the discussion that we particularly enjoyed were his comments about using North Stars and Anchors as a way to tackle difficult problems or large legacy applications.
- 16:22 Ep 5 – Ryan Nelson – IT Project Management. In Episode 5 we had a very nice conversation with one of Arin’s grad school professors, Ryan Nelson, about the classic mistakes and infamous failures of project management – and there are many of them! Not only are the lots of infamous failures, but we lamented with Professor Nelson about how many projects still fail, but gave some ideas for how they can improve. One theme that Professor Nelson brought up which Arin really appreciated is something similar to what Sanjiv said in Episode 3. We should be thinking less about “Project” Management, and more about Product Management instead.
- 24:22 Ep 6 – Matt Makai – Developer Relations. What is a Developer Evangelist? That’s a topic that we covered in Episode 6 with Matt Makai from Twilio. Twilio is an example of a company that does a great job with developer-focused APIs and content marketing, and Matt shared with us lessons that many companies could use if they are marketing to developers. One point Matt made is very interesting for any engineering manager to consider, since you are likely contracting with various SaaS based APIs to build your product, and you need to decide who is worth your trust. Matt talked about how you can look at the quality of their Developer Relations program to determine if you want to use their APIs.
- 31:03 Ep 7 – Bill Wake – Extreme Programming. Episode 7 was a very interesting technical conversation with noted XP consultant and thought leader Bill Wake. One of the topics we found very interesting is Ensemble Programming, which you can think of as the next evolution of Pair Programming, and which Bill defined in this clip.
- 36:48 Ep 8 – Mariana Lopez – Hiring for UX and Design Roles. In Episode 8, we talked with a senior leader in our own team, Mariana Lopez, who Arin and David have both worked with for over a decade now. Mariana has become a business and technology leader in our organization, but her roots are in UX Design, and so we spoke with her about how to hire UX and Visual Designers, especially if, like David and Arin, you are not a designer. In this clip, Mariana shares one interview question with us that we thought was really good.
- 44:29 Ep 9 – Lyssa Adkins – Agile Coaching. We brought in an excellent closer to season one of the Scaling Tech Podcast! Episode 9 is with Lyssa Adkins, who is a thought leader in Agile Coaching and Agile Transformation. In this clip, Lyssa was talking with us about how she chooses a good client to work with, and this provides some great insight into the things you need to consider before hiring an Agile Coach or beginning a major Agile Transformation.
- 53:07 Conclusion. Arin and David talk a little about the experience of recording this podcast so far. We’d love to hear from you! Tell us about what did you think about these first episodes of the Scaling Tech Podcast? What can we improve on? Who should we have as future guests? We are already recording episodes for the next season and we’ll be back in January with interviews to help you scale your technical team!
Links from Episode 10 – Lessons Learned and Recap
- Episode 9 Lyssa Adkins on Agile Coaching
- Episode 8 Mariana Lopez on Hiring for UX and Design Roles
- Episode 7 Bill Wake on Building Agile Developer Skills
- Episode 6 Matt Makai on Developer Relations
- Episode 5 Ryan Nelson on IT Project Management
- Episode 4 Dave Haeffner on his Journey from QA to Software Developer
- Episode 3 Sanjiv Augustine on Managing for Value Delivery
- Episode 2 Dan Vacanti on Predictability and Kanban
- Episode 1 Our Origin Story