Episode Page

The Secret to Easier Prioritization

People often assume prioritization—whether for a Scrum product backlog or a personal todo list—is an analytical problem best solved with value calculations and spreadsheets. But it turns out that great product people tend to use intuition, gut feel, rather than analysis to prioritize. In this episode, Peter and Richard introduce a set of heuristics gathered from the best product people that you can use to prioritize work quickly and intuitively. Read More

Two Key Moves for Better Sprint Retrospectives

The Sprint Retrospective is perhaps the most important event in Scrum. In this episode, Richard and Peter share their two favorite ways to make the Sprint Retrospective meeting way more effective. If your team’s retros have become boring, repetitive, or just a waste of time, these two key moves will bring them back to life. Read More

Effective Sprint Reviews

In this episode, Richard and Peter dig into how to have an effective Sprint Review meeting. Great Sprint Reviews, achieve 3 goals and answer 3 key questions. Learn how do accomplish this on your team. (And discover why “Sprint Demo” is too limited a name for this meeting.) While this is explicitly Scrum-focused, it’s really about how to have a meeting to review a body of work as a team, whether you’re using Scrum or not. Read More

How To Have a More Effective Daily Scrum Tomorrow

In this episode, Richard and Peter give 3 quick tips you can use to have a more effective Daily Scrum right away. Too many teams waste this important meeting on a boring status report instead of using it to create team alignment and make every day matter. Read More

Effective Sprint Planning

In this episode, Richard and Peter dig into the 3 conditions for an effective Sprint Planning meeting. While this is explicitly Scrum-focused, it’s really about how to have a good team planning meeting, whether you’re using Scrum or not. Read More

Why Scrum works when it works

Peter and Richard are often asked: “Why do you guys like Scrum so much? It seems like a lot of meetings, and I see a lot of teams struggling with it. But you recommend it for a lot of situations, and it seems like you’ve thought a lot about it.” In this episode, they explain why Scrum works when it works and why it’s still their favorite approach for product development, including outside of software development. Read More

The Three Jobs of Management (HW Show)

In organizations where teams and individuals are empowered to own and direct their own work, what do managers do? Is there even a role for a manager in an empowered org? In this episode, Richard and Peter introduce the Humanizing Work Three Jobs of Management model, showing how skillful managers can add significant value in their role. Read More

Dealing with “technical stories”

In this episode, Richard and Peter take on the challenge of so-called “technical stories,” backlog items that emerge from a development team and that don’t represent a clear slice of customer value. How should a product owner handle these? Are “technical stories” even a thing? Read More

The Healthy Way To Do Commitments & Accountability

Making clear commitments and having regular discussions about accountability is a hallmark of every successful organization and, outside of work, every successful relationship. In this episode, Peter covers how to make a commitment with integrity, how to honorably break or renegotiate a commitment when necessary, and how to have effective conversations about accountability. Read More

Mark Ethier, founder of iZotope

In this episode, Richard and Peter talk with Mark Ethier, founder of leading audio production software company iZotope. Even if you’ve never heard of iZotope, you’ve heard the results of their products—they’ve won Emmy, Oscar, and NAMM awards for their contributions to TV, film, and music production. Among other topics in this dense episode, Richard, Peter, and Mark discuss how iZotope went through different “stages” of Agile, what Mark has learned in two decades as a leader, how to develop managers, and the future of work and of music. Read More