Episode 87: Coffee From The Trenches with Henrik Kniberg

Renee and Craig catch up with Henrik Kniberg at Scrum Australia 2014 where he tries coffee for the first time in ten years at the Paramount Coffee Project (the best coffee in Sydney according to Renee). Apart from getting his verdict on the brew, they also talk about:

First time back in Australia in a long time to keynote at Scrum Australia 2014
Craig’s interview “Henrik Kniberg on Lean From The Trenches, Translating the Agile Manifesto and Living Agile” from Agile 2012 in Dallas on InfoQ
“Scrum and XP From The Trenches” and how the book was written in 3 days
Ivory Tower Syndrome – you can get good at describing crap in a believable way if you don’t have connections to reality
“Kanban and Scrum: Making The Most of Both“
Spotify – 25 coaches with 25 pet approaches, the culture and the fundamentals in each cross functional team is the same, the purpose of organisations is not make life easy for the manager, it is to make it possible to deliver and learn fast
Tradeoffs – consistency vs flexibility in tools such as version control at Spotify
Spotify culture – started with Scrum, was fundamentally healthy, created by the mindset of the founders and the first few people
Spotify succeeded because the people who work there are passionate about making a great product – making a product where they also the customer – the new problem is keeping empathy for new users
Renee still buys CDs apparently!
Spotify is focussed on growth not profit – optimise for users loving the product – there will ultimately be one big player
“Scaling Agile @ Spotify with Tribes, Squads, Chapters & Guilds” paper and “Spotify Engineering Culture Part 1” and Spotify Engineering Culture Part 2” videos
Scaling Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches – gradual ramp up since 2010, each coach has 2-3 squads, coaches are culure workers (a good example of investing in coaches)
On coaches, Spotify has shown it is probably harder to multitask roles than teams
Crisp – balance of independence versus freedom, runtime environment for consultants
Oath of Non Allegience – come to companies with toolboxes – how they work and which one is appropriate for the environment
Need some relation to the craft of the team as a coach – need to be open to blindspots
Henrik’s verdict on the the coffee… no spoilers, you will need to listen!