See Peter Saddington on InfoQ and the interview around fun stuff that’s going on in his world.

Hit it up here: http://www.infoq.com/interviews/saddington-agile-scout

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Peter Saddington & Brian Bozzuto – Agile Games 2012 from Agile Scout on Vimeo.

The conference is being held Apr 19-21 in Cambridge, MA at the Microsoft New England Research Division (they abbreviate it NERD).

Jacqueline (Jacqui) Lloyd Smith on Strategic Play

[Like this idea? If you have an event you'd like to share with the Agile community, let me know! We'll do a video-cast]

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I caught up with him and asked him a few questions around himself, more on startups, and just a small bit on the really cool kanban tool that his team has built. The interview is very enlightening, and I would highly suggest grabbing some of the golden nuggets of wisdom that Jon has to share.

Tell us about yourself, background, etc.

My dad was in the Army so we moved around a lot, mostly in the US but also Germany. I went into the Army myself for a little while after high school. When I was done and went to college, my degrees were decidedly non-technical or business – the history of US foreign policy and print journalism. I think I had aspirations to be the next Tom Friedman.

I worked in journalism for several years, both in college and after. I started working when newspapers were first experimenting with this new-fangled Internet thingy. None of the more experienced editors wanted to be involved, especially because working on the Web edition meant you were on the late, late shift until 4 in the morning. But I thought it was pretty interesting and I could already see that electronic distribution was eventually going to hurt print publications.

I remember telling a group at a student journalism conference that they ought to look for other work because the Internet was going to ruin their careers. Sadly I was right.

In the meantime, though, I had moved on to a sales/marketing job at an Internet start-up called eHC.com. We built websites for hospitals. We weren’t “really” a start-up because we were funded by the giant hospital company HCA, but there was still a lot of that start-up energy and enthusiasm. It was a lot of fun for about a year and then the dot.com bubble burst – at which point having a corporate backer turned out to be very useful.  I ended up spending about eleven years with HCA as a business analyst and project manager in their supply chain line of business – where I met my LeanKit partners Chris Hefley, Stephen Franklin, Daniel Norton, Kelly Baker, and JR Allen.

In my final role at HCA as director of project management, I helped start the Lean/Agile transformation of HCA’s IT organization. It’s a huge group, 4,000+ people across the US and India, so the change is still in process. But it’s been very successful – truly getting into Agile at scale. I first met Sanjiv Augustine from Lithespeed and Mary Poppendieck during this time. I was more of a “pure” Scrum guy back then, but both of them got me thinking more broadly about Agile and Lean.

What got you into the startup scene?

Honestly, I was pulled into it by my partners. Most of them left HCA before I did, but we met regularly for lunch and kept saying we ought to start a company.  I wasn’t quite ready to leave HCA. I was also getting my MBA at the time so I was pretty busy. But Chris, Stephen and Dan went ahead and founded LeanKit in 2009 and almost immediately made me a board member. They helped me see that, even though I had a great job at HCA, making the move to a start-up was going to help me grow as a person. My work with the company gradually increased until I started full-time earlier this year.

Making the jump into startups, what would you suggest for new startup folk before they take the plunge?

First, understand the job.

We all read a great book called E-Myth Revisited. It talks about how a lot of people start companies because they really like practicing their craft and want to do it their way – without a boss to interfere. The problem is that the job of a software company’s CEO isn’t to write code. It’s to hire people, make sales forecasts, find investors, lease office space, etc. You may have a vision of a great software product but you have to realize that your job as a leader in your company will be to build the business, not (at least not just) to practice your craft.

Second, find mentors.

You can learn a lot by reading and you certainly should. But there’s no substitute for experience and there’s no better way to learn from experience that by getting personally connected. We’ve learned a ton about sales and marketing from Robert Holler at VersionOne. We’ve gotten great advice on fundraising and made great connections through Michael Burcham and David Furse at the Nashville Entrepreneurship Center. Our relationship with David Anderson, Jim Benson, Alan Shalloway, and other Lean/Agile community leaders has been crucial to our delivery of a quality product. I could go and on.

Bottom line: don’t try to do it alone. You’ll be amazed how generous some very successful people can be with their time.

Third, don’t fall in love with your vision of your product.

What matters is how your customers use it, or don’t. We’ve been constantly amazed by the way our customers have re-purposed LeanKit. We thought we were building an IT project management tool. Lots of people using it for that so I guess we did a good job. But we also have kindergarten teachers using it to track kids’ progress on learning objectives. We have auto dealerships using it to manage the flow of cars through their repair shops. We have logistics companies using it to manage fleet maintenance on forklifts! It stops being your product once it’s in their hands. You’ve got to be open to that. Honestly, we really enjoy it.

How big is your startup team?

There are five of us full time in Nashville with a sixth starting very soon. Then we have a team of five in Buenos Aires and three guys in Poland, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic. Plus board members, advisors, accountants, lawyers, etc.

What do you look for in a startup team member? Some traits or characteristics?

So far, for us, the creation of LeanKit has mostly been about re-assembling a team that had worked extremely well in the past. Getting the band back together. But, now that we are starting to expand past that core team, this is definitely something we are thinking about a lot.

I think you need people who are over-qualified for the jobs they will do when they first start. Ideally, your lead developer is going to grow into a CTO, leading the development department. Your sales guy will eventually lead sales, marketing, advertising, maybe consulting, etc. The person who handles book keeping today will be responsible for accounting and tax filing across multiple states and countries later. Etc. So they have to be highly competent in their current jobs as do-ers and able to grow into future roles of managers and leaders.

You need to strike a balance between creators and sustainers.

From what I’ve seen, a lot of the people who aim to start companies are very creative, full of ideas and energy. But they can become bored of running something they’ve created after a little while. They want to move on to the next project, new features, sales idea, whatever. So you need to make sure you also have people who, while still flexible enough to handle the constant change of a start-up, are more inclined to enjoy perfecting and running the process that the creator got started.

You’ve got to find people whose vision of the company’s future aligns with yours. Are you building a small to mid-size company that you plan to “live-in” for a long time? Or is this a growth business that you are going to jump start with venture financing and sell in a few years? Are you staying where you are geographically or is a move to Silicon Valley going to happen when the time is right? You can’t, you shouldn’t try to, create 100% agreement. Some diversity of opinion is crucial. But, you need to find people who are going to be instinctively moving in the same general direction. Life in a start-up is very fluid. Things change fast. And each member of the team is constantly being called on to make seemingly tactical decisions that really have long running strategic implications. You need to know that when they do, they will be aligned with your group goals.

What are 1 or 2 things that you’ve learned through the pains of growing a startup?

Over communicate like crazy with each other.

We found that even team mates who have known each other for years can have misunderstandings when they get into the fast-paced, high-stakes, pressure-cooker environment of a start-up. Make sure you really agree on key decisions and aren’t just a) going along so as not to rock the boat or b) not pulling your head out of your own corner of the business enough to really understand what they are asking about theirs.

Everything will take longer than you think and cost more. You have to be aggressive and urgent in moving things forward to even get them done later than you first wanted. Revenue is not the same thing as cash flow. Just because you made the sale doesn’t mean you have money to pay your bills. So be frugal, cautious, and downright cheap about how you spend your money. It’ll keep you out of trouble. Investors like it, too.

Bootstrapping or VC/Angel funding? Which is better?

That depends on goals and timing. SaaS/cloud tools for building and hosting software products – and for running your back office – have made starting a business, especially a technology business, much less capital intensive. So it’s much easier than it used to be to start by bootstrapping. Thus the huge success of Eric Ries’ “Lean Startup.” We didn’t know about this movement when we started LeanKit but it definitely described how we operated. And for some companies this approach may be all they need if their goal is to build a small company with a niche or local focus.

But, others may still need to take professional funding at some point in order to scale their business to its full potential and/or grow it quickly enough to stay ahead of competition for market share. That’s both because the money allows you to focus more on growth than cash flow and because professional investors can/should bring experience, connections, and resources aside from just a check. We’ve benefited a lot from our investors and potential investors.

Why an Agile/Kanban product?

For LeanKit, it was first and foremost about solving a real, personal need in a space we knew. As I’ve said, I was into Lean/Agile in a big way at my job at HCA. At that same time, before they started LeanKit, our CEO Chris and CTO Stephen were leaders in Lean/Agile in their jobs, too. Chris was using Kanban to run a development team in the US, the Bahamas, Italy, and Ukraine. He got tired of having them tell him which sticky notes to move and sending them iPhone pictures of the physical board.

There had to be a better way and thus LeanKit Kanban was born. We knew that it’s all well and good to talk about how Agile teams ought to be co-located, but the reality of our modern era is of distributed teams, telecommuting, and global client bases. And that as Lean/Agile grew beyond its small team, small company roots, corporate executives would demand the kind of visibility into their operations that’s only possible through software. That’s why our current focus is all about Kanban tools for portfolio management and integration of Kanban with other company systems.

Any fun tidbits about yourself?

My wife Patty and I have had three weddings. The first was in a Memphis coffee house. The “pastor” wore lightning bolt robes. Elvis gave the bride away and sang “Love Me Tender”. Priscilla was the bridesmaid. We had Moon Pies and Coke for communion. The second, when we could afford it later, was our real, formal wedding at the Hermitage, home of President Andrew Jackson. And Patty surprised me on our fifth anniversary with a renewal of vows at our church with our three sons along for the ride.

Any parting words?

Be sure you have a viable product concept, a strong team, and a solid business plan for launching your company. But, once you do, go for it. Don’t wait for the right time. It will never come. Don’t worry that you might fail and you might have to go back to a regular job. Sure, that could happen. Of course. But, if you pay attention, you will have learned a tremendous amount along the way that will make you a more valuable employee for any company. And, hopefully, you won’t fail. You’ll make it work and win big. The people who truly succeed in business are those who are willing to take a risk.

[Thanks again Jon! Awesome!] – Find Jon at LeanKitKanban.

[We also review Kanban tools]

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Don't click me, I'm a picture! Look below for link to sign up!

I’ll be part of a Q&A panel discussing the Challenges of Adopting Agile with Telerik on September 29th 12-2PM!

Reserve your seat if you’re interested or have some tough questions!

We’ve written more about companies adopting Agile:

• 10 Tips for Agile Adoption in the Enterprise
• Agile Adoption Challenges in the Enterprise
• Failed Agile adoption – A Crime?
• It’s ok to fail in Agile… try try again!
• Agile Adoption growing in Asia

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[Link to video here]

RallyON 2011 was a fun conference for sure. Read about my experiences here.

“For me RallyON was one of those – you know what, I am living my dream – moments in life. My favorite town (Boulder) was filled with 150 of our largest and best customers along with 85 expert agile practitioners from our coaching, product and technical account management teams. It was a swarm of agile expertise all gathered to share with each other for the sole purpose of getting smarter and building community. And you know what? It turned out great!” – Ryan Martens, CTO/Founder of Rally Software

Looking forward to the next one!

Oh, and you may be wondering why I’ve put up such a dumb-looking self-deprecating photo of myself. It’s because I’m fun.

[VIA: RallyDev]

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[Speaker]: Peter Saddington

Based off of Peter Saddington’s post on Top 10 Essential Product Owner Characteristics

[Host]: ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts

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Sign up [here] if you’d like to join Peter Saddington in a free webinar hosted by ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts. The webinar will be on Thursday, May 19th at 2:00PM EST.

Peter will be talking about the 10 Key Characteristics for a Great Agile Product Owner as well as execution steps to take as a Product Owner to help make your team more effective.

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Talking Work with Peter Saddington – [mp3 download]

A couple take aways from Ty’s podcast as well as a couple bullet points from the speakers.

Introduction:

Does the process ever get in the way of getting work done?

• The process doesn’t get in the way, but rather the way we execute the process.
• Part of a PM role is to lead people and build relationships with team members.
• Work together with your team members! – The relationships matter the most.
• Get out of the way! – No more micro-management. Hire the right people and then get out of their way.
• Share the success! – It’s not all about you. Take the focus off yourself and treat other people like equals. Team success is team success for everyone.

Ramona Abbott in Project Management Minute:

• Many project managers became PM’s through technical rank promotion, but usually didn’t have the soft skills necessary to be successful. The soft-side skills make a big difference.
• The odds of being an outstanding PM is 1/100. The commonalities between the best PM’s are their people skills: listening, go talk with the people on  your team (get out of your chair!), “projecting quiet confidence” – no micromanagement and confidence in yourself and team.

If you can’t stand hearing Peter Saddington‘s voice, here are a couple bullet points on what he blabbered on about:

• Agile is more like philosophy than a methodology.
• You can use Agile for other things and not just software development. Like personal kanban!
• Agile empowers individual contributors.
• Agile can fit within any type of process. Leverage facets of Agile or other frameworks where it makes sense for your business.
• Good teams can help Product Owners become better!
• Grow your craft as a professional! [Read my book: Scrum Pocket Guide]

Thanks a bunch Ty and Raechel!

[HT: TalkingWork]

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We sat down with @BrianBozzuto today, the guy behind the Agile Games Conference 2011.

Some very cool takeaways from this session included:

1. Brian’s favorite game as an Agile coach
2. Some take aways from last years Agile Games Conference 2010
3. Why you should attend this years Agile Games Conference 2011!!!

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This Friday 3:30EST 2/25/2011 we’ll be hosting Brian Bozzuto, the guy behind the Agile Games Conference.

Brian Bozzuto is a principal Agile Coach at BigVisible Solutions. With an extensive background in health insurance and financial service companies, his current focus is supporting teams as they adopt Agile and lean practices and deal with the challenges of organizational change. Brian is an expert helping foster better relations between business and technology to achieve more response projects and better business results. He has a broad range of experience using applying various process improvement frameworks including Scrum, Six Sigma, Lean, and CMMi in large organizations.

Brian has been certified as a Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Scrum Practitioner (CSP). He is one of the founding members of the PMI Agile Virtual Community of Practice and the creator of the annual “Agile Games” conference in Boston.

We’re excited to hear what he has to say!

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