Bob's Blog
Bob is a prolific blogger who simply enjoys sharing his experiences with colleagues in the Agile Community. Topics revolve around Scrum, XP, Kanban, Project Management, Business Analysis, Testing, Leadership and General Musings.
Check back often as we've always got something to say...
Viewing entries in
RGCG
I’ve decided to consolidate my blogs on Substack, specifically Moose Droppings and RGalen Consulting.
The historical posts will remain here, but all new posts will be on Substack here - https://bobgalen.substack.com/
I encourage you to join me there…
Thanks for the memories!
Bob.
Agile Coaching in the world of Business Agility can be a uniquely challenging space. One of those challenge areas is with your Agile Coaching Communities of Practice. A group encompassing your Agile Coach and Scrum Master teams that encourages their ongoing collaboration, learning, and growth. It can be a centerpiece of your overall impact and value proposition or another boring group meeting.
Bob Galen is the author of Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching. He’s an accomplished coach with a long history of coaching from the team to the boardroom. His personal goal is to disrupt, challenge, and raise the professionalism and craft of Agile Coaching everywhere. And there is no better place to do it than within your Communities of Practice!
Bob can help with—
Setting up and kicking off your CoP.
Re-energizing your CoP or CoE (LACE) by bringing fresh ideas in.
Group and 1:1 mentoring, modeling, and coaching.
Providing masterclass-level training for your CoP team members.
Visiting periodically to keep the momentum going.
Assisting you in leveraging the Comparative Agility, Agile Coaching PI in your learning journeys.
Speaking at and participating in company-wide events.
2022 was a topsy-turvy, hold-onto-the-rails kind of ride for me. Here are just a few highlights—
I published my Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching book in January.
I followed up with an audiobook version in July (my first).
I delivered in-person coaching again at several organizations, and it felt strange but good.
From a revenue perspective, and this surprised me a bit, this was the second-highest year in the 20-year history of my consulting practice.
I spoke at many virtual conferences and events. Particularly in the areas of agile leadership and coaching. One of my favorites was a pair of Ask Me Anything sessions at Scrum Masters of the Universe.
I was fortunate to go on-site at the Denver Scrum Gathering and the Nashville Agile Conference. At the Agile Conference, Jen Fields and my session on agile coaching was standing room only, AND the EBAC book sold out at the bookstore.
I did more pro bono coaching and mentoring than in any previous year.
I granted over $25,000 to CAL students with my DEI discount program.
I closed the year by running an experiment called Badass Agile Coaching Day. It drew over 190 attendees and generated proceeds of over $6,500 which I split across Agile for Ukraine and Africa Agility (see below).
And that’s just a sample…
I was reviewing LinkedIn one morning, as I often do, and I noticed a note from Myles Hopkins of Be Agile that he and his firm were celebrating 20 years of service. First, congratulations Myles! But second, it made me think about the longevity of my own firm—RGalen Consulting Group. And it hit me!
In August 2021, I’m going to be celebrating 20-years of consulting service to my clients. Holy Cow!
I thought I’d share a timeline of sorts…
I’d like to disagree with this premise. That is—picking two characteristics of a service and then compromising on the third. I think you have to lead with something and not two-things.
For my coaching practice, I always try to lead with GOOD. That implies I lead with—
Experience
Skills
Principles
Ethics
Client-centered…
In 2016 I joined Zenergy Technologies as their Director, Agile Practices. I worked with a wonderful group of colleagues while there and served a variety of fantastic clients. In 2019 I decided to join my friend and colleague, Mary Thorn, at Vaco Agile to see what we could do there in building out an agile practice. I was torn about leaving Zenergy, but I felt a pull to do something new with Mary.
Long story short, I had about an 18-month run at Vaco and have some wonderful experiences. But then Covid-19 happened. And I’ve decided to…
and rejoin my friends and colleagues at Zenergy Technologies to again pursue the dream of creating the best, most kick-ass agile practice on the planet. Yes, I said it and I mean it.
One of the cool things about Zenergy is the depth and breadth of our team—
Shaun Bradshaw - is the VP of Agile and Testing Practices with ~20 years of experience.
David Dang - is the VP of DevOps & Test Automation with ~20 years of experience
Bryson Osborne - has DevOps completely covered with ~8 years of experience
John Cavalieri - Agile coach and Scrum Master extraordinaire with ~8 years of experience
And me - I’m covering the deep & broad agile space for the practice with ~25 years of experience.
Between us, we literally have ~80 years of experience in software development, testing, automation, DevOps, and incredible Agile chops. And when you’re trying to transform the way your business does business—experience counts!
It’s one of the reasons I’m rejoining the team. First, to be part of such a strongly skilled and experienced team of coaches and consultants. But secondly, to bring this expertise to my RGCG clients in my own engagements. What a win-win!
I can’t tell you how excited I am to be back.
And in the interim, Zenergy has broadened its expertise and service offerings to be able to serve our clients across the entire spectrum of Business Agility and Agile Transformation. Literally, there is nothing we can’t help you with on your journey to improved results.
Stay agile my friends,
Bob.
Hi everyone,
I just wanted to share some great news. I’ve just completed the 3’rd Edition of my Scrum Product Owner book.
It’s been a true labor of love that’s taken far longer to finish then I’d originally expected. (sounds like software products, right?) But, to quote a common agile phrase…I am now…
DONE.
Stick a fork in it, Baby!
E-copies (PDF, EPUB, and MOBI) are all available immediately on LeanPub. What’s nice about connecting via LeanPub is that I plan on continuing to evolve content & ideas in the PDF, so it will be a way to “stay in touch” with any future developments of the books’ themes.
Also not that I’ve published several short PDF, blog link books that make it easy to explore my blog posts on 3-specific topics:
Agile Coaching
Agile Leadership
Product Ownership
More information on ALL of the LeanPub copies can be found here: https://leanpub.com/bookstore?search=Robert%20Galen
You can find the paper version here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/098850264X/
And the Kindle version here: https://www.amazon.com/Scrum-Product-Ownership-Navigating-Forest-ebook/dp/B07PBGN5NW/
And here’s a link to my Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B00287V534/
I’d like to make the following offer for ALL Edition 1 and Edition 2 book owners. If you’ve previously purchased a paper or e-copy of my two previous editions, I’ll give you a free e-copy of the 3’rd Edition. All you have to do is drop me a note and I’ll forward you a coupon for LeanPub to get your copy.
It’s been a long time in coming, but I’m incredibly pleased with the results. I hope you pick up a copy of the new book and hope even more so that it provides value to you.
And if you do read it, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. It means so much to me to gain feedback.
Stay agile my friends,
Bob.
February 5, 2018
I’m experienced enough in the Scrum community to remember several early attempts at assessing the maturity of agile and Scrum teams.
My point in taking you down “history lane” is that agile assessment tools and frameworks have been thought about since ~2007. So, for the past 10+ years.
The problem is, that none of these, and the ones introduced later, have really done an effective job of helping teams improve.
I’ve been speaking at TechWell events since around 2000. First, I started out with track talks. Then I started sharing full-day and ½ day workshops. I’ve also been invited to deliver several keynotes at the Star and Agile Dev / Better Software conferences.
All-in-all, it’s been a professional relationship that I’ve really enjoyed.
Recently, the long-time program chair, Lee Copeland, stepped aside. I truly want to thank Lee for the years he invested in helping me grow this side of my consulting practice. I owe him a great deal.
Given my history and experienced, TechWell approached me to help fill the Program Chair role for the:
Conference series going forward.
The conference has a West / East format. The West version is held in Las Vegas, typically in early June. The East version is held in Orlando, typically in early November.
The programs are usually developed 8 months in advance of the conference, so you need to reach out to me early if you’re interested in participating.
The program chair is responsible for pulling together approximately:
across the four major themes (Agile Development, Traditional Software Development, DevOps) of the conference.
And the talent scout part of my role will focus on looking for new and interesting topics, speakers, and formats to introduce to the conferences.
Every year I try to spend time on my own training. I usually start thinking about two things the year before:
Then I review the available courses and I’ll try to come up with 2-3 things that I’ll focus on for improvement.
Last year I posted my first "Sharpening the Saw" post in June. That inspired me to do it again for 2017, but closer to the beginning of the year. You'll probably see this become an annual post to remind me (and perhaps you) to plot a journey of continuous learning.
