In Action with Wendy

Negotiation 101: Finding the Win-Win and Getting Your Worth with Erick Herring and David Subar

Erick and David are West Coast CTOs and Advisors with an extensive background in negotiating. From Options to Lawyers, they have a well rounded strategy to ensure everyone wins in the deal.  Episode Breakdown: 0 — introductions 5:00 — leadership and teams 8:15 — importance of negotiation beyond salary 9:15 — how to think about negotiation (“win win or no deal”) 12:30 — focus on goals 13:30 — Are these options valuable? 17:15 — Adjusting for market 19:40 — Changing perspecti...

Digging into Ethics with Bob Martin

What started as a discussion between some folks about the VW scandal, became inspiration for this episode about ethics. Related Links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath http://www.agilemanifesto.org/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Aleynikov http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_side_of_the_Force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_law Uncle Bob is a software developer, speaker and author. He has been writing code for 50 years and has written several books about ...

Uncle Bob on Quality, Ethics and Chickens

Uncle Bob is a software developer, speaker and author. He has been writing code for 50 years and has written several books about software craftsmanship. This is a great episode if: You want to be a better developer You want to better support your development team You need a push to write better code and say "no"   What you will hear about: Common mistakes developers make The ethics of being a software developer Impact of the fast growth of the software industry   Related Links: C...

Randy Rayess on Getting the Most of Offsite Teams

Randy Rayess is the co-founder of VenturePact, a service that helps companies build remote software teams and execute on software projects. He is passionate about remote work, outsourcing and software development. He previously worked in private equity at SilverLake Partners, in machine learning and in payments.  This is a great episode if: You are researching your offsite/offshore options You want to understand how to ensure a good ROI from offsite teams You want to understand how to mi...

Chad Pytel on the History, Culture and Workflow at Thoughtbot

Chad is a developer, founder, and the CEO of thoughtbot. He has coauthored the books Rails AntiPatterns and Pro Active Record, and presented at conferences around the world. Thoughtbot works with companies of all sizes to build successful products that people love to use.   This is a great episode if:   You are a leader who wants to create a strong culture in your company You want to perform user testing in a sustainable and valuable way You are looking to outsource a project   What ...

Jean Barmash Part 2

Jean Barmash on Off-Shore Teams, Aligning with Business Priorities and Setting Boundaries

Jean Barmash is currently VP of Engineering at Merchantry, an eCommerce Technology startup.  He has over 15 years of experience in software industry, and has been part of 4 startups over the last seven years, 3 as CTO / VPE and one of which he co-founded.  Prior to his entrepreneurial adventures, Jean held a variety of progressively senior roles in development, integration consulting, training, and team leadership.  He worked for such companies as Trilogy, Symantec, Infusion and Alfresco, wh...

Esther Derby on Gaining Influence, Working with Teams and the Value of Experience

Esther Derby is an expert in organizational dynamics and a leading thinker in bringing agility to organizations, management, and teams. She has spent the last twenty-five years helping companies design their environment, culture, and human dynamics for optimum success. In addition to this work, she’s written over 100 articles, and co-authored two books–Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great and Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management. Relevant audience: You are a technical ...

Joseph Benson on the Powerful Storytelling Behind Brands

Joseph Benson is a brand strategist with over thirty years of experience.  He defines and expresses the brand strategies for financial services, educational institutions, non-profits, healthcare, high technology, entertainment, and retail clients. Joseph also trained as a filmmaker. His films have appeared in over a dozen festivals and have been licensed to HBO. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 1982. You can find out more by visiting: www.bensonbrandstrategy.com www.linkedin.com/...

Robert Richman on Culture, Open Space and Improv

Robert Richman is a culture architect and was the co-creator of Zappos Insights, an innovative program focused on educating companies on the secrets behind Zappos’ amazing employee culture.  Robert built Zappos Insights from a small website to a thriving multi-million dollar business teaching over 25,000 students per year. Through his work, Robert has been responsible for improving the employee culture at hundreds of companies like Procter & Gamble, Whole Foods and Amazon.  Previously a Za...

Debbie Madden on Honesty, Risk and Staying Aligned with Values

Debbie Madden has built five companies from the ground up, is a lead generation istructor at General Assembly, and a sought after public speaker and writer, appearing in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fox Business TV, the HuffingtonPost, Inc. Magazine, and more. Prior to Stride, Debbie was the CEO of Cyrus Innovation, an Agile software development consulting firm, which she grew Cyrus into a 60-person, multimillion-dollar, five-time Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies winner, and C...

Jessica Barnett on Sticking to Your Principles to Overcome Overwhelm

Jessica Barnett is a Product Manager at a startup called Medivo. At Medivo, they’ve adopted Trello to organize just about everything, including their retrospectives. After seeing the positive impact of retros, there was company-wide adoption, starting with the c-suite. Not only has the company embraced some agile practices, the team has been able to influence business to reduce overwhelm, staying aligned with their top priorities. Trello Retrospectives See Jess’ post detailing their proces...

John Shiple (Part 2) — Red Flags and Knowing What You’re Getting Into

John Shiple  — Freelance CTO, technology advisor — triages businesses, help business scale, launches new businesses. John's been in technology over 20 years and loves building websites.      In Part 2 of this interview, John and I continue our discussion about founders and startups needing (or not needing) CTOs. Red flags to watch out for (both the founder and the CTO) as well as some stories and philosophies based on John's experiences and expertise.   Part 1 can be found here.

John Shiple on Startups (Part 1): Founders meet Technology

  John Shiple — Freelance CTO, technology advisor — triages businesses, help businesses scale, and launches new businesses. He's been in technology over 20 years and loves building internet sites.  In Part 1 of this interview, John and I discuss important topics for non-technical Founders to consider including recruiting challenges, expressing ideas, and the importance of a technical leader. This is a great episode for both founders and technical leaders to get an understanding of common c...

Joanna Clay on Getting More Women in Technology

Joanna Clay is a reporter for The Orange County Register. Previously she was working with the Los Angeles Register and covered the West Side with a focus on tech and the Silicon Beach phenomena. In this episode we discuss her takeaways and observations in creating the article on Why there aren’t more women in the tech industry (pdf version). Interview highlights Article Summary  1. Companies need to advertise opportunities in a way that is appealing to women 2. Girls need messaging from ...

Ryan Janssen on Startups: The Lonely Entrepreneur, Collectively and the Borg

Ryan Janssen has been creating and leading companies for the last 20 years. His latest venture, Collectively, aims to improve the way people work. Ryan and Wendy discuss the lonely entrepreneuer, the challenges around working by yourself as well as how his company, Collectively, is evolving. It is a fun conversation for anyone who has worked by themselves, started a company or likes the Borg. Notes from the Interview lonely entrepreneur corporate culture sucks…talk in a way, dress in a w...

Ken Judy on High Performing Teams: Collaboration, Creativity and Delivering Value

Ken Judy has twenty years experience in development and over a decade of experience leading and creating agile teams. Currently he is VP of Technology at Simon & Schuster, and lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter. This is a great episode for technical leaders and team members to understand how to create value on their technical team beyond pushing tickets. We also discuss how the day to day actions and behaviors of leadership impact the decisions and values of the team.  Notes from...

Luke Melia on Community: The Secret Weapon of Recruiting

Luke Melia is a software developer, co-founder/CTO of Yapp who loves building great teams and communities. Luke helped create the first GORUCO and the Ember.js community in NYC.  In this podcast, Luke discusses Yapp’s early adoption of Ember.js, and its impact on revenue, community and recruiting. We dive into building community, unique takeaways about Ruby, and the many benefits of community. This is a great talk for people interested in speaking, teams who need to grow, and leaders who wa...

Dan Mezick on Open Space Adoption Part II

Dan Mezick is a management consultant, author & keynote speaker. His work includes The Culture Game, a book based on five years of experience coaching 119 Agile teams across 25 different organizations. He is also the cultivator of Open Space Agile Adoption. This interview is a continuation of Part I Notes from Interview   After Open Space Proceedings are the beginning Adoption is learning through experimentation, inspected at next open space Stuart Kauffman, Santa Fe Institute — The A...

Doc List on Facilitation

Steven ‘Doc’ List 35 years in software development, business owner, facilitator, agile coach   Team and People technical practices take you so far Teams that work well together more productive Learn how a team collaborates by observing choice of words indicate culture and mindset   Red Flags  Difference between facilitated and run meetings should be multidirectional, conversation — purpose, learning we’re all in this together, how do we all contribute   Facilitation Antipattern...

Josh Bigelow on Strategy

Josh Bigelow is the founder, CSO and janitor at Synchromatics. Engineer by training, entrepreneur by heart. Started Synchromatics in his garage and its now has 15 employees, 34 clients across the country and healthy revenue. Josh shares how he brought Synchromatics clarity, unity and purpose by analyzing competitors, creating campaigns and dropping distractions. A great show to get an understanding of what a viable strategy looks like, how to create one and the benefits that come with its e...

Dan Mezick on Open Space Agile Adoption Part 1

Dan Mezick is a management consultant, author & keynote speaker. His work includes The Culture Game, a book based on five years of experience coaching 119 Agile teams across 25 different organizations. He is also the cultivator of Open Space Agile Adoption. Notes From Show Coaching — help organizations learn They need to be willing to receive. Litmus test for willing customers — used a variety over the years, these days openness to use open space to kick off agile adoption Open Space — ...

Ilio Krumins-Beens on Agile Adoption Across Kaplan

Ilio is the Executive Director of Agile at Kaplan Test Prep. with about 10 years agile experience.  Five years ago, Kaplan was almost entirely waterfall. Over the course of two years, he introduced agile in some pilot projects with good outcomes. These proved the case for an organization wide roll out. To date, all 12 development teams work in agile. Several non-development teams do as well - 8 total including marketing, publishing, and content. Wendy's Notes From Interview After first ye...