48 episodes

A podcast to help great coders become skilled leaders, and build happy, high-performing software teams.

Programming Leadership Marcus Blankenship

    • Business
    • 5.0 • 12 Ratings

A podcast to help great coders become skilled leaders, and build happy, high-performing software teams.

    Bridging the PM Gap with Rich Mironov

    Bridging the PM Gap with Rich Mironov

    Have you ever been told to be more “innovative” with your code? In this episode of Programming Leadership, Marcus and his guest, Rich Mironov, discuss the all too common disconnect between developers and those on the marketing side of organizations. According to Rich, this is the result of two very different work cultures existing in the same organization - one that’s collaborative and one that’s highly individualistic. The culture gap can be hard to cross. Thankfully, Rich has spent years coming up with solutions to bridge that gap. It’s not always easy, but Rich believes that it can be done through a better understanding of how the two cultures work along with constant education and communication.
     
    Show Notes
    Differences in design principles between product and engineering management (1:35)
    Understanding the conflict between makers and marketers (6:22)
    How Rich helps marketers/sales develop a more useful frame for engineering (10:01)
    The “Innovation” Misconception (15:36)
    The culture gap between sales and development/product teams (21:46)
    Where does product management fit between sales and development? (26:31)
    Helping clients make effective organizational change (32:48)
     
    Links:
    Guest’s Website: http://mironov.com 
    Guest’s email: mailto:rich@mironov.com Programming Leadership: http://www.programmingleadership.com

    • 48 min
    How Core Values Influence Diversity and Inclusion with Kim Crayton

    How Core Values Influence Diversity and Inclusion with Kim Crayton

    In this episode of Programming Leadership, Marcus and his guest, Kim Crayton, discuss how organizations are shaped by core values, and why values are integral for establishing true diversity and inclusion. Kim dives into some very uncomfortable truths in this episode, pointing out how most organizations are not actually ready for inclusion and diversity, because they are operating with misaligned values that make it impossible for stakeholders to thrive. Kim also explains how businesses can leverage diversity to effectively compete in the information economy, and explains why companies should rethink how they approach risk management.
    Show Notes
    Why inclusion and diversity must be the bedrocks of an organization — and why they are essential for competing in the information economy. (2:16)
    The role that core values play in an organization, and how they are linked to  processes, procedures, and policies. (1:43)
    Understanding shareholder value versus stakeholder value in an organization. (7:06)
    The core values of the #causeascene community: Tech is not neutral, intention without strategy is chaos, lack of inclusion is a risk management issue, and prioritizing the most vulnerable. (9:48)
    How most companies lack the diversity to identify the potential for harm — and as a result, they don’t understand harm until it happens. (13:43)
    Thinking beyond finance when considering risk management (16:38)
    How income sharing agreements (ISAs) often target and harm — instead of prioritize — people in marginalized communities.(18:50)
    Defining privilege, underrepresentation, marginalization, variety, and inclusion.(26:56)
    Redefining capitalism in a way that doesn’t cause harm to people by default. (34:51)
     
    Links:
    Main site: https://hashtagcauseascene.com/
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/KimCrayton1 
    Coaching: https://hashtagcauseascene.com/coaching/
     
     

    • 50 min
    No Fighting In This (Agile) Dojo with M. David Green

    No Fighting In This (Agile) Dojo with M. David Green

    How can we train teams to consistently produce quality code without negatively impacting productivity? In this episode of Programming Leadership, Marcus and his guest, M. David Green, discuss Agile Dojos and how they can make teams more effective. Dojos provide a six-week training ground where teams focus on recognizing and replicating value by pairing, mobbing, and swarming. Coaches like Green help them to hone their skills and go through rituals more effectively. The results will be more engaged team members, scrum masters, and a way of working that converts skeptics and naysayers into Agile evangelists.

    • 47 min
    Finding Career Opportunities Through Experimentation with Josh Doody

    Finding Career Opportunities Through Experimentation with Josh Doody

    Engineers love to experiment, but is experimenting with your career a good idea? In this episode of Programming Leadership, Marcus talks with salary negotiation expert Josh Doody about how this counterintuitive decision can benefit you over the long term. According to Doody, the key is to stop thinking in binary terms of “good” and “bad” outcomes and optimize for learning, instead. Doing so gives us a broader spectrum of results that we can use to decide how to proceed. This will allow us to better calculate risk while also avoiding Old Timer’s Disease and falling victim to loss aversion.
     
    Show Notes
    “Decision science” (3:55)
    Thinking of outcomes as a spectrum rather than “good” or “bad” (5:13)
    Optimize for learning, not outcomes (7:31)
    How career experimentation has helped Josh (11:17)
    Understanding the long game (16:23)
    How to avoid Short-Timer’s Disease (18:53)
    Using expected value to calculate risk (23:41)
    Loss aversion can impede our ability to accurately calculate risk (27:59)
    “Good” and “bad” are subjective terms when it comes to experimentation (32:39)
     
    Links
    Josh Doody on Twitter
    Antifragile, Nassim Taleb
    Should Belichick have gone for it on 4th and 2? by Josh Doody
    Marcus’s interview with Josh on Software Engineering Radio

    • 46 min
    How Agile Work Actually Works with Allen Holub

    How Agile Work Actually Works with Allen Holub

    How do organizations actually work with Agile? In this episode of Programming Leadership, Marcus and his guest, Allen Holub, discuss what organizations get wrong about Agile. Allen has been an Agile transformation consultant for nearly 40 years and has seen the best and worst it has to offer. Luckily, he says the worst can be avoided. The challenge lies in company culture and architecture. The Agile way of working can be a shock to an organization’s system. However, those willing to suffer a few growing pains can reap tremendous rewards further down the line!
     
    Show Notes
    Why Agile is failing (3:55)
    Teams are not Agile, organizations are (7:12)
    When Agile works (15:14)
    The inspect and adapt loop (26:21)
    Obstacles preventing organizations from being Agile (30:27)
    Why people can’t imagine work working differently (37:16)
    Advice for people realizing that they’re not actually Agile (39:46)
    Allen’s consulting strategy (43:13)
     
    Links:
    Toyota Kata, Mike Rother
    Follow Allen Holub on Twitter
    Holub.com
    Email Allen at allen@holub.com
    Schedule a video chat with Allen at holub.com/chat
    Agile and Lean Software Development Group on LinkedIn
    O’Reilly Infrastructure & Ops Conference: http://oreilly.com/infraops/blankenship

    • 49 min
    Leveraging Remote Work with Laurel Farrer

    Leveraging Remote Work with Laurel Farrer

    How do we leverage remote work in our businesses and on our teams? In this episode of Programming Leadership, Marcus talks with Rachel Farrer, CEO and founder of Distributing Consulting, about the challenges facing remote workers and their managers. Despite being around for decades, there are still many managers pushing back against remote work. According to Farrer, this is due to myths surrounding it as well as managers not utilizing it effectively. She wants people to know that remote work, when properly understood and executed, can create more productive teams, departments, and companies. 
     
    Show Notes
    Understanding why isolation is such a challenge for remote workers (2:31)
    How managers can spot when isolation is affecting one of their remote workers  (6:13)
    The disconnect between on-site managers and remote workers (10:00)
    Advice for managers wanting to add remote workers to a colocated team (14:34)
    Helpful mindset shifts for managers averse to remote workers (18:03)
    The challenges facing remote teams that do knowledge work  (22:00)
    Turnover and termination on remote teams (25:09)
     
    Links:
    Links: Distribute Consulting: distributeconsulting.com 
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurel_farrer 
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurel-farrer/ 
    Remote Work Association: https://www.remoteworkassociation.com/ 
    This podcast: www.programmingleadership.com 
    O’Reilly Software Architecture Conference: http://oreilly.com/sacon/blankenship 
     

    • 31 min

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5
12 Ratings

12 Ratings

qwade1969 ,

New listener who loves the content

I was turned on to this podcast by a colleague in the DevSecOps world. Being a fan of smart and entertaining technology leadership content, I was excited to find the podcast.

Marcus is a great host who sets their guests up with great questions and then gives them the room to provide a complete and informative answer.

I am looking forward to exploring the back catalog of episode and learning from what they contain.

tjpaul22 ,

Essential for Leaders

Marcus Blankenship’s teachings have helped me a better leader more than any other resource. Marcus has an incredible ability to boil down the complex problems that we all face as leaders and deliver simple steps to help the situation. This podcast has brought me incredible value. I owe very much to Marcus for his teachings and the impact they have had on my life.

Ozsa99 ,

Very insightful

I really like this podcast, I also get it emailed to me for times that I want to read it quietly.
I feel Marcus hits some very relevant topics for me and my journey as a project leader. He gives me insights to team dynamics that I hadn’t thought about, i learn from every podcast.
His guests are very interesting and relevant to project work today.
Thanks Marcus!!

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