Books that help you earn the ability to benefit from technical excellence! We've talked about "wisdom from books" and something like the "Radio Free XP" bookshelf. On today's episode, we work to formalize the topic, and get into how and why _Turn The Ship Around_ and _Never Split The Difference_ can help people improve their tech career experience.

Elisabeth Hendrickson and Janice Fraser, what else could you want to know?

Recording Date: Jan 16, 02024 Hosts: Tony Hansmann && Jesse Alford Guest: Bryon Kroger LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryon-kroger/recent-activity/all/ Brian Kroger is the founder and CEO of Rise8.us. A consultancy inspired by the Pivotal Model. Bryon works in the DOD and calls himself a bureaucracy hacker. In the episode, he points out that once you understand how the bureaucracy is “programmed,” you can often get a lot further than you can in private...

Recording Date: 2023-11-13 Hosts: Tony Hansmann && Jesse Alford Guest Name: Mala Janus Contact information: https://magnoliadevelopment.io https://www.linkedin.com/in/malakjanus/ Guest: Mala Janus is a Pivot who has never worked for Pivotal. She’s an XP practitioner who learned both the Dev and PM side of things while working at a large client who built their own Pivotal-style Lab. All Pivots know the magic experience of meeting new Pivots, the origin stories, the...

Recording Date: 2023-11-15 Hosts: Tony Hansmann && Jesse Alford Guest Name: Thomas Squeo Social media: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomassqueo/   Previous interview on Youtube.com: https://youtu.be/iZCPAHwhTWI?si=CfjhBEkyqN69x4eF Guest: Thomas Squeo Title: Let’s Play “Bet your Badge” with Thomas Squeo (01h:30m) One of the greatest things about being in the field for Cloud Foundry was meeting leaders who were deploying not just Cloud Foundry but an array of...

Recording Date: 2023-11-13 Hosts: Tony Hansmann && Jesse Alford Guest Name: Drew McManus Drew has a 30+ year career with orgs that are serious about software. He got involved with Pivotal Labs around 2006 and shepherded the practice until 2020.  Social media: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewmcmanus/

Recording Date: November 10th, 2023 Hosts: Tony Hansmann && Jesse Alford Guest Name: Alex Tran Alex Tran has spent time at Code For America, Pivotal, and touring around the US helping Climete Tech companies. He’s got a new UX Consultancy focused on climate, wellness, insurance, and govtech clients. We had the type of really fun conversation I miss having with Designers! We talk about his pairing journey, design on a balanced team, and some of the principles he teaches his design...

Hosts: Tony Hansmann and Jesse Alford Guest: Steve Sorenson Contact information: [email protected] Tony talks to Steve. Jesses and Tony about it.

Recording Date: 2023-10-31 Hosts: Tony Hansmann && Jesse Alford Guest: Cptn L. David Marquet (Retired) Introduction to the Leader/Leader (With Tests!) In Cloud Foundry R&D, there was a moment when the leadership team decided they needed a new model. The book they turned to was “Turn the Ship Around” by David Marquet. Today, we talk with David about the outline of the Leader/Leader process and how to adopt it. He recommends, “Start with self.” Join us for this overview...

Recorded: 2023-10-25 Hosts: Jesse Alford and Tony Hansmann Summary: True Believer Davis Frank joins us to share his pairing journey, what the transition from solo to pair feels like, and what happens when "pairing is just not a fit" for a staff member. After the pair journey, Jesse and Davis make the case for joining the Pivotal Diaspora. Join us to mainline some Pivotal goodness. Davis recounting his Paring Journey on stage at Golden Gate Ruby Conference in 2013:...

Runtime: 1h:36m Guest: Dwayne Forde Host: Tony Hansmann Today's interview is with Dwayne Forde and I'm not even going to try to be measured about it! In a world where every Pivot is an unbelievably good coach and supporter, Dwayne Forde stands out as a Pivot's Pivot. Kind and effective without ever compromising integrity. Capable. So capable you start to wonder if there's any limit at all. Dwayne knows team sports, and at Pivotal, I experienced him playing by the best possible...

Recorded: Sept 15th, 02023 Guest: Jonathan Rogivue (aka JRO) Host: Tony Hansmann Call to action: JRO is looking for pairs/partners for physical makerspaces in Austin, TX, USA or Medellín, Columbia JRO Takes us on his pairing journey.

Recorded Oct 4th, 2023 Guest: David Laing (Dublin, IR CF Pivot) Host: Tony Hansmann Call to action: David is currently looking for collaborators who own production systems to participate in WellMaintained.io. Interested parties can join through their website. --- In today's episode, David Lang to discuss his new organization, WellMaintained.io. The episode focuses on the problem of creating efficient and humane operational teams for running software in production environments. Key...

Joshua Aresty Paring Journey && #OpenToGuests Joshua Aresty and Tony Hansmann take us through joining Pivotal, a pure pairing shop where coding practices and team dynamics are on another level. Joshua narrates his accidental path to Pivotal's San Francisco office. There, he plunged into the Release Integration Team, pairing with a diverse set of folks that ranged from freelance genius to PhD math candidates. At the heart of their discussion lies the concept of paired...

Nat Bennett is an amazing observer of work and how it works. This is their essay on The Conservation Of Conflict, read by Jesse Alford. Nat argues that in any group, there will be a certain number of conflicts. These conflicts cannot be created or destroyed except by changing the group's composition.Nat cites the example of teams arguing about features vs. chores. They argue this is often a sign the team is avoiding a more difficult conversation about who gets to decide what to work...

Elisabeth Hendrickson is a transformational leader who mentored A LOT of folks at Pivotal. Join us for a conversation on the hows and whys of management and leadership at Pivotal.

Jesse Alford and Tony Hansmann talk about the book "Blindsight" by Peter Watts. Blindsight is intricate and very smart book. Exactly the kind of thing systems designers love to talk about.

Nat Bennett describes their pairing journey at Pivotal.