Stacey Ackerman is an accomplished author, speaker, trainer and business woman. She spent 15+ years of her career in marketing director and consulting roles in various industries including health care, retail and government. She went on to teach college courses in marketing, interactive media and customer service for Globe University. Ackerman also served as a project and program management consultant at several Fortune 500 companies, including US Bank and Mayo Clinic.

Stacey also began using Scrum at home with her family and she became the ScrumMom. In this podcast, Stacey shares insights about the challenges but also the very positive impact Scrum had on her, her husband and the family as a whole. Enjoy.

Dave West is the product owner at scrum.org. He is a frequent keynote speaker and is a widely published author of articles, along with his acclaimed book: Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design. He led the development of the Rational Unified Process (RUP) and then worked with Ivar Jacobson running the North American business for IJI. Then managed the software delivery practice at Forrester research where he was VP and research director. Prior to joining Scrum.org he was Chief Product Officer at Tasktop where he was responsible for product management, engineering and architecture.

In this podcast, Dave explores the state of Scrum at its 21st birthday. He discusses “doneness”, the challenges with scaling projects and programs as well the current inconsistencies in the industry when teams use Scrum on a team or program level. Dave takes a deeper dive into Nexus and the definition of done and closes with his view on certification. Enjoy.

Achim Nowak is an internationally recognized authority on personal presence and interpersonal connections. His book Infectious: How to Connect Deeply and Unleash the Energetic Leader Within has received acclaim in Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Forbes and Publishers Weekly. His first book Power Speaking: The Art of the Exceptional Public Speaker has become an essential leadership development tool with Fortune 500 companies around the world. His book The Moment: A Practical Guide to Creating a Mindful Life in a Distracted World was published by New Page Books in December 2015.

Achim’s work draws on a wealth of experience in the personal transformation field, actor training, conflict resolution, and spiritual practice. It ranges from leading life-transforming AIDS Mastery programs throughout North America to coaching performers at The Actors Institute in Manhattan and leading international peace projects for UNESCO and the Shimon Peres Center for Peace.

He holds an M.A. in Organizational Psychology and International Relations from New York University, where he served on the faculty for more than a decade.

Achim and his work have been featured on 60 Minutes, The Today Show, Fox News, HLN, NPR, in The Miami Herald and the award-winning documentary The Last Enemy. Achim’s writing has been recognized with a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award.

Achim is a sought-after keynote speaker and a member of The League of Extraordinary Thinkers, a tribe of thought leaders on Switch and Shift, one of the top-ranked leadership sites in social media.

In this podcast, Achim shares his thoughts about his new book The Moment that could relate to the agile industry.

Natalie Warnert is an industry recognized expert and thought leader in Agile practices based out of Minneapolis, MN. She started her career as a Scrum developer and moved into project management and Agile methodologies through ScrumMastering shortly after. She has used Scrum in both front end and back end software projects. It has been a great method to the madness that can be software development and Natalie has seen first-hand how it can transform teams and make them deliver valuable software, frequently, with high performance and fun. Her Scrum roles have helped her to develop into a better servant leader and have enhanced her coaching, facilitation, and teamwork skills. Her passion is in coaching teams and implementing Agile frameworks in Fortune 500 organizations such as Target, Travelers Insurance and Best Buy Corp.  Currently, Natalie works as an independent coach and consultant at Best Buy Corp.

Natalie is a frequent speaker at large national Agile conferences including two Scrum Gatherings, Agile2014, Agile 2015, as well as more local venues. She has several published articles, interviews, and webinars on Agile topics. Natalie frequently blogs on Agile www.nataliewarnert.com, and shares her thoughts and ideas on social media outlets. Natalie is a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) and has her Bachelor of Business Administration in Information Systems from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire, adn Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership and Strategic Management from St. Catherine University. In her free time, Natalie likes to read, snowboard, and play Cribbage.

In this podcast, Natalie and Joe talk about women in agile, a value mapping exercise and Lean UX/ Agile Integration. Hope you like this one.

David teaches and coaches the adoption and improvement of agility as a delivery tool. His work includes helping companies of all sizes all over the world. Sometimes he is pairing with developers and testers, while other times he is helping to invent, evolve and plan the delivery of all types of products and projects. David also spends a great deal of time helping leaders at all levels find ways to pragmatically use agility to foster innovation.

Prior to working as a full time coach, David spent years building software in a variety of domains: digital audio, digital biometrics, medical, financial, retail, and education to name a few. David now leads DevJam, a company composed of agile collaborators. As mentors and practitioners, DevJam focuses on agility as a tool to help people and companies improve their software production skills. DevJam provides seasoned leaders that strive to pragmatically match technology, people, and processes to create better and cooler products in competitive cycles.

Along with teaching and coaching, David participates in conferences around the world. He is the recipient of the Agile Alliance, 2009 Gordon Pask Award. David continuously contributes to books and various publications.

In this podcast, David and Joe talk about story mapping, customer journeys, user stories and user experience. Enjoy.

Linda Rising

Linda Rising is an independent consultant who lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She has authored four books and numerous articles and is an internationally known presenter on topics related to patterns, retrospectives, influence strategies, agile development, and the change process.

With a Ph.D. from Arizona State University in the field of object-based design metrics, Linda’s background includes university teaching and software development in a number of different domains.

In this episode Linda Rising and Jochen Krebs speak almost exclusively about patterns, how they emerge, how they are being read and how they evolve and being applied. Linda shares her TOP 2 patterns and provides insights on why she is so dedicated to this important topic. Enjoy.

Ken Schwaber

Ken Schwaber co-developed the Scrum process with Jeff Sutherland in the early 1990s to help organizations struggling with complex development projects. One of the signatories to the Agile Manifesto in 2001, he subsequently founded the AgileAlliance and ScrumAlliance. He founded Scrum.org in 2009, to focus purely on improving the software development profession, because he was dissatisfied with the state of the art.

In this episode Ken Schwaber and Jochen Krebs speak about scaling agile projects to large programs and initiatives. Ken also discusses the need for frameworks over solutions and explains how the existing agile manifesto also applies in large enterprise settings.

Doug Kirkpatrick is an organizational change consultant, TEDx and keynote speaker, executive coach, writer and educator. The first season of his business career was spent in the manufacturing sector, principally with The Morning Star Company, a world leader in the food industry, as a financial controller and administrator. He now engages with the Morning Star Self-Management Institute, Great Work Cultures, Work Revolution and other vibrant organizations and leaders to co-create the future of management.

Doug is the author of Beyond Empowerment: The Age of the Self-Managed Organization. He is currently a director with the Association for Talent Development (ATD, formerly ASTD), the world’s largest talent organization, in over 120 countries around the world.

In this episode, Doug and Joe explore the topic of self-management and how it helped Morning Star into a vibrant and successful flat organization without any titles and hierarchies. In addition, they touch on Holacracy, self-organization and his assessment of self-management in a global economy.

Wes has a strong background in helping companies achieve remarkable results with technology and software. He’s had extensive experience developing software and working with teams to improve how software is developed to meet business objectives.

Although his primary focus is on outcomes, implementation often includes technical competency. Wes frequently speaks about impactful aspects of software development. He speaks professionally to help organizations improve. He also volunteers at user groups, code camps, and community organizations.

He authored Commitment To Value: How to make technical projects worthwhile.He’s authored several online courses with Pluralsight. He writes extensively about both technical and non-technical aspects of software development on his blog. His written work includes articles featured on VeraSage, MSDN Magazine, InfoQ, andJetBrain’s TeamCity Blog. He’s been interviewed on “The Businessology Show” and “Art of Value” about the importance of value in software development and now also here at Agile.FM!  Occasionally, he gets highly technical in a shared screencast or webinar: TeamCity: Beyond Continuous Integration and Getting Started with TeamCity.

In this episode, Wes and Joe talk about value-based pricing, his book and what makes work worthwhile. Enjoy.

In this podcast episode, Yves shares his passion for the agile mindset, building communities, retrospectives as well as his walking desk.