The Amplio Community of Practice Curriculum

The Amplio Community of Practice Curriculum Highlights

The Amplio Community of Practice mostly presents topics that are not in popular Agile frameworks. This lists highlights from the program. To see more details go to the different tracks in the Amplio CoP. Click here to join.

Upcoming talks:

  1. July 9. Amplio Foundations: Part II: First Principles. 
  2. July 16. Amplio Foundations: Part III: Factors for Effective Value Streams.
  3. Amplio Foundations: Part IV: The four learning cycles to attend to.
  4. Amplio Foundations: Part V: How to select a better practice for your situations.
  5. Amplio Foundations: Part VI: Working in complex environments by achieving quick feedback.
  6. Creating agreements on how to work across an organization while enabling teams to decide on their own workflows instead of being told to work one way across the organization.
  7. Being a Great Scrum Master Requires More Than Knowing Scrum.

See recordings

See some sessions on our YouTube Play List

Amplio Foundations: Part I: Systems Thinking (July 2, 2024)

Why Systems Thinking Is So Important.
Recording.  Transcript.  Resources.

Systems thinking is sadly missing in the Agile space.

Systems thinking tells us:

  • to look at the whole
  • systems are defined by the relationships between the components
  • local optimizations (e.g., silos) won’t necessarily result in improvement
  • the system is the source of most of the challenges people face
  • If you want consistency of behavior, have the system help create it, don’t expect people to do it.

Deming used these insights to teach that you need to focus on improving the system instead of imploring people to do better. Management’s role shifts from micro-managing people to improving the system.

Without these insights, many nonsensical beliefs have permeated the Agile space where teams and organizations spend a considerable amount of their time trying to solve the wrong problems.

This talk will discuss both what systems thinking is, why it is so important and how to use it to solve your challenges more effectively than when you don’t use it.

Learn more about systems thinking here.

 

Scrum Masters of the Universe Why You Need More Than Scrum.

This was not an Amplio Community of Practice session but thought it is valuable so including it here.

Being a Great Scrum Master Requires More Than Knowing Scrum

Scrum was originally designed for a different era and context. Today, merely adhering to the basic Scrum framework isn’t sufficient for teams to achieve effectiveness.

A deeper comprehension of systems thinking, value stream management, and the various cause-and-effect relationships in product management can empower Scrum Masters to significantly enhance team performance. Additionally, this knowledge equips teams to transcend traditional Scrum methodologies and adapt to modern demands.

Video   Transcript  PDF

A Summary of Amplio Foundations

Recording  The foundations of Amplio comprise first principles of knowledge work, guidance and the factors for effective value streams. This session focuses on how a few key principles that are helpful for any Agile team approach. This “physics of flow” can be used in any approach.

Earlier sessions

Recording of Session: Agile Coach as a Guide. Presentation. Watch a vibrant discussion on what it takes to be an effective coach. Different intentions and attitudes are discussed.

The Minimum Valuable Increment: The Artifact Focusing on the Next Increment of Stakeholder Value Presentation. 

The need for systems thinking.

Agile by Example: In this session, we take a couple of case studies to understand the essence of Agile

Talks to be added to the Amplio System Visual

The Amplio System Visual is a work in process that provides a path through the Amplio System to provide people the information they need when they need it. 

  1. The Minimum Valuable Increment
  2. The importance of a focus on finishing.
  3. Attending to the customer journey
  4. The role of management
  5. Amplio Team: How to create an approach as easy to start as Scrum but is fit for purpose and enables teams to adjust their workflow to stay effective even as their needs change.
  6. How to use virtual collaboration boards to help remote teams make decisions, work together, learn quickly, and avoid making simple mistakes.
  7. How to improve the quality of the software you are building
  8. How to decide if one should use sprints or one-day timeboxing.

Coaching related

  1. The Pick up Sticks model of curriculum building. How coaches can convey information in the proper order so people can understand it better
  2. How coaches can avoid creating resistance in the people they are coaching.