Since publishing best-selling book, Project to Product, technology business leader, Dr. Mik Kersten, has introduced transformative frameworks and ideas for delivering software at scale. He has given numerous standing room only keynotes and presentations worldwide and is an internationally recognized thought-leader. In this podcast, Mik + One, nothing is off the record as Mik sits down with industry leading guests and delves into how they deliver value and drive digital transformations in their organizations. Tune in for a new episode every two weeks! Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode. Follow Mik on X: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne www.projecttoproduct.org
Episodes
Tuesday Jul 20, 2021
Episode 36: Summer Special with Dr. Mik Kersten
Tuesday Jul 20, 2021
Tuesday Jul 20, 2021
In this special episode of Mik + One, Mik summarizes some of his favorite episodes from the last 18 months and provides insight into some of his key takeaways including:
- Interesting insights on scaling Agile and helping digital transformation succeed
- The importance of equity, diversity and inclusion on value streams
- The pivotal role of leadership’s responsibility on improving daily work
- Flow Metrics and OKRs as a match made in heaven
- How balancing portfolios to managing risk and debt can be a key enabler of innovation
Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review.
Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne
www.tasktop.com
For more information about Dr. Mik Kersten and to view the full list of episodes featured in this episode, as well as download the transcript, visit:
https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/summer-special/
Tuesday Jun 29, 2021
Episode 35: Christian Idiodi on Product Management at All Levels
Tuesday Jun 29, 2021
Tuesday Jun 29, 2021
In this episode, Mik is joined by Christian Idiodi, Partner at Silicon Valley Product Group.
Mik and Christian talk about how to establish product management disciplines and other key topics including:
- Fascinating insights into how Christian got into product management, how he landed within Silicon Valley Product Group and insights about his own career
- Establishing product management disciplines at multiple levels of the organization and why it is an important catalyst to successful transformations
- The importance of good leadership and management, and why it’s crucial to establish stable teams that can learn, solve problems and deliver value to the customer
- Aligning OKR’s with culture and empowering teams to deliver greater value to customers
- Advice to this generation of leaders on coaching and key cultural initiatives that Christian has seen resonate at large enterprises
Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review.
Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne
www.tasktop.com
For more information about Christian Idiodi, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit:
https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/christian-idiodi/
Tuesday Jun 15, 2021
Episode 34: Courtney Kissler on Nike, Nordstrom, Starbucks and OKRs
Tuesday Jun 15, 2021
Tuesday Jun 15, 2021
Joining Mik in this episode of Mik + One is Courtney Kissler, Chief Technology Officer at online retailer, Zulily.
In this episode, Mik and Courtney talk about Courtney's experience in driving technological transformations and cover many key topics such as:
- Courtney’s journey within DevOps and how her experience leading transformations at large enterprises including Nordstrom, Starbucks and Nike led her to Zulily
- The importance of fixed capacity and creating a generative culture where team members feel they can be honest and supported
- Value stream mapping and how this can help teams and organizations understand the dynamics of flow to increase the flow of value to customers
- Helping technology and business leaders understand what the leading indicators of success are and how to track them
- Tips to practise and adopt OKRs in order to promote learning and improvement
Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review.
Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne
www.tasktop.com
For more information about Courtney Kissler, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit:
https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/courtney-kissler/
Tuesday Jun 01, 2021
Episode 33: Scott Prugh on Product Value Streams and Service Ownership
Tuesday Jun 01, 2021
Tuesday Jun 01, 2021
Joining Mik in this episode of Mik + One is Scott Prugh, Chief Technology Officer at CSG.
In this episode, Mik and Scott talk about Scott’s experience and learnings from within the DevOps community, as well as many other key topics including:
- The three domains in DevOps portfolio management and how to think about them independently, as well as how they reinforce each other
- Flow Load and Work in Progress (WIP) and how organizations end up with a mismatch between capacity and the work that’s booked and committed
- Combining service ownership with produce value streams
- How to play the longer game by changing team structures and looking at managing services
- The concept of an impact minute and how to calculate it
- Successfully communicating technical language and processes to the wider team of stakeholders
Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review.
Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne
www.tasktop.com
For more information about Scott Prugh, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit:
https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/scott-prugh/
Tuesday May 18, 2021
Episode 32: Carmen DeArdo on Not Letting Your Work Manage You
Tuesday May 18, 2021
Tuesday May 18, 2021
Joining Mik in this episode of Mik + One is Carmen DeArdo, Principal Flow Advisor and VSM Practice Lead at Tasktop, and co-author of the award-winning book, Standing on Shoulders: A Leader’s Guide to Digital Transformation.
This episode covers:
- Insight into Carmen’s early experience at Nationwide and Bell Labs, and how he has applied his experience and learnings to help other organizations today
- Carmen’s expertise with local optimization of the value stream and how he works with organizations to take those first steps in making the switch from vertical thinking to horizontal thinking
- The origins of The Flow Framework and how it has helped shift the way that organizations look at the entire value stream
- The key lessons Carmen has learned from helping larger organizations fulfill large deployments of The Flow Framework and some of the biggest surprises and learnings from the past couple of years
Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review.
Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne
www.tasktop.com
For more information about Carmen DeArdo, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit:
https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/carmen-deardo/
Tuesday May 04, 2021
Episode 31: Gene Kim on Psychological Safety and Communications Paths
Tuesday May 04, 2021
Tuesday May 04, 2021
In this episode of Mik + One, Mik sits down with Gene Kim, best-selling author of The Phoenix Project and The Unicorn Project, as well as co-author of The DevOps Handbook.
In this episode, Gene chats to Mik about the next book that he’s working on, and provides many insights into:
- The journey of the Unicorn Project, the effect it had on technology leaders and how it changed their perspectives
- A deeper look into the importance of Psychological Safety and how this links to an organization’s structure and dynamics
- Successful communication paths within an organization in order to improve culture, maximize flow and see successful results, faster
- The properties and prerequisites of high performing, dynamic learning organizations and advice to help teams become one
- The effective patterns that leadership can adopt to enable an effective communication architecture and organizational structure in order to maximize flow faster and more efficiently
Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review.
Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne
www.tasktop.com
For more information about Gene Kim, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit:
https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/gene-kim-ep-31/
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
Episode 30: Brian Solis on the Digital Change Agents in the Novel Economy
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
It’s episode 30 and what a guest we’ve got! Mik welcomes Brian Solis, Global Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce and world-renowned keynote speaker and an award-winning author of eight bestselling books.
In this episode, Mik and Brian cover a lot of ground and discuss many key topics including:
- How people should think about their digital transformations in order to change their thinking in 2021 and adapt to the novel economy
- Avoiding the pitfalls and traps of digital transformations and guidance on how organizations can successfully adapt
- The importance of defining a product value stream and measuring transformations to increase customer value, faster
- Driving innovative digital experiences in order to gain customer attention and loyalty
- Advice to the Digital Change Agents in order to get leadership buy-in and drive change middle-up instead of top-down
Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review.
Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne
www.tasktop.com
For more information about Brian Solis, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit:
https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/brian-solis/
Tuesday Apr 06, 2021
Episode 29: Maya Leibman and Ross Clanton on American Airlines Going Contactless
Tuesday Apr 06, 2021
Tuesday Apr 06, 2021
In this episode, Mik is joined by two IT leaders from American Airlines: Maya Leibman, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer, and Ross Clanton, Managing Director of Technology Transformation.
Mik, Maya and Ross delve into American Airlines shift to digital innovation, including insights into:
- Changing and influencing leaderships approach to IT, innovation and software
- Working with finance to enable them to better understand software products and IT value streams
- How American Airlines delivered touchless kiosk in six weeks in response to the COVID-19 pandemic
- Some of the missteps and failures where things didn't go as planned
- Ensuring IT delivery is connected to business outcomes to create a rapid feedback loop
- Celebrating success, having fun and increasing the happiness and engagement of employees
Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review.
Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne
www.tasktop.com
For more information about Maya Leibman and Ross Clanton, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit:
https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/american-airlines/
Tuesday Mar 23, 2021
Episode 28: Pieter Jordaan on TUI’s Incredible 6-Month Cloud Journey
Tuesday Mar 23, 2021
Tuesday Mar 23, 2021
Joining Mik in this episode of Mik + One is Pieter Jordaan, Group CTO at TUI, the world’s leading integrated tourism group operating in more than a hundred destinations worldwide.
In this episode, Mik and Pieter discuss Pieter’s contribution to TUI’s successful transformation to cloud and product value streams, as well as other key discussion points including:
- Pieter’s background and how he came to work for TUI, where the company was when he met Mik and the kind of business they were doing at that time
- How Pieter approached the transformation to consolidate the company’s different organization structures, operating models and IT systems
- The importance of visibility and choosing the right technology platform to provide a modern operating model for the entire business
- How the pandemic changed travel and made TUI look at massive cost savings and readopt a startup day mentality to continue their digital transformation journey
- Convincing leadership to buy into this transformation and everyone at the company to shift
- The critical process of allowing people to make mistakes and why managing risks shouldn’t be the first starting position
Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review.
Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne
www.tasktop.com
For more information about Pieter Jordaan, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit:
https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/pieter-jordaan
Tuesday Mar 09, 2021
Episode 27: Robin Yeman on A Common Language Across Silos
Tuesday Mar 09, 2021
Tuesday Mar 09, 2021
Joining Mik in this episode of Mik + One is Robin Yeman, Senior Fellow and Agile DevSecOps Enterprise coach at Lockheed Martin.
In this episode, Mik and Robin discuss how Robin approaches leadership with complex systems of systems and other key discussion points including:
- Insight into Robin’s journey and PhD thesis, examining how to deploy complex system of systems using Agile and DevSecOps
- The need to develop a common language by connecting the different systems, vocabularies, the ways people work and collaborate, prototype and build systems
- How Robin helps organizations develop this common language through a common understanding of the vision
- The need to deliver value at the speed of relevance
- Successful examples of how Robin gets people to change their thinking
Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review.
Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne
www.tasktop.com
For more information about Robin Yeman, to view the full list of resources featured in this episode, and to download the episode transcript, visit:
https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/robin-yeman/