When I say resources, I mean resources

ByPaul Henman

It shouldn’t need to be said, but unfortunately there are still people who refer to others (usually subordinate staff) as resources. As we become more aware of potentially offensive or harmful language and make efforts to change the words we use, I hope resources will appear on the list of inappropriate terms.

I still wear my #PeopleWorkHere T-shirt from This Agile Life as a visual reminder.

I think the second image comes from Mike Cohn (Mountain Goat Software) but I can’t find it.

But on to the real topic: where to find reliable agile-related information? The benefit of the internet is having access to so many resources, but the downside is that anyone can post their (mis)understanding – it’s important to check that the author has relevant, practical experience.

Personally, I find podcasts a great way to learn about new techniques etc. I tend to play them at 1.25x (or sometimes 1.5x) speed because I follow a lot of podcasts (across many topics) and at that speed I can just about keep up with the influx of new episodes 🙂

Unfortunately some of my favourites haven’t released anything in a year or more, so my currently-active favs are:

Similarly, I have a backlog of webinars and books. I don’t follow any agile-related YouTube channels; I tend to come across videos via email (mailing lists), websites, slack, and the infamous YouTube rabbit hole, and then I add them to my bookmarks to watch later. If there are some good channels that you would recommend, please leave a comment.

Update: I checked and actually I do subscribe to a few YT feeds:

OK, that’s a longer list than I expected!

Ultimately, I think it’s about finding a format (or formats) that works for you and then identify some reliable authors. But it’s not just about absorbing information – it’s useful to discuss concepts and challenges, and (as the saying goes) the best way to understand a topic is to explain it to someone else. Meetup groups (albeit online at the moment) and twitter (I have an agile list of people I follow) are good, but the one I find most useful is my team’s coaching circle: a weekly opportunity for us to discuss our challenges, discoveries, experiments, and questions. Rather than squeeze this in at the end of a long post, I’ll write a separate entry about how this format works and the type of things we discuss.