Welcome to The Agile Skills Library — a practical, human-centred podcast for anyone who wants to get better at agile beyond the framework.
Created and curated by Geoff Watts and Paul Goddard, this podcast draws on over 50 years of combined experience working with teams, leaders, Scrum Masters, and organisations across a wide range of industries.
Each episode focuses on one skill that great agile practitioners rely on every day — facilitation, coaching, decision-making, conflict, communication, systems thinking, and leading in uncertainty.
EP21: Using Benjamin Franklin’s 13 Virtues to Build Team Norms and Continuous Improvement
Geoff and Paul discuss Benjamin Franklin’s “13 virtues” as a practical framework for self-improvement and, more importantly, for developing team norms, shared standards, and a culture of continuous improvement in agile teams. They explain how Franklin created virtues to address his own frustration with not meeting his standards, and how he focused on one virtue at a time in four-week cycles so all 13 were covered over 52 weeks. They propose a team activity where members first brainstorm virtues individually, then share and cluster them, with two constraints: the team must agree on exactly 13, and any single disagreement vetoes a virtue, prompting discussion, negotiation, and reframing (e.g., curiosity vs stability). They stress facilitation rigour, equal participation, time to do it well, and ongoing review, and they will share Franklin’s list plus a larger prompt list and a definition of “virtue.”
00:00 Welcome and Banter
00:47 Why Franklin Virtues
02:37 Remembering the 13
03:32 Virtues vs Values
05:09 Team Virtues Exercise
06:54 Handling Conflicts
08:56 Franklin Focus Cycle
10:23 Team Milestones Cards
11:27 Facilitation Tips
13:29 Time-boxing and Review
14:52 Resources and Wrap Up
11 Aug 2026
EP20: Kano Analysis: Prioritising Features by Customer Satisfaction (and Building Minimum Lovable Products)
Geoff and Paul welcome listeners back to the Agile Skills Library and introduce Kano analysis, a customer satisfaction model from the 1980s by Noriaki Kano, used to support data-driven prioritisation via surveys comparing how customers feel when a feature exists versus when it doesn’t. They explain the five feature categories—threshold/must-have, linear/one-dimensional, delighted/excited, indifferent, and reverse—and use hotel-room examples (toilets and beds as threshold; bed size, Wi‑Fi speed, and room attributes as linear; anniversary card and chocolates as delighters; padded hangers and heavy bed throws as indifferent; too many pillows/furniture and unwanted items like rats as reverse). They connect Kano to release planning, arguing teams often over-focus on threshold features and should instead balance trade-offs to create a “minimum lovable product,” including knowing when not to build or when to remove backlog items.
00:00 Welcome Back Banter
01:40 Why Kano Matters
04:52 How Kano Surveys Work
06:13 Must Have Basics
07:12 Hotel Threshold Examples
08:58 Linear Performance Needs
11:20 Delighters and Exciters
15:08 Indifferent and Reverse Features
17:45 Using Kano for MVP vs MLP
21:05 Wrap Up and Next Steps
4 Aug 2026
EP19: A Retrospective From the Future - Using Future Perspective to Create Positive Change
Geoff and Paul open by celebrating Paul’s birthday and discussing mixed feelings about ageing and birthdays, then pivot to a coaching technique: a “future perspective” or “retrospective from the future.” Geoff explains imagining a future time (e.g., 6-12 months or five years) where things are going well, describing what’s true, then looking back to identify the decisions and actions that made it happen; he notes it can be analytical or visualisation-based and more strategic than typical retrospectives. They discuss using it individually (including a “Nirvana letter”) or with teams to counter present-focused negativity and create motivating goals. Paul practices the exercise, describing a future with balanced variety and stability, meaningful work, family time, and deeper rugby club involvement that expands into consultancy, plus leading indicators to track progress. They close by asking listeners to leave a review and download companion content to try the technique.
00:00 Birthday Banter
01:53 Ageing And Milestones
02:33 Future Retrospective Idea
03:11 How The Exercise Works
05:42 Team And Solo Variations
06:59 Paul Visualises Five Years
09:11 Make It Specific
11:09 Turn Vision Into Actions
15:09 Leading Indicators And Signals
16:41 Mindset And Team Longevity
19:06 Birthday Gift And Wrap Up
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