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All life requires circulation.

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You can't sit still. Here's why that matters

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and how it affects us going forward. That's

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this week on the Badass Agile podcast.

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Greetings, team. Welcome to the Badass Agile podcast.

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I'm your host, Chris Williams.

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I got something that I hope will have

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impact on you and freshen up your practice

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and invigorate your practice for the year ahead.

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Look. You can't sit still.

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If your organs don't receive blood, you're goner.

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When water isn't moving, bacteria gathers on the

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surface.

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When you don't move, as a practitioner,

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your byways to opportunity are going to clog

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up.

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Let me tell you what I mean. But

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first, let's take a moment to remember why

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we're here, to create an elite tribe of

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leaders who truly serve their clients and community

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by doing what matters and what works, relentlessly

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chasing value and excellence like a badass.

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There's so many resources out there about what

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you need to do to be agile, but

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we focus on who you need to become

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in order to lead teams.

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So let's hammer down those fundamentals

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to create a truly unique and powerful force

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in this industry. If you love this episode,

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share it with your friends.

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To talk about yesterday's Agile today is to

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immediately put yourself

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behind.

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Business changes every day, every week. You have

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to meet new people who need new things.

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You have to have new conversations

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about doing things in new ways. This means,

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put more simply, you have to circulate.

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We have to evolve

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the same way we tell our customers to

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evolve. Doesn't that make sense? Constant change, constant

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improvement, constant evaluation.

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Remember that? It's built into what we preach,

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but maybe not so much in what we

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do.

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And I'm finding this happening a lot.

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In our practice, in our community,

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the simplicity of the 12 agile principles are

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easy to understand.

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They're easy to share.

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They're easy to preach, but they're not so

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easy to do. Think about it. Welcoming change,

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do we do that well? I would say

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no based on the continuous presence of stuff

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that you see in the literature, the books,

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the videos, the social media that says we

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should go deeper into process.

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And especially concerning

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is all the politicking

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about how agile is just fine. It's not

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going anywhere. And that anyone who says it's

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in jeopardy is just fear mongering. I'll talk

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about that more in a future episode, but

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let's move on. Deliver early and frequently. Do

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we do that? Do we not see more

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and more teams going to 1 month sprints

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or 3 month sprints sometimes?

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Are we really being courageous in helping our

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teams deliver stuff early, valuable stuff early and

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frequently?

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Are we keeping things simple?

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Are we valuing face to face communication? Are

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we driving deeper, thicker wedges between ourselves and,

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let's say, the product team or ourselves and

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the executive, the people who we're supposed to

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be serving?

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If we don't live by those principles,

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if we don't evolve those principles,

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then how do you expect to compete and

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survive?

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We love to tell people the stories of

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Kodak or Blockbuster,

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the businesses that stood still, that denied the

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revolution or the rebellion by sitting there certain

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with their arms folded,

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rejecting the oncoming change.

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But we,

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as practitioners,

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don't seem to wanna know

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how to evolve better ourselves,

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how to be the Netflix or the digital

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camera.

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The secret to everything is to circulate.

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Now, look, you don't have to believe me,

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but if you're struggling to find or keep

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your contracts or your job, if it feels

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like the industry is changing shape all around

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you and you're worried about what tomorrow holds,

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the secret

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is not to hang on to what you've

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got.

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Don't stand still and let blood pool up.

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You gotta move. You gotta circulate. So what

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does that mean? How do you do that?

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I remember saying a while back in one

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of my videos, I think, that you've gotta

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become more intrepreneurial

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and entrepreneurial, And everyone's like, boo. We don't

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wanna hear that. What we wanna hear is

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that if I just bring my scrum guide

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and maybe my Lego to work, everything is

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gonna be fine. Well, look. If you want

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things to be fine, you yourselves have to

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evolve and innovate. And the prize of a

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bright future

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in your industry or within your organization depends

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on you being able to do the following.

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Here are some examples.

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These are not from the back of my

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head. These are examples that are working for

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me

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now. You don't have to do scrum or

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kanban or any other process or framework

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to be agile in your organization. And most

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importantly,

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you don't have to live in the software

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feature room

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anywhere in an organization

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where you can, number 1, help people prioritize

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better.

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Number

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2, help them make more evidence based decisions.

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Number 3,

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help them reduce the cost of trying something

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new.

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By doing what? By simplifying, by MVPing, by

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prioritizing, etcetera, etcetera.

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Number 4, help them get comfortable with failure.

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Number 5, help them reduce old, slow, and

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inefficient ways of planning and documenting stuff.

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Number 6, help them make things simpler.

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Number 7, help them learn better,

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especially learning through their own experiences.

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Number 8, help them to prefer

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action

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over anything else.

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And number 9, help them deliver value sooner

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and more frequently.

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We've heard this a 1000000 times. This should

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make perfect sense.

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But what I'm saying is,

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there is questionable value in the way we've

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been implementing scrum,

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agile

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in organizations around the world, especially the biggest

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organizations. The reason why we're feeling what we're

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feeling now is because we're failing to circulate.

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We're failing to move blood through the system.

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So what does that mean when I say

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circulate? Go meet people who have problems.

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People outside of tech,

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people outside of software projects because those nine

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things that I just ran through with you,

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these things are agile. Do one of them

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and you will help a team or a

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group get better.

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Any one of these would be sufficient

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to add value somewhere in the organization.

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Can you deliver a better training experience? Can

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you shorten the time to hire a new

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candidate?

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Can you create new policies more easily? Can

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you find new ways of reaching your customers?

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Can you simplify or lower the cost of

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social media marketing?

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Is there a warehouse process

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to which any one of the nine principles

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I just ran through

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would apply and make things somehow better

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If you do these things in small pockets

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where the need is greatest

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and worry about the scaling later or never,

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then you'll be providing and creating real, genuine

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value for your customers.

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But if we fail to circulate,

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if we fail to move on from the

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old way of doing things, if we stand

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still intellectually

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and physically,

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we're gonna struggle for air,

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and this is important because we're facing a

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crisis of faith

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with our clients, with the world at large.

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I still love agility

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as much as I ever have,

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but as we continue

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to improve it in the technical domain, we

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owe it to ourselves at the same time

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to be reaching out to other parts of

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the organization. Every organism must grow, and you'll

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only grow if the blood is moving.

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Get out there and have those conversations.

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Advertise the nature of what you do as

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not being software development process experts,

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but rather as experts in delivering value to

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the marketplace

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in simpler, better ways.

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Thank you for listening, my friends. You can

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find me as always at badassagile.com,

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and you can check out my products and

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services

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atlearning.fusechamber.com.

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Thank you again for listening. I look forward

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to seeing you next time, and until then,

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stay badass.