Listen free for 30 days
-
Improv-ing Agile Teams
- Using Constraints to Unlock Creativity
- Narrated by: Paul Goddard
- Length: 5 hrs
- Categories: Business & Careers, Career Success
People who bought this also bought...
-
Team Mastery
- From Good to Great Agile Teamwork
- By: Geoff Watts
- Narrated by: Geoff Watts
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you have ever been part of a great team, you will know it is exponentially better than being part of a mediocre team. Teams are at the heart of working in complex domains and are essential to the success of agile approaches yet relatively few teams achieve greatness. Agile and leadership coach Geoff Watts has pulled together his many years of experience with all sorts of teams from software to product development, from medical teams to sports teams and has identified five common characteristics of great teams:
-
-
Absolutely superb
- By Jim on 19-07-20
-
Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition
- Addison-Wesley Signature Series - Cohn
- By: Lyssa Adkins
- Narrated by: Lyssa Adkins
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Coaching Agile Teams, Lyssa Adkins gives agile coaches the insights they need to adopt this new mind-set and to guide teams to extraordinary performance in a re-energized work environment. You’ll gain a deep view into the role of the agile coach, discover what works and what doesn’t, and learn how to adapt powerful skills from many allied disciplines, including the fields of professional coaching and mentoring.
-
Scrum Mastery: From Good to Great Servant-Leadership
- By: Geoff Watts
- Narrated by: Geoff Watts
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The basics of being a ScrumMaster are fairly straightforward: At face value, all a ScrumMaster needs to do is facilitate the Scrum process and remove impediments. But being a great ScrumMaster, one who truly embodies the principles of servant-leadership and helps move a team to the high performance levels possible with Scrum, is much harder and much more elusive. In this audiobook, Geoff shares a collection of stories and practical guidance, drawn from over 10 years of coaching numerous Scrum teams that will guide you on your path to greatness.
-
-
A good insight into enhancing the Scrum experience
- By Chris Fawcett on 25-07-18
-
Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow
- By: Matthew Skelton, Manuel Pais
- Narrated by: Edward Bauer
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Team Topologies is a practical, step-by-step, adaptive model for organizational design and team interaction based on four fundamental team types and three team interaction patterns. It is a model that treats teams as the fundamental means of delivery, where team structures and communication pathways are able to evolve with technological and organizational maturity. In Team Topologies, IT consultants Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais share secrets of successful team patterns and interactions to help listeners choose and evolve the right team patterns for their organization.
-
-
Fairly technical and a bit dry, but still good
- By Anonymous User on 21-01-21
-
Sooner Safer Happier
- Antipatterns and Patterns for Business Agility
- By: Jonathan Smart, Zsolt Berend - contributor, Myles Ogilvie -contributor, and others
- Narrated by: Jane Steel
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jonathan Smart, business agility practitioner, thought leader, and coach, reveals the patterns and antipatterns that will help organizations from every industry deliver better value sooner, safer, and happier through high levels of engagement, inclusion, and empowerment. Through his decades of experience in the technology world, Smart provides business leaders with a blueprint for creating a world-class organization of the future.
-
-
It should be compulsory reading for senior leaders
- By Mr. G. Pritchard on 28-02-21
-
Escaping the Build Trap
- How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value
- By: Melissa Perri
- Narrated by: Erin deWard
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. You'll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small.
-
-
Solid content for starter Product Managers
- By Anonymous User on 23-10-20
-
Team Mastery
- From Good to Great Agile Teamwork
- By: Geoff Watts
- Narrated by: Geoff Watts
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you have ever been part of a great team, you will know it is exponentially better than being part of a mediocre team. Teams are at the heart of working in complex domains and are essential to the success of agile approaches yet relatively few teams achieve greatness. Agile and leadership coach Geoff Watts has pulled together his many years of experience with all sorts of teams from software to product development, from medical teams to sports teams and has identified five common characteristics of great teams:
-
-
Absolutely superb
- By Jim on 19-07-20
-
Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition
- Addison-Wesley Signature Series - Cohn
- By: Lyssa Adkins
- Narrated by: Lyssa Adkins
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Coaching Agile Teams, Lyssa Adkins gives agile coaches the insights they need to adopt this new mind-set and to guide teams to extraordinary performance in a re-energized work environment. You’ll gain a deep view into the role of the agile coach, discover what works and what doesn’t, and learn how to adapt powerful skills from many allied disciplines, including the fields of professional coaching and mentoring.
-
Scrum Mastery: From Good to Great Servant-Leadership
- By: Geoff Watts
- Narrated by: Geoff Watts
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The basics of being a ScrumMaster are fairly straightforward: At face value, all a ScrumMaster needs to do is facilitate the Scrum process and remove impediments. But being a great ScrumMaster, one who truly embodies the principles of servant-leadership and helps move a team to the high performance levels possible with Scrum, is much harder and much more elusive. In this audiobook, Geoff shares a collection of stories and practical guidance, drawn from over 10 years of coaching numerous Scrum teams that will guide you on your path to greatness.
-
-
A good insight into enhancing the Scrum experience
- By Chris Fawcett on 25-07-18
-
Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow
- By: Matthew Skelton, Manuel Pais
- Narrated by: Edward Bauer
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Team Topologies is a practical, step-by-step, adaptive model for organizational design and team interaction based on four fundamental team types and three team interaction patterns. It is a model that treats teams as the fundamental means of delivery, where team structures and communication pathways are able to evolve with technological and organizational maturity. In Team Topologies, IT consultants Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais share secrets of successful team patterns and interactions to help listeners choose and evolve the right team patterns for their organization.
-
-
Fairly technical and a bit dry, but still good
- By Anonymous User on 21-01-21
-
Sooner Safer Happier
- Antipatterns and Patterns for Business Agility
- By: Jonathan Smart, Zsolt Berend - contributor, Myles Ogilvie -contributor, and others
- Narrated by: Jane Steel
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jonathan Smart, business agility practitioner, thought leader, and coach, reveals the patterns and antipatterns that will help organizations from every industry deliver better value sooner, safer, and happier through high levels of engagement, inclusion, and empowerment. Through his decades of experience in the technology world, Smart provides business leaders with a blueprint for creating a world-class organization of the future.
-
-
It should be compulsory reading for senior leaders
- By Mr. G. Pritchard on 28-02-21
-
Escaping the Build Trap
- How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value
- By: Melissa Perri
- Narrated by: Erin deWard
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. You'll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small.
-
-
Solid content for starter Product Managers
- By Anonymous User on 23-10-20
-
The Unicorn Project
- A Novel About Developers, Digital Disruption, and Thriving in the Age of Data
- By: Gene Kim
- Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Unicorn Project, we follow Maxine, a senior lead developer and architect, as she is exiled to the Phoenix Project, to the horror of her friends and colleagues, as punishment for contributing to a payroll outage. She tries to survive in what feels like a heartless and uncaring bureaucracy and to work within a system where no one can get anything done without endless committees, paperwork, and approvals. One day, she is approached by a ragtag bunch of misfits who say they want to overthrow the existing order, to liberate developers, to bring joy back to technology work.
-
-
Predictable Storyline, dreadful reading.
- By S. Taylor on 18-02-20
-
Measure What Matters
- OKRs: The Simple Idea That Drives 10x Growth
- By: John Doerr
- Narrated by: Jini Kim, Susan Wojcicki, Alex Garden, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1999, legendary venture capitalist John Doerr invested nearly $12 million in a startup that had amazing technology, entrepreneurial energy and sky-high ambitions, but no real business plan. Doerr introduced the founders to OKRs and with them at the foundation of their management, the startup grew from 40 employees to more than 70,000 with a market cap exceeding $600 billion. The startup was Google.
-
-
Too many anecdotes
- By Rick on 16-08-19
-
The Scrum Fieldbook
- Faster performance. Better results. Starting now.
- By: J.J. Sutherland
- Narrated by: J.J. Sutherland
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
J. J. Sutherland has the solution. In his international best seller Scrum, he introduced a simple, revolutionary tool to turbo-charge the output of every team. Based on decades of research and road-tested at the headquarters of Google and Amazon, the Scrum method transformed how a generation of leaders work - first in Silicon Valley, and then in boardrooms around the world.
-
-
Excellent, although similar to the first book
- By Jennifers Daddy on 11-11-20
-
How to Lead in Product Management
- Practices to Align Stakeholders, Guide Development Teams, and Create Value Together
- By: Roman Pichler
- Narrated by: Roman Pichler
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book will help you become a better product leader. Benefitting from Roman Pichler’s extensive experience, you’ll learn how to align stakeholders and guide development teams even in challenging circumstances, avoid common leadership mistakes, and grow as a leader. Written in an engaging and easily accessible style, How to Lead in Product Management offers a wealth of practical tips and strategies. Through helpful examples, the book illustrates how you can directly apply the techniques to your work.
-
-
Inspiring
- By dee on 31-01-21
-
Accelerate: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations
- By: Nicole Forsgren PhD, Jez Humble, Gene Kim
- Narrated by: Nicole Forsgren
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How can we apply technology to drive business value? For years we've been told that the performance of software delivery teams doesn't matter - that it can't provide a competitive advantage to our companies. Through four years of groundbreaking research to include data collected from the State of DevOps reports conducted with Puppet, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to find a way to measure software delivery performance - and what drives it - using rigorous statistical methods. This book presents both the findings and the science behind that research, making the information accessible for listeners to apply in their own organizations.
-
-
This should not be an audio book.
- By Amazon Customer on 10-04-19
-
Product Mastery
- From Good to Great Product Ownership
- By: Geoff Watts
- Narrated by: Geoff Watts
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scrum is the most successful framework for agile product development, and much has been written about how to follow the Scrum process, but the key to success is in the leadership skills of the product owner. Product Mastery explores the traits of the best product owners, offering an insight into the difference between good and great product ownership and explaining how the best product owners are driven to be successful.
-
-
Geoff is a master of story telling
- By Anonymous User on 21-03-18
-
The DevOps Handbook
- How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations
- By: Gene Kim, Patrick Debois, John Willis, and others
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More than ever, the effective management of technology is critical for business competitiveness. For decades, technology leaders have struggled to balance agility, reliability, and security. The consequences of failure have never been greater - whether it's the healthcare.gov debacle, cardholder data breaches, or missing the boat with Big Data in the cloud. And yet, high performers using DevOps principles, such as Google, Amazon, and Netflix, are routinely and reliably deploying code into production hundreds, or even thousands, of times per day.
-
-
Practically put
- By Mr. Brian Jenkinson on 01-08-18
-
The Phoenix Project
- A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win 5th Anniversary Edition
- By: Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford
- Narrated by: Chris Ruen
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bill, an IT manager at Parts Unlimited, has been tasked with taking on a project critical to the future of the business, code named Phoenix Project. But the project is massively over budget and behind schedule. The CEO demands Bill must fix the mess in 90 days, or else Bill’s entire department will be outsourced. With the help of a prospective board member and his mysterious philosophy of the Three Ways, Bill starts to see that IT work has more in common with manufacturing plant work than he ever imagined.
-
-
An example of Audiobooks being better
- By Matt Williams on 01-12-15
-
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
- A Leadership Fable
- By: Patrick Lencioni
- Narrated by: Charles Stransky; introduction by Patrick Lencioni
- Length: 3 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In keeping with the parable style, Patrick Lencioni begins by telling the fable of a woman who, as CEO of a struggling Silicon Valley firm, took control of a dysfunctional executive committee and helped its members succeed as a team. Story time over, Lencioni offers explicit instructions for overcoming the human behavioral tendencies that he says corrupt teams. Succinct yet sympathetic, this guide will be a boon for those struggling with the inherent difficulties of leading a group.
-
-
Concise and useful
- By Jamie Hart on 14-02-18
-
Corporate Rebels: Make Work More Fun
- By: Joost Minnaar, Pim de Morree
- Narrated by: Stephen Borne
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discover eight radical lessons from 100 of the world’s most inspiring organisations. Today’s workplaces are broken. Badly broken. The good news? There is a better way. And it's not just theory. It's already practiced in pioneering organisations around the globe. Drawing on Minnaar and De Morree’s visits to 100+ of the world’s most progressive organisations, this audiobook gives direct evidence that you can make work enjoyable and rewarding, while boosting performance and success.
-
-
Phew. Doesn’t come with a do as I do baseline
- By Hayley Hibberd on 17-05-20
-
The Bottleneck Rules: How to Get More Done (When Working Harder Isn't Working)
- By: Clarke Ching
- Narrated by: Chris Abell
- Length: 1 hr and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world's best manufacturers have known the secret for decades: Every workplace, big or small, has one resource that is slower than the rest. It’s called the bottleneck. Find it, speed it up, and your entire workplace speeds up. The problem is that although this secret is well known inside manufacturing, it's been hidden from the rest of us, deep inside complicated manufacturing texts and sophisticated computer algorithms. Until now, that is. Clarke Ching, author of Rolling Rocks Downhill, has spent the last 20 years adapting and simplifying manufacturing's techniques so that everyone can use them, no matter where they work.
-
-
5*
- By Craig McPheat on 03-05-20
-
Agile Coaching: Where to Start?
- Essential Theory and Advice Basic Coaching Framework Coaching Journey Explained
- By: Dmitri Iarandine
- Narrated by: Dmitri Iarandine
- Length: 2 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Agile coaching remains a prominent career progression trend for many agile practitioners like scrum master and agile project managers who feel like they outgrew the shoes of their digital delivery roles. This audiobook is my attempt to summarize the learning and observations from inside the agile professional space, explaining in simple terms what an agile coach is really supposed to do and how they are different from agile delivery roles such as scrum master and, ultimately, how to properly transition into a coaching role.
-
-
Insight builder
- By Eralp on 27-11-19
Summary
Improv is not about being funny, original, or chaotic.
It's about embracing change.
Improvisation. The mere mention of the word makes many people quake with fear at the prospect of chaos and uncertainty. The fact is, though, human beings are improvising almost every minute of their lives it is more natural, and more filled with possibility, than you might imagine.
On stage, improvisational actors use simple rules, collaborative principles, and game constraints to build unscripted yet intriguing storylines. This audiobook explores how those same simple rules and principles can help agile teams collaborate more effectively and how purposefully working within constraints can unlock creativity.
In this audiobook, you ll find over 50 techniques and improv games tailored for agile teams, complete with step-by-step instructions. These games are based on five different principles of improvisational theatre:
- Safety: How accepting failure is essential to discovery
- Spontaneity: How to increase the flow of ideas
- Storytelling: How narratives help teams relate to their customers and end users
- Status: How adjusting personal behaviour can encourage collaboration
- Sensitivity: How to become more fully engaged with fellow team members
What listeners say about Improv-ing Agile Teams
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Me
- 06-01-21
Clever and useful
I was a little skeptical to begin with but I was recommended this by a colleague and it was surprisingly useful and really quite clever. I've used a few of the games with my teams and they enjoyed them and they helped us as well.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- S E Hancock
- 06-01-21
Great way to start collaborating better!!
The author has managed to explain the theory of improv and give real examples of how to blend that into coaching agile teams. The crossover is very helpful and the games in the book are easy to get started with! My team loves the Psychic Stand-up the best!!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kindle-Kunde
- 26-08-20
Great Input to Team Building and Coaching
A lot of practical advice and ideas for anyone who is working in resp. with (agile) teams. Easy to listen to and follow along.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 26-01-20
Plums
A practical and we'll structured listen with loads of varying exercises to experiment with. I especially liked the story about "plums" 😂
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jon McNestrie
- 23-01-20
Creative and very practical
The book is packed full of wonderful exercises for teams but more than that it explores the way teams behave (which is staggeringly complex) by the clever comparison to improv troupes.
It's great to hear Paul reading his own book here. You can tell how passionate about the material he is and it makes a difference.
Totally worth your time, effort and indeed money.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jim
- 16-01-20
Fresh and interest approach to team building
Loved the fresh approach to team buildings and removal team's impediments. Well worth the read.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Peter W
- 15-01-20
All the (software development) world's a stage
Fascinating insights within a niche subject, that nonetheless provide useful techniques for a broad range of development situations, that I'm already trying out on the projects I manage.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ravi
- 13-01-20
Practical, Realistic and nicely narrated.
Fantastic audio book. Nice ideas are present in the book for team building activities.
One will connect to the realistic scenarios at their respective work places.
A great source of information for the agile coaches, scrum masters, product owners and the development team.
The Chapters are named with titles unlike many other audio books. This makes easy to go back and replay particular topic.
Paul chooses 5 topics starting with letter 'S'.
Safety, Spontaneity, Storytelling, Status, Sensitivity.
Paul covers the topics in depth and also created games on each topic that can be used to build strong agile teams.
These games can be used in the daily stand-ups, retrospectives etc.
Paul nicely relates comedy story play to agile teams work culture. Narrated well and holds the listeners attention through out.
I highly recommend this book for those who want to improve in their roles, thought process.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- M Godden
- 06-01-21
Surprising crossover between improv and agile
I was recommended this book by a friend and enjoyed hearing about how improv (which I enjoy anyway) can apply and help me as an agile coach. There are games at the end of each chapter to try (as separate sections) - interesting listen
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Me
- 06-01-21
Clever and useful
I was a bit skeptical at first but I was recommended this book by a colleague and I was surprised at how clever and useful the theory and games were. I used a few of them with my team and they enjoyed them and they even helped us get better.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 12-02-20
improv theatre techniques to improve soft skills
The audiobook is really worth the time I spent listening to it - it brings a new, at least for me, approach to improving soft skills of agile team members via techniques of improvisational theater. I like how the author cites interesting facts to support his conslusions and that each chapter is ended with a short list of short exercises / games to address some of the social or communicational weakpoints we all have. The perspective it provides made me think about new directions for my growth in this area and I'm grateful for that. Thank you, Paul.