At Agile and Beyond a few months ago, I launched a new micropodcast: Agile in 3 Minutes, “the simplest podcast that could possibly work”.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to produce a real podcast. In college, to share my music (mostly) with far-flung friends and family, I published an irregularly-scheduled “Schmonzcast” here on schmonz.com. That sort-of podcast mattered a great deal to me, but would never matter to more than a few others.

I’ve long wanted to be real-podcasting because it seemed like it’d play to my strengths. I’ve learned that some people find my voice pleasant to listen to, and that sometimes I express ideas in ways people are receptive to. And I’ve already got a handle on the podcast-publishing basics.

As soon as the idea to describe aspects of Agile in tiny timeboxes landed in my head, I knew it was worth trying. How many minutes, though? Four felt like a giant blank canvas; three felt liberatingly constraining. Three, then. I bought a domain and a decent microphone, wrote and recorded the first couple episodes, and announced them, fittingly, in a Lightning talk. Every week since Agile and Beyond, I’ve been writing, editing, editing, editing, recording, processing, and publishing one new episode. (Episode 12 went up yesterday.)

You might be wondering, how Agile a production is Agile in 3 Minutes? The one-week iterations keep me delivering, the 450-word increments feel sustainable, and the one-at-a-time batches give me chances for feedback.

Until now. Whatever I might have learned from delivering #12 won’t be reflected in #13, because they were written and produced in rapid succession. (I’ll be mostly off-grid until it’s time to cook 14.) The larger batch size makes me a little uncomfortable. But I’ve learned in other contexts — including software development — that choosing not to indulge my perfectionist tendencies often produces results that vary in some useful way. And since one of my goals for the show is that every episode be someone’s favorite, maybe there’ll be useful variance in these two. We’ll see, won’t we? I have no idea what Agile in 3 Minutes will add up to, but I’m pleased that it’s starting to add up to something.

You might also be wondering, did I use the whole 5-minute timeslot for my lightning talk? I did not. 3 minutes was enough.