Adopting Agile Practices

Tutorials

TM Six Free Ideas to Improve Agile Success

Pollyanna Pixton, Accelinnova

Tue, 06/04/2013 - 1:00pm

Free? Is anything free these days? Based on her experience working with organizational leaders and her research into what drives organizational performance, Pollyanna Pixton shares six ideas—and the keys to their effective implementation—to help assure the success of your agile teams. As a bonus, her suggestions won’t cost you a thing. Pollyanna’s first free idea is how to create a culture of trust—the keystone of open collaboration—within your team and organization. The second free idea is about ownership—how to give it and not take it back.

Concurrent Sessions

AW6 How to Jumpstart Enterprise Agile Adoption

Alan Padula, Intuit

Wed, 06/05/2013 - 2:15pm

Want to get a jumpstart on agile adoption in your organization? Begin by leveraging a roadmap that Intuit has used for rolling out enterprise agile to its business units. While there is no single way to bring enterprise agile into your organization, Alan Padula describes a model that has worked repeatedly. The important first step is to create a vision of what full agile adoption looks like. Once a rich vision is created describing what people will be doing and how they will be doing it, create a roadmap, a time-sequenced plan with milestones.

AW7 Behavior-Driven Design in Practice

Nir Szilagyi, eBay, Inc.

Janarthanan Eindhal, eBay, Inc.

Wed, 06/05/2013 - 2:15pm

One of software development’s greatest challenges is combining business needs with technical abilities to build products that customers want. Many development methodologies attempt to achieve this, but Nir Szilagyi and Janarthanan Eindhal think that few connect the dots as well as behavior-driven development (BDD), an agile development methodology derived from test-driven development (TDD) and other agile practices. Unlike TDD, which focuses on code design, BDD focuses on the customer.

AW10 The Evolution of Agile: Dealing with the Growing Pains

Jonathan Thorpe, Serena Software

Wed, 06/05/2013 - 3:45pm

Agile development has evolved into a lifecycle that not only affects the IT department but the overall business as well. Forward-thinking enterprises recognize this and benefit from the software efficiency that agile development delivers. Through real-world examples, Jonathan Thorpe explains how enterprises can improve their agile success. Discover how successful global enterprises are applying the principles of agile development beyond just software development to a level where it affects entire business groups.

AW11 Agile and CMMI: Yes, They Can Work Together

Ed Weller, Integrated Productivity Solutions, LLC

Wed, 06/05/2013 - 3:45pm

There is a common misconception that agile and CMMI cannot work together. CMMI is viewed as a documentation heavy, slow, process-driven model—the polar opposite of agile principles. The cost of documentation for an appraisal is viewed as another drawback. Join Ed Weller to see why a large organization chose to use the practices in the CMMI to complement agile, and a formal appraisal to improve and evaluate their performance.

AT1 The Five Facets of an Agile Organization

George Schlitz, BigVisible Solutions

Thu, 06/06/2013 - 10:15am

Is agile—or lean, kanban, lean startup, etc.—starting to follow the path of other management buzzwords in your organization? Is it losing steam, now resembling only a minor change from the old ways? Have you compromised to "make agile work in our organization?” As organizations introduce new paradigms, they often run into roadblocks of inertia. When these are not overcome, the initial excitement and the potential benefits drain away. Treating changes such as agile as merely a software delivery approach typically means disregarding four other key facets of the agile organization.

AT2 Enterprise Lean-Agile: It’s More Than Scrum

Jeff Marr, Cisco

Thu, 06/06/2013 - 10:15am

Introducing agile development into a large enterprise is like creating a bubble of sanity in the midst of bedlam. Unless the sanity spreads, the effort is ultimately frustrating, frustrated—and fails. Jeff Marr describes the web of the enterprise ecosystem and presents strategies to build a common agile and lean vocabulary and set of practices within your organization.

AT3 Agile Development in a Regulated Environment

Chris Ampenberger, PHT Corporation

Thu, 06/06/2013 - 10:15am

There is no doubt that agile is an accepted development methodology. However, if you work in a regulated industry like health care where you have to comply with its standard operating procedures, heaps of paperwork, and frequent audits, don’t these conflict with agile’s core tenets? Chris Ampenberger describes his operating environment and the applicable regulations that define the constraints for the software development process he can use. He shares how they overcame the incongruity between agile and regulatory requirements.

AT11 The Next Frontier of Agile: Journey to Continuous Delivery

Nicole Sweeney, Intuit

Martin Franklin, Intuit

Thu, 06/06/2013 - 3:45pm

Organizations are under pressure to release faster with higher quality, while business and technology environments are increasingly becoming more and more complex. How can you deploy great products quickly in such a challenging environment? Intuit, maker of TurboTax, is solving this problem with continuous delivery practices. Continuous delivery is the next stage of agile, allowing organizations to achieve greater velocity, repeatability, and sustainability through a continuous build, test, and deploy process.

Pre-Conference Training

Certified ScrumMaster Training (CSM) + PMI-ACP℠ (3-day)

David Bulkin, LitheSpeed

Sun, 06/02/2013 - 8:30am

This three-day ScrumMaster certification course provides everything you need to begin leading or participating in a Scrum team. You will learn the essential concepts and tools of Scrum, differences between agile processes and traditional "waterfall" methodologies, and how to build a roadmap for adopting agile at your organization. Participants will learn how to lead development teams towards agile operations by: managing product backlogs, planning releases and sprints, tracking and reporting progress, and conducting retrospectives. Successful attendees receive Scrum training materials, a 12-month membership in the ScrumAlliance, and are eligible to take an exam, which will qualify them as Certified ScrumMasters (CSMs) upon successful completion.

Product Owner Certification (2-day)

Arlen Bankston, LitheSpeed

Sun, 06/02/2013 - 8:30am

This two-day Certified Scrum Product Owner certification course provides the jumping off point for you to take on the hardest role in Scrum, being a Product Owner. Being an effective Product Owner is difficult, but, if executed well, it can be incredibly rewarding as speed to market and value will grow substantially. On completion of the course you are registered as a Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) with a two-year membership in the Scrum Alliance (www.scrumalliance.org) where valuable materials and information are available exclusively to CSPOs.

Fundamentals of Agile Certification (2-day)

Jeff Payne, Coveros, Inc.

Sun, 06/02/2013 - 8:30am

Fundamentals of Agile Certification will present a roadmap for how to get started with agile along with practical advice. It will introduce you to agile software development concepts and teach you how to make them work. You will learn what agile is all about, why agile works, and how to effectively plan and develop software using agile principles. A running case study allows you to apply the techniques you are learning as you go through the course.