Speaker Index

Kathy Aragon has worked as a contractor and employee at Sandia National Laboratories for more than thirty-four years. With a background in software development and database design and administration, Kathy has been involved in software engineering as a developer and appraiser for several decades and with Scrum for eight years. A Certified Product Owner and Certified ScrumMaster, she has launched many teams of varying sizes in adopting Scrum for both software and non-software products

James Bach is founder and principal consultant of Satisfice, Inc., a software testing and quality assurance company. In the eighties, James cut his teeth as a programmer, tester, and SQA manager in Silicon Valley in the world of market-driven software development. For nearly fifteen years, he has traveled the world teaching rapid software testing skills and serving as an expert witness on court cases involving software testing. James is the author of Lessons Learned in Software Testing and Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar: How Self-Education and the Pursuit of Passion Can Lead to a Lifetime of Success.

Starting his career building workstations at Hewlett-Packard, Alan Bennett has been developing and managing software for fifteen years. Finding a passion for embedded system development with Linux, Alan has been building Linux products for most of his career and hasn't looked back. At Linaro, Alan has moved from building embedded systems to building products that are used to build embedded systems better. Previously, Alan used waterfall and phase-gate processes, and recently managed an agile team building android products for commercial aviation. Contact Alan at [email protected]. He’s always open to discussions on how we can improve.

A VP of global delivery and solutions for tap|QA, Inc., Jennifer Bonine began her career in consulting, implementing large ERP solutions. Jennifer has held executive level positions leading development, quality assurance and testing, organizational development, and process improvement teams for Fortune 500 companies in several domains. In an engagement for one of the world’s largest technology companies, Jennifer served as a strategy executive and in corporate marketing for the C-Suite. In her career, she has had several opportunities to build global teams from the ground up and has been fortunate to see how many of the world’s top companies operate from the C-Suite viewpoint.

Julie Bouchard has worked as a software engineer at Sandia National Laboratories since 1991. Most of her time has been on Verification and Validation (V&V) of software and Modeling & Simulation (M&S) systems. Recently Julie led the effort to develop V&V Navigator, a tool to assist in determining V&V methods that will provide confidence in M&S systems. Practical use of this tool led to efforts to integrate V&V with agile methods.

Steve Dempsen is a senior project analyst in the enterprise program management office at the Capital Group. Steve works daily using various frameworks and methodologies with multiple teams to help them deliver value on enterprise projects. As a ScrumMaster and senior application developer at the Capital Group, Steve has provided leadership in agile and lean delivery practices; processes, configuration and release management; and architecture and design. Previously at Accenture and PacifiCare Health Systems, he designed high-tech and healthcare systems. Steve keeps his CSP, PMI-ACP, and PMP credentials active by speaking at conferences and user groups.

Jeff Downs has more than ten years of hands-on testing and test tool experience at LexisNexis where he led the test tool transformation for their Test Center of Excellence. As a tool administrator, Jeff drove the effort to improve test efficiency and capability through tool best practices, integration, and administration. After seeing first-hand how disparate tool suites can hinder an organization, Jeff joined Tasktop in their mission to connect the world of software delivery. At Tasktop, he helps other companies bridge the gap between tools, make better use of those tools, and enable collaboration across the lifecycle—all through the power of integration.  Contact Jeff on Twitter @jdowns26.

Cory Foy is a passionate technical leader and coach with more than fifteen years of experience managing and leading teams worldwide. Cory has been most active as a member of the agile software community, consulting and speaking on topics such as Innovation Games, Extreme Programming, Scrum, Kanban, and software craftsmanship. He has spent the past several years helping clients increase organizational agility and think differently about their work through a combination of lean and agile principles coupled with Serious Play. The CTO of Pretty Kool Apps, an education startup, Cory currently coaches, consults, and trains for a variety of clients.

Gene Gotimer is a senior architect at Coveros, Inc., a software company that uses agile methods to accelerate the delivery of secure, reliable software. As a consultant, Gene works with his customers build software better, faster, and more securely by introducing agile development and DevOps practices such as continuous integration, repeatable builds, unit testing, automated functional testing, analysis tools, security scanning, and automated deploys. He has successfully brought these techniques into commercial and government clients, including the US Department of Defense. Gene feels strongly the repeatability, quality, and security are all strongly intertwined; each of them is dependent on the other two, which just makes DevOps that much more crucial to software development.

Bob Hartman’s logic-based approach to development and quality was honed early in his more than thirty-year software development career. Bob acquired wide-ranging industry knowledge by working as a software developer, tester, product manager, project manager, development manager, and executive. In the past fifteen years, he has grown from being an early adopter of agile to his current status as a Certified Scrum Trainer, Coach, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Scrum Alliance. Bob remembers the pain of long waterfall development cycles, and understands the human and business interactions necessary to achieve success regardless of development methodology. Bob’s holistic view of development can help any team achieve success.

Dawn Haynes is COO, principal trainer, and consultant for PerfTestPlus, Inc., and a former director of the Association for Software Testing. Dawn’s unique blend of experience, humor, and effectiveness at providing tools and techniques that help students at all levels generate new approaches to common and complex software testing problems has resulted in her international recognition as an elite trainer of testers. She provides consulting services and is a frequent speaker at testing conferences, local groups, and intimate gatherings of testers. Dawn has more than twenty-eight years of experience supporting, administering, developing, and testing software and hardware systems—from small business operations to large corporate enterprises.

Geoff Horne has an extensive background in test program/project directorship and management, architecture, and general consulting. In New Zealand Geoff established and ran ISQA as a testing consultancy which enjoys a local and international clientele in Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. He has held senior test management roles across a number of diverse industry sectors, and is editor and publisher of the recently launched NZTester magazine. Geoff has authored a variety of white papers on software testing and is a regular speaker at the STAR conferences. Married with four children, he enjoys writing and recording contemporary Christian music. 

Malcolm Isaacs is a functional architect in HP Software’s Application Delivery Management group, focusing on best practices and methodologies across all aspects of the software development lifecycle. In the course of his career, Malcolm has worked in various positions as software engineer, team leader, and architect. In 2003 he joined Mercury (later acquired by HP), where he worked on a number of products which specialize in supporting traditional and agile software development lifecycles from planning through deployment. Follow Malcolm on Twitter @MalcolmIsaacs, contact him at [email protected], and read his HP blog.

After working in various management and technical positions in software development and product management, Philip Lew leads XBOSoft’s direction and strategy as CEO. A speaker at numerous trade and academic conferences, Phil has worked with hundreds of organizations to assess the quality of their software, examine software quality processes, and set forth measurement plans to improve software quality using systematic methods. His Ph.D. research in software quality and usability resulted in several IEEE and ACM journal publications and in various trade journals as well. Find out more about Philip at xbosoft.com.

A software consultant at the Atlantic Systems Guild, Inc. in New York City, Tim Lister divides his time consulting, teaching, and writing. Tim is a coauthor with his Guild partners of Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies: Understanding Patterns of Project Behavior; coauthor with Tom DeMarco of Waltzing With Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects—both Jolt Award winners as General Computing Book of the Year. Tim and Tom coauthored the classic Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, 3rd Edition. Tim is in his thirtieth year as a panelist for the American Arbitration Association, arbitrating disputes involving software and software services.

For more than twenty years, Suzanne Miller has been a researcher, primarily at the Software Engineering Institute, in software and systems development and management, focusing on issues facing organizations adopting new practices. Earlier in her career, Suzanne focused on building and transitioning descriptive models of practice like Capability Maturity Models. Since 2008, she has focused on understanding the enablers and barriers to adoption of agile and lean methods in regulated settings like the US government. Suzanne authored CMMI Survival Guide: Just Enough Process Improvement. Look for her recent publications at resources.sei.cmu.edu/library.

A principal consultant with Improving Enterprises, Jay Packlick has a deep technical background, having spent the first twenty years of his professional career as a programmer, architect, and manager delivering a wide variety of systems before discovering his passion for helping others achieve the potential of agile. Jay is an enterprise coach with more than a decade of experience helping leaders and teams put agile principles into practice at American Airlines, Travelocity, and Sabre Airline Solutions. With a strong belief that successful transformations require successful leaders, Jay is founder and president of the Dallas chapter of the Agile Leadership Network.

Jeff Patton started in software development in the early ’90s as a project leader for a small, software product company where he learned that well-written code and fast delivery are not the secrets to success. What makes the difference is understanding your customer and creating a great product. In 2000 Jeff worked as a product manager adopting Extreme Programming, gaining a strong appreciation for the discipline that agile thinking brings to software development. He received the Agile Alliance’s Gordon Pask Award for contributions to agile development and authored User Story Mapping. Learn more about Jeff at jpattonassociates.com and agileproductdesign.com.

Jeffery Payne is CEO and founder of Coveros, Inc., a software company that builds secure software applications using agile methods. Since its inception in 2008, Coveros has become a market leader in secure agile principles and recognized by Inc. magazine as one of the fastest growing private companies in the country. Prior to founding Coveros, Jeffery was chairman of the board, CEO, and co-founder of Cigital, Inc., a market leader in software security consulting. He has published more than thirty papers on software development and testing, and testified before Congress on issues of national importance, including intellectual property rights, cyber terrorism, and software quality.

A fellow consultant with Net Objectives, Ken Pugh helps companies transform into lean-agile organizations through training and coaching. His special interests are in communication (particularly effectively communicating requirements), delivering business value, and using lean principles to deliver high quality quickly. Ken trains, mentors, and testifies on technology topics from object-oriented design to Linux/Unix. He has written several programming books, including the 2006 Jolt Award winner Prefactoring and his latest Lean-Agile Acceptance Test Driven Development: Better Software Through Collaboration. Ken has helped clients from London to Boston to Sydney to Beijing to Hyderabad. He enjoys snowboarding, windsurfing, biking, and hiking the Appalachian Trail. Reach Ken at [email protected]

Principal consultant and a member of the core team at Agile Artisans, Jared Richardson is a process coach who works with software teams to help them build excellent software. He sold his first software program in 1991 and has been immersed in software ever since. He helped create the GROWS methodology and has authored a number of books, including the best selling Ship It! A Practical Guide to Successful Software Projects and Career 2.0: Take Control of Your Life. He is a frequent speaker at software conferences and a thought leader in the agile space. Jared lives with his wife and children in North Carolina where they, quite by accident, became backyard chicken farmers.

Oscar Rodriquez (CSDP, CSM, SA) has a foundation in engineering with formal education from MIT and a real world education from the San Francisco startup world.  He has moved through the roles of developer, architect, consultant, and manager, while working in various domains such as manufacturing, enterprise consulting, billing, healthcare, and finance.  In all these roles and domains, the goal has been the same – help the team and organization to deliver higher quality software faster (even if that means failing a lot).  Oscar is co-founder of Agile Pi, which takes an “all-in” approach when working with clients in their agile journey by bringing both business and technology together to collaborate, communicate and innovate. (www.agilepi.com; [email protected]; @agile314)

With more than forty years of experience, the founder and CEO of Net Objectives Al Shalloway is an industry thought leader in lean, SAFe, kanban, product portfolio management, Scrum, and agile design. Al helps companies transition enterprise-wide to lean and agile methods, and teaches courses in these areas—one of a handful of SAFe SPC trainers. He is the primary author of Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility, Design Patterns Explained, Lean-Agile Pocket Guide for Scrum Teams, and Essential Skills for the Agile Developer. Cofounder (although no longer affiliated) with Lean Kanban University, Al is a popular speaker at prestigious conferences worldwide.

A Certified Scrum Trainer and agile coach, Fadi Stephan leads Washington DC-based Excella Consulting’s software development service area. Fadi has more than fifteen years of professional experience as a product manager, project manager, software developer, ScrumMaster, and consultant at both Federal agencies and businesses—from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. Since 2006, Fadi’s focus has been on building high-performing organizations and teams that strive to deliver value early and maximize ROI. He founded the DC Software Craftsmanship User Group and organized the DC Scrum User Group.

Brian Watson has more than eighteen years of experience in software development and ten years practicing agile. He is currently a product and agile coach, primarily focusing on agile transformation, coaching, and teaching. Brian has supported enterprise clients across multiple industries including government, insurance, utilities, consulting services, financial services, and manufacturing. Previously, he was a PMO and director of project delivery for a consulting company. Brian is a member of the Scrum Alliance, PMI, and IIBA. When not coaching, Brian enjoys golfing and drinking craft beer.

James Whittaker is a technology executive with a career that spans academia, start-ups, and top tech companies. With a PhD in computer science, James worked for IBM, Ericsson, SAP, Cisco, and Microsoft. In 1996, he joined the faculty at Florida Institute of Technology where his work in Y2K testing and software security earned many awards. James’ first stint at Microsoft was in Trustworthy Computing and then Visual Studio. In 2009, he joined Google as an engineering director and led teams working on Chrome, Chrome OS, Maps, and Google+. In 2012, James rejoined Microsoft to build the Bing Information Platform. Of his five books, two have been Jolt Award finalists. Follow James on Twitter @docjamesw.

Sandesh Yadav is a passionate, senior application programmer at Progressive Insurance and an active member of the local agile community. Previously he was a QA tester at Progressive and a tech lead at Citigroup where he managed and supervised the auditing team. Sandesh was responsible for ensuring all deliverables were compliant with company policies and procedures for passing audits. With experience as tester and developer, Sandesh understands both perspectives and always brings new techniques to improve team communication, efficiency, and productivity.