Process Improvement

Tutorials

MQ Six Free Ideas to Improve Agile Success

Pollyanna Pixton, Accelinnova

Mon, 11/11/2013 - 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.

TC Continuous Delivery: Rapid and Reliable Releases with DevOps Practices

Bob Aiello, CM Best Practices Consulting

Tue, 11/12/2013 - 8:30am

DevOps is an emerging set of principles, methods, and practices that enable the rapid deployment of software systems. DevOps focuses on lowering barriers between development, testing, security, and operations in support of rapid iterative development and deployment. Many organizations struggle when implementing DevOps because of its inherent technical, process, and cultural challenges. Bob Aiello shares DevOps best practices starting with its role early in the application lifecycle and bridging the gap with testing, security, and operations.

TG Agile Project Failures: Root Causes and Corrective Actions

Jeff Payne, Coveros, Inc.

Tue, 11/12/2013 - 8:30am

Agile initiatives always begin with the best of intentions—accelerate delivery, better meet customer needs, or improve software quality. Unfortunately, some agile projects do not deliver on these expectations. If you want help to ensure the success of your agile project or get an agile project back on track, this session is for you. Jeff Payne discusses the most common causes of agile project failure and how you can avoid these issues—or mitigate their damaging effects.

TH The Role of the Agile Business Analyst

Steve Adolph, WSA Consulting

Tue, 11/12/2013 - 8:30am

The business analyst (BA) role seems conspicuously absent from most agile methods. Does agile make the BA role obsolete? Certainly not! But how does a BA exploit the short cycle times and collaborative nature of agile methods? Drawing from the principles of lean product development flow, Steve Adolph introduces five principles for the agile BA—Open the Channels, Chart the Flow, Generate Flow, Lean Out the Flow, and Bridge the Flow. As a communicator, the BA must Open the Channels and Chart the Flow to align all stakeholders.

Concurrent Sessions

AW7 Adopt Before You Adapt: Learning Principles through Practice

Steve Berczuk, Fitbit, Inc.

Wed, 11/13/2013 - 2:15pm

Although agile principles sound simple, adopting agile is often extremely difficult. Some teams adopting agile start by making changes and tweaks to prescribed processes—bad! Steve Berczuk explains how following the recommended practices of your chosen agile method for a time will help you internalize the process and leverage the experiences of those who developed the method. Through experience, Steve has discovered that premature customization can lead to more problems and eventually to failure.

AW11 Organizing a Self-Organizing Team

John Lynch, Clashmore Software Solutions

Wed, 11/13/2013 - 3:45pm

Your organization is embracing agile. When it comes to adopting the process, your team seems to be doing all the right things. Yet deep down, something still doesn’t seem quite right. As their leader, it could be that you haven’t figured it out either. Perhaps your team is lacking some spark and is reluctant to take on real ownership. What can you do to help the team organize themselves to become the high-performing software development group you know they can be?

AT11 Step Away from the Waterfall: Using Agile for COTS Implementations

Jason Fair, Genesis Consulting

Thu, 11/14/2013 - 3:45pm

Have you wondered how to deliver your COTS projects quicker and realize their business value sooner? How do you remove all of the “ceremony” and “waste” of the implementation process, while maintaining the integrity of the delivered COTS package? Commonly, traditional waterfall project methodologies are used to implement comprehensive COTS projects. However, many of these implementations finish late and over budget. Stakeholders are often disappointed at the quality of the delivered product and the reduced or delayed realization of benefits.