Skip to main content

Project Manager

Tutorials

MA Agile Release Planning, Metrics, and Retrospectives
Michael Mah, QSM Associates, Inc.
Mon, 11/11/2013 - 8:30am

How do you compare the productivity and quality you achieve with agile practices with that of traditional waterfall projects? Join Michael Mah to learn about both agile and waterfall metrics and how these metrics behave in real projects. Learn how to use your own data to move from sketches on a whiteboard to create agile project trends on productivity, time-to-market, and defect rates. Using recent, real-world case studies, Michael offers a practical, expert view of agile measurement, showing you these metrics in action on retrospectives and release estimation and planning. In hands-on exercises, learn how to replicate these techniques to make your own comparisons for time, cost, and quality. Working in pairs, calculate productivity metrics using the templates Michael employs in his consulting practice. You can leverage these new metrics to make the case for changing to more agile practices and creating realistic project commitments in your organization. Take back new ways for communicating to key decision makers the value of implementing agile development practices.

Read more
MC Agile Program Management: Networks, Not Hierarchies NEW
Johanna Rothman, Rothman Consulting Group, Inc.
Mon, 11/11/2013 - 8:30am

When you think of program management, do you think of big lumbering organizational beasts that add little value, and people demanding “When will you be done?” or “Can we add this feature before the desired release date?” Agile program management encourages small-world networks of collaborative teams that can solve problems and deliver features fast. That requires the entire program be agile and lean—using small batch sizes, integrating continuously, having short iterations, and tracking cycle time so you can coordinate across the organization.

Read more
MD Dealing with Estimation, Uncertainty, Risk, and Commitment
Todd Little, Landmark Graphics Corporation
Mon, 11/11/2013 - 8:30am

Software projects are known to have challenges with estimation, uncertainty, risk, and commitment—and the most valuable projects often carry the most risk. Other industries also encounter risk and generate value by understanding and managing that risk effectively. Todd Little explores techniques used in a number of risky businesses—product development, oil and gas exploration, investment banking, medicine, weather forecasting, and gambling—and shares what those industries have done to manage uncertainty.

Read more
ME Twelve Heuristics for Solving Tough Problems—Faster and Better
Payson Hall, Catalysis Group, Inc.
Mon, 11/11/2013 - 8:30am

As infants, we begin our lives as problem solving machines, learning to navigate a strange and complex world in which others communicate in ways we don’t understand. Initially, we hone our problem solving talents; then many of us find our explorations thwarted and eventually stop using and then begin losing our natural problem solving ability. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Psychologists tell us that people can regain lost skills and learn new ones to become better problem solvers. Payson Hall shares techniques and skills that apply to situations in real life.

Read more
MG What’s Your Leadership IQ?
Jennifer Bonine, tap|QA, Inc.
Mon, 11/11/2013 - 8:30am

Have you ever needed a way to measure your leadership IQ? Or been in a performance review where the majority of time was spent discussing your need to improve as a leader? If you have ever wondered what your core leadership competencies are and how to build on and improve them, Jennifer Bonine shares a toolkit to help you do just that.

Read more
MK Disciplined Agile Delivery: Extending Scrum to the Enterprise
Scott Ambler, Scott W. Ambler + Associates
Mon, 11/11/2013 - 1:00pm

Going far beyond the limits of a team approach to agile, Scott Ambler explores a disciplined, full-lifecycle methodology for agile software delivery. In this interactive hands-on session, learn how to initiate a large-scale agile project, exploring ways to extend Scrum's value-driven development approach to include both value and risk in the equation. Discover project governance practices that will increase your team's chance of success.

Read more
MM Configuration Management Best Practices
Bob Aiello, CM Best Practices Consulting
Mon, 11/11/2013 - 1:00pm

Robust configuration management (CM) practices are essential for creating continuous builds to support agile’s integration and testing demands, and for rapidly packaging, releasing, and deploying applications into production. Classic CM—identifying system components, controlling change, reporting the system’s configuration, and auditing—won’t do the trick anymore.

Read more
MN An Introduction to SAFe: The Scaled Agile Framework NEW
Ken Pugh, Net Objectives
Mon, 11/11/2013 - 1:00pm

Many organizations have achieved agility at the team level only to be unable to achieve it across teams. The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) provides both a vision and method for how to achieve this. SAFe is the first documented framework that can be used to scale agile throughout an organization. It is a combination of lean, kanban, and Scrum—lean to provide a context for an organization, kanban to manage the flow of projects, and Scrum to provide agile at the team level. Beginning with an introduction to lean and kanban, Ken Pugh explains why they are required for agile at scale.

Read more
MO Understanding and Managing Change
Jennifer Bonine, tap|QA, Inc.
Mon, 11/11/2013 - 1:00pm

Has this happened to you? You try to implement a change in your organization and it fails. And, to make matters worse, you can't figure out why. It may be that your great idea didn't mesh well with your organization’s culture or a host of other reasons. Jennifer Bonine shares a toolkit to help you determine which ideas will—and will not—work well within your organization.

Read more
MP Solving Real Problems through Collaborative Innovation Games®
Bob Hartman, Agile For All
Michael Vizdos, Vizdos Enterprises, LLC
Mon, 11/11/2013 - 1:00pm

Are you having trouble getting people in your organization to agree on a path forward? Is collaboration sometimes more like a contest to see who can yell the loudest? Is it difficult to get customers to give you the information you need to create a product charter or unambiguous requirements? Achieving meaningful collaboration with a diverse group of people can be very difficult. Bob Hartman and Michael Vizdos shares their experiences with Innovation Games®, collaboration exercises that dramatically improve the way people work together.

Read more
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.

Read more
TA Deliver Projects On Time, Every Time
Ken Whitaker, Leading Software Maniacs
Tue, 11/12/2013 - 8:30am

Ken Whitaker shares pragmatic techniques to help project managers and software development leaders put into practice innovative scheduling techniques, make consistent customer-centric decisions, reduce project risk, quickly negotiate with product owners the most important project scope, and transition teams to become more agile. Ken shares revealing statistical data on how waterfall is simply not suited for modern-day adaptive software development projects. With fellow participants, you’ll spend time performing a “Scrum walkabout” to get the idea of just how an agile project really works.

Read more
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.

Read more
TD Essential Patterns of Mature Agile Teams
Bob Galen, Velocity Partners
Tue, 11/12/2013 - 8:30am

Many teams have a relatively easy time adopting the tactical aspects of agile methodologies. Usually a few classes, some tools introduction, and a bit of practice lead teams toward a fairly efficient and effective agile adoption. However, these teams often get “stuck” and begin to regress or simply start going through the motions—neither maximizing their agile performance nor delivering as much value as they could.

Read more
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.

Read more
TI Eight Steps to Kanban
Ken Pugh, Net Objectives
Tue, 11/12/2013 - 8:30am

Because transitioning to agile can be difficult—and often wrenching—for teams, many organizations are turning to kanban practices. Kanban, which involves just-in-time software delivery, offers a more gradual evolution to agile and is adaptable to many company cultures and environments. With kanban, developers pull work from a queue—taking care not to exceed a threshold for simultaneous tasks—while making progress visible to all. Ken Pugh shares eight steps to adopt kanban in your team and organization.

Read more
TN Twelve Risks to Enterprise Software Projects—And What to Do about Them
Payson Hall, Catalysis Group, Inc.
Tue, 11/12/2013 - 1:00pm

Every large software project is unique—each with its own complex array of challenges. When projects get into trouble, however, they often exhibit similar patterns, and succumb to risks that could have been anticipated and prevented—or detected sooner and managed better. Common responses to the problems—blaming, deferring action, or outright denial—only make things worse.

Read more
TQ Patterns for Collaboration: Toward Whole-Team Quality SOLD OUT
Janet Gregory, DragonFire, Inc.
Matt Barcomb, odbox
Tue, 11/12/2013 - 1:00pm

A lot of talk goes on in agile about how collaboration among team members helps drive a shared responsibility for quality—and more. However, most teams don't do much more than just hold stand-up meetings and have programmers and testers sit together. Although these practices improve communications, they are not collaboration! Most teams simply don't understand how to collaborate. Janet Gregory and Matt Barcomb guide you through hands-on activities that illustrate collaboration patterns for programmers and testers, working together.

Read more

Concurrent Sessions

AW1 The Mindset of Managing Uncertainty: The Key to Agile Success
Ahmed Sidky, SCG Inc.
Wed, 11/13/2013 - 10:15am

The speed of global change and the advancement of technology will continue to increase the uncertainty in our work. Those with an Agile Mindset can manage uncertainty through continuous value-based discovery; those with a Fixed Mindset try to “freeze” things early to decrease uncertainty. Unfortunately, many people never switch their mindset and are doing agile while not being agile. Ahmed Sidky explains that your mindset is at the heart of your day-to-day challenges as you try to manage uncertainty more effectively.

Read more
AW5 Agile Success with Scrum: It’s All about the People
Bob Hartman, Agile For All
Michael Vizdos, Vizdos Enterprises, LLC
Wed, 11/13/2013 - 2:15pm

Is it possible to be doing everything Scrum says to do and still fail horribly? Unfortunately, the answer is yes—and teams do it every day. To many, Scrum means concentrating on the meetings and artifacts, and making sure the roles all do their jobs. Bob Hartman and Michael Vizdos explore why success with Scrum means understanding the people who do the work and giving them the tools and environment to do their best in a meaningful way.

Read more
AW6 Six Impossible Things before Breakfast
Dan North, Dan North & Associates, Ltd.
Kyle Thomson, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Wed, 11/13/2013 - 2:15pm

Recently we’ve been seeing a lot of things that just don’t happen in real life. A managing director at Bank of America abandons decades of organizational “best practices” and recreates his organization by letting people organize their own teams. And, if that weren’t unusual enough, the teams even choose their own coach. Impossible. A group of former managers reinvent their role as servants rather than masters. Also impossible.

Read more
AW10 I Thought YOU Were Flying the Plane: Preventing Projects from Falling Out of the Sky
Steve Adolph, WSA Consulting
Wed, 11/13/2013 - 3:45pm

One of the most cherished concepts of the Agile Manifesto is valuing individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Within this idea is the implicit assumption that individuals innately know how to interact. Dramatic lessons from aviation suggest otherwise. During the mid-1960s the frequent crashes of perfectly good aircraft alarmed the world’s airlines. Investigators discovered nothing lacking in the pilot’s “stick and rudder” skills; these accidents were the result of the flight crew’s inability to work as a team.

Read more
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?

Read more
AT1 Large Agile Transformations: A Roadmap for Lasting Change
Ole Jepsen, goAgile
Jenni Jepsen, goAgile
Thu, 11/14/2013 - 10:15am

Agile methods have gained the attention of leaders as a way to speed time to market and increase motivation. Businesses are looking to agile as a way to achieve organizational change so teams deliver more value faster, and where people’s pride and joy of work are enhanced. However, we know from extensive experience that agile practices by themselves will not lead to this kind of an organizational transformation. What does it take?

Read more
AT3 Using Non-Violent Communication Skills for Managing Team Conflict
Pat Arcady, FreeStanding Agility
Thu, 11/14/2013 - 10:15am

“Going agile” has transformed thousands of workplaces into groups of self-directed teams, more engaged and increasingly more productive. Knowledge workers report increased job satisfaction, strong team identity, and camaraderie. One of the secrets of high performing teams is their ability to manage conflict in ways that support team cohesion, deepen trust, and reinforce commitment to team greatness. Agile practices value individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Sounds great on paper!  How do you live that?

Read more
AT9 Lessons from Busting Organizational Silos
Tricia Broderick, Santeon Group
Thu, 11/14/2013 - 3:45pm

We’ve all heard of the evils that can result from organizational silos—bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and the “us vs. them” mentality. Perhaps you’ve been a victim. As Tricia Broderick repeatedly experienced value from busting individual project team silos, she naturally wanted to expand her busting across the entire organization. Not surprisingly, this turned out to be anything but simple. What surprised her was how many challenges resulted from falling victim to both faulty logic and prior successes, including halting a team’s progress out of concerns of sub-optimization.

Read more