The evidence is in—and it's compelling. Well-executed agile practices can shorten software project schedules by 30 percent while cutting defects by 75 percent. However, many organizations struggle with agile adoption. And some of these struggles can be attributed to the executive leadership. In many cases, the "lead, follow, or get out of the way" attitude causes executives to try to lead when they should be following or getting out of the way. Drawing on his experiences with agile adoption at Synacor as it implements agile on an enterprise scale, Steve Davi illustrates how the executives on the ground can help or hurt agile adoption. Steve shares ways to turn those executive wolves into agile enablers as he describes the four critical actions that executives should take to support agile within their organization―define the vision, boundaries, and constraints; gain support and remove impediments; ensure openness and trust; and hold teams accountable.
Steve Davi
Synacor
SVP of engineering Steve Davi is responsible for overall software product development as Synacor continues to innovate and launch new products. Prior to Synacor, Steve served as CTO for SeaChange International, responsible for its overall software technology architecture and software engineering teams. Passionate about agile software development, he helped move the entire SeaChange software engineering organization to agile and now applies his efforts at Synacor. Steve is focusing on the impact of management in agile at all levels of the organization—from frontline management (energize people) to portfolio level (shape business strategy/epics) to decision making (instill evidence-based management).
Speaker Presentations
Thursday, November 13, 2014 - 3:00pm
Agile Leadership
Executives’ Influence on Agile: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly