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Thursday, June 5, 2014 - 12:45pm - 2:00pm
Agile Leadership
AT5

Make Your Mainframe Systems and Technology More Agile

As the technology industry increasingly shifts to agile development, we’re faced with the challenge of maintaining our mainframe technologies and legacy systems. We must face the challenges of employee engagement and the problems of fitting procedural/linear technologies into the fluid world of agile, but successfully navigating these issues will allow IT leaders to breathe new life into the development of aging technologies. Together, Jay McFarling and Danielle Roecker share their experiences of the past two years as they successfully moved the waterfall development activities of their mainframe legacy systems into the new world of agile. Now Jay and Danielle are not just delivering applications but finding ways to modernize their development practices. This interactive session provides a glimpse into the top five blockers they faced―agile mindset, tools, sizing, communication, and team improvements―and provides a venue for you to explore your issues. Leave with real world examples and the motivation to tackle your biggest agile challenges.

Jay McFarling, Nationwide Insurance

A director in applications development with Nationwide Insurance, Jay McFarling partners with internal IT organizations to deliver new software development for their applications and provides transformational coaching for agile and lean adoption. Jay has been creating and managing software development projects since the days of Pascal and COBOL. His career spans all IT professions and includes many critical transformational projects from Y2K to platform consolidations and application redesigns.

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Danielle Roecker, Nationwide Insurance

Passionate about agile, Danielle Roecker manages a group of developers at Nationwide Insurance where they are successfully blending agile methodologies with cutting-edge development. Danielle uses her background as a software developer, project manager, and ScrumMaster to help teams fully embrace agile development. Her understanding of the human and business interactions has helped her lead Nationwide’s organizational change. She is a Certified ScrumMaster, PMI Agile Certified Practitioner, and Project Management Professional.

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