Agile Dev West 2016 - Projects & Teams
Wednesday, June 8
Product Management: The Innovation Glue for the Lean Enterprise
At a time when organizations of all sizes both want and need innovation, exciting approaches including lean startup and agile development have risen to the forefront. Although there is no shortage of resources and expertise on these approaches, less guidance is available on the daunting challenge of introducing and increasing innovation in our organizations. Organizations of different sizes face different challenges in innovation which, if not dealt with, end up stifling the potential results. Mimi Hoang and George Schlitz share experiences from many years of successes and failures...
Leading with Purpose
Today, knowledge workers are seeking to find meaning in their lives and purpose in their work. With this new generation of employees who are as interested in purpose as in profit, it is imperative that we revisit management schemes—top-down work assignment, the annual review, strict clock-punching work hours, and inflexible vacation policies—and recognize their negative effects on individual morale and team productivity. As leaders, it is time we recognize and own our responsibility in these counterproductive techniques and boldly move into the future with radical alternatives. With...
Team Leadership Is Like Big Band Drumming
Sometimes we get a little stuck. It does happen. Work is at the same place, with the same people, and the same problems. The fresh perspective we seek is overcome by everyday demands and eludes us once again. John Ryskowski says that one path to a fresh perspective is to experience something that is totally unrelated, but at the same time reveals parallels to your situation. Do you know the drummer of a big band can actually guide the band, instill a sense of confidence, and inspire musicians to play as never before while adhering to the written music? Through subtle and timely cues, the...
Project Estimation: Myths, Taboos, and Inconvenient Truths
Too many of us continue to suffer through schedule-driven crunch mode and cost overruns. We all know the usual suspects, including bad estimates and changing requirements. But what if we set aside myths and embraced reality? Estimates are uncertain, but that doesn’t make them bad—only inconvenient. We can’t manage away the uncertainty, but we can choose where it lands. Robert Merrill believes that our longing for stable requirements tells us where the uncertainty wants to be—in the scope. What if we stopped fighting it? What if we broke the taboo and said we’re done with crunch mode, with...
Thursday, June 9
Experiments: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful
Through the years, Linda Rising has given presentations about the use of stories instead of science in the industry, so in this session she has decided to be more helpful and talk about experiments. There's an increasing emphasis on experiments as a part of being more innovative but sometimes Linda says we need a nudge and some examples to help us get going. No, this is not too rigorous! Rather than talking about statistics, she is going to explore cheap, easy experiments—what to do, what to be aware of, and our own cognitive biases, including the confirmation bias that does its best to...