Conference Schedule

As agile methods find more global applicability, we are finding groups outside of IT that have nothing to do with technology or software development demonstrating success with agile methods. But the approach to the solutions they deliver are often catered to their own unique circumstances. The original Agile Manifesto, principles, and supporting frameworks were formed with software development in mind, but from a holistic perspective, a different approach is needed for enterprise solutions outside of IT. Robert Woods will show you how to translate the success seen in agile software...Read more

Open work areas, a focus on collaboration and conversations, and group events that seem to require verbal fluency ... It may feel like the agile ecosystem is designed with extroverts in mind. But science tells us that introverts make up almost half of the workforce, and they may struggle to be productive in an agile environments. In fact, introverts might even shy away from agile opportunities because of the radical collaboration it requires. In this interactive session, Julee Everett will teach you to recognize the traits of an extrovert and an introvert through self-identification....Read more

IT organizations that don’t know their risk factors and exposure are likely to make investments in DevOps that don’t matter. After working with several teams that lost their DevOps funding after making automation investments in areas that were not business constraints, Anne Hungate's “Know Your Numbers” model emerged. Join Anne to learn how to prioritize your DevOps improvements and demonstrate the impact and value you are delivering. After all, DevOps gets traction and funding when teams can show the business impact of doing it, so if you want your DevOps initiative to take off, be...Read more

“Fail fast and fail often” is a key tenet of DevOps. It places great emphasis on continuous testing to deliver software with confidence and ensure a positive user experience. As teams embrace the “shift left” methodology, they need to transform the traditional approach that relegates performance testing to later stages of the delivery process. By shifting the performance testing left and conducting it continuously, teams can quickly detect and gain insight into software performance degradations earlier in the lifecycle. Gajan Pathmanathan will discuss the transition a team needs to undergo...Read more

Pair programming is the practice you love to hate! It's been nearly twenty years since Extreme Programming promoted pair programming as a collaborative practice, and it's still here. And if you thought that was bad, now there's mobbing, where the entire team works together on one thing at a time. Does that seem nuts? Yet we often hear teams say, "We go faster because we are mobbing." In this anecdote-heavy session, you'll hear Jeff Langr's history of working through various models for collaboration (or not) across the past several decades, including pairing, solo programming, and mobbing....Read more

The Second City, an improvisational comedy club that launched the careers of comedians such as Chris Farley, Tina Fey, and Steve Carell, has delivered a successful product to audiences nightly for almost sixty years. How do they do it? By recognizing the power of feedback. Brian Eno, a pioneer in the music industry who produced albums for U2 and Coldplay, relies on a feedback generation system to ensure the best performances of the bands he works with. Likewise, the lean startup movement has uncovered a similar pattern of organizations that thrive on experimentation and learning. John...Read more

Distributed teams are the norm in Fortune 100 and 500 companies, crossing many time zones and multiple cultures. These teams seldom communicate directly, instead using a point of contact to relay information. While teams don't need to be collocated to deliver significant business value, they must use their DevOps pipeline to their advantage. Through continuous integration and automated testing, stories can be swarmed by distributed teams and completed in a fraction of the time it typically takes. Treasa Overton will discuss how this distributed model allows for faster delivery of business...Read more

Ensuring that each new release delivers a positive user experience is now more critical than ever. But with cloud-native apps, microservices, and other compartmentalized elements, an application involves many highly distributed components, and a performance issue in any of them could have a ripple effect across the entire application. Now that new functionality is being released weekly, daily, or even hourly, each team needs instant insight into whether their incremental changes could negatively affect performance. However, legacy performance testing approaches are too late, too heavy, and...Read more

As the adoption of agile and DevOps have been steadily growing over the years, many organizations have been taking a proactive approach to prepare for the changes needed for success. This means giving people the skills and resources they need to be successful, working with customers and users for improved collaboration and transparency, and providing teams with the tools and infrastructure to enable continuous flow of value. Are there commonalities across organizations that others can learn from to support their journeys? Join Robin Yeman and Suzette Johnson as they provide an interactive...Read more

Agile methodologies do not traditionally allot space, time, or processes for user experience design. Some teams try to accommodate design via separate design sprints that are somewhat coupled to the team's backlog, but these are typically performed two or three sprints ahead. Increasingly, designers are demanding that teams do big, upfront design phases outside of a team's backlog, followed by agile development sprints to implement the design. As markets mature and competition increases, more and more companies must become design-focused or even design-led. Ian and Mary will show you why...Read more

Not every continuous delivery initiative starts with someone saying, "Drop everything. Let's do DevOps." Sometimes you have to grow your practice incrementally. Sometimes, you don’t set out to grow a practice at all—you are just fixing problems with your process, trying to make things better. Join Gene Gotimer as he walks through two case studies, one from the Department of Defense and one from the Department of Homeland Security, that took different avenues to get to agile and DevOps. Learn about the journey each organization took, the tools used to build quality into the products,...Read more

DevOps teams struggle to ensure quality in multiple daily deployments. Traditional testing approaches have often failed in this context, but there are exciting new ways to test. Laurent Py and Vincent Prêtre will explain how, at Hiptest, DevOps teams combine behavior-driven development (BDD) techniques with business metrics analysis to continuously assert the quality of their product. BDD scenarios align teams to a common goal, and users provide feedback to ensure their needs are met. The team transforms usage scenarios into tests that enable developers to deliver the...Read more

Agile adoption has changed the corporate landscape in many different ways. And while the change has been mostly positive for the teams, some can see agile and Scrum ideas as a revolt against traditional management practices. If the team is self-organized, then what's the manager's role? Have no fear—managers are not obsolete; their job just looks a little different. Katy Sherman will discuss how agile has reshaped the manager's role. You will see examples of what not to do, such as when managers become a real obstacle during agile adoption, as well as learn how individuals, teams, and...Read more

Every one of us has the potential to be limitless in our careers, personal life, and everything in between! Yet most of us—yes, including you—are only achieving a fraction of what you are capable of. We all want more, but we aren’t sure how to go get it. This session will be an interactive and practical guide to breaking through all the things that limit you and will kickstart your journey to a limitless life. Jessica Soroky will introduce activities from the personal development program Limitless by Choice and address the potential all teams have to be high-performing when they start...Read more

Far too many agile instances either fail or underperform because the leadership team members don’t sufficiently understand agility and their role within it. They don’t understand the fundamentals or how to map them to effective execution. But the larger problem is that they (and the organization) are unaware of the gaps. In this session, we’ll explore a basic assessment model for determining agile leadership maturity as a means of gauging and improving leadership's understanding and your overall effectiveness in applying agile. You'll break into small groups and assess the leadership...Read more

Serverless architectures take the idea of microservices to the extreme. To implement secure serverless architectures, you have to understand how to compartmentalize programs at the function level. You also need to factor in security practices: Serverless architectures are susceptible to traditional attacks such as SQL injection and command injection, along with a wide variety of privilege escalation and sensitive data disclosure attacks. Developers must consider what would happen if an attacker attempted to invoke each of their functions directly. What if one of those functions were to...Read more