Escaping the 9 Circles of Agile Hell
Does it feel like you're toiling away in agile hell? Fear not—you don't have to be confined there for all eternity. Dave Bujard and Chris Stemen will describe the nine circles of agile hell, each an example of a problem that exists in many programs. They'll discuss the underlying issues that often are the cause and how to deal with them. Bring your smartphones—during the first five minutes, Dave and Chris will ask the audience to prioritize their pain points via an interactive app. During the presentation, they will focus on the six agile hells closest to participants' experiences. Threaded throughout the presentation, you will be engaged to poll your experiences as Dave and Chris convey specific, real examples of “escaping” from each agile hell. Learn to expand your toolbox of techniques to help your organization ascend from the agile underworld in simple, achievable ways.
David Bujard has served as a development team lead, scrum master, and enterprise coach in over two decades in IT, including over 18 years contracting at the Department of Homeland Security and its legacy components. David works as an agile coach and Senior Strategist at Blackstone Federal. At DHS, David is part of an innovative quality metrics team redefining how agile IV&V can deliver value, by using metrics to foster improvement, making visible trends in program health, and sharing successful practices pioneered by delivery teams. Such successes include the DevOps technology and collaboration practices David observes as part of the USCIS Transformation program, including agile contracting, team managed daily deployments, CI/CD using feature toggles, intensive production monitoring, and collaborative team culture. As part of USCIS Agile Training, David leads classes in Agile metrics and measurement, Kanban, Scrum and product ownership. David shares government agility success stories and lessons learned in regular remote Agile learning sessions for the DHS Office of the Chief Information Officer. David’s classes are enlivened by his love of games, as he constantly tests and adapts tabletop games to drive home agile concepts.
Christopher Stemen’s Agile roots started over a decade ago in support of federal contracts using Lean supply chain improvements to get military equipment repaired and back in action. Inspired by Lean thinking, he migrated to the west coast where he focused on how to establish Agile as a culture, specifically in cybersecurity and the emerging endpoint threat detection and response industry. His primary expertise lies in designing transformations for lines of business, as well as team level coaching for software and IT delivery. His experience ranges from large federal and commercial organization culture change to small start-ups where managing growth and gaining market share is key. He has a strong background in fusing modern Agile best practices with current technologies geared around encouragement of the agile manifesto, as well as to steer around common anti-patterns. Chris currently serves as Senior Strategist at Blackstone Federal and focuses on improving the DHS federal and contractor workforce through Agile and Lean principles.