Agile + DevOps West 2019 - Business User
Customize your Agile + DevOps West 2019 experience with sessions covering topics for business users.
Monday, June 3
Getting Started with Acceptance Test-Driven / Behavior-Driven Development
We’ve all been there. We work incredibly hard to develop a feature and design tests based on written requirements. We build a detailed test plan that aligns the tests with the software and the documented business needs. And when we put the tests to the software, it all falls apart because the requirements were changed without informing everyone. Mary Thorn says help is at hand. Enter behavior-driven development (BDD) and Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD) practices that help facilitate better communication. Mary explores the nuances of BDD and ATDD and shows you how to implement BDD...
Tuesday, June 4
Introduction to DevOps with Chocolate and LEGOs
Preview NewOrganizations today can no longer afford to deliver new features to their respective markets once a year or even once a quarter. In the attempt to catch up with the competition, they jump onto DevOps journey starting with the "How" and losing the sight of "Why" and "What". Join this gamified simulation tutorial to gain a solid understanding of foundational principles of the DevOps culture. Experience the benefits of DevOps transformation even before initiating one in your enterprise! This tutorial is ideally designed for organizations that are evaluating their approach to DevOps...
Uncovering User Needs with Critical Incident Task Analysis
NewWhat do users really need? Do they really know what they need? Although developers and testers are expected to implement stories and requirements that add real value, users often describe wants rather than needs and ask for features rather than solutions. Rob Sabourin shares his experiences applying task analysis using the “critical incident method” to better understand user processes and determine needs and desired solutions. Rob does not ask “what the system should do for the user” but rather, learns “what the user does with the system.” The critical incident task analysis method is a...
Wednesday, June 5
The Essential Product Owner: Partnering with Your Teams
While the Scrum product owner is arguably the most crucial role within agile teams, we often hear horror stories about POs who aren’t available to their teams, change their minds incessantly on business priorities, or ignore quality requirements and technical debt. Even the best POs struggle to meet the demands of their “regular business-focused job” while providing sufficient team guidance. Bob Galen shares real-world situations where he’s observed product owners who deliver truly balanced value for their business stakeholders. Find out how story mapping and release planning set the stage...
The Lost Art of Live Communication: Get Connected to Your Customers
Have you ever been in the same room with coworkers and sent them a Slack or text message instead of having a live conversation? As technology professionals, we often focus more on technical skills and ignore the important communication skills. Many people are starting to prefer virtual or chat messaging to face-to-face conversations, but live communication can get better results at work—and with your customers. Join Jennifer Bonine to see how to make the most of—and get the best results from—your live conversations. Jennifer will share a toolkit to help you assess your core communication...
The Lord of the Rings: DevOps Edition
Modern software delivery involves lean principles, DevOps practices, and of course tools. Implementing those elements in harmony will necessitate a change in how teams operate—more specifically, it will require a change in how managers think about teams. If teams truly want to leverage the power of DevOps and become high-performing, how should leaders think about team construction? Using comical analogous reasoning, Joseph Ours will discuss the fellowship in The Lord of the Rings, the roles, the mission, and the skills team to extrapolate what can be learned. Joseph will take artistic...
Thursday, June 6
Intro to Design Thinking: Experience Human-Centered Design in Action
PreviewAre you curious about design thinking? Hungry to experience it for yourself? Don’t just watch from the sidelines—come give it a try! This is a hands-on, experimental session that will be a fun and engaging experience with design thinking tools. You’ll learn some of the core values of design thinking, including how human-centered design, empathy for the people you are designing for, and feedback from users are fundamental to good design. You'll learn that experimentation and prototyping are not simply a way to validate your idea, but an integral part of your innovation process....
Agile+DevOps Feud!
Join us for a game of Agile+DevOps Feud, where two teams of thought leaders compete to name the most popular responses to survey questions to win bragging rights and to share their experiences. Questions and voting will be in the TechWell Hub leading up to the conference, where community members will name their greatest concerns, best practices, etc. Our two teals of panelists, Mary Thorn, Ryan Ripley, and Lee Eason, versus Melissa...
Minimum Viable Product: Deliver with Vision, Simplicity and Focus
To build good software, teams (and businesses) need to have a laser focus on all three of these items. It is virtually impossible to keep the effort focused on building to the needs of the customer if you don't start with a solid vision from the product owner/sponsor. When the focus isn't on just what is needed by the customer, that leads scope creep and feature bloat tends to set in and impact the products ROI. Whether you are focusing on a minimum viable product, minimum viable prototype, or a minimally viable package of code; leveraging the few simple principles allows teams to keep...
Follow the Money: How to Talk to Executives about Agile
PreviewWhen agile transformations fail, many agilists blame their executives for not caring about or understanding agile. However, few people focus on the different languages that IT and business people speak, and the different outcomes that both sides desire. Rather than blaming each other, what is needed is more empathy for the results that others care about and more understanding of the languages that others speak. Steven Granese will share his stories from working with executives while leading their agile transformations. He will describe how to explain agile using the language of...
A Successful DevOps Initiative Starts with Knowing Your Numbers
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...