Agile + DevOps West 2020 - Agile & Lean Practices | TechWell

Conference archive

Agile + DevOps Virtual 2020 - Agile & Lean Practices

Monday, June 8

ME

Lean/Agile Metrics for the Rest of Us

Monday, June 8, 2020 - 9:00am to 12:30pm

For many agile practitioners, software metrics beyond a burndown chart are little understood or, perhaps, very scary because poor metrics can be worse than no metrics. In this enlightening session, Larry Maccherone explores how you and your organization can use metrics to bring management and lean/agile teams closer rather than becoming a wedge that drives them into conflict. Larry covers the entire lifecycle of the metrics process—from metric selection to reporting data—in compelling ways. You’ll gain an understanding of a wide range of concepts including common (101-level) metrics,...

Mary Thorn
S&P Global Market Intelligence
Bob Galen
Vaco
MG

Learning How to Lead High-Performing Agile Teams

Monday, June 8, 2020 - 9:00am to 12:30pm

Currently much of agile adoption—coaching, advice, techniques, training, and even the empathy—revolves around the agile teams. Leaders are typically ignored, marginalized at best, and in the worst cases even vilified. But Bob Galen and Mary Thorn contend that there is a central and important role for managers and leaders within agile environments. Join Bob and Mary as they explore the patterns of mature agile managers and leaders. Examine why those who understand servant leadership know how to effectively support, grow, coach, and empower their agile teams in ways that increase the team's...

MH

An Agile Coaching Practicum in 360-degrees

Monday, June 8, 2020 - 1:30pm to 5:00pm

Let’s face it, agile coaching isn’t for the timid or faint of heart. In most companies, it’s an incredibly challenging and nuanced role. And an important part of it is having the ability to coach in 360 degrees: downward—across your teams, outward – across managers and peers, and upward—towards those pesky leaders. Oh, and did we say that virtually EVERYONE is an agile coach? In this workshop, join Mary Thorn and Bob Galen as they share tools and experiences coaching in all directions. They will review three different coaching models from the X-Wing, to Powerful Questions, to 9-Stances, to...

Tuesday, June 9

Mary Thorn
S&P Global Market Intelligence
Bob Galen
Vaco
TE

Creating a High-Performance Agile Team

Tuesday, June 9, 2020 - 9:00am to 12:30pm

Many teams have a relatively easy time adopting the tactical aspects of agile methodologies. Usually a few classes, some tools’ introduction, and a bit of practice lead teams toward fairly efficient execution. However, these teams are quite often simply going through the motions—neither maximizing their agile performance nor delivering as much value as they could. Borrowing from their experience and lean software development methods, Bob Galen and Mary Thorn explore high-performance team patterns, which are the thinking models of mature agile teams, including large-scale emergent...

Jeff Payne
Coveros
TG

Agile Project Failures: Root Causes and Corrective Actions

Tuesday, June 9, 2020 - 9:00am to 12:30pm

Agile initiatives always begin with high expectations—accelerate delivery, meet customer needs, and improve software quality. The truth is that many agile projects do not deliver on some or all of these expectations. If you want help to ensure the success of your agile project or to get an agile project back on track, this tutorial is for you. Jeffery Payne discusses the most common causes of agile project failure and how you can avoid these issues or mitigate their damaging effects. Poor project management, ineffective requirements development, failed communications, software development...

Wednesday, June 10

Bob Galen
Vaco
AW1

Self-Care for Agile Leaders

Wednesday, June 10, 2020 - 10:30am to 11:30am

Servant leadership is a wonderful aspiration—serving your team, serving your peers, serving your leaders, and serving your organization. It’s an egoless and selfless endeavor and central to the agile mindset. But what often can get lost in all of this service is service to oneself. It may seem counterintuitive, but placing service to self first helps us serve others all the better. In this collaborative session, we will deeply explore the notion of leadership self-care, delving into aspects beyond simply taking time off or exercising. We'll take a step back and look at what gets in the way...

John Krewson
Sketch Development
AW2

Live from Las Vegas, It's Saturday Night: The Agility of SNL

Wednesday, June 10, 2020 - 10:30am to 11:30am

Saturday Night Live is one of the longest-running agile institutions in the world. For 44 years, they have developed and delivered small batches of comedy in weekly intervals. Talk about sustainable development. But how do they do it? The practices and principles they employ are quite agile. From welcoming changing requirements to maintaining technical excellence, there’s a lot we can learn from how they deliver. Join Johns Krewson for a backstage and onstage view into the process SNL has developed over decades to get from concept to cash in one week. Along the way, gain a new...

AW6

Agile Development Fireside Chat

Wednesday, June 10, 2020 - 10:30am to 11:30am

Brendan O'Leary definitely knows about development, agile, and DevOps. And he wants to hear the questions you have for him. Whether they are questions about programming languages, source control, continuous integration, the cloud, databases, XKCD comics, or how to operate in a company with more than a thousand completely remote employees, Brendan is willing to answer them. There won't be a real fireplace, but bring your questions anyway, and join Brendan for this interactive discussion.

Zach Bonaker
Walmart Labs
AW8

Cultivating a Culture of Teams

Wednesday, June 10, 2020 - 10:30am to 11:30am

The desire to transform an organizational culture to one that's inspired by teams is understandable. There is no shortage of evidence, both anecdotal and scientific, that suggests teams (and teamwork) are a competitive advantage. But despite the label of “team,” most organizations explicitly and implicitly manage teams like a matrix of individuals. This lack of support causes teammates to work independently, silo knowledge, and degrade the presumed results. What can managers and coaches do to encourage an environment where real teams can form? Zach Bonaker will provide managers, team...

Mary Thorn
S&P Global Market Intelligence
AW10

5 Ways to Prevent Scrummerfall

Wednesday, June 10, 2020 - 11:45am to 12:45pm

There are many names for dysfunctional Scrum, one of which is "Scrummerfall"—embedding waterfall phases inside a sprint. It’s alive and well in 2020, more than 25 years after Scrum was first introduced. Yet the Scrum Guide says that you should have a definition of done and a potentially shippable increment at the end of each sprint, not keep rolling stories from sprint to sprint to take credit for partially done work. We hear development team members complaining at retrospectives all the time that we do not have enough time to complete all the stories. And team members often work overtime...

Elizabeth Gattra
World Wide Technology
AW11

Saying Yes for All the Wrong Reasons

Wednesday, June 10, 2020 - 11:45am to 12:45pm

Part of a product owner’s job is to say no to requests when appropriate. But all too often, product owners will say yes anyway. Why is this? In this interactive session, we will discuss the three main responsibilities of a product owner, dig into the reasons product owners say yes to a request they should say no to, and discuss ways you can help your product owner overcome these challenges. You’ll need to bring a few sheets of blank paper to work on during the session so we can discuss the consequences of product owners saying yes when they should say no. Work in groups to identify the...

Alan Crouch
Coveros
DJ Schleen
Rally | United Healthcare
AW13

DevOps Fireside Chat

Wednesday, June 10, 2020 - 11:45am to 12:45pm

You've got questions about DevOps, and we've got DJ Schleen to answer them for you. He won't really be sitting by the fire, but he will be on hand to talk about all things DevOps, mobile security, ethical hacking, and pen testing. He's also an expert in DevSecOps and development pipelines, breaking down silos in an organization, and digital transformations at some of the biggest companies out there. And he wants to talk to you about your DevSecOps hopes, dreams, fears, and nightmares. Alan Crouch will be moderating, so bring your questions and be ready for a lively, interactive discussion...

Jean Dahl
Deloitte
AW17

Leading Lean: The Modern Approach to Enterprise Transformation

Wednesday, June 10, 2020 - 3:00pm to 4:00pm

Are you struggling to understand why your transformation efforts just don't seem to be producing the expected results, despite all of your planning and effort? Enterprise transformation is much more than the mechanics of teaching your Scrum teams to sprint and building a magnificent DevOps pipeline. Somehow, on our journey to agility, lean leadership aspects were left behind, to the point that lean and agile have become disconnected schools of thought. Agile was born out of lean, so how did this happen? Let's have a lively discussion about how to reconnect the dots so that today's...

Greg Cohen
Agile Excellence LLC
AW19

Untangling the MVP and Accelerating Product-Market Fit

Wednesday, June 10, 2020 - 3:00pm to 4:00pm

The MVP, or minimum viable product, plays a critical role in lean product validation. It is the most important test to demonstrate that product-market fit has been achieved. Yet teams are often unclear about what an MVP is and how to prioritize it versus other research options. Lean product management expert Greg Cohen will shed light on the history of the MVP, how it fits into lean product validation, and how different companies approach the MVP in new product introductions, with a mix of B2C and B2B situations and differing market contexts. You will learn a practical definition for an...

Thursday, June 11

PagerDuty
AT1

The How and Why of Full-Service Ownership

Thursday, June 11, 2020 - 10:00am to 11:00am

High-performing software development teams are focused on customers and taking greater ownership of their production stack. The tricky part is teaching these teams how to tackle the operational challenges that come with full-service ownership. Julie Gunderson will discuss how to implement a model where development teams are both empowered to own their full-stack production deployments and equipped to manage common software lifecycle operational issues like reducing alert fatigue and learning from failures.

AT2

Agile Fireside Chat

Thursday, June 11, 2020 - 10:00am to 11:00am

You've got agile and lean questions, and Mary and Tom Poppendieck want to answer them for you. They won't really be sitting by the fire, but they will be on hand to talk about all things lean and agile. Mary has been a programmer, IT manager, and product champion and is well known for the Lean Software Development books that she wrote with her husband, Tom. Tom has been in computing for 25 years, working with health care, logistics, mortgage banking, and travel services, and he holds a Ph.D. in physics. Bring your questions and be ready for a lively, interactive discussion.

Tasktop
AT3

From Project to Product: Focusing on Creating Value

Thursday, June 11, 2020 - 10:00am to 11:00am

Agile and DevOps transformations have been key for speeding up software development via projects. But development is still often segregated from the business, and work is frequently prioritized based on making the project successful, not on what can bring the most value to the business and end-users. Agile and DevOps are not enough; a new approach is needed. Wendy Flowers will discuss why the gap between modern technical practices and the business is causing organizations to fail, and suggest a different way to think about what you're developing. Learn how managing work via the product,...

Steven Granese
AgileThought
AT9

Everything I Learned about Agile Coaching I Learned in Little League

Thursday, June 11, 2020 - 11:30am to 12:30pm

What does teaching a 7-year-old how to hit a baseball have to do with agile coaching? After coaching Little League for eight years, and agile teams for ten years, Steven Granese thought he was an expert at both. Last year, while attending a New York Yankees coaching clinic, he quickly realized that he had much to learn. Rather than focusing on isolated mechanics, the Yankees believe in coaching toward achieving measurable outcomes. Their approach allows players to learn the “how” at their own pace through self-discovery and experimentation, which allows for deeper learning and longer-...

Jamie Cooke
Both Hemispheres LLC
AT10

Delivering Agile Results on a Fixed-Scope Contract

Thursday, June 11, 2020 - 11:30am to 12:30pm

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? In this case, the immovable object is a contract with extensive requirements embedded in the scope and no flexibility for leveraging agile methods. The unstoppable force is the agile delivery team determined to find a way to make agile methods work, even with this seemingly insurmountable hurdle. Iterative waterfall delivery against a predefined scope goes against everything agile stands for. The solution is a combination of proven strategies to transform this rigid contract into an agile platform for delivering the highest-...

Gautham Pallapa
Pivotal
AT17

The Lean Agile Diet: A Healthy Way to Transform Your Enterprise

Thursday, June 11, 2020 - 3:30pm to 4:30pm

Enterprise transformations are daunting—they require changing the operating model of an organization through people, process, technology, and culture. This necessitates having teams drive to identified business outcomes, learning new ways of working along with new technology stacks. While there is no formula for success, there are several successful patterns that Gautham Pallapa has observed in his interactions with organizations in different domains and levels of maturity on the lean and agile spectrum. Gautham will share his strategic framework to follow that he has successfully used at...

Dan Neumann
AgileThought
AT18

Flawed Thinking Exposed: Exploring Cognitive Bias

Thursday, June 11, 2020 - 3:30pm to 4:30pm

Many team challenges can be tracked back to cognitive biases: Our judgment gets anchored, we think we're better than we are, and we are our own favorite reference point. And even though we're encouraged to "think outside the box," there are conditions where we have a bias against creativity. If that's not a recipe for a tough team environment, I don't know what is! Improve your game by learning about bias. Dan Neumann will explain engrained flaws in the way humans process information. These flaws express themselves in unrealistic estimates and over-optimistic forecasts. You will also learn...

AT19

What UX Designers Can Teach Us about Being Better DevOps Practitioners

Thursday, June 11, 2020 - 3:30pm to 4:30pm

We often think of UX designers and DevOps practitioners as solving entirely different problems. On the surface, this is true: Designers spend their days generating mock-ups and wireframes, while DevOps teams spend time thinking about code and incident response. Once we look below the surface, though, we find surprising overlap between the worlds of DevOps and design. Jonathan Maltz will explore that overlap and what we can learn when we start to rub some UX design on our DevOps. We’ll start by focusing on design principles such as hierarchy and grouping, and we’ll see how we can apply...

Bernie Maloney
Powered by Teams
AT24

Make New Mistakes: Leadership Lessons from an Agile Success

Thursday, June 11, 2020 - 3:30pm to 4:30pm

Do you ever feel like the market moves faster than your marketing team? Could you imagine what’s possible if you’d be forgiven for making an honest mistake? Organizations introduce agile believing it will lead to greater responsiveness, resiliency, and resourcefulness, but agile is more than a process. Achieving agile’s full benefits comes from shifting the culture and mindset of a whole organization, sometimes as radically as leadership allowing teams to make mistakes. This philosophy was a driver in the fastest division in HP’s history to reach $1B, a hardware division focused on...

AT25

Coaching Is the Product: Build and Measure Your Product Context

Thursday, June 11, 2020 - 4:45pm to 5:45pm

When we talk about products in agile, we typically think of software. But any product or service can benefit from agile. If you are struggling to make that mental shift from software products to delivering a customer-focused service, this is the session for you. Tricia Bailey and John Eisenschmidt will show how to use agile to establish a coaching office and lead your transformation by "sipping your own agile champagne." Learn how to use product definition tools and practices, sprinkle agile principles throughout, and cultivate healthy, self-organizing teams.

Leslie Lowman
AvidXchange
AT26

Agile Teams—Not So Cross-Functional!

Thursday, June 11, 2020 - 4:45pm to 5:45pm

In the purest Scrum organizations with teams that are fully cross-functional, it is easy for those teams to complete delivery of their quality work in their own way. In other organizations, however, there are Scrum or agile teams that can't accomplish every single thing by themselves and need help from other teams or departments. When we talk about teams being cross-functional, we assume they are able to complete their commitments on their own. However, in a growing number of organizations, this is not the case. Let's take a dive into some ways that Scrum or agile teams are able to...

Jonathan Graham
US Government
Kaylee Wichert
US Government
AT32

From Concept to Reality: A Modern Approach to Large-Scale Scrum in Government

Thursday, June 11, 2020 - 4:45pm to 5:45pm

The US Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) was chosen as the software development agent for a brand-new, multimillion-dollar acquisition program with an aggressive timeline. To meet this timeline, program development will utilize agile, DevOps, and user-centered design best practices. This effort requires adaptation of government business practices, plus a shift in culture. To maximize the likelihood of success, a new organization was established to pilot necessary changes. This session describes that organization's creation and how it is designed to embrace change...