Agile + DevOps Virtual 2021 - General Management
Customize your Agile + DevOps West 2021 experience with sessions covering general project management.
Monday, June 7
Foundations of Tech Leadership
NewAccording to a CareerBuilder study, only 40% of new tech leaders receive formal training when they become a boss for the first time. The rest are forced to get scrappy to quickly equip themselves with new skills, techniques, and mindsets to effectively transition into their new roles. Join Kate Wardin to learn tactical techniques and resources for both new and seasoned technical leaders to feel confident in their roles. Interactive group exercises will cover topics such as 1:1s, time management, valuable team metrics, and will help you practice these new ideas and techniques in a safe and...
An Agile Coaching Practicum in 360 degrees
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 and Leon 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 the Agile...
Tuesday, June 8
Creating a High-Performance Agile Team
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...
Agile Project Failures: Root Causes and Corrective Actions
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...
Learning How to Lead High-Performing Agile Teams
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...
The Transformation Mindset: A Leader's Guide to Embracing Agile
NewMany leaders want to transform their organization to become more agile, adaptive, and responsive to the market. However, most do not deeply understand how to lead their organization through such a massive change. They install prescriptive scaling frameworks and send employees to training, but discard the elements of true transformation that are difficult. When the inevitable failure ensues, they switch frameworks, fire people, and revert back to what worked for them in the past. What these leaders fail to recognize is that the mindset they used to build their organization conflicts with...
Wednesday, June 9
Business Agility in Uncertain Times
PreviewThe COVID-19 pandemic crisis has affected businesses across the world. In 2020, we worked hard to execute immediate actions like for 100% Working From Home (WFH) in many countries. Even as things have stabilized, we all know that we are a long way away from the next normal. As a brighter future emerges in 2021, three focus areas for business agility are:
1. Customer-centric Lean Mindset. Developing a customer-centric lean mindset from executives to individual contributors helps drive consistency of purpose and alignment of action end-to-end across the enterprise.
2. Lean...
Mythbusters: Kanban Edition
Do your teams think Kanban grass is greener? Did you learn about Kanban informally? Often, Scrum teams look to Kanban as the easier way to complete work, thinking the process is easier and less structured than Scrum. In this presentation, Christina will discuss the myths surrounding Kanban (myths like there are no ceremonies, is no estimation, are no deadlines, and there is more time to complete work). Christina will bust those myths by presenting the practices and principles behind Kanban, and how to integrate Kanban tools into any process to solve your team’s problems. Attendees...
No Silos. Building an Effective (Rainbow Monkey Unicorn Pony) Program
It doesn't matter you call it DevOps, DevSecOps, or Rainbow Monkey Unicorn Pony - security is an integral part of the software development lifecycle. Even though we understand this, it's often difficult to know how to start building an effective DevSecOps program. This presentation will address four pillars of a successful application security program: Analysis, Validation, Observation, and Enablement and how they enable an organization to develop, deliver, and deploy applications from an idea to a customer facing environment. We'll discuss how to roll out a collaborative DevSecOps program...
Even Large Enterprises Need to be Agile
PreviewTo survive in this digital age of speed, agility, and customer-centricity, large enterprises must focus their efforts towards the delivery of the highest customer value within the shortest amount of time. Large enterprises are forced to operate like start-up companies. The only way to sustainably achieve this is through a Digital Transformation that drives Business Agility. But how can an organization embark on such a transformation? What would it take to transform the embedded practices: legacy applications, inefficient processes, traditional culture? How do we even begin? This...
Agile in 160 Billion Gallons: When Agile Principles Occur During A Disaster
PreviewWhile the Agile concepts may sometimes be easy, the why's and how's are a little trickier to wrap your head around. I’ve unfortunately participated in three recent rising flood water events in Houston over the last three years. Employing my agile skills has had a profound impact on the "success of the project". I will be mapping common Agile ideas to dealing with rising water encroaching on your home. I start with an interactive exercise where we talk about flooding, with the outcome being the question: “What do you do when you know that your house might flood?” The answer to this...
Adapting Agile Methodologies for Use in Regulated Industries Such as Aerospace & Life Sciences
How to adapt agile techniques for planning, development and testing so that they can be used in larger more complex situations that have a high degree of regulatory complexity, such as life sciences, aerospace, automotive and defense. In this session I would like to discuss my experiences with planning, developing and testing software applications in industries such as healthcare and finance that are heavily regulated by the Government, with strict requirements for validation, traceability and evidence. During the session, I will provide several actual examples, based on experiences and...
Stepping Up - Becoming a Leader in Your Team
PreviewOne of the most difficult transitions to make is from being a member of the team, to owning your former teammates performance reviews. It is awkward. It is stressful. And you can do it! How do you maintain a trusted relationship with your team mates? How do you employ empathy to help yourself understand your team? How do you gain authority and decision making where previously you had none? How do you make decisions that impact the lives of your team in very significant ways? How do you balance your corporate strategic responsibilities with your desire to advocate for your own team...
Innovation: How to Foster It & How to Squelch It
Everyone talks about the importance of innovation, but few understand what factors contributes to, and detracts from, true innovation.
This presentation will cover the following: Why is innovation in the workplace important? - Springboard by sharing two stories; one from a company that failed to innovate and one from a company that continually innovates - Whole group discussion on benefits of creating an innovative company culture
Innovation squelchers -What are most people doing to prevent innovative ideas and deliverables? - - What you need to STOP doing - Example/...
Thursday, June 10
What Can We Learn about our Agile Transformations from Wardley Maps?
PreviewAfter over a decade of agile transformations, many organizations are looking for signs that the change is complete. You are faster, more focussed, and delivering a product with higher quality, but when are you done? Models of Agile maturity have emerged that promise to measure “how agile you are”, with some mythical end point. By introducing a Wardley Maps in the context of business agility, you will be able to map out the path of your transformation, fill in any gaps that you may have, and begin to understand what direction your transformation may take you in the future. Business...
Take your business to the next level with DevOps OKRs
PreviewObjectives and Key Results, or OKRs are a popular concept nowadays. The reason why OKRs work is because they are about motivation (teams setting objectives that they are passionate about), collaboration (people who have similar passion collaborating to achieve results), and innovation (no one tells them how to achieve these results). OKRs are aligned across the organization so that everyone has a chance to contribute. One of the primary areas where OKRs are extremely important and not yet fully discovered is DevOps. The topic OKRs with a focus on one of the most complex and...
Stop, You’re Doing BDD Wrong
PreviewTools like Cucumber and Fitnesse have been popularizing the ‘idea’ of using Behavior Driven Development (BDD) for test automation for over a decade. While there are many benefits to using these tools, adoption of BDD practices and principles can add a lot more value than the tooling alone. BDD isn’t about testing; it’s about design, and team collaboration. Max will review the main tenets of BDD, and dive into some ideas of implementing this process. He’ll cover the benefits of doing true BDD: how it can be used to increase product quality and reduce feature churn. He will also...
Leading Courageously When Vulnerability Looks & Feels So Scary
Many people believe that you either are born with courage or you're not. Thankfully, Dr. Brené Brown's research shows that you can learn to be courageous! There are four skill sets of courage, and by applying these, you can learn how to have tough conversations, hold yourself and others accountable, reset after a setback, and how to build trust. During this session, you will receive an understanding of all four skill sets, and then dive deeper into the second skill set: LIVING into Our Values. This is a mix of talk and workshop: The first 30 minutes are providing color and context, and the...
Friday, June 11
Opening Remarks
Welcoming remarks from Leadership Summit Moderator, Jeffery Payne to kick the Summit off and discuss the days agenda.
Managing the People Side of Change
Change in any size organization happens at the individual’s level. Compelling visions, world class strategies, and an army of consultants are powerless to transform the organization if the needs of the individuals are not incorporated into the program approach. Join Perry Riggs while he looks at the application of ideas from various organizational change management frameworks such as Prosci/Adkar, Lewin, and the Kotter change framework. We will also review ideas from recent literature like Drive by Daniel Pink, Start with Why by Simon Sinek, Dare to Lead by Brene Brown, The Fifth...
Transform Yourself Before Transforming Others
The aspiration of leadership is often rooted in character traits that make effectively leading healthy organizations difficult. Pride, ego, and ambition are powerful internal motivators, but they must be tempered in order for you to grow into the kind of leader your people need. An effective transformation of any kind must start with you to be successful. Join Lee Eason as he shares his stories of leading organizational change while highlighting the personal growth that had to occur for him to be successful. Learn how Lee lead product development turn-arounds and widespread organizational...
Think Tank Discussion Part I: Problem Definitions
Join with your peers in an engaging and highly interactive session to discuss the issues that affect you most. Using answers to the question “As a Leader, What is Keeping You Up at Night?” posed at the opening remarks, participants will form small groups to work on finding solutions to pressing test management issues. Discussions will review identified issues, barriers to change, and focus on innovative strategies and practical next steps. At the end of the think tank, all feedback will be collected and posted online to encourage further collaboration
Think Tank Discussion Part II: Leadership Solutions
Based upon the problem definitions developed during Part I of the Think Tank, small groups will brainstorm on how to best solve these challenges, leveraging the collective wisdom of peers and Summit speakers. Each group will designate a representative to present its results and practice delivery.
Think Tank Discussion Part III: Presentation of Results
Small group representatives will each be given five minutes to present their leadership solutions. Summit participants will vote on which group produced the best solutions.
Wrap-Up
Wrap-up of the Agile + DevOps Leadership Summit.