Agile Development Practices East 2011
Keynotes
Mission Critical Agility
Jeff Norris, NASA
Whether it is controlling interplanetary spacecraft, managing medical records, or "merely" staying in business, it seems that more of us are facing the pressure of building and managing mission-critical systems and teams. Although it's tempting to think that reliability is all that matters, we're also forced to adapt to constantly advancing technologies, shifting priorities, and relentless competitive pressures. What can we learn about agility from great inventors like Alexander Graham Bell and the pioneers at NASA who risked everything to change the world? Is it wise to embrace innovation and take risks when so much is at stake? Can you afford to be agile when failure is not an option, or can you afford not to? Jeff Norris explores key principles of agility from a fresh and entertaining perspective by drawing on inspiring stories of people who demonstrated agile work practices long before anyone had heard of a ScrumMaster. Come take a break from the rulebooks and taxonomies of the modern agile zoo and reflect on core traits that we all should embrace as we seek better ways of working.
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Jeff Norris
Enterprise DevOps: Breaking Down the Barriers between Development and IT Operations
Jez Humble, ThoughtWorks
Agile processes were originally designed to break down the barriers among users, programmers, and testers. Now, DevOps—an emerging set of principles and practices for communication, collaboration, and integration between development and IT operations—seeks to break down the development/operations barriers. By applying agile principles to operations and re-architecting the interfaces between these groups, DevOps empowers organizations to deliver high-value software faster and with fewer errors. Jez Humble describes how to implement DevOps practices in large enterprises—and small organizations. Starting with an investigation of the crisis facing large IT departments, Jez discusses the root causes of operations challenges and how DevOps addresses them. He explores how the guiding principles of DevOps—collaboration, automation, measurement, and information sharing—enable continuous delivery through rapid software releases of high quality software. Using examples from real companies, including amazon.com, Jez illustrates how to accelerate innovation within your company with DevOps techniques and shares the architecture and organizational structures necessary for success.
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Jez Humble
The Agile Mindset: Principles for Collaborating and Innovating with Agility
Adrian Cho, IBM
What is the one thing that can truly enable individuals and teams to collaborate and innovate with agility? Technology companies claim that you need the latest and greatest tools while consultants will say you need a rigid process of best practices. These things will make a difference but they are useless without a culture that promotes the right principles. Much can be learned from successful teams in other domains such as jazz, basketball, and even special forces military units. In all of these fields, multi-disciplined teams integrate innovative contributions from highly capable individuals into group and individual behaviors. They improvise and act with true agility when the path forward is unknown or unexpected challenges arise. To ensure success, they apply key principles: employ just enough rules to support autonomy while avoiding chaos, establish a groove to maintain momentum and synchronize efforts, act supportively and transparently to cultivate trust and respect, and exchange ideas to realize the benefits of diverse skills. Jazz musician and software development manager Adrian Cho describes the ways in which software developers can learn from jazz musicians and great performers in other domains.
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Adrian Cho
Agile Requirements: Not an Oxymoron
Ellen Gottesdiener, EBG Consulting
Misconceptions abound about the way requirements fit—or don’t fit—into agile projects. In fact, requirements are the basis for agile planning, development, and value delivery. How can agile teams quickly and holistically discover and prepare requirements to continually deliver high-value product features? How do they efficiently reach a shared understanding of requirements and agree on the most valuable requirements and when to deliver them? How do they nimbly augment user stories, story maps, and personas with just enough, just-in-time evaluation of functional and nonfunctional requirements? Ellen Gottesdiener explains how successful teams build a partnership of stakeholders, continually engage in structured conversations to explore and evaluate product options, apply value-based techniques for allocating requirements to development, and define clear, unambiguous acceptance criteria. By continually collaborating around product requirements, teams build a shared understanding of what to deliver and when to deliver it. Join Ellen to explore how to develop and manage requirements to drive your agile planning and deliver the highest possible business value.
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Ellen Gottesdiener
