People and Teams

Tutorials

MC Agile Program Management: Networks, Not Hierarchies NEW

Johanna Rothman, Rothman Consulting Group, Inc.

Mon, 11/11/2013 - 8:30am

When you think of program management, do you think of big lumbering organizational beasts that add little value, and people demanding “When will you be done?” or “Can we add this feature before the desired release date?” Agile program management encourages small-world networks of collaborative teams that can solve problems and deliver features fast. That requires the entire program be agile and lean—using small batch sizes, integrating continuously, having short iterations, and tracking cycle time so you can coordinate across the organization.

MG What’s Your Leadership IQ?

Jennifer Bonine, tap|QA, Inc.

Mon, 11/11/2013 - 8:30am

Have you ever needed a way to measure your leadership IQ? Or been in a performance review where the majority of time was spent discussing your need to improve as a leader? If you have ever wondered what your core leadership competencies are and how to build on and improve them, Jennifer Bonine shares a toolkit to help you do just that.

MQ Six Free Ideas to Improve Agile Success

Pollyanna Pixton, Accelinnova

Mon, 11/11/2013 - 1:00pm

Free? Is anything free these days? Based on her experience working with organizational leaders and her research into what drives organizational performance, Pollyanna Pixton shares six ideas—and the keys to their effective implementation—to help assure the success of your agile teams. As a bonus, her suggestions won’t cost you a thing. Pollyanna’s first free idea is how to create a culture of trust—the keystone of open collaboration—within your team and organization. The second free idea is about ownership—how to give it and not take it back.

MR Congruent Coaching: An Exploration NEW

Johanna Rothman, Rothman Consulting Group, Inc.

Mon, 11/11/2013 - 1:00pm

We have opportunities to coach people all the time. Much of what we see as coaching is actually undercover training. Real coaching is richer—offering support while explaining options. In this interactive session, Johanna Rothman invites you to explore how to coach, regardless of your position in the organization. Teaching is just one option for coaching. You have many other options, depending on your coaching stance. You may select a counselor’s stance if you are managing up or a partner’s stance if you are a peer.

TD Essential Patterns of Mature Agile Teams

Bob Galen, Velocity Partners

Tue, 11/12/2013 - 8:30am

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 a fairly efficient and effective agile adoption. However, these teams often get “stuck” and begin to regress or simply start going through the motions—neither maximizing their agile performance nor delivering as much value as they could.

TQ Patterns for Collaboration: Toward Whole-Team Quality SOLD OUT

Janet Gregory, DragonFire, Inc.

Matt Barcomb, odbox

Tue, 11/12/2013 - 1:00pm

A lot of talk goes on in agile about how collaboration among team members helps drive a shared responsibility for quality—and more. However, most teams don't do much more than just hold stand-up meetings and have programmers and testers sit together. Although these practices improve communications, they are not collaboration! Most teams simply don't understand how to collaborate. Janet Gregory and Matt Barcomb guide you through hands-on activities that illustrate collaboration patterns for programmers and testers, working together.

Concurrent Sessions

BW1 Patterns of Effective Teams

Dan North, Dan North & Associates, Ltd.

Wed, 11/13/2013 - 10:15am

Understanding the dynamics of how teams work and how to make them work better is one of the most difficult problems in software delivery. Adopting agile methods compounds this problem by breaking up groups who used to sit together and forming new cross-functional teams, adding stand-ups, and initiating retrospectives and other new social interactions.

BW4 To Build Better Software, Build Better Developers and Testers

Iris Classon, Evry

Scott Allen, Medisolv, Inc.

Wed, 11/13/2013 - 10:15am

Developers and testers are, by their very nature, curious creatures. But when facing deadlines, they often become fixated on solving today's problem and miss the bigger picture. Over time and under pressure, they lose their motivation to learn new information and acquire new skills. Without a plan encouraging learning can be costly—and can backfire. A professional development plan should incorporate practical strategies and techniques for the entire team and managers.

BW5 Managing Multiple Teams at Scale with Scrum and Lean

Ken Pugh, Net Objectives

Wed, 11/13/2013 - 2:15pm

Scrum has become very popular in agile development shops, but most organizations that adopt Scrum run into challenges when they expand beyond a few teams. Ken Paugh believes that you can overcome the challenging patterns of scaling Scrum by focusing on lean-flow (removing delays between the steps of a development organization’s workflow). Ken begins by discussing how cross-functional teams are a manifestation of the lean mantra of removing delays. He discusses ways to manage projects spanning multiple teams, including creating teams that don’t meet the definition of classic Scrum.

BW11 How Experian Revolutionized Product Strategy and Management with Big Data

Jeff Hassemer, Experian

Wed, 11/13/2013 - 3:45pm

Agile discussions often focus on stories, backlogs, development, and testing. At Experian they also brought product strategy management and strategy into the agile fold to ensure their teams were in lock-step with customer requirements and priorities. That resulted in the delivery of Experian’s first big data project—without adding a single new person or “big data expert.” How did they do it? Product guru Jeff Hassemer shares his (not-so) kumbaya moments of how he learned about the principles of agile within big data projects—in action.

BT1 Program Management: Collaborating across the Organization

Johanna Rothman, Rothman Consulting Group, Inc.

Thu, 11/14/2013 - 10:15am

To be most effective when managing a large program, the component projects should limit their batch size, create networks of people, and report status in a way that works for the entire program. For those of you who are not quite ready for agile, Johanna Rothman explains how to use staged delivery, release trains, or RUP as lean(er) alternatives to waterfall and agile. Johanna explains how to encourage project teams to create communities of practice using their social networks—start with the existing rumor mill and build on it more formally.

BT2 Contextually-Driven System Architecture Reviews

Michael Dedolph, Levi Deal Consulting

Thu, 11/14/2013 - 10:15am

When the World Trade Center collapsed, the telephone switching systems in the basement correctly diagnosed which lines were still working and continued to connect calls for several days using backup power. One factor contributing to this remarkable product reliability was the AT&T/Bell Labs practice of early systems architecture reviews. Michael Dedolph shares an architecture review method based on the Bell Labs Systems Architecture Review Board (SARB) process and discusses how that method was institutionalized and managed.

BT9 Growing a Learning Organization from the Bottom Up

Matt Barcomb, odbox

Thu, 11/14/2013 - 3:45pm

Learning organizations seem like a great idea to just about everyone. But how do you actually create them? In many organizations, attempting to promote learning can seem daunting at best and impossible at worst—especially when you don't feel particularly empowered to do so. Matt Barcomb focuses on what you can do from multiple perspectives. He first discusses what a learning organization is and why the concept is important for the future of many organizations. Next, Matt shares approaches and considerations for growing learning environments, including common organizational pitfalls.

BT11 The Personal A3 Approach for Developing People

Bob Payne, LitheSpeed

Thu, 11/14/2013 - 3:45pm

Organizations invest high levels of effort setting up elaborate employee performance tracking systems. In fact, these costly and onerous processes may even drive the wrong behaviors if inappropriate metrics are selected or employees learn to game the system. However, a simpler and more effective approach to personnel development is right in front of us. Bob Payne describes the Lean A3 problem solving and communication tool that can be used to improve processes and create a learning culture.