Skip to main content

Project Manager

Tutorials

MA An Introduction to SAFe: The Scaled Agile Framework NEW
Al Shalloway, Net Objectives
Mon, 11/10/2014 - 8:30am

The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is quickly being adopted by many large organizations that have had some success with agile at the team level but have not been able to scale up to large projects. Al Shalloway describes what SAFe is, discusses when and how to implement it, and provides a few extensions to SAFe. Al begins with a high-level, executive’s guide to SAFe that you can share with your organization’s leaders.

Read more
MB Software Requirements Fundamentals for BAs, Testers, and Developers NEW
Lee Copeland, Software Quality Engineering
Mon, 11/10/2014 - 8:30am

You deal with software requirements all the time. Whether you are a developer in an agile environment, an analyst who identifies and documents requirements for plan-driven development, a software designer who studies requirements as the basis for agile development, a tester who employs or often must discover requirements as the foundation of test cases, or a technical user who describes your needs to development, you need the right approaches and skills to develop and interpret software requirements.

Read more
MC Career Superpowers NEW
James Whittaker, Microsoft
Mon, 11/10/2014 - 8:30am

Line up all the successful people in the world. Take away the pedigreed and the prodigies—you know the people who are going to succeed no matter what. Remove the brown-nosers and right-time-right-place lottery winners. And who do you have left? People who succeeded on purpose. Study these folks carefully, and you’ll find their paths to the top have common themes. James Whittaker exposes the career strategies of the ultra-successful and analyzes them in detail.

Read more
ME Build Product Backlogs with Test-Driven Thinking—and More NEW
David Hussman, DevJam
Mon, 11/10/2014 - 8:30am

Many product backlogs of user stories are nothing more than glorified to-do lists. Teams have lost the idea of prioritizing real business value and, instead, focus only on finishing stories and accumulating story points. Join David Hussman as he drives a stake into the heart of lame backlogs and breathes new life into test-driven thinking that is meaningful to testers, developers, product owners, and others. Using real-world examples, David shares his experiences and teaches tools you can use to fuse centered-product thinking with end-to-end testing.

Read more
MF What’s Your Leadership IQ?
Jennifer Bonine, tap|QA, Inc.
Mon, 11/10/2014 - 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.

Read more
MG The Secrets of Estimating—ANYTHING NEW
Payson Hall, Catalysis Group, Inc.
Mon, 11/10/2014 - 8:30am

Given the choice between providing an estimate or getting a root canal, most people would choose the dentist―not because they enjoy pain, but because the pain of the drill is short lived and the pain of a poor estimate may last for months. Payson Hall believes there is a science to estimation that is learnable and that much of the pain can be avoided with a repeatable process. In this experiential workshop, Payson shares a way to estimate just about ANYTHING and demonstrates it with numerous examples.

Read more
MH Configuration Management: Robust Practices for Fast Delivery NEW
Bob Aiello, CM Best Practices Consulting
Mon, 11/10/2014 - 8:30am

Robust configuration management (CM) practices are critical for creating continuous builds to support agile’s integration and testing demands, and for rapidly packaging, releasing, and deploying applications into production. Classic CM—identifying system components, controlling changes, reporting the system’s configuration, and auditing—won’t do the trick anymore.

Read more
MI CANCELLED - Seven Principles of Impossible Thinking
Presentation Cancelled
Mon, 11/10/2014 - 8:30am

This Tutorial has been cancelled.

Read more
ML Twelve Risks to Enterprise Software Projects—and What to Do about Them
Payson Hall, Catalysis Group, Inc.
Mon, 11/10/2014 - 1:00pm

Every large software project is unique—each with its own complex array of challenges. When projects get into trouble, however, they often exhibit similar patterns, and succumb to risks that could have been anticipated and prevented—or detected sooner and managed better. Common responses to the problems—blaming, deferring action, or outright denial—only make things worse.

Read more
MO It’s All About Me™: Owning Your Behavior, Improving Your Team NEW
Doc List, Doc List Enterprises
Mon, 11/10/2014 - 1:00pm

Successful high-performing teams have many common attributes. One is their ability to function together collaboratively. In order to collaborate well, they must communicate effectively and get beyond some of the members' personal biases and quirks. In this interactive workshop, Doc List shares common problems with behavior, motivation, emotions, and interpretation that frequently get in the way. Participate in exercises that lead you to understand―and sometimes expose―your own blind spots and limitations.

Read more
MP Six Free Ideas to Improve Agile Success SOLD OUT
Pollyanna Pixton, Accelinnova
Mon, 11/10/2014 - 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.

Read more
TA Continuous Delivery: Rapid and Reliable Releases with DevOps
Bob Aiello, CM Best Practices Consulting
Tue, 11/11/2014 - 8:30am

DevOps is an emerging set of principles, methods, and practices that enable the rapid deployment of software systems. DevOps focuses on lowering barriers between development, testing, security, and operations in support of rapid iterative development and deployment. Many organizations struggle when implementing DevOps because of its inherent technical, process, and cultural challenges. Bob Aiello shares DevOps best practices starting with its role early in the application lifecycle and bridging the gap with testing, security, and operations.

Read more
TB Giving Great Presentations: The Art of Stage Presence NEW
James Whittaker, Microsoft
Tue, 11/11/2014 - 8:30am

Every hour of every day in every country where business is conducted, the same scene plays out―dozens of well-paid people sitting in a conference room being bored senseless. Death by a thousand slides. This mind numbing, soul crushing, grotesquely expensive experience ends here and now! James Whittaker reveals the secrets to conceiving, building, and delivering a great presentation. Whatever your level of presentation skills, this tutorial will hone them. Learn how to build a compelling story from the ground up. Receive advice on how to remember and recall that story as you deliver it.

Read more
TC Eight Steps to Kanban
Ken Pugh, Net Objectives
Tue, 11/11/2014 - 8:30am

Transitioning to agile can be difficult—and often downright wrenching—for teams, so many organizations are turning to kanban instead. Kanban, which involves just-in-time software delivery, offers a more gradual evolution to agile and is adaptable to many company cultures and environments. With kanban, developers pull work from a queue—taking care not to exceed a threshold for simultaneous tasks—while making progress visible to all. Ken Pugh shares eight steps to adopt kanban in your team and organization.

Read more
TD Essential Patterns of Mature Agile Teams
Bob Galen, Velocity Partners
Tue, 11/11/2014 - 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.

Read more
TE Agile Boot Camp for Project Managers NEW
Ken Whitaker, Leading Software Maniacs
Tue, 11/11/2014 - 8:30am

For a project manager, successfully transitioning from traditional project management to a more agile approach can be difficult due to the staggering learning curve. Using a combination of case studies, exercises, and best practices identified in the PMBOK® Guide, Ken Whitaker gets you up to speed on the essential fundamentals you need to effectively facilitate and lead Scrum-based agile projects.

Read more
TF Risk Management: Project Management for Grown-Ups NEW
Tim Lister, Atlantic Systems Guild, Inc.
Tue, 11/11/2014 - 8:30am

Many organizations are childlike. They blithely plan the project as if nothing will go wrong. And then, when something does go wrong, they are shocked and dismayed. Risk management is not just worrying about your project, and it is not about running away from risk. Risk management for software projects is all about when you make decisions and when you take action. How do you deal with uncertainty? When do you decide to deal with a risk while it is still just a risk, and when do you decide to wait to see if the risk does turn into a problem and manage it then?

Read more
TH Agile Project Failures: Root Causes and Corrective Actions
Jeff Payne, Coveros, Inc.
Tue, 11/11/2014 - 8:30am

Agile initiatives always begin with the best of intentions—accelerate delivery, better meet customer needs, or improve software quality. Unfortunately, some agile projects do not deliver on these expectations. If you want help to ensure the success of your agile project or get an agile project back on track, this session is for you. Jeff Payne discusses the most common causes of agile project failure and how you can avoid these issues—or mitigate their damaging effects.

Read more
TI Principles and Practices of Lean Software Development NEW
Al Shalloway, Net Objectives
Tue, 11/11/2014 - 8:30am

Lean software development has often been described as “better, faster, cheaper” and focusing on “eliminating waste,” but those are misnomers. Going after speed improvement and waste elimination can actually reduce the benefits you could otherwise get from lean. Al Shalloway describes what lean software development really is and why you should be incorporating it into your development efforts—whether you use Scrum, kanban, or SAFe. Al explains the mindset, principles, and practices of lean.

Read more
TM Innovation Thinking: Evolve and Expand Your Capabilities NEW
Jennifer Bonine, tap|QA, Inc.
Tue, 11/11/2014 - 1:00pm

Innovation is a word frequently tossed around in organizations today. The standard cliché is “Do more with less.” People and teams want to be innovative but often struggle with how to define, prioritize, implement, and track their innovation efforts. Jennifer Bonine shares the Innovation Types model to give you new tools to evolve and expand your innovation capabilities. Find out if your innovation ideas and efforts match your team and company goals. Learn how to classify your innovation and improvement efforts as core (to the business) or context (essential but non-revenue generating).

Read more
TP The Kanban Racing Challenge: An Immersive Workshop NEW
Nate Oster, CodeSquads, LLC
Tue, 11/11/2014 - 1:00pm

The Kanban Racing Challenge is an immersive workshop where you learn the basic practices of a Kanban team by building an obstacle course for radio-controlled cars. This fast-paced, competitive learning environment prepares you to immediately apply Kanban on your own software teams. Your racing team starts with a warm-up lap that explains how your Kanban Storyboard creates a “continuous pull system” and natural self-management.

Read more
TR Agile Estimation and Planning: Scrum, Kanban, and Beyond
David Hussman, DevJam
Tue, 11/11/2014 - 1:00pm

If you are new to agile methods—or trying to improve your estimation and planning skills—this session is for you. David Hussman brings years of experience coaching teams on how to employ XP, lean, Scrum, and kanban. He advises teams to obtain the estimating skills they need from these approaches rather than following a prescribed process. From start to finish, David focuses on learning from estimates as you learn to estimate.

Read more

Keynotes

K1 From Chaos to Order—Leading Software Teams Today
Ken Whitaker, Leading Software Maniacs
Wed, 11/12/2014 - 8:30am

To successfully lead “the nerd herd,” you’re expected to motivate your team to perform, encourage innovation, and produce software solutions that delight the customer. Prioritizing your time for what’s most important can be quite challenging—especially when you’re swamped with a steady stream of incoming requests, meeting overload, and the ever-present personnel issues. The expectation of even faster product deployment, the evolution of software development to agility, and the establishment of self-directed teams often require even more time devoted to planning.

Read more
K2 The Roots of Agility
Rob Myers, Agile Institute
Wed, 11/12/2014 - 10:00am

What we mean by Agile is becoming less and less clear. Rob Myers shares sixteen years of history and observation, noting the amazingly diverse ideologies and practices that people now include under this umbrella term. Agile started with the earliest notions of iterative-and-incremental, inspect-and-adapt principles and practices from Scrum. It now includes the intensive engineering disciplines of XP that have recently branched off into the Software Craftsmanship movement. Along the way, agile grafted in lean principles and saw the flowering of the elegantly simple Kanban approach.

Read more
K4 Get Out of Your Comfort Zone―Now
Tricia Broderick, Pearson
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 4:15pm

In an industry that continues to rapidly evolve, the pressure to increase our mastery can be overwhelming. Whether browsing the web or your organization's technical library, it's discouraging to realize that many of the skills you’ve mastered are now obsolete, replaced by new, important ones that you know little about. Is there a way to change discouragement into excitement?  Early in her career, Tricia Broderick was terrified to take chances for fear of failing.

Read more

Concurrent Sessions

BW1 Servant Leadership: It’s Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be
Tricia Broderick, Pearson
Wed, 11/12/2014 - 11:30am

Ah, the sounds of feathers being ruffled! Tricia Broderick believes that servant leadership is not all that it’s cracked up to be. She wants and expects more from leaders then just being servants who act only when asked. Until now, a common (and easy) coaching style has been to transform managers from command-and-control leaders to serving others. How can anyone argue that the transition is a great step toward becoming an empowering leader?

Read more
BW3 This Is Not Your Father's Career: Advice for the Modern Information Worker
James Whittaker, Microsoft
Wed, 11/12/2014 - 11:30am

In an era where college dropouts run successful companies and creative entrepreneurs out-earn corporate vice presidents, working smart is clearly the new working hard. James Whittaker turns on their head the career rules that guided past generations and provides a new career manual for working smarter that speaks to the need for creativity, innovation, and insight. James teaches a set of skills designed for the modern era of working for companies, both big and small.

Read more
BW6 EARS: The Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax
John Terzakis, Intel
Wed, 11/12/2014 - 1:30pm

One key to specifying effective functional requirements is minimizing misinterpretation and ambiguity. By employing a consistent syntax in your requirements, you can improve readability and help ensure that everyone on the team understands exactly what to develop. John Terzakis provides examples of typical requirements and explains how to improve them using the Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax (EARS). EARS provides a simple yet powerful method of capturing the nuances of functional requirements. John explains that you need to identify two distinct types of requirements.

Read more
BW7 You Said What? Becoming Aware of the Things We Say
Doc List, Doc List Enterprises
Wed, 11/12/2014 - 1:30pm

Most of us take language for granted. We use words without thinking about how they may affect others and then are surprised at the reaction we get. Learn the importance of language in building and maintaining high performing agile teams. Become more aware of the words you choose and the impact of those words on your listeners. Doc List presents a series of exercises in a game show format. Participants attempt to identify loaded words in seemingly simple statements and questions. Some of the exercises are written; others are acted out in role play.

Read more
BW8 Tips and Tricks for Building Secure Mobile Apps
Jeff Payne, Coveros, Inc.
Wed, 11/12/2014 - 1:30pm

Mobile application development is now a mission-critical component of many IT organizations. Due to the security threats associated with mobile devices, it is critical that mobile applications are built to be secure from the ground up. However, many application developers and testers do not understand how to build and test secure mobile applications. Jeff Payne discusses the risks associated with mobile platforms/applications and describes best practices for ensuring mobile applications are secure.

Read more
BW9 Gamification and Arbejdsglæde (Danish: Work Gladness/Joy)
Ryan Kleps, Boeing IT
Wed, 11/12/2014 - 2:45pm

You get paid for doing that? Is it possible to both work and have fun in a large corporate setting? Can joy be made part of the workplace? For the past few years Ryan Kleps and his colleagues have been conducting an informal social experiment using gamification (before they knew it had a name) in their corporate training modules to encourage participation, engagement, and enjoyment.

Read more
BW10 Non-Functional Requirements: Forgotten, Neglected, and Misunderstood
Paul Reed, EBG Consulting
Wed, 11/12/2014 - 2:45pm

Implementing non-functional requirements is essential to build the right product. Yet teams often struggle with when and how to discover, specify, and test these requirements. Many teams neglect non-functional requirements up front, considering them less important or unrelated to user requirements; other teams specify them incompletely or with untestable and non-measurable attributes.

Read more
BW11 You, Inc.: Building Your Personal Brand
Jennifer Bonine, tap|QA, Inc.
Wed, 11/12/2014 - 2:45pm

Building the right personal brand is one of the most critical success factors in today’s workplace. Organizations develop a brand and image, but not many individuals think about their brand on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media outlets. Every person with career aspirations should be actively shaping their brand. As we interact with people, we want to influence them to support our efforts—approving projects, budgets, and funding; supporting our next career move; or recommending us for that promotion or raise we want.

Read more
BW12 The Coming Mobile Wearable World
Philip Lew, XBOSoft
Wed, 11/12/2014 - 2:45pm

For better or for worse, like it or not, mobile wearables are already changing our lives. Combined with social media, mobile wearable devices form a new generation of personalized technology that knows us better than our closest friends. How many of your friends know how far you walked or what you ate? The challenge for developing applications is correctly incorporating context to add value your users hadn’t considered while being sensitive to their privacy.

Read more
BW13 Lean Software Development Is for Everyone
Ken Pugh, Net Objectives
Wed, 11/12/2014 - 4:15pm

Lean software engineering emphasizes continuous delivery of high quality applications. Ken Pugh explains the principles and practices that form the basis of lean software development―concentrating on developing a continuous flow by eliminating delays and loopbacks; delivering quickly by developing in small batches; emphasizing high quality which decreases delays due to defect repair; making policies, process and progress transparent; optimizing the whole rather than individual steps; and becoming more efficient by decreasing waste.

Read more
BW16 Privacy and Data Security: Minimizing Reputational and Legal Risks
Tatiana Melnik, Melnik Legal, PLCC
Wed, 11/12/2014 - 4:15pm

Privacy and data security are hot topics among US state and federal regulators as well as plaintiffs’ lawyers. Companies experiencing data breaches have been fined millions of dollars, paid out millions in settlements, and spent just as much on breach remediation efforts. In the past several years, data breaches have occurred in the hospitality, software, retail, and healthcare industries. Join Tatiana Melnik to see how stakeholders can minimize data breach risks, and privacy and security concerns by integrating the Privacy by Design Model into the software development lifecycle.

Read more
BT1 Seven Deadly Habits of Ineffective Software Managers
Ken Whitaker, Leading Software Maniacs
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 10:00am

As if releasing a quality software project on time were not difficult enough, poor management of planning, people, and process issues can be deadly to a project. Presenting a series of anti-pattern case studies, Ken Whitaker describes the most common deadly habits—along with ways to avoid them.

Read more
BT2 Emergent Design: History, Concepts, and Principles
Rob Myers, Agile Institute
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 10:00am

Software design is about change. A good design facilitates adding features—and adding new developers to the team. Yet any change to the code impacts design and could damage existing functionality. Without design idioms and practices, the code can degrade into a "big ball of spaghetti” and a maintenance nightmare. Your team must know which decisions to make early in design and which to defer. Rob Myers reviews “families” of design attributes and practices, showing the common principles within each.

Read more
BT3 Cloud Computing: Yes, It Will Radically Change Your World
Mike Wood, Red Gate Software
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 10:00am

You can't read a technology article these days without some mention of "the cloud." Many have labeled it the next sea-change in the industry; others point out that the model has been around for ages. Regardless of its origins, the cloud certainly does change things. But the bigger question is: Does it really change things for you? The only way to answer that question is to understand the possibilities the cloud provides.

Read more
BT6 Avoiding Over Design and Under Design
Al Shalloway, Net Objectives
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 11:30am

The question of how much design to do up-front on a project is an engaging conundrum. Too much design often results in excess complexity and wasted effort. Too little design results in a poor architecture or insufficient system structures which require expensive rework and hurt more in the long run. So, how can we know the right balance of upfront design work and emerging design approaches? Al Shalloway shows how to use design patterns—coupled with agile’s attitude of “don’t build what you don’t need”—to guide your design efforts.

Read more
BT7 The Art and Science of Cloud-Based Performance Testing
Scott Barber, SmartBear
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 11:30am

Although organizations spend a lot of time and money creating their applications, unfortunately they may not test them with a production-level user load. This often results in the application failing in production. The hardware cost to simulate thousands of concurrent users makes the organization think twice, so it tests with limited concurrent user volumes based on the available hardware.

Read more
BT8 Software Testing’s Future—According to Lee Copeland
Lee Copeland, Software Quality Engineering
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 11:30am

The original IEEE 829 Test Documentation standard is thirty years old this year. Boris Beizer’s first book on software testing, Software Testing Techniques, also passed thirty. Testing Computer Software, the best-selling book on software testing, is more than twenty five. During the past three decades, hardware platforms have evolved from mainframes to minis to desktops to laptops to smartphones to tablets. Development paradigms have shifted from waterfall to agile. Consumers expect more functionality, demand higher quality, and are less loyal to brands.

Read more
BT9 Product Management: Optimizing the What to Develop
Ernani Ferrari, Mondo Strategies
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 1:30pm

Most organizations struggle with the processes that define what software they should develop, when to do it, and how it will evolve over time—all parts of the product management role and activities. Because repeatable processes have not been established and organizations cope with conflicting priorities, teams stress needlessly over day-to-day decisions. Product management requires a fundamental company-wide understanding of its goals and opportunities coupled with the discipline to optimize development and maintenance efforts.

Read more
BT10 Service Virtualization: Speed Up Delivery and Improve Quality
Anne Hungate, DIRECTV
Robb Kelman, DIRECTV
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 1:30pm

“We could not test this because…” Every technology professional has experienced issues during system testing when unit testing was overlooked or cut short. Every project team has hit roadblocks during system testing when dependent systems or complicated data have been unavailable. Service virtualization is a tool that eliminates the waiting and the excuses, making thorough and complete unit and system testing realistic. Done well, service virtualization improves defect detection and resolution in every phase of a project—driving down cost while improving quality.

Read more
BT12 Strategies for Mobile Web Application Testing
Raj Subramanian, Progressive Insurance
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 1:30pm

Mobile web testing is still a widely unexplored territory—with no standardized tools or testing processes—where testers often struggle due to lack of guidance and resources. With mobile devices, tools, operating systems, and web technologies rapidly evolving, testers must adapt their thinking in this quickly changing domain. Raj Subramanian is a tester who went through this experience, trying out different testing approaches including paired exploratory testing, blink tests, and tools to get quick feedback on the web pages.

Read more
BT13 Managing Technological Diversity: Avoid Boiling the Ocean
Katy Douglass, Nationwide Financial
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 3:00pm

Drop everything! We need to regression test the newest browser version. Apple just released a new device and iOS. We need to test our site on IE11 with Windows 8.1. Sound familiar? The number of technologies our software products must be compatible with has grown exponentially, and the market is adopting new technologies with ever-increasing speed. So, how do we manage the diversity of technology with which our software products must be compatible? Katy Douglass shares Nationwide Financial’s story of transforming their reactive processes into proactive processes that anticipate change.

Read more
BT15 Seven Key Metrics to Improve Agile Performance
Andrew Graves, InterContinental Hotels Group
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 3:00pm

It’s been said: If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. For most agile teams burndown charts and some type of velocity measurement are all they are doing. However, with just a few more metrics, you can gain substantial insight into how teams are performing and identify improvement opportunities. Andrew Graves explores seven key metrics―Effort by Class of Service, Accuracy of Estimation, Cost per Point, and four others―to measure how your team is doing and make adjustments in real time. Andrew illustrates how to use these metrics to communicate progress to stakeholders.

Read more
BT16 Automating End-to-End Business Scenario Testing
Sandra Alequin, Allstate Insurance
Monika Mehrotra, Infosys, Ltd.
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 3:00pm

Allstate Insurance had a problem. While thoroughly testing each of their more than thirty business systems, they were still failing to provide good service to their clients, agents, and internal customers. The reason was simple. Implementing end-to-end business processes requires more than just running data through a set of separate systems.

Read more