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David Hussman

David Hussman
DevJam

Working with companies of all sizes worldwide, David Hussman teaches and coaches the adoption of agile methods as powerful delivery tools. Sometimes he pairs with developers and testers; other times he helps plan and create product roadmaps. David often works with leadership groups to pragmatically use agile methods to foster innovation and a competitive business advantage. Prior to working as a full-time coach, he spent years building software in the audio, biometrics, medical, financial, retail, and education sectors. David now leads DevJam, a company composed of agile collaborators. As mentors and practitioners, DevJam (devjam.com) focuses on agility as a tool to help people and companies improve their software production skills.

Speaker Presentations
Monday, November 9, 2015 - 8:30am
Half-day Tutorials
Agile Estimation and Planning: Scrum, Kanban, and Beyond

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. He covers skills and techniques from story point estimating delivered within iterations to planning without estimates by delivering a continuous flow of value. Going beyond the simple mechanics of estimation and planning, David explores agile techniques to enable continuous learning and ways to prevent sprint planning sessions from becoming empty rituals. Join David and your peers to practice your agile estimation and planning techniques so they can become powerful tools within your project.

Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - 8:30am
Half-day Tutorials
Scaling, Spreading, and Succeeding: When to Do What and Why

More and more large organizations are adopting agile methods. As they do, many are  not focused on what level of process will help and are adding more process than needed. David Hussman describes the use of agile methods on large programs and small teams in large organizations including Disney, Target, Siemens, and others. David uses real-world experiences to teach concrete ideas of when scale is needed or not, as well as how to spread lasting agility that is based on concrete measures of success. Be warned—you will be participating. So come prepared with one or more situations where you would like to see agile methods spread throughout your organization or scaled to address the production challenges of a large system or process. Working in pairs and small groups, learn how to apply less process with more value, being mindful that large groups working on a single effort need disciplined practices to synchronize, validate, and promote real and lasting agility. Please come with your questions, experiences, and skepticism (the latter is always welcome).

Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - 1:00pm
Half-day Tutorials
Coaching and Leading Agility: Tuning Agile Practices

Are you an agile practitioner who wants to take agility to the next level? Are you looking to gain real value from agile instead of simply more talk? Even though many are using agile methods, not all are seeing big returns on their investment. David Hussman shares his experiences and describes a short assessment that you can use to identify both strengths and weaknesses in your use of agile methods. Creating an assessment helps you look at the processes you are using, examine why you are using them, and determine whether they provide real value. This assessment guides you through the rest of the tutorial, helping you tune your current processes and embrace new tools—product thinking, product delivery, team building, technical excellence, program level agility, and more. Leave with an actionable coaching plan that is measurable and contextually significant to your organization. If you want to promote real agility—or lead others to do so—come ready to think, challenge, question, listen, and learn.