Conference archive

Better Software East 2016 - Business User

Monday, November 14

Jeff Patton
Jeff Patton & Associates
MB

Great Product Design with User Story Mapping

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Monday, November 14, 2016 - 8:30am to 4:30pm

Built from index cards or sticky notes, a story map is a simple model, that helps the people who make it envision a customer’s experience with their product. Story maps are a core practice within a design process focused on understanding and building empathy with customers and users and then identifying and testing solutions to improve the customer’s experience with your product or services. Jeff Patton says that design process and story mapping can help you identify completely new product opportunities or improve the existing product experience. Learn how to map...

Tricia Broderick
Agile For All
MJ

Help Retain Knowledge: Increase Engagement to Achieve Learning

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Monday, November 14, 2016 - 1:00pm to 4:30pm

Ever walk out of a meeting or training class struggling to remember what was just discussed? Or be annoyed that people request information that you’ve already shared? You are not alone! Leaders struggle with how to create an engaging environment that results in high collaboration and learning. Unfortunately, most leaders start off with the disadvantage of being exposed to practices that recent brain science has proven to be ineffective, such as standing up front in the room and talking with slides for an hour instead of engaging people every 10–20 minutes. In an...

Tuesday, November 15

Andy Kaufman
Institute for Leadership Excellence and Development, Inc.
TD

How to Make Better Choices for You, Your Team, and Your Projects

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Tuesday, November 15, 2016 - 8:30am to 12:00pm

As leaders of teams and projects, we regularly face choices and decisions that have downstream consequences. Do you want to be able to make better decisions in your personal or professional life? Do you want to help your team members make better choices when it comes to decisions on their projects? Or are you simply curious about how and why people make certain choices? In this highly interactive tutorial, Andy Kaufman shares why the familiar pros-and-cons approach seems to make sense—but is profoundly flawed. He discusses how our biases influence the options we...

Robin Goldsmith
Go Pro Management, Inc.
TE

Writing Agile User Story and Acceptance Test Requirements

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Tuesday, November 15, 2016 - 8:30am to 12:00pm

Poor requirements are often the major cause of project problems. Yet nobody does much about them—at least not effectively. Traditional approaches advocate writing voluminous requirements documents that often don’t help much and may even contribute to difficulties. Agile goes to the opposite extreme, relying on brief requirements in the form of three-line user stories that fit on the front of an index card and a few user story acceptance criteria that fit on the card’s back. In this exercise-focused interactive workshop, Robin Goldsmith reveals reasons user stories...

Philip Lew
XBOSoft
TI

How to Improve the Mobile User Experience (UX)

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Tuesday, November 15, 2016 - 1:00pm to 4:30pm

Many enterprises are migrating to mobile while new organizations are adopting a mobile-first or mobile-only strategy. Because of the special characteristics of mobile and its user base, usability and the user experience (UX) are of increased importance, especially with SaaS-based business models where users can pay by the month and switch applications in a heartbeat. This is intensified with mobile users who can download another app and try it for free. So you've got about thirty seconds for your users to understand how to use your app and get value. How do you do...

Wednesday, November 16

Andy Kaufman
Institute for Leadership Excellence and Development, Inc.
K1

Lead Teams that Deliver the Goods

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Wednesday, November 16, 2016 - 8:30am to 9:30am

In software development—and in many life activities—success often depends on how well we collaborate with our team and our stakeholders. Yet getting a group of people to truly work in partnership—let alone self-organize—is a daunting challenge. And we’re often left with lingering tensions, anxieties, and sub-par performance because teams are made up of people with varying degrees of knowledge, skill, and commitment. Although we need our team focused on delivering a great outcome, sometimes egos, personalities, and agendas get in the way. Andy Kaufman asks you to...

Ken Pugh
Net Objectives
AW6

Agile Requirements—From Breadth to Depth

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Wednesday, November 16, 2016 - 1:30pm to 2:30pm

Requirements elicitation and documentation can be frustrating in an agile process. Some interpret the Agile Manifesto statement “working software over comprehensive documentation” to mean that no requirements documentation is warranted because the code documents the requirements. Others are concerned that if details of requirements are not treated equal to code, they are lost for future program modifications. Ken Pugh does not find this an either-or situation and describes ways to create requirements that are a balance between these two extremes. He shows how to...

Jonathan Silva
Axosoft
BW7

Evangelize for Your Project, Team, or Cause—No Matter What Role You Play

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Wednesday, November 16, 2016 - 2:45pm to 3:45pm

Whether you’re a developer, tester, ScrumMaster, CTO, or CEO, you know you have to listen to the needs of your customers and team; accept the fact that they are going to change their minds; and respond, adapt, tap dance, iterate, raise your voice, stand up, and delight your audience in order to ship out the best software of your entire life. Can I get a witness?! Jonathan Silva shares evangelizing strategies that can help you inspire at any level—whether a Fortune 500 company or a startup software company. These approaches include developing your point of view,...

BW8

Testing Transformation in the IoT Era

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Wednesday, November 16, 2016 - 2:45pm to 3:45pm

In the next few years, when more than 20 billion devices will be connected to the Internet, many of us will be IoT testers—in one way or another. Jennifer Bonine explores new areas you will need to address in your testing, new testing skills for the IoT era, and how to innovate your technology strategies and processes to account for new vulnerabilities. Jennifer addresses current IoT trends that are taking shape and what you need to do to enhance your testing skills—and even your career. She explores the real “game changers”—data security, “things” test labs, open...

Robb Pieper
Responsive Advisors
AW12

Your Agile Team Needs a Therapist

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Wednesday, November 16, 2016 - 4:15pm to 5:15pm

Imagine you’re on an agile development team—and something feels weird. People disagree constantly, and when they finally do agree, no one commits to deliver the solution. Vocal team members dominate the conversation. You don’t trust your teammates. They don’t trust you. This isn’t a team. It’s just a group of people. Does this sound familiar? Because people are people—not interchangeable robots—building high-performing, self-organizing teams takes specific skills and a lot of work. In his experience working with agile teams, Robb Pieper has often taken on the...

Thursday, November 17

Philip Lew
XBOSoft
AT2

Managing Agile Software Projects under Uncertainty

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Thursday, November 17, 2016 - 10:00am to 11:00am

In chasing velocity, we often ignore or don’t understand the uncertainties and associated risks in our processes and their results. Agile is designed to handle uncertainty in requirements as new features are requested and priorities shift. But shouldn’t we also be thinking about and mitigating the uncertainties that are unique or even introduced by using agile? Phil Lew suggests that our problem is that we sometimes carry assumptions which either cause us to spend too much effort on things we can’t control or give us unfounded comfort and reassurance. If we can’t...

Raj Induluga
LithSpeed, LLC
Robert Brown
Booz Allen Hamilton
DT3

Teach by Doing: Conversation-Driven Development with ChatOps

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Thursday, November 17, 2016 - 11:30am

Despite the proliferation of tools and processes aimed at lowering barriers and reducing friction across teams, do you still find yourself struggling to make sense of the information hairball, constantly asking—How's the deployment going? Who's responding to that incident? Is staging green? It’s time to STOP! Raj Indugula and Robert Brown introduce the essential concepts and benefits of ChatOps, discuss the anatomy of a chat application/robot, and demonstrate how to leverage ChatOps to help team culture through automation and sharing. ChatOps can improve your...

Robin Goldsmith
Go Pro Management, Inc.
BT7

Requirements Are Simply Requirements—or Maybe Not

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Thursday, November 17, 2016 - 1:30pm to 2:30pm

Many people talk about requirements. They use identical terms and think they have a common understanding. Yet, one says user stories are requirements; another claims user stories must be combined with requirements; and yet another has a different approach. These “experts” seem unaware of the critical inconsistencies of their positions. No wonder getting requirements right remains a major challenge for many projects. Robin Goldsmith analyzes often conflicting, not-so-shared-as-presumed interpretations of what requirements are, reveals likely implications, and...

Andy Kaufman
Institute for Leadership Excellence and Development, Inc.
BT8

Take Control! Managing Your Time and Commitments

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Thursday, November 17, 2016 - 1:30pm to 2:30pm

One of the most consistent concerns expressed by project teams everywhere is: We don’t have enough time! The stress of having too much to do and not enough time to do it is overwhelming. In this interactive session, Andy Kaufman shares practical lessons to help you get a better handle on what it takes to more successfully manage your time and commitments. Topics include understanding the importance of taking care of yourself (including getting more sleep and exercise), factors that drive procrastination (with approaches to overcome them and help you manage your...

Jamie Mades
LEAP Consulting
AT10

The Lean Agile Portfolio

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Thursday, November 17, 2016 - 3:00pm to 4:00pm

Agile practices continue to improve as organizations move forward with adoption and adaption. However, as they move forward, they often run into daunting challenges—coordinating projects with highly complex requirements and interdependencies; navigating highly political environments; and finding ways to fund, report, and integrate agile project work into existing organizational processes. Jamie Mades has found that the Lean Agile Portfolio bridges these gaps, applying lean product development flow principles to identify high-value initiatives and speed completion...

Lisa Calkins
Amadeus Consulting
BT10

Identify Business Value before Business Requirements

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Thursday, November 17, 2016 - 3:00pm to 4:00pm

According to the 2015 Standish report, a mere 29 percent of software development projects are successful. Is it because developers are choosing the wrong tools and processes? Is it due to a lack of communication between business leaders and developer teams? Although these issues may contribute to the failure of a project, they do not accurately address why these projects fail time and again. Lisa Calkins says the main reason projects are unsuccessful is a lack of planning between the initial application idea and the rush to set feature requirements. Instead,...

Judith Mills
Judith Mills Consulting
BT11

Don't Ask "Can You Hear Me Now?" Start Listening Instead

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Thursday, November 17, 2016 - 3:00pm to 4:00pm

Most of us believe we are good listeners. However, we often overestimate this skill and are hard-wired to short change it by making assumptions, providing answers, and jumping in when we think we know what people are trying to say. In doing so, we rob ourselves of the chance to encourage growth, build trust and respect, and promote ownership. Listening is about more than hearing the words; it is about tone, body language, and so much more. But wait … listening well can be learned, so join Judith Mills to understand and practice this underutilized skill....