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David Croley

Agile Velocity

Chief agile scientist at Agile Velocity in Austin, Texas, David Croley likes helping teams solve challenging problems efficiently and with minimum frustration. With more than twenty years of professional software development experience in both large and small companies, he has a broad technical background. David has learned that  a pragmatic application of agile development practices can be very successful on both large and small projects. “Outcome Over Output” is his mantra. He co-leads the Agile Austin Developer’s SIG. Previously at RenewData David was director of Libreeze Engineering, working on a wide range of projects. He can be reached at [email protected].

Speaker Presentations
Thursday, June 5, 2014 - 2:15pm
Design & Code
Technical Debt: You Can’t Afford It

Technical debt happens, either via strategic decisions or inadvertantly as a project progresses. Debt can slow down a project and represents a risk that is not always apparent to those outside the project. Teams must find ways to work technical debt resolution activities into sprints and get agreement from external management to reduce it. David Croley explores the sources and types of technical debt and discusses the costs associated with ignoring it. David discusses techniques for making technical debt visible and quantifiable, and shows how to reduce it in an agile fashion. Delegates break into teams and play “Tech Debt,” a game that simulates a few iterations of development. Teams vary the mix of feature stories and technical debt stories attempted in each iteration. The goal is to discover the best strategies for managing debt while delivering maximum features. Addressing technical debt makes for happier developers and happier users.