Better Software West 2018 - Agile Practices
Wednesday, June 6
When Continuous Improvement Feels Like Constantly Failing – An Introduction to Design Thinking
Do your Retrospectives feel like a repeat of the last one? Are they moan and groan sessions? Want to try something new to give your team a boost? When design principles are applied to strategy and innovation, the success rate for innovation dramatically improves. Great design has that “wow” factor that makes products more desirable and services more appealing to users. Why not try using known design principles during your retrospectives to get that "wow" factor for your teams! In this session Catherine Louis will provide a Design Thinking overview. You’ll roll up your sleeves up and try it...
Faster Food and a Better Place to Sleep: Applying Agile Outside Software
Agile methods aren’t just for software anymore—actually, they haven’t been for quite a while. Agile's collaborative, iterative, incremental approaches to work have caused it to go mainstream. But can we apply team-based agile straight out of the box in a nonsoftware context? Although most of the principles and patterns apply, sometimes the practices and frameworks need modification for a particular context. Mike Cottmeyer will explore two case studies of agile journeys: an international hotel chain going through a major rebranding initiative, and a well-known fast food restaurant looking...
Creating an Innovation-Rich Culture
It's important to create a culture that inspires and infuses your development team with great ideas. But ideas are not action. Ideas in and of themselves are nothing more than unrefined, random thoughts, and worse, most ideas never get implemented. Even when you do follow through on some of the best ideas, they can cause great harm without proper planning and execution. While creativity is an asset, unbridled creativity where disparate ideas abound outside a sound decision-making and execution framework will create distraction and chaos. In this session, Melissa Petak will show you how to...
Thursday, June 7
I Manage an Agile Team. Am I Obsolete?
Agile and Scrum Teams are self-organizing and self-managing. As a line manager, what's left to do? Traditionally, managers are responsible for the output of their teams. Sometimes they're even responsible for the for a team's delivery that they do not have direct oversight. This model is flawed. People are complex, a team of people is a complex system. May as well try to manage the weather. To get a handle on the complexity of teams, managers need to act differently in how they lead others. In other words, managers of agile teams will fail if they do not shift their thinking from...
Let's (Re)Learn about Agile and Scrum in One Hour!
Every software conference has a number of folks who are brand-new to agile—as well as folks who think they understand it but could use a solid refresher. This interactive presentation will focus on newbies who want to understand the key concepts of both agile and Scrum. Certified Scrum trainer Steven Spearman will give an overview of the key concepts and learning approaches needed to understand agile and Scrum in one hour. While he will cover the structural basics of roles and events, he’ll focus primarily on key concepts of complexity, why traditional methods fail us so often, taking...
Taking Your Team from Dysfunctional to Dynamic
Does it seem like your team is the antithesis of agile? Being negative or fearful, resisting change, or hoarding information are common pitfalls that impede progress and can sink an agile team. How can your team adapt to each other, avoid these patterns, and find its greatness? All teams have people with talents and untapped abilities, but it can be difficult for a team to figure out what works for them, what they have, and what they lack. If your team is struggling to unify, find its stride, or revel in the fun of working together, then this session is for you. Michelle Vician will reveal...
Waterfall to Scrum: It Only Goes Up from Here
You’re a project manager using a waterfall methodology, but the team is not making progress on the work and deadlines are not being met. The requirements aren’t clear, scope keeps changing, deadlines won’t budge, and you can’t get more resources on the project. You were doomed from the start! A common solution to this situation is to adopt Scrum, but that can be difficult as well. Join Toiya Jones-Current as she narrates her personal journey and the baby steps she took to successfully switch from waterfall to Scrum and the transition her project team went through to deliver iteratively and...