Better Software West 2018 - Process & Metrics
Monday, June 4
Lean/Agile Data-Driven Decisions Demystified
For many agile practitioners, software metrics beyond a burndown chart are little understood or, perhaps, very scary because poor metrics can be worse than no metrics. In this enlightening session, Larry Maccherone explores how you and your organization can use metrics to bring management and lean/agile teams closer rather than allowing metrics to become a wedge that drives them into conflict. Larry covers the entire lifecycle of the metrics process—from metric selection to reporting data. Join Larry to gain an understanding of a wide range of concepts including common (101-level) metrics...
Wednesday, June 6
Methods for Handling Key-Person Dependencies in Agile Teams
On any team, from infrastructure engineering to development to HR, there is always a looming danger of one individual being the only person capable of performing a key task, either because of their technical skills, domain skills, or business experience. The risks of having key-person dependencies—reduced productivity, inaccurate project estimates, morale problems, delays, and business-impacting defects and downtime—are hard to identify and can be even harder to resolve. Lee Eason is a leader and coach who has experienced this problem for so long, he finally decided to do something about...
Measuring Flow: Metrics That Matter
Are you considering kanban but not sure how you’ll predict delivery without story points, velocity, and a burndown chart? Or are you part of a Scrum team but feeling like your team could benefit from improved flow within your sprints? In this session, join Julie Wyman and Hunter Tammaro as they explore key kanban metrics for measuring team flow and predictability. In the first half, they will introduce metrics including lead and cycle time, throughput, and the cumulative flow diagram. They’ll review what each represents, discuss easy ways to collect them, and show how they are similar and...
Thursday, June 7
Agile 3.0: The Five Secrets Advanced Agile Companies Know
Now that organizations have opted to morph agile into their own homegrown Agile Center of Excellence, many have missed out on simple advanced practices that would allow them to be even more aligned and ready to embrace a more practical agile application. Join seasoned agile coach Lee Henson as he shows you how to leverage internal and external agile service agreements to help guide your teams to a more solid agile footing. He will explore setting a clear vision and strategy by building an “agile press release” and how to embrace estimation excellence for stories, releases, and entire...
Conducting Agile Retrospectives That Drive Real Change
Think about your latest retrospective. Were people interested and engaged, or did they complain and accuse? Did you leave the retrospective feeling like you learned something valuable, or were you simply there to check the retrospective off your list? Retrospectives are hard work, but effective retrospectives can have a transformative effect on your team’s performance and, ultimately, your organization’s ability to achieve its goals. Join retrospective expert David Horowitz as he explores tangible steps you can take to turn your retrospectives into the catalyst of continuous improvement...
Managing DevOps Complexity with Systems Thinking
Many teams make the mistake of starting their DevOps journey without a plan. They are excited that there is a way to eliminate pain and increase value in their delivery cycles and value streams, but starting without a plan often relieves pain in one part of the value stream but only causes more pain elsewhere. In this case study-style presentation, Logan Daigle will discuss the methods he has used with a variety of companies to ensure they are thinking about the whole DevOps picture from the beginning. He'll discuss best steps and practices for applying systems thinking to DevOps and give...
The Impact of Agile Quantified
For years, people have made recommendations for how to develop software in an agile way based almost entirely on intuition, folklore, and anecdotes. They've never been able to quantitatively show the accuracy or applicability of these recommendations. This session quantifies those recommendations in the most precise and objective terms, including a presentation of general findings in Larry Maccherone's research correlating agile practices to performance along the dimensions of productivity, predictability, quality, and time to market. These data can be used to make general decisions about...