|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In this interactive session, Scott Ambler explores a vitally important, nitty-gritty, down-in-the-weeds aspect of agile—how to take an agile model-driven development (AMDD) approach to enhance and scale your software delivery capabilities. Correctly applied, AMDD enhances your modeling and documentation efforts, streamlines agile development, and reduces false starts and rework. Scott addresses critical modeling issues that pertain to all agile projects—how to successfully model the complexities of modern-day software without getting bogged-down in mountains of paperwork, how to document systems in an agile manner, how to scale agile development methods with an agile approach to modeling and documentation, how to take an evolutionary approach to user interface and database design, and how modeling extends and supports test-driven development to address the full exploration of requirements, architecture, and design. Join Scott to dig into this vital, yet often ignored, aspect of agile development.
Learn more about Scott Ambler |
|
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
To establish and maintain a healthy flow of value delivery, agile teams must collaborate with customers to identify and break product requirements down into small, cohesive, implementable chunks of functionality. They must define those chunks to fit within the larger context of an overall product roadmap and release plan. Ellen Gottesdiener shows you how to split minimally marketable features (MMFs) into stories, create user story maps, and apply an expand-contract pattern to identify and analyze a user story's key parts—user role, actions, objects, business rules, and interfaces. By continually slicing and dicing the highest value requirements into "ready" requirements, you'll learn to prune the product backlog, help guide release plans, and facilitate requirements delivery with minimal impediments. Learn to incorporate completion criteria into user stories that become the basis for acceptance tests. Take back the key questions you need to ask in order to elicit complete user stories. Join Ellen in a series of facilitated exercises to experience these practices and develop your skills to deliver the right requirements at the right time.
Learn more about Ellen Gottesdiener |
|
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
When organizations aren't seeing all of the results they expected from an agile transition program, some may try to label it a failure. However, some "failures" happen when you try to solve the wrong problem, try to solve the right problem with the wrong skills, or fail to recognize the progress you are making. Even worse, you sometimes waste time trying to solve one problem when you really should be working on another. In this interactive session, J.B. Rainsberger explores concepts from the Theory of Constraints and lean software development to help you navigate the intimidating complexity of agile organizational change and choose from the wide array of sensible-sounding agile practices you could adopt. Take your turn acting as both client and consultant to see how to use value-stream mapping, root-cause analysis, and one simple guiding principle you can use to formulate plans that solve just enough of your biggest problems.
Learn more about J.B. Rainsberger |
|
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Release planning is one of the primary responsibilities of the product owner and project teams. Stakeholders want, need, and deserve to know what they'll be getting—and when. So, how do you do this in an agile environment? Although many find it tempting to create a release plan as a series of sprint plans, this is a mistake. It violates the lean principle of minimal inventory and will most likely be wrong, just as traditional project planning is often wrong. Release planning is actually the development of a release strategy that is refined and adjusted throughout the process. A release strategy defines capabilities (not stories) and often includes a game plan for "spending" story points (or effort or money) to produce the most value. Dan Rawsthorne presents "rules of thumb" for developing a release strategy and spending game plan. During a guided exercise you'll practice using these rules, walk through an example release, and learn how to monitor and measure the release plan along the way.
Learn more about Dan Rawsthorne |
|
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Developing great software is accomplished through a system of increasingly complex interactions. Just as complex software will eventually become brittle, so too will complex work systems become fragile and break. So how do you keep your organization's work systems as flexible as the software you are developing? You must develop workers with skills to accept the challenge of continuously improving their work systems so that they deliver increasingly better customer outcomes. You must grow the people who understand your customers, decide what tests to run, write the code, keep up the cadence, deploy the software, and provide support. You need to build a team that constantly improves their work system so it delivers more value to customers. Mary and Tom Poppendieck discuss and demonstrate what relentless improvement means in practice. Return to your organization with the process improvement tools and lean thinking that are critical for making these tools successful.
Learn more about Mary and Tom Poppendieck |
|
  |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
How do you compare the productivity and quality you achieve with agile practices with that of traditional, more waterfall projects? Join Michael Mah to learn about both agile and waterfall metrics—and how these metrics behave in real projects. Learn how to use your own data to move from guesses on a whiteboard to realistic agile project trends on productivity, time-to-market, and defect rates. Using recent, real-world case studies, Michael offers an inside look at agile measurements, showing you these metrics in action. In hands-on exercises, you will learn how to replicate these techniques to make your own comparisons for time, cost, and quality. Working in pairs, calculate productivity metrics using the templates Michael employs in his consulting practice. You can leverage these new metrics to make the case for changing to more agile practices at your company. Take back new ways for communicating to key decision makers the value of implementing agile development practices.
 To take full advantage of this session, participants need to bring a laptop computer for metrics capture and productivity calculations.
Learn more about Michael Mah |
|
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
There’s no doubt about it—agile has gone mainstream. Short delivery iterations give organizations the means to incorporate change safely, reach go/no-go decisions early, and discover realistic team velocities. Managers can better determine if market windows can be reached—thus placing successful products in customers’ hands. What if the ground beneath the project team is changing rapidly even as it is trying to make progress? Pollyanna Pixton shares a collaboration model and iterative delivery process to help you succeed, even in unstable conditions. Pollyanna shares her ideas on creating an open environment, identifying the talent the team needs, managing risks, and creating team ownership to ensure great results. Among the skills you need are a collaborative, transparent leadership style; an approach to positively influence outcomes; and effective communication. From there, you need to know when to stand back and let things happen. Leave with some keys to successfully lead agile project teams—even in the midst of chaos.
Learn more about Pollyanna Pixton |
|
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
As a manager, you've probably heard of Scrum and may even know a Scrum Master or two on development teams. But what does Scrum mean for software, business, and project managers? Join Kenny Rubin in a lively, manager-focused discussion that will enhance your understanding of Scrum and your role in helping your organization get the most value from it. Succeeding with Scrum requires commitment and engaged support from project managers, development managers, functional-area managers, senior managers, and executives. Learn how Scrum interleaves exploration and exploitation to achieve the proper balance of predictability and adaptability for each project. Explore the details of the Scrum framework and understand the benefits that the effective use of Scrum can provide your organization. Discover the active role managers play in Scrum and see the results that other organizations are achieving with Scrum. Participate in a discussion of the common pitfalls when adopting Scrum—with a focus on the manager's role in promoting success. You'll come away with a firm grasp of Scrum fundamentals and an understanding of your role in making Scrum work for your organization.
Learn more about Kenny Rubin |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Sitting around the table with the Scrum Master and his development team, I quickly noticed Jack was the team's "big dog." Once he weighed in on a user story, discussion ceased, the team agreed with him, and they moved on. When I reconnected with this client two years later, I learned that after Jack had been transferred, the team's productivity almost doubled. Welcome to the "Uneven Participation" pattern. When one person or a small group dominates the team's interactions, that team often experiences serious problems because quieter team members fall by the wayside. The team loses valuable input and dialogue. Frustration sets in, and lack of buy-in creates false consensus—yet another dysfunctional agile team pattern. When these team patterns occur, they reduce the team's ability to deliver value to the organization. Don Gray shares the tell-tale signs of anti-team patterns and explores way to stop them in their tracks. Join Don and your peers to develop strategies for changing a team's dysfunctional patterns, improving the team's performance, and enhancing their job satisfaction.
Learn more about Don Gray |
|
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
If you've been managing projects for a while, you may not understand how an agile project works or your role in it. If you're accustomed to predicting the schedule, you may be puzzled by how to use empirical data to know the project's progress. If you are used to assigning the work, you may struggle with having people self-assign work in your new role as coach and facilitator. Without a Gantt chart, you may be perplexed and not know how to answer your management's question, "When will you be done?" Agile projects provide the project manager—and any other manager—more useful information than a serial-lifecycle project. Yet, it's difficult for many project managers to make the transition to agile because they don't know what they can or should do. In this experiential tutorial, Johanna Rothman uses a small problem to practice working on an agile project. Practice collecting the data—both quantitative and qualitative—that tells you how the project and the team are progressing. Learn how to assess the project's true state and be able to tell management when you will be done.
Learn more about Johanna Rothman |
|
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
When an agile project launches without adequate consideration of business needs and context, it risks sub-optimization, rework, waste, and failure. A smart project team mitigates these risks and develops a shared understanding of the project goals—all without slowing down the team. Join Sanjiv Augustine and Arlen Bankston to explore a practical framework for launching projects with just the right amount of exploration and elaboration. They share proven tools from Lean Six Sigma and agile management for creating and illustrating a compelling product vision and measuring it against desired business outcomes. Through interactive exercises, you'll explore practical agile management and lean tools for establishing a shared product vision with your team; defining and quantifying value with clear, business outcome-focused metrics; and generating a powerful one-page summary of a project's key goals as the foundation for project work.
Learn more about Sanjiv Augustine and Arlen Bankston |
|
  |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Leaders can stifle progress when they unnecessarily interfere with team processes. However, as a leader, you don't want your project to go over the cliff and fail miserably or deliver the wrong results either. There are times when leaders should stand back and let the team work things out for themselves—and other times when leaders should step up and really lead. How do you know which is which? Pollyanna Pixton focuses on collaboration as the key and teaches you how and when to step back and unleash the hidden talent in your organization and teams. Learn how to create an open environment that fosters innovation and creativity and how to let your team members take ownership and hold themselves accountable. Equally important, develop the techniques to step up and lead to keep the project on track without impeding the flow of ideas. Come away with tools to both motivate and guide teams and organizations effectively—and learn to master the balancing act of leadership.
Learn more about Pollyanna Pixton |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
In the nine years since the Agile Manifesto, the scope of agile development has grown dramatically from its developer-centric origins to touch all areas of software development. As the reach of agile has expanded, the practice of continuous integration (CI) has grown with it and now moves into operations in the form of continuous deployment practices. However, getting from CI to continuous deployment is not an overnight task. Paul Julius and Jeffrey Fredrick share their model for evaluating your CI maturity and charting your course to continuous deployment. Learn how more frequent releases can reduce risk, improve agility, and increase the value stream of development. Explore methods to overcome the organizational roadblocks that prevent continuous deployment from succeeding. Discover the building block elements you need to make continuous deployment serve all the stakeholders in your organization. Find out how C.R.I.S.P. builds, unit tests, and rollback strategies all have important parts to play in your continuous deployment system.
Learn more about Paul Julius and Jeffrey Fredrick |
|
  |
|
| |
|
Top of Page
|
|
|
 |
| | | |
