agile transition

Conference Presentations

Ready and Fit: Adopting Agile in Highly Regulated Environments
Slideshow

If you live and work in a highly regulated environment (HRE)-medical devices, DoD and its contractors, nuclear energy, or other life-critical systems-this session is for you. For the past three years, the SEI has been researching agile and lean adoptions in the US Department of Defense. Suzanne Miller presents the organizational and cultural factors they identified as most important for development organizations to demonstrate when embarking on an agile adoption program. In the SEI's technology transition research, Suzanne and her team found that the more closely an organization meets the readiness and fit criteria, the more likely it is that the adoption will succeed. Suzanne discusses the risks and challenges that agile adoption presents to HREs, and presents ways to mitigate risks and overcome challenges.

Suzanne Miller, Software Engineering Institute
Ade Shokoya Adding Lean to Agile or Vice Versa: An Interview with Ade Shokoya

Ade Shokoya has interviewed some of the industry's leading agile experts, and we got the chance to interview Ade himself about the current relationship between agile and lean and the challenges and rewards of being a ScrumMaster in today's software world.

Noel Wurst's picture Noel Wurst
Making Agile Work for Government: Addressing the Challenges of Agile Adoption

Erich Knausenberger and Raj Shah examine the challenges of implementing earned value management and program management to implementing agile for government IT. Then, the authors propose a “blended-approach” by which government and other large entities can address these and other challenges.

Erich Knausenberger's picture Erich Knausenberger
Mitch Lacey The Agile and Scrum Mindsets: An Interview with Mitch Lacey

Mitch Lacey recently took the time to speak with us ahead of his 2012 Agile Development Conference session titled “Understanding Scrum: An Experiential Workshop.” Mitch shared with us how truly understanding scrum and agile allows for a smooth transition and effective results.

Noel Wurst's picture Noel Wurst
Enterprise Agile: From the Top Down

Now that agile has gone mainstream, team-level development is not the only way organizations are implementing agile. Some senior management teams are trying to understand how they can implement agile-and lean-principles and practices from the top down. Jon Stahl demonstrates agile and lean techniques applied in a new way with certain constraints. With these techniques, your organization can begin its journey toward becoming an agile enterprise. However, before beginning, it is important that management “see the whole”-customers, projects, applications, people, leadership, financials, and standard work products-and start implementing and practicing the culture they wish to create. To help PMOs support this journey, Jon shares some guiding principles that can be applied to both agile and waterfall approaches.

Jon Stahl, LeanDog Software, Inc.
Ten Things You Absolutely Must Know before Touching Agile with a Barge Pole

As agile continues to grow in popularity, more organizations are experiencing the frustration and pain that accompany attempts to move from traditional to agile practices. With that pain comes the awareness that organizational and cultural change is essential to an agile adoption strategy. Ade Shokoya shares proven approaches for “selling agile” to senior management, colleagues, and all business stakeholders. Ade offers up what he calls “stealth agile” as a catalyst for organizational change. You’ll learn about the three personality types essential to successful agile transformation initiatives and how to avoid the common agile mistake that could cost you your job and/or reputation. Take back a guide to determine the agile transformation strategy best suited to your organization’s size and culture.

Ade Shokoya, AgileTV
The Science of Lean

Science is the building and organizing of knowledge into testable explanations and predictions about the world; lean is an approach which recognizes and leverages many scientific discoveries to enable faster flow, higher value, and greater capability. When thinking about opportunities for continuous improvement, science and lean should go hand in hand. Karl Scotland explores some of the science behind lean-from mathematics to neuroscience-in order to explain why and predict how various practices can have a positive impact on the way we work. Gain a deeper understanding of both the science of lean and how to take a scientific approach to learning in order to reap the benefits of paying attention to people, process, and economics. Leave with richer insights into why and how lean approaches work, and the ability to apply the science-and a scientific approach-to your own teams and organizations.

Karl Scotland, Rally Software Development
Signs Your Agile Adoption Is Off Track-And How to Fix It

Adopting agile is often a difficult proposition with many variables and sometimes uneven results. Recognizing when your adoption isn't working well and taking pro-active actions to put it back on track are essential. So, how do you know if your adoption is proceeding through rough but expected waters or running the risk of failing? Thomas Stiehm describes the signs of serious adoption problems and the steps you can take to fix them. Leveraging ten years of experience helping teams adopt agile, Tom walks through the many successes and failures he’s seen and, more importantly, the mistakes companies and people made that led to those failures. Learn the remediation steps you can take to re-energize and re-center your adoption efforts. Don’t let small missteps cascade into failure. Instead, join in and take back an action plan that’s sure to increase the odds of making your agile adoption a win for you, your teams, and your company.

Thomas Stiehm, Coveros, Inc.
Agile Metrics: Velocity Is Not the Goal

Velocity is one of the most common metrics used-and one of the most commonly misused-on agile projects. Velocity is simply a measurement of speed in a given direction-the rate at which a team is delivering toward a product release. As with a vehicle en route to a particular destination, increasing the speed may appear to ensure a timely arrival. However, that assumption is dangerous because it ignores the risks with higher speeds. And while it’s easy to increase a vehicle’s speed, where exactly is the accelerator on a software team? Michael “Doc" Norton walks us through the Hawthorne Effect and Goodhart’s Law to explain why setting goals for velocity can actually hurt a project's chances. Take a look at what can negatively impact velocity, ways to stabilize fluctuating velocity, and methods to improve velocity without the risks.

Michael Norton, LeanDog
Designing Agility Practices that Last

Every day more agile practices and styles emerge, overlap, and compete. This proliferation challenges you to choose from among XP, Scrum, lean, Kanban, or the ways of the emerging Lean Start Up crowd. Rather than stumbling down one path or another, join David Hussman as he shares tools for assessing and designing an agile process with practices that address your specific needs and constraints. David starts by teaching a simple assessment process to help you understand where you are today. Then, he offers ideas for selecting a meaningful set of practices and moves on to teach you how to create a meaningful and measurable coaching plan. David covers the selection of product planning tools, iterative delivery tools, tracking tools, and more. If you want to clear the fog about which agile practice will really help you, come for some answers. Even if you don’t yet know what questions to ask, David can help.

David Hussman, DevJam

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