Last time, I covered Day 1 of the Agile 2015 conference. This time, I’ll share hilights for Day 2. Most of this day I spent focusing on my AgileFlorida.com presentation and helping my colleague Sarah with her Rewire your Brain talk. I did find time to hangout in Open Jam and still attend other sessions noted below.
Clarification: There were several great talks that seem to have no slides posted anywhere on the web yet. I may add them if I find the slides. Some were purely interactive and had no slides. Let’s hope videos are posted later.
DON’T MISS
NOTE: This was not in the original post on August 17 and was added on August 24.
Industry Analyst Panel Discussion: Agile Trends and Future Directions
If you check out one thing from this day, this would be the event.
Agile Alliance recording of panel (63min)
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KEY CONCEPTS
Things you should know within the agile community. These are sessions that you should be familiar with the concepts as they have been in the agile community for a while.
Being Agile: Having the Mind-set that Delivers (Gil Broza) (slides on the Agile2015 site)
Gil touches on the key values and principles that make up an agile mindset. Based on his new book.
Agile Alliance interview ( 15min)
Agile Productivity (Bill Wake, Tim Ottinger) (slides on the Agile2015 site)
Tim and Bill help us rethink productivity and find some better ways to measure the progress of agile teams. Glad I attended this one and highly recommend it.
SIQ interview with Tim (9.5min) (now for something completely different)
Eat Risks for Breakfast! (Mike Griffiths) (slides on the Agile2015 site)
Mike is one of the bridge builders between the agile and traditional worlds. This presentation shows how you can build on the PMBOK concepts of risk through an agile interpretation.
Three Things You MUST Know to Transform Any Sized Organization into an Agile Enterprise (Mike Cottmeyer)
Mike and his coaches at Leading Agile are a growing group of specialists that help large-scale organizations on a pragmatic journey to agile transformation. You may be interested in their approach at http://www.leadingagile.com/our-compass/ and http://www.leadingagile.com/the-journey/
Slides on LeadingAgile site and Slideshare
Agile Alliance interview (27min)
Thawing the “Frozen Middle” (Em Campbell-Pretty)
Slides
Photos of the Empathy Maps produced during this session can be downloaded from: http://bit.ly/Agile2015EmpathyMaps
Some would say middle management is the key to an agile transformation. Em talks about how to unfreeze that frozen middle.
Our business pipeline is broken (Salah Elleithy, George Dinwiddie)
(slides on the Agile2015 site)
Sarah and George show how to use Drum-Buffer-Rope from Theory Of Constraints to look at where your business pipeline may need unclogging.
Introduction to Agile Requirements: User Stories, Backlogs, & Beyond (Ellen Gottesdiener) (slides on the Agile2015 site)
Ellen takes us beyond user stories and backlogs to survey other tools available in understanding our customers’ needs.
SIQ interview (13min) http://www.solutionsiq.com/resources/agile-requirements-user-stories-backlogs-beyond-ellen-gottesdiener-at-agile-2015/
Introduction to Agile Leadership: Recognizing and Removing Impediments (Thomas Perry)
Awesome, informative, and funny overview of impediments, comparison to risks and tools for handling with care.
EMERGING IDEAS
Interesting new concepts to learn and follow
Agile Passionfruits: Growing Agile Champion capability through a Learning Culture (Renee Troughton)
Renee describes her 10 week approach for training agile leaders that helps amplify an agile mindset.
Visioning – the Practical Art and Artful Practice of Conceiving Complex Products (Alan Goerner)
Very unique approach to vision and evaluating value proposition.
User group dying? Time to build a state-wide learning network! (Mark Kilby, Stephanie Davis)
This is the talk I gave with Stephanie Davis of Tampa Bay Agile and Rick Regueira of South Florida Agile Association to talk about how our 3 groups collaborate across the state of Florida.
SIQ interview (8min)
A Systems Approach to Modern Leadership (Matt Barcomb)
Like Esther Derby, Diana Larsen, Mike Cohn and others, Matt shows how to leverage the concepts of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) to gain new insights into leading change in your organization.
Slides
Blow the ‘Self-Sealing Logic’ Bubble (Oana Juncu) (slides on the Agile2015 site)
Oana shows how to leverage concepts of Liminal Thinking to break out of group thinking and see new insights within your organization and it’s continuous change.
Rewire Your Brain: Practices to Use Brain Plasticity to Become a Better Coach (Sarah Baca) (slides on the Agile2015 site)
My co-organizer of Agile Orlando, Sarah, shows you how different parts of your brain come into play during stressful situations and how you can be more aware to adjust your responses.
Technical Excellence Doesn’t Just Happen–Igniting a Craftsmanship Culture (Allison Pollard, Mike Rieser) (slides on the Agile2015 site)
Not a new concept, but Allison and Mike provide a wealth of ideas that they have tried to build up a craftsmanship culture.
Reinventing Organizations – Enterprise Agility (Olaf Lewitz, Michael Sahota) (slides on the Agile2015 site)
Frequent collaborators, Olaf and Michael, introduce us to Fred Laloux’ book “Reinventing Organizations” and related concepts to help individuals and organizations shift a more agile mindset
Agile Alliance interview (21min) https://vimeo.com/135750233
Are We Doomed to Sticky, Tricky, & Icky?: Women and Men Working Together on Agile Teams (Sharon Buckmaster, Diana Larsen) (slides on the Agile2015 site)
Over the last year, Sharon and Diana have been reflecting on issues facing women in technology on their excellent podcast. In this talk, the shine a big community spotlight. I hope this one was recorded.
Agile Alliance interview (18min)
Diana’s Agile Fluency interview later in the week (18min)
8 Years Agile – From Startup ScrumMaster to Agile Coaching Group at a company of 500. (Heidi Helfand)
In this experience report, Heidi talks about her early days as a scrum master through coaching agile coaches. It’s a great story on the evolution of coaching career.
Member discussion: