The principles articulated in the Agile Manifesto make a lot of sense to the software craftsman who dreams in code. They can, however, be quite puzzling to executives who consider Agile software in the context of their company’s established norms and patterns. Assumptions embedded in a business design with respect to customer relationship, competitive differentiation and value capture are not necessarily aligned with the principles advocated in the manifesto. Moreover, the core culture of a corporation might not be hospitable to Agile principles. Corporate culture basically specifies “how we do things around here in order to succeed.” Agile Principles challenge these norms.

The path an Agile roll-out should follow depends on the core culture of the corporation: control, competence, collaboration or cultivation. Irrespective of the specific culture, the Agile roll-out invariably tests cultural integration, wholeness and balance. In particular, it exposes inconsistencies between approach with customers versus approach toward other constituents of the corporation such as partners and employees. Consequently, corporate reactions to Agile often express the disappointment of an organization when it is forced to take a good look in the mirror.

Grass roots Agile initiatives can propel a company a long way. However, the creation and capture of long-term value is invariably linked to successful business design and coherent corporate culture. To succeed on a large scale, bottom-up Agile initiative must be complemented by top-down commitment to learn, change and keep a living company. It is the combination of the two, the willingness to apply Agile practices in an indivisible manner that will fulfill the premise of the manifesto.

Israel Gat is probably the most reflective executive I have personally had the pleasure of exchanging ideas with. If you don’t believe me, you can simply google his name and start reading to convince yourself from his interviews and writing. Or you can save time, and go straight to his blog. I recommend you start with ‘The Agile Leader‘ (and specfically ‘A Social Contract‘), because that is really what Israel embodies to me. Even with Israel’s accomplishments he remains extremely humble, approachable and willing to share.

A problem with the word “Agile” is that everyone already thinks they understand it at a gut level. Worse, everyone already thinks they’re agile in spirit. (After all, the thesaurus tells us the alternative is to be clumsy, stiff, slow, and dull.) So it’s too easy for people to feel free to launch into “doing Agile” without ever having a serious conversation about what that actually means.

This problem is easily fixed. We’ll just stop talking about “Agile” and start speaking of “artisanal retro-futurism crossed with team-scale anarcho-syndicalism.”  There is, I think, no danger that anyone will reflexively say, “Yes!  That’s just what I’ve been wanting to do all along!”

The new name does more than just encourage conversation. It encourages conversation about those very properties of Agile that have become obscure as Agile has been commodified. In this session, I’ll unpack the meanings of the new phrase and encourage you to rediscover what’s been lost.

Brian Marick (@marick) is an instigator and a dynamic speaker. He was one of the authors and signatories of the Agile Manifesto, was instrumental in the creation of the Gordon Pask award and is the author of three books (_The Craft of Software Testing_, _Everyday Scripting with Ruby_, and _RubyCocoa_).

Hopefully, he won’t leave us all hanging this time…

Speakers


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Attending


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Sponsor


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This will be a short workshop to unpack and examine the myriad ways team members can reflect, tune & adjust individual and team behavior: e.g., PDCA, retrospectives, Agile Artifact Review, Stand-ups, Pair debriefing, peer feedback, and more.

We will create new activities to help teams look at their behaviors, tune their teamwork, and practice or support their adjustments.

Diana Larsen (@DianaOfPortland) is the author of ‘Agile Retrospectives‘, a senior partner at FutureWorks consulting, and the chair of the Agile Alliance Board of Directors. I’m certain she has done some reflecting on Agile along the way (and was one of the only submitters that listed the principles that applied to each of her submissions without any prompting).

I’ve long held that true reflection is the key to a high functioning Agile team… simple, but not always easy. A practical workshop I’m looking forward to for sure!

Short iterations (as in Scrum / XP) or even continuous flow (as in Lean / Kanban) are an essential part of Agile planning. And yet there’s rarely much discussion of how these short iterations can actually be accomplished. Teams struggle with finding time to understand requirements, finish testing, and perform adequate design. They often have trouble getting work to “done done” and ready to release as a result.

This session reveals the secret sauce of Agile development: simultaneous phases. These techniques have been part of Agile from the beginning, but few teams are aware of them and even fewer practice them. In this highly interactive session, come experience how simultaneous phases allow you to avoid hacks like “requirements iterations,” “testing iterations,” or “refactoring stories,” and make short iterations and continuous flow possible.

James was an inaugural recipient of the prestigious Gordon Pask Award for Contributions to Agile Practice. He lives and breaths Agile and we are looking forward to learning how to finally avoid ‘Scrummerfall™’.

As part of the process, once we have selected a proposal and confirmed the speaker will be attending, the session will be announced and described in the blog.

We should do one every couple days until the full schedule is announced mid-May.

Sue McKinney is currently responsible for development transformational activities with IBM’s software development group. Her major emphasis is driving adoption of agile and lean principles into the mainstream of software development. Prior to this, Sue was a Vice President of Development for the Lotus Division where she led worldwide development for Lotus Domino, IBM Sametime, and WebSphere Portal. In addition to driving transformational activities within IBM, Sue works with large clients to share IBM’s experience and help them scope opportunities for their own transformational activities.

Israel Gat is a Senior Consultant with Cutter Consortium’s Agile Product & Project Management practice. He is recognized as the architect of the Agile transformation at BMC Software. Under his leadership, BMC Software development increased Scrum users from zero to 1,000 in four years. Dr. Gat’s executive career spans top technology companies, including IBM, Microsoft, Digital and EMC. He has led the development of products such as BMC Performance Manager and Microsoft Operations Manager, enabling the two companies to move toward next-generation system management technology.

Dr. Alistair Cockburn is a world-renowned expert in Agile development, having co-founded the Agile movement and co-authored the Agile Manifesto. Dr. Cockburn is the author of the Jolt award-winning books Writing Effective Use Cases and Agile Software Development. He has more than 30 years of experience leading projects around the world, in hardware and software, research and industry, in companies of all sizes and specialties. Much of his material is available online at http://alistair.cockburn.us.