Speakers
-
Linda RisingSpeaker, author, consultantlindarising.org
Linda Rising has a Ph.D. from Arizona State University in object-based design metrics and a background that includes university teaching and industry work in telecommunications, avionics, and strategic weapons systems. An internationally known presenter on topics related to patterns, retrospectives, agile development approaches, and the change process, Linda is the author of Design Patterns in Communications, The Pattern Almanac 2000, A Patterns Handbook, and Fearless Change, written with Mary Lynn Manns. Her website is lindarising.org.
Corey HainesSoftware Journeymancoreyhaines.com
After 12 years of coding for money, Corey Haines said enough and went on a year-long, journeyman pair-programming tour. Traveling the world, pair-programming for room and board, he spent his time teaching, learning and just living. Corey helps developers improve their fundamental software design skills through the use of focused-practice events, such as coderetreat. He trains teams on development technical practices, and builds projects and products when not on the road. His website is coreyhaines.com.
Israel GatDirector of Agile Product & Project Management PracticeCutter Consortium
Dr. Israel Gat is a Cutter Consortium Fellow and Director of the Agile Product & Project Management practice. He is recognized as the architect of the agile transformation at BMC Software where, under his leadership, Scrum users increased from zero to 1,000, resulting in nearly three times faster time to market than industry average and 20%-50% improvement in team productivity. Among other accolades for leading this transition, Dr. Gat was presented with an Innovator of the Year Award from Application Development Trends in 2006.
Niel NickolaisenCIOWestern Governors University
Niel Nickolaisen is the CIO at Western Governors University. He has held technology executive and operations executive positions; typically in turnaround roles. His strategic and tactical alignment model significantly improves returns on technology and business initiatives. He holds a MS in Engineering from MIT, a BS in Physics from Utah State University, and an MBA from Utah State University. He writes an enterprise CIO column for TechTarget. He is the co-author of Stand Back and Deliver: Accelerating Business Agility. CRN Magazine named Niel one of the top 25 IT Executives of 2008.
Arlo BelsheeSr. Program ManagerMicrosoft
Arlo does a little bit of everything, but what he really does is inspire courage. He has gone back and forth several times between management and in-the-trenches development on technically sophisticated products. He challenges every assumption he can find, and helps people learn to change – always and continuously. He has been involved in Agile since 1999. Yet he worked for 2 years in a rigorous, effective, and pro-people Waterfall development shop. He’s a strong believer in discipline and the agility that comes from it, in punctuated continuity, and in change as the only constant.
Steve BockmanTrainer & CoachAgile Learning Labs
Steve Bockman is an Agile trainer and coach who began his career in 1977 in a utility position, installing software packages for a manufacturer of business computers. Since then he has worked as a software developer in the fields of speech recognition, terrain analysis, computer graphics, desktop publishing, industrial automation and web applications. As the founder of North Bay Agile, a special interest group dedicated to the pursuit and study of Agile software development in the San Francisco North Bay, Steve continually strives to communicate the essence of Agile principles and practices to novices and advanced practitioners. Steve is also the originator of the Team Estimation Game, a technique for collaboratively estimating work effort.Mike BoniferCEOGamechangers
Mike Bonifer is the co-founder and CEO of GameChangers LLC, which uses improvisational game structure to help its clients collaborate, learn and transform. He is the author of GameChangers – Improvisation for Business in the Networked World. Previously, as publicist for the movie Tron, he wrote the book The Art of Tron. He was a founding producer of The Disney Channel; pioneered the use of video press kits; shot the first TV series (Disney Family Album) on Betacam; shot the first underwater Betacam (Splash); and produced Disney’s first movie website (Toy Story). He headed the creative departments for BoxTop Interactive and iXL at the height of the Dotcom era, when he helped develop groundbreaking internet projects for clients like The Smithsonian, Mountain Dew, and Merrill-Lynch Japan. He co-founded the live streaming media company, Network LIVE, and served as Chief Storyteller for the Live Earth concerts for the environment.Phil Borlin
NA
Jeremy BrownSQE ArchitectPingIdentity
I am Jeremy Brown and have 15 years’ experience with the many faces of software. I love writing code and breaking things so that fits nicely into Agile practices and concepts. My background is working with web and identity technologies across my career. I help to build the right teams to solve complex problems while shipping code(the best part). I’ve presented at many conferences on Agile Techniques and Agile Testing but most enjoy getting lost within the complex problems.
Tim BrownPrincipal ConsultantThoughtworks
Tim Brown is a Principal Consultant with ThoughtWorks, and leads the company's Continuous Delivery practice in the Americas. Most weeks you'll find him speaking about engineering practices, advising clients on software delivery challenges, and helping teams release software faster. As an early adopter of agile methods Tim has broad experience in leading local and distributed teams in continuous delivery, software development, and agile adoption. Prior to joining ThoughtWorks Tim spent over 15 years in technology leading both large and small teams - as engineer, architect, president,
John EsserDirector of Engineering Productivity and Agile DevelopmentAncestry.com
John is currently the Director of Engineering Productivity and Agile Development at Ancestry.com. John is the architect of Ancestry's cultural transformation to agile/lean software development practices and the adoption of continuous delivery. As Director of Engineering Productivity, John and his team provide tools, processes, and practices that accelerate the development and delivery of value to the customer. John is a 25 year veteran of the software industry and is passionate about creating world-class development organizations.
Jen BrowneSenior Director of Program ManagementVerisk Analytics
Jen Stone Browne works with Agile teams starting from the idea that Agile is not a methodology, it's a value system. Jen is a strong advocate of implementing Agile and Lean practices in IT Operations. Jen is a principal consultant with Cockburn & Associates.
Mike ClementSr. Software EngineerAncestry.com
I'm a husband, father of four and currently a Senior Software Engineer at Ancestry.com. I've worked at Microsoft, Caselle and a few other small companies. I'm an aspiring Software Craftsman as well as an aspiring Grill and Pit Master. I am one of the founding members and current organizers of the Utah Software Craftsmanship group (http://utahsc.org or @utahsc). You can find me on twitter @mdclement and on my blog at http://blog.softwareontheside.comJesse DowdleManager of DevelopmentAtTask
As Manager of Development at AtTask, Jesse Dowdle guides the engineering efforts of several teams in the U.S. and overseas. His diverse background includes prior work in curriculum development and video game design. Successful engineering at a face-paced startup requires constant research in emerging technologies. Jesse drives thought leadership on Continuous Integration, Automated Web Testing, and Process Enhancements to help AtTask ship software at lightning speed. Jesse is a native of Utah, where he enjoys fast cars in the summer and snowboarding in winter.Mike EricksonPrincipal ConsultantNeudesic
Mike Erickson has been professionally involved in technology for the past 20 years. He has worked on many platforms and with many programming languages. He has focused mostly on Microsoft tools and technologies for the past 13 years and holds several Microsoft certifications. He has worked as a consultant, architect and trainer for the past 12 years. He has worked in various industries and for clients throughout the United States and internationally.David FacerProduct ManagementHewlett-Packard
David is passionate about User Stories. He brings more than fifteen years of product management experience in telephony, software, and web-delivered product lines. Before joining Hewlett-Packard, David served as the Directory of Product Management at inContact, the leader in SaaS Contact Center solutions. There he drove a SOA approach to platform and integration strategy, and developed with his colleagues the Agile practices and product portfolio tools used daily in their Agile development methodology. At K12, Inc. David served as the Managing Director of K12’s foreign language division, d
Jonathan HouseChief Technology OfficerESCThul
At the tender age of 14 Jonathan engaged in his very first “software for hire” contract, for his father who needed a TRS-80 Basic program converted into an Apple II floating point Basic program. This was immediately followed by his first experience dealing with an impossible customer, and being grounded for a month. Over a career of darn near three decades Jonathan has been at various times a software tester, business analyst, clueless user, project manager, product manager, architect, programmer, and pointy haired boss. Watching the same mistakes made over and over again in the indust
Zhon JohansenIndependent Consultant
As a coach and facilitator, Zhon Johansen is interested in inspiring individuals, teams and companies to greatness. Zhon has been writing software for over 17 years. For the past 13 years, all of Zhon’s code has been written using TDD. In addition to delivering well tested code, he has studied, practiced, taught, and influenced companies to adopt Extreme Programming since 1999.
David AdsitSoftware CraftsmanPluralsight
Since his first introduction Apple II BASIC in the 4th grade, David Adsit enjoyed programming, but when he was introduced to TDD, his passion for code was really ignited. In the years since, he has worked to help build teams that build well tested software. Though many developers prefer to working on green field projects, David finds pleasure in helping a team rescue a ball of mud. As an active member of the local .NET, Ruby, and Software Craftsmanship communities, he has spoken at local Code Camps and user groups about strategies for introducing testing into legacy code. Currently, he works f
Nate JonesDirector of Product ManagementAmirsys
Nate has been an active member of the Utah Agile community for over a decade, including helping found and organize the Agile Roots conference. His background in development, visual and user experience design, and corporate branding gives him a unique perspective in his current role as Director of Product Management at Amirsys, Inc.Travis LaFleurVP EngineeringuGenius
NA
Sean LandisArchitectOverstock.com
Sean is the author of Agile Hiring - Transform how you hire software professionals. He has 25 years hiring experience in startups and multi-national corporations. Sean is a practicing developer who brings his agile development knowledge to the art of hiring. He teaches courses in expert hiring, and is a member of Toastmasters International, and has presented and trained all over the world. Sean blogs about hiring and getting hired at http://profoundly-random-landis.blogspot.com/.Willem LarsenPresidentLanguage Hunters
Willem Larsen has spent that past 15 years designing cutting-edge group learning tools—at the Oregon Zoo, OMSI, Tryon Creek State Park, and the Eddy Foundation Land Trust. He was a founding partner of Cascadia Wild! and a founding member of TrackersNW. Through his work in environmental education and local natural history, Willem came to realize that endangered indigenous languages are storehouses of priceless ecological knowledge, and this led to the development of Language Hunting. Willem has presented Language Hunting at many innovative and Agile gatherings such as AgilePDX, Agile 2011 in
Catherine LouisFoundercll-group.com
Catherine's focus is on helping organizations transition from traditional (waterfall) project-driven governance to adopting Agile/Scrum in a Lean, continuous flow framework. Her focus is not just on the R&D development teams, rather it is on the end-to-end flow from the "idea" phase at the front-end of development, through to full support of large, multi-customer based established products involving Channel Partners, Supply Management, Operations and Offshore partners. Catherine has over 20 years of software development experience in complex product development in large telecommunication fi
Linda LuuExperience DesignerThoughtWorks
Linda Luu is a Lead Experience Designer at ThoughtWorks with over 12 years experience in product development, strategy and user centered design. At ThoughtWorks Linda is an interaction designer and coaches projects in agile design. This ‘little Aussie battler’ is passionate about designing technically feasible solutions that delight users and delivers bottom line results. Linda mentors design students in Italy studying at the Institute of Design at Stanford. The students are part of the Business Processes Design class working on a design challenge for Reggio Children, an organization whose
Francisco MartinExperience DesignerThoughtWorks
Francisco Martin (franciscojosemartin.com) is an engineer (M.Sc. Information Technology, Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago) and M. Sc. C.S., Technical University of Madrid) and entrepreneur. Francisco has extensive experience in delivering business value by creating engaging customer experiences. Francisco Martin is currently an Experience Designer and UI Developer at Thoughtworks. Francisco’s passion is breaking down traditional barriers between designers and developers to create energy charged collaborative working environments and ‘think outside of the box’ solutions using his
Gino MarckxDirector, Agile Practice CanadaEPAM Systems
Gino Marckx has a wealth of experience in software development processes, Agile software development, Scrum, XP, coaching, and business analysis. As the Director of the Agile Practice at EPAM Systems Canada, he is responsible for the development and promotion of the Agile+ program. Gino is co-founder of the Toronto Agile Software Development Community and is co-organizer of AgileTour Toronto. He is actively involved as a participant and speaker in a number of Agile user groups, especially in the Greater Toronto Area. He likes to spend his spare time with family and friends enjoying cycling, travel, art, music, poetry and bragging about the supreme quality of Belgian beer.
Mike MooreRuby Guy
Mike Moore hacks for himself and others through his company HumaneCode. He organizes conferences, is an occasional podcaster, part-time purveyor of Ruby-themed apparel, and tries to be a nice guy. He loves his family and the Ruby community. You should hire him. http://blowmage.com/ http://humanecode.com/ http://twitter.com/blowmage http://github.com/blowmage
Ronica RothCertified Scrum Trainer & Solutions EvangelistRally Software
Ronica brings incomparable energy and passion to teaching and facilitating Agile principles and practices. Her mission is to build learning organizations that honor the individual, give everyone the chance to do what they do best, and harness the power of team to amplify great work and produce great software. Throughout her software career, and particularly since beginning to adopt Agile practices in 2003, Ronica has helped business and technology people collaborate daily to plan and prioritize projects and backlogs for value, quality, and innovation. As a business analyst and product owner
Aaron SandersCo-founderComakers
I focus on helping organizations deliver high-value products to market in a continuously improving, sustaining flow. As an accomplished and passionate software developer, I applied my skills at making all types of software applications on all types of teams. Looking for a better way to do business, I learned of Agile early in the naughties (that's 2000-and-something), and incorporated the principles where I worked. We were empowered to change the development method completely, aligning to business goals and customer expectations. I continue to learn, share and implement ideas to shepherd organ
Stephan SchwabIndependent Consultant
Stephan Schwab started writing code sometime back in 1981. Since then he has worked on a large number of different platforms using about 20 different programming languages. His own successful failures and those of others made him realize that all too often organizations create software that solves the wrong problem. His current work focuses on activities and how software can be created that better allows people to perform what they want to do. Stephan, a German national, has been living in many countries and recently moved to the U.S. He blogs about software development and farm life with hZach ShawDirector of Software DevelopmentIcosystem
Zach Shaw is the organizer of the Boston Software Craftsmanship Group, a group dedicated to finding interesting ways for programmers to educate themselves. He also has a blog where you can find a number of his 1/2 baked ideas - http://zdsbs.blogspot.com/.Maciej SkierkowskiDirector of ProductAppFog
Maciej Skierkowski is the Director of Product at AppFog, where he manages the product and customer development process — where by day, he builds a great developer experience and by night he codes for fun. Prior to AppFog, Maciej spent over five years as a program manager at Microsoft, working on Azure AppFabric Services and the Windows Communication Foundation. He began his career as a developer and worked at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory and Monet Web Solutions LLC building applications.
John ThorntonEngineer / Smalltalk EvangelistMoneyDesktop
JohnnyT (a.k.a. John Thornton) has been developing web applications for 15 years, the last 7 of which have been in Ruby. He was converted to Smalltalk in 2010 after looking into MagLev and discovering the magical world of GemStone/S powering it all. He works on Amber Smalltalk and SubWars (a GPS based submarine game) to scratch his Smalltalk itch and earns his living working for MoneyDesktop in Provo, Utah.
Kay JohansenSr. Development ManagerAncestry.com
Kay Johansen has experienced unforgettably rewarding team dynamics when teams apply agile principles to software development, testing, and management. She’s excited to contribute back to the agile community in some small way through the Agile Roots conference. She believes that work, freedom and fellowship are fundamental to the human purpose and appreciates the agile community’s contribution to her richness of life.
Ghennipher WeeksCMOVascular Health Sciences
Ghennipher Weeks is Chief Marketing Officer at Vascular Health Sciences. She has spent the past 13 years as a marketer working closely with IT teams to increase cross-functional collaboration, and helps teams excel in delivering great results quickly.David BradfordDirector of IT/Software Cluster and InnovationUtah Governor's Office of Economic Development
David E. Bradford has recently joined the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) as the Director of the IT/Software Cluster and Innovation. In this role, David will be responsible for developing the overall GOED strategy to assist the IT/Software industry in Utah move forward through coordination and collaboration with the industry, investment, non-profit, and educational institutions. Prior to joining the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, David worked as the Vice President of Finance, Strategy, and Business Development for Virtual Immersive Educational Worlds (The V.I.E.W. ), a Utah-based 3-D online education platform providing unique 3-D learning platforms to corporations, higher education and K-12 institutions. At The V.I.E.W., David successfully created an overall company sales, marketing, and go-to-market strategy. He also led business development and fundraising efforts within the angel investment and venture capital community for the firm.Bill YetmanDirector of EngineeringAncestry.com
Daniel VezinaCEOMedAnalytics
Brad HeitmannDirector of StrategyKoombea
Gil Nahmias
Gil Nahmias has recently joined Microsoft after 4 years of Agile coaching. Agile coaching gave him an empiric interface with dozens of companies, hundreds of teams, and enabled him to study, compare and find what’s really working and what’s to avoid. Gil is passionate about distilling the art of human communication: NLP, negotiation skills, servant leadership, body language and more. Focused on forging team spirit with the customer, he keeps helping IT companies grow and enthusiastically spreading the word.
Pat MaddoxLover of dogs, code, music, foodpatmaddox.com
Pat got into Rails pretty much from the get-go, not long after it was made publicly available for programmers to use. Since then he's worked on a dozen or so production Rails apps, and written countless toy and experimental apps. These days he helps build the technology at goldstar.com. Pat is a member of the RSpec core team and is working on a book on BDD and RSpec. His motto is CLEAN CODE FOR LIFE. His website is patmaddox.com.