Agile 2016 | July 25 – 29 Atlanta, GA

What’s hot besides the weather? The Agile 2016 program!

Wow – The Agile 2016 program has been announced and there are SO MANY good sessions it will be hard to choose what to attend! Four of us from Winterboer Agile Analytics are attending, and will be splitting up to participate in as many sessions as we can. Since I was going through the full program to decide where to spend my time, I decided to capture some notes and share them with you, in case it helps you decide how to spend your time at Agile 2016! Sessions we are looking to attend or can recommend to others:

Starting with Monday, July 25:

Learning from Bad Examples – Readability and Python (Bryan Beecham, Tim Ottinger)
Bryan and Tim are always entertaining and very smart – and I learn a lot from every interaction with them. When I first met Bryan at a shared client last year and learned he was really into XP technical practices, I told him all about a great session on pair programming I’d seen at RallyON 2013 – and it turns out it was HIM AND TIM who led that session!!! He’d worn a hat at RallyON and wasn’t wearing a hat when I met him – that’s my excuse for not recognizing him 😉

Building the Business Case for DevOps (Kathryn Kuhn, Christine Hudson)
DevOps practices and technologies are incredibly important for agile enablement, and all require a business case for funding and support.

Agile in name only: It’s not a problem, it’s a solution (Matthew Carlson)
Decoupling is “where the vocabularies of agile were used but inspection and adaptation were hollow” and how “…decoupling is actually a solution to underlying conflicts which need to be identified and managed before agile will be accepted.”

Modernizing Government: How Agencies Became Awesome Places to Work using Holacracy & Scrum (Paul Takken, Joe Justice)
Joe Justice is a dynamic speaker who grabbed my attention at Mile High Agile 2013 where he presented on WikiSpeed (if you don’t know what this is you MUST check it out!)

Servant *Learner*ship: Exploring Teacher, Student & Community to grow better Agile Coaches (Lyssa Adkins, Timothy Meyers)
Lyssa’s instruction and mentorship has had a profound impact on my career. This session provides a real-life example of someone growing from ScrumMaster to highly effective agile coach.

Being Agile to become Customer centric (Angel Diaz-Maroto Alvarez)
Anything with “customer centric” in the title will always grab my attention.

Scrabbling To Find A Good Agile Game? Which Should Be Uno On Your List? (Tom Grant)
Tom is my go-to guy for anything related to serious games. He’s a strong presenter with really valuable ideas, and I learn from him every chance I get.

A Millennial’s Perspective on Software Craftsmanship (Ajay Fewell, Jesse Fewell)
Brilliant idea for a session! Jesse is a smart dude, and I’m sure this will be a strong presentation.

Strong-Style Pairing (Llewellyn Falco, Maaret Pyhäjärvi)
I know Llewellyn as a champion of pair-programming and look forward to seeing how he and Maaret guide team members in this important practice.

Deploying a Data-Centric Approach to Enterprise Agility (Jorgen Hesselberg, Rajan Seriampalayam)
Okay, so it has the word “data” in the title – of course that got my attention. Beyond that, I’ve seen some strong agility in my work with Intel and I want to know more about how they measure their agile journey. I am also curious to ask them about avoiding undesired behavior based on what they measure – I’ve seen lots of teams do unproductive backflips to make their measurements look good, all the while countering the intention of an agile practice.

How to be Agile in Non-IT Organizations – Breaking the Software Constraint (Jake Calabrese)
I’ve known Jake for a long time. He’s dynamic, intelligent, and highly entertaining. I love that “Agile” is moving beyond IT and into the broader world.

My Own Personal Leanness (Catherine Swetel)
Personal Kanban literally changed my life, helping me become happier, calmer, and more productive.

Everything is important RIGHT NOW! How do I determine a Minimum Viable Product? (Jenny Swan, Amanda Tygart)
“This workshop will give the tools for any team, using any methodology, and at any maturity level, to discuss Minimum Viable Product.”

Critically Thinking Your Design DNA (Kupe Kupersmith)
Kupe Kupersmith gave a wonderful presentation on product ownership some years ago, and I have kept my eyes peeled for more of his work since then.

Introduction to Agile Testing: Everyone Owns Quality (Matthew Heusser)
Such an important topic.

Insights and Connections: Using Sense Making to Think & Decide in Uncertainty (Lynne Cazaly)
Lynne led a great session years ago on visual note-taking and I’ve been a subscriber to her newsletter ever since. I really enjoy the way she thinks and expresses ideas.

The Agile Database Techniques Stack: Bridging the Agile/Data Cultural Divide (Scott Ambler)
It’s SCOTT AMBLER! I always make a point of going to his sessions, and this one will be particularly interesting: “Data is the lifeblood of our organizations, supporting real-time business processes and decision making. It is crucial to the success of software development, and to our organization as a whole, that we apply agile and lean strategies to data-oriented activities.”

#StopTheMimimi: from victim to protagonist (Erica Briones Graciano)
We often run into teams, and leaders especially, who want the benefits of Agile without really changing anything. This session speaks to that issue: “The reality is, if you need ideal conditions to apply your principles, they aren’t principles, they are conveniences. Change happens from inside out, examples speak louder than words, the agile culture fosters protagonists, not victims. If you believe that the agile way is the path to follow, then the question you should ask yourself is: how can I make it happen?”

Leadership is an Extreme Sport (Em Campbell-Pretty)
If you are, or want to be, an Agile leader, then you NEED to follow Em Campbell-Pretty. The ideas she shares are based on her own deep experience, as well as an amazing amount of personal research. I first met Em in Boulder, CO in 2013 – I was walking down the street and saw a woman half a block ahead of me wearing a shirt with “World’s Best Agile Data Warehousing Team” on the back! I ran to catch up to her, and insisted that we should know each other. After she got over the shock of practically being tackled on a street in a foreign country (Em is from Australia), she graciously agreed to have lunch the next day. Her RallyON presentation was fantastic and set the standard for agile data warehousing team transformations going forward.

Agile Testing Maturity – What does “Good” Look Like? (Bob Galen)
Bob’s sessions tend to be full of good examples and concrete ideas for taking the next step in your agile journey.

You Can’t Fix What You Can’t See: Visualizations that Spark Conversation and Change (David Hussman)
Ever since I first met David at the Intel Agile Lean Conference in 2013 I have enjoyed his sessions and find I come away with a completely new way of looking at things. He’s very entertaining, too!

Scaling Without Frameworks – Ultimate Software Experience Report (Prateek Singh, Daniel Vacanti)
I’m not only a huge fan of Daniel Vacanti’s work, but also of Kanban as both an agile practice and a way to run a successful company. This case study of how this company has leveraged Kanban will be fascinating. “Ultimate has been on “Fortune’s 25 Best Companies to Work For” list for the past 5 years and was named “#1 Best Company to Work For in Tech” this year.”

Didn’t I say there are a lot of amazing sessions this year at Agile 2016? I’ve only covered Monday’s sessions! My next post will cover all of the Agile 2016 events scheduled for Tuesday, July 26.

Q: Which events are you attending? Do you want to connect? Tweet me @agilelynn and let’s connect.
Q: Which events do you recommend and why?

UPDATE:

Done! Check out the lineup for Tuesday, July 26 @ Agile 2016.