Agile + DevOps USA 2024 - Teams & Leadership
Sunday, October 13
Agile & DevOps Leadership—ICAgile Certification
Agile Fundamentals - ICAgile Certified Professional (ICP)
Monday, October 14
Facilitating Team Decisions
One of the agile manifesto principles is “Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.” Tricia Broderick wishes this principle was written to say, motivated teams. Because leaders giving the environment and support for individuals to make team decisions is anything but trivial. Achieving effective decisions goes beyond bringing people together for consensus. This approach may lead to groupthink or repeating decision meetings. Instead, leaders facilitate collaboration by building and tapping into the co-...
Product Ownership 2.0: Navigating the New Demands of Agile Leadership
Many agile organizations wildly misunderstand the crucial role of the Product Owner. Historically the role focused on being the voice of the customer for a development team. However, the exponential pace of the digital age requires today's Product Owners to be genuine product leaders by maintaining continuous alignment with broader groups of stakeholders while utilizing sophisticated techniques that solicit rapid feedback. This interactive tutorial will explore tools for communicating with the Product Owner's three primary constituents - Leadership, Customers, and Development Teams. First...
Designing (Much) Better Agile Meetings
Many teams have been following the same few patterns for facilitating sessions such as daily scrums, sprint reviews, retrospectives, and backlog refinement events for decades now. However, while these well-trodden approaches can be good starting points, there are ways to make them tremendously more effective with minimal effort. You will learn to design agile meetings that account for your particular circumstances and goals while wasting as little time as possible. First, Arlen will cover: exploring the true purpose of agile meetings – Is the daily scrum more about status or planning? Is...
Leading Change
Leading change requires something other than issuing directives and using checklists to validate execution. As much as I love a checkmark, no one wants the role of "did you do it?" over and over. Leaders have significant influence on whether a change is understood, embraced and retained within the organization. In this deep dive session, discover and examine the aspects necessary for creating and building a culture of change and resilience. Expect to walk away with practical alternatives to the dreaded "trust but verify" implementation approaches.
Badass Agile Coaching Skills for Everyone
Some perspectives imply that Agile Coaching is for a small set of specialized agilists who serve to improve everyone else or that it’s a unique role that others, including managers and leaders, shouldn’t do or will find difficult to master. This talk intends to debunk those notions by illustrating the power and impact of Agile Coaching skills for everyone. In this workshop, Bob Galen will explore the nuance associated with Agile Coaching to demystify it. He’ll share and explore the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel as a competency model for agile coaching. We’ll do a deep dive into the critical...
Tuesday, October 15
Creating a High-Performance Agile Team
Many teams have a relatively easy time adopting the tactical aspects of agile methodologies. Usually, a few classes, some tools’ introduction, and a bit of practice lead teams toward fairly efficient execution. However, these teams are quite often simply going through the motions—neither maximizing their agile performance nor delivering as much value as they could. Borrowing from their experience and lean software development methods, Bob Galen and Mary Thorn explore high-performance team patterns, which are the thinking models of mature agile teams, including large-scale emergent...
Agile Project Failures: Root Causes and Corrective Actions
Agile initiatives always begin with high expectations—accelerate delivery, meet customer needs, and improve software quality. The truth is that many agile projects do not deliver on some or all of these expectations. If you want help to ensure the success of your agile project or to get an agile project back on track, this tutorial is for you. Jeffery Payne discusses the most common causes of agile project failure and how you can avoid these issues or mitigate their damaging effects. Poor project management, ineffective requirements development, failed communications, software development...
The Craft of Highly Effective Agile Leadership
Based on the learning objectives from the iCAgile, Leading with Agility workshop, this ½ day version will explore the craft of agile leadership in guiding your journey to becoming a catalyst leader. Along the way, we'll explore the why of leading with agility, how to develop and grow your personal agility, tactics for developing and deepening your organizational relationships, and approaches for leading cultural and organizational transformation. Critical topics include your responsibility in shaping a culture that is inclusive, safe, empowered, aligned, and results/impact-focused. We also...
Wednesday, October 16
Integration of Automated Testing into DevOps
Nowadays, Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) are essential parts of software development lifecycle and are considered imperative to successful software releases. The key challenge for most organizations is the inability to successfully execute and establish Continuous Deployment throughout their process. In order to implement Continuous Deployment, it is necessary to treat DevOps as a culture and mindset, rather than specific teams in businesses. In this session, Arash will demonstrate how to overcome this challenge by integrating test automation into worlds of...
Streamlining Enterprise Application Deployment: Unifying CI/CD Automation with GitHub Copilot
During the session, Mala will address the challenge of enhancing operational efficiency and customer satisfaction through optimized CI/CD deployment processes, exemplified by DocuSign Inc.'s strategic collaboration with GitHub's Copilot ecosystem. She will delve into key focus areas such as automating deployments and establishing robust branching strategy and governance practices. For instance, she will explore how DocuSign leverages Infrastructure as Code to automate provisioning and configuration of infrastructure components, ensuring consistency across diverse deployment environments....
Lightning Strikes the Keynotes
Throughout the years, Lightning Talks have been a popular part of the Agile + DevOps conferences. If you’re not familiar with the concept, Lightning Talks consists of a series of five-minute talks by different speakers within one presentation period. Lightning Talks are the opportunity for speakers to deliver their single biggest bang-for-the-buck idea in a rapid-fire presentation. And now, lightning has struck the Agile + DevOps keynotes. Some of the best-known experts in software engineering will step up to the podium and give you their best shot of lightning. Get multiple keynote...
Thursday, October 17
Designing Agile Plays in a Complex Organization
In today's fast-paced business environment, organizations are constantly seeking ways to adapt and thrive amidst complexity. Agile methodologies offer a powerful framework for managing this complexity, but implementing agile practices in a complex organization can be challenging. This presentation explores the concept of "agile plays" as a strategic approach to implementing agile in complex organizations. Drawing on real-world examples and best practices, we will delve into the key principles and strategies for designing and implementing effective agile plays. Topics covered will include:...
5 Tools for Navigating Regulatory and Risk Mitigation in Agile Processes
In today's highly regulated landscape, organizations encounter numerous hurdles in risk management and regulatory compliance. Regulations are constantly emerging and changing. New risks are emerging all the time and we seek to improve our risk posture with ongoing, internal control improvements. This presentation unveils S&P Global's strategies for seamlessly integrating cross-portfolio regulatory and risk mitigation work into Agile processes. Jennifer will delve into five actionable tips that leverage Agile processes to solve this challenge. The session will address the challenges of...
Navigating the Path to Agile Excellence: Metrics that Matter in DevOps Transformation
PreviewIn today's rapidly evolving tech landscape, transitioning to agile and DevOps practices is crucial for organizational growth. However, many teams struggle to gauge their progress effectively within these methodologies. In this insightful session, Cholette will explore the key metrics that drive success in agile and DevOps adoption, focusing on best practices that can be applied across various organizational settings. Delving into essential metrics drawn from industry best practices, Cholette will shed light on the critical indicators for understanding progress and fostering...
Beyond Boundaries: Own Your Career Journey
Join Trish Cappiello for the 'Beyond Boundaries: Own Your Career Journey' workshop. Understand the stages of your career in technology, while tackling the challenges and embracing the opportunities. Learn to overcome self-imposed limits, prioritize continuous learning, and adapt for success. Gain practical tips to craft your personalized career plan. Redefine your journey with Trish in a psychological safe space where she encourages participation either through sharing examples or active listening.
Collaborating Through Silence
"The team doesn't speak up in meetings! They don't participate! What do I do?" I've observed leaders across organizations be frustrated by this. What to do? Just be ok with silence? Make decisions for the team? Here's the thing: silence is not consent. Whether or not people articulate their opinions, everyone has them. As a leader, your role is to help create a supportive, collaborative space where information is shared more openly. So how on earth do you do this? In this combination workshop and talk, attendees will learn two techniques to help facilitate through this challenge, as well...
Top 10 Lessons I Learned for Leading Agile Teams
PreviewAs leaders, we need to show up differently when we lead agile teams. Anyone in the room can be a leader, including the person with the actual title, however, the skills and techniques we tap into can be very different. In this session, Chris Knobbe will share the top 10 lessons that she has learned while leading teams and how she taps into those skills to build highly effective teams and team members. Each attendee will leave with a list of experiments to try in the workplace to enable them to build trust, accountability, and be more effective in their leadership. The approach to...
Containerization and Orchestration: Transforming Healthcare Apps with DevOps Automation
PreviewThis session will focus on the application of containerization and orchestration technologies within healthcare and integration of HIPAA compliance and robust security measures in healthcare DevOps. These technologies not only enhance operational efficiency but also ensure adherence to critical security and regulatory standards in healthcare. Sindu will cover case studies and future strategies on evolving security and HIPAA regulations and cybersecurity threats with patient data. Attendees will walk away with: the basics of container technologies and HIPAA compliance, Microsoft...
Agile and DevOps Leadership
In the dynamic landscape of software development, agile and DevOps methodologies have emerged as cornerstones for achieving efficiency, innovation, and customer satisfaction. However, successful implementation requires adept leadership capable of navigating multifaceted challenges. During this session, Vijay will delve into common hurdles faced by leaders in agile and DevOps transformations. For instance, envision a scenario where a large enterprise embraces agile but struggles with traditional hierarchical structures. This creates tension between established protocols and agile's...