Brian Robertson

Pioneer

Holacracy

location_on United States

Brian Robertson is a seasoned entrepreneur and organization builder, and a recovering CEO - a job he now helps free others from with Holacracy. Generally regarded as the primary developer of the system, Brian’s work allows leaders to release the reins of personal power and persuasion into a trustworthy and explicit governance process. Brian also serves as the drafter and steward of the Holacracy Constitution, which captures the system's unique "rules of the game" in concrete form. Beyond joyfully crafting legal documents, Brian's creative expression takes many forms – he co-founded HolacracyOne to support Holacracy’s growth, and he fills and loves a broad variety of the company’s roles. He's particularly grateful to hold no fancy titles and wield no special powers, so he can show up as just another partner doing his part to support something he cares about.

Deborah Hartmann Preuss

Co-Founder

Agile Coach Camp

location_on Germany

Deborah Hartmann Preuss (rhymes with rejoice) shifts workplaces by helping key influencers bring more joy and impact by leaning into their own unique brilliance. Deb is an ICF certified Co-Active life coach, working one-on-one with change leaders and coaches worldwide via phone and internet, in three languages, at https://abiggergame.today 

Deb is a creator of events and experiences - she co-created AgileCoachCamp in 2008 with Naresh Jain, and has supported the viral spread of these peer-led unconferences for change leaders to 6 continents. She holds space for change leaders in person with Open Space and online at CoachingCocktails.com . But her first love is life coaching - it's amazing what a big difference a little phone coaching can make!

Grab her for some lightning coaching at AgileCoachCamp or on Monday or Tuesday of the conference! Prepare to be surprised, though :-)

Ellen Grove

interim Managing Director

Agile Alliance

location_on Canada

Ellen Grove is a business agility coach, trainer, and organizational change agent with Agile Partnership. Based in Ottawa, Canada, Ellen works with organizations of all sizes in Canada and abroad to help them put Agile thinking and practice into action throughout the organization. Working with all levels from the C-suite to the delivery teams, Ellen favours experiential approaches for getting people to talk with each other about the things that really matter so that they can do great work together.  Ellen organizes Agile events locally and internationally and she presents frequently at Agile conferences around the world.  Ellen is the interim Managing Directorof the Agile Alliance, the global non-profit member association which serves the Agile software development community.

Jorgen Hesselberg

Head of Strategy

Comparative Agility

location_on Norway

Jorgen Hesselberg is the author of Unlocking Agility and cofounder of Comparative Agility, a leading agile assessment and continuous improvement platform. A proven thought leader of numerous successful enterprise transformation efforts since 2009, Jorgen provides strategic guidance, executive counsel, and coaching to some of the world’s most respected companies both as an internal change agent and an external consultant. He has trained thousands of people on agile and Scrum, disruptive innovation, and enterprise transformation strategy.

Passionate about making the world a better place to work, Jorgen is the former director and an active member of Supporting Agile Adoption, an Agile Alliance program dedicated to supporting those who apply agile principles and practices for agile transformation. Jorgen is a frequent speaker at international industry conferences. He earned his bachelor degree in journalism at the University of Missouri, his MBA at Iowa State University, and an MS in information technology at Northwestern University. He completed postgraduate coursework in finance and disruptive innovation at Harvard Business School. 

Doc Norton

Co-Founder and Change Catalyst

OnBelay

location_on United States

Doc Norton is a software delivery professional working to make the world of software development a better place. His experience covers a wide range of development topics. Doc declares expertise in no single language or methodology and is immediately suspicious of anyone who declares such expertise.

A frequent and well rated international speaker, Doc is passionate about helping others become better developers, working with teams to improve delivery, and building great organizations. In his role at OnBelay, Doc is provided opportunities to realize his passion every day.

Diane Zajac

Co-Founder and Agile Enabler

OnBelay

location_on United States

Several years ago, Diane traded a career in corporate America for a life of coaching and she has never looked back. She now uses her 13 years of experience to help groups, from Fortune 50 companies to the U.S. Government, transform their people into high-performing teams. Drawing from kanban, systems thinking and psychology, Diane teaches teams to practically apply an agile mindset, and in the process, find joy in their work again.

As a frequent conference presenter, Diane enjoys connecting with others who share her passion for continuous learning. She co-chaired the Collaboration, Culture & Teams track for Agile 2014-2015 and was a program chair for Agile 2016-2017. She is also on the organizing committee for Agile & Beyond, an annual grassroots conference held near Detroit, MI. Her alter ego makes her thoughts transparent at http://agilesquirrel.blogspot.com/.

Hendrik Esser

Special Projects

Ericsson

location_on Sweden

Growing up in the 1980s I was a passionate computer game developer and computer club co-chair during my school and study times. I studied Electrical engineering at the Universität des Saarlandes, Germany, focusing on communication protocol software in my diploma thesis.

I am continuously exploring new ways to create better results and greater organizations.

That journey started when I joined Ericsson Germany in 1994 as a SW developer. Soon my passion brougt me to a leadership career from being a Technical Coordinator in 1996 through project management, project office management, portfolio- and technology management towards being the "COO" of one of Ericsson's large development units. In 2008 I was a key driver to the agile transition of our organization. Through this engagement I became part of not only the Ericsson enterprise transformation, but also a strong contributor to the international agile community, exchanging and expanding knowledge and spreading agile mindset across industries. Part of my time I also work as a trainer for Product Development Leadership within Ericsson.

In parallel to my work at Ericsson, I am - as a volunteer - the Program Director of the Agile Alliance's initiative "Supporting Agile Adoption". I am an internationally active speaker at numerous conferences and company events on agile product development, HR and project management since 2012.

Dave Farley

Co-Author

"Continuous Delivery"

location_on United Kingdom

Dave Farley is a thought-leader in the field of Continuous Delivery, DevOps and Software Development in general. He is co-author of the Jolt-award winning book ‘Continuous Delivery’ a popular conference speaker and blogger and one of the authors of the Reactive Manifesto.

Dave has been having fun with computers for over 35 years has worked on most types of software, from firmware, through tinkering with operating systems and device drivers, to writing games, and commercial applications of all shapes and sizes. He started working in large scale distributed systems about 25 years ago, doing research into the development of loose-coupled, message-based systems – a forerunner of MicroService architectures.

Dave has a wide range of experience leading the development of complex software in teams, both large and small, in the UK and USA. Dave was an early adopter of agile development techniques, employing iterative development, continuous integration and significant levels of automated testing on commercial projects from the early 1990s.

Dave is the former Head of Software development at LMAX Ltd, home of the OSS Disruptor, a company that are well known for the excellence of their code and the exemplary nature of their development process.

Dave is now an independent software developer and consultant, and founder and director of Continuous Delivery Ltd.

Woody Zuill

Agile Guide / Trainer / Developer

Zuill Development

location_on United States

Woody is an independent Agile Guide and Coach and has been programming computers for 35+ years. He is a pioneer of the Mob Programming approach to teamwork in software development, and one of the founders of the "#NoEstimates" discussion on Twitter.  He works with teams to create an environment where everyone can excel in their work and lives.

Jez Humble

Technology Advocate

Google LLC

location_on United States

Jez Humble is co-author of several books on software including the Shingo Publication Award winner Accelerate and Jolt Award winner Continuous Delivery. He has spent his career tinkering with code, infrastructure, and product development in companies of varying sizes across three continents. He works for Google as a site reliability engineer and teaches at UC Berkeley.

Jutta Eckstein

Coach, Consultant, Trainer

self-employed

location_on Germany

Jutta Eckstein works as an independent coach, consultant, and trainer. She holds a M.A. in Business Coaching & Change Management, a Dipl.Eng. in Product-Engineering, and a B.A. in Education. She has helped many teams and organizations worldwide to make an Agile transition. She has a unique experience in applying Agile processes within medium-sized to large distributed mission-critical projects. She has published her experience in her books Agile Software Development in the Large, Agile Software Development with Distributed Teams, Retrospectives for Organizational Change, and together with Johanna Rothman Diving for Hidden Treasures: Uncovering the Cost of Delay in your Project Portfolio.

Jutta has recently co-written (actually pair-written) with John Buck a book on Company-wide Agility. This book focuses on synthesizing Beyond Budgeting, Open Space, Sociocracy, and Agility.

John Buck

President

GovernanceAlive LLC

location_on United States

John is a senior leader of GovernanceAlive LLC, a co-director of the nonprofit Center for Dynamic Community Governance, and a board member of Sociocracy For All.

He coauthored (with Sharon Villines) We the People: Consenting to a Deeper Democracy (2nd Edition 2017) and also co-wrote (with Jutta Eckstein) Company-wide Agility with Beyond Budgeting, Open Space & Sociocracy (2018). 

John has led dozens of business improvement projects for a variety of organizations, resulting in greater efficiency and increased employee engagement. He believes that such basic values as equality, liberty, and transparency can make our work places dramatically more sustainable, elegant, and profitable.

He excels in customizing solutions to each organization’s particular concerns, work schedules, and professional areas. His clients span the globe and include plastics manufacturers, colleges and universities, long-term care facilities, co-housing groups, and software companies.

Education and credentials

• Master of Science degree in Quantitative Sociology, The George Washington University

Todd Little

Chairman

Kanban University

location_on United States

Todd Little is Chairman at Kanban University., the leading source for professional Kanban training and coaching.   He is an experienced executive with previous roles as Vice President of Product Development for IHS, and Director of Software and Technology at Landmark Graphics/Halliburton. He has been involved in all aspects of software development with a focus on commercial software applications for oil and gas exploration and production.

He is a co-author of the Declaration of Interdependence for Agile Leadership and a founding member and past President of the Agile Leadership Network. He has served on the Board of Directors of both the Agile Alliance and the Agile Leadership Network.

Todd is a co-author of the book “Stand Back and Deliver: Accelerating Business Agility,” Addison Wesley. Todd has written several articles for IEEE Software and posts all his publications and presentations on his website www.toddlittleweb.com.

Shane Hastie

Global Delivery Lead

SoftEd

location_on New Zealand

“Agile taps into the core of human motivation and what we all want out of life - autonomy, mastery and purpose.” 

I’ve always leaned towards agile ways of working, even before it became the phenomenon it is today. In the late 90s, I read one of the first published books on agile development and finally had a framework for what already seemed so natural. I applied some of the techniques with the teams I was leading at the time, and the results spoke for themselves – better quality products and delighted customers.                                                                                                                         

An eagerness to share what I had discovered led me to SoftEd, where I developed some of the early courses, including the first agile course ever taught in the Southern Hemisphere.  

After 15 years at SoftEd, I became the Director of Agile Learning Programs at the International Consortium for Agile (ICAgile), helping to create a high standard for agile learning and certifications.  

With newfound inspiration, I felt the pull to get back in the classroom and returned to SoftEd as the Global Delivery Lead. Drawing on over 35 years of experience in business analysis, product development, and organisational change, I love guiding people as they transform from traditional to modern, more healthy ways of working.  

Getting the opportunity to connect with agile thought leaders and communities around the world is what keeps me energised. I am a former director of the international Agile Alliance, and I currently co-chair the Agile Coaching Ethics initiative. I am also the founding chair of Agile Alliance New Zealand. 

I like to give back to the agile community by leading the Culture and Methods editorial team for InfoQ.com and hosting their weekly podcast.  

I also recently co-authored my first book, #noprojects - A Culture of Continuous Value. And I am about to publish my second book, The Rock Crusher, which explores how we can bridge the gap between business analysis and agile. It builds on the work I did as part of the core team who defined the standard for the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK® v3), and co-authoring both versions of the Agile Extension to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge®. 

My interests outside of work reflect my passion for making a difference in the lives of others. I am a Board of Trustees member for Te Awhi Rito Trust, a charity providing a safe space for local children. And my love of coaching has extended to becoming a Leadership and Transformational Coach with the International Coaching Federation (ICF).