Historically, Project Managers (PMs) and other middle managers have hustled in a bureaucratic system to drive teams to deliver value. As organizations transition from a project to product model, where can these leaders best add value in a fast-moving, Agile and entrepreneurial world? In this new and exciting world, middle managers are enabling rapid delivery of value and successful business outcomes via the creation of the Agile Value Management Office™. Learn how an Agile VMO™ drives business agility through small batches, frequent releases, and continuous adaptation. We'll explore how to:

• Create a collaborative management team-of-teams
• Bring Lean discipline to product portfolio prioritization
• Establish an End-to-End team model of resource management
• Track in-flight product work using a Visual Management System

We'll explore the transition for PMs and other leaders into this exciting role: facilitating the delivery of flow, value, and innovation end-to-end on the Agile VMO™, even as they support their Agile teams in the quest for business agility.

Just testing in production

Using metrics for punitive reasons is a problem as old as time. In software, this is further complicated by the fact that people rarely agree on why we are collecting metrics in the first place. In this session we will explore how we can use metrics for good instead of evil.

By focusing on the goal of system improvement, rather than individual performance, we can begin leveraging data to make a positive difference in how we work while also delving into why we work the way we do.

This session will include real-world examples of problems that organizations create for themselves by using metrics for the wrong intent. We will also discuss examples of good metrics and how they can be used to make our lives better.

CMMI and agile haven't shared many beers at the bar over the years. But there is no reason they shouldn’t be best of friends. They both long for continuous improvement, creating learning organizations that strive to reduce risk and increase quality. I believe that a major cause of dissonance is the lack of perceived value in the way the CMMI models have been applied and appraisals performed in the past.

So, what would it look like to implement CMMI and prepare for an appraisal focusing all of our effort into creating value and removing waste, instead of adding it? That was the question we tackled this past year and are seeing a completely different practice and outcome given our approach, including enthusiasm and appreciation from the project teams for this approach as opposed to the more typical dread.

Participants in this presentation will hear from both a CMMI Lead Appraiser and an agilest who lead this value-driven approach to CMMI. They will learn how agile mindset, practices, and tools can be used to apply the CMMI model to our delivery, with intentional focus on creating an ever-maturing practice that reduces risk and increases quality. Participants will also hear how agile was used in the appraisal preparation, enabling continuous improvement across the organization and even reducing the amount of time and effort needed for the SCAMPI A appraisal.

This session is not intended to offer an exhaustible list of metrics or instructions on how to improve all systems. Rather, the intent is to provide a framework on how to ensure the quantitative and qualitative metrics you use are measuring the right things and how to apply them to a system of continuous improvement. Attendees will have a repeatable framework they can apply after leaving the session.

The session is broken into two main parts.

• Part 1: Identify the right (quantitative and qualitative) metrics that will help people and teams meet outcomes or goals.
• Part 2: Create a cycle of learning and improvement that aligns people and teams to the outcomes or goals.

When companies are struggling to increase the quality of their deliverables they tend to turn towards quick technology fixes, for example pushing for more test automation. The real solution isn't a technology fix but a cultural one. We need to change our culture to one that embraces, nurtures and encourages software craftsmanship.

It's only when your employees care about the quality of their work and when your organization rewards quality over speed that you'll make a lasting impact. Let's explore what this means and how we can start this culture shift.

Some of the things we'll look into:

• How to implement code reviews that become primers for mentoring each other.
• How performance reviews can impact the quality of your software
• How a CICD improves software quality
• Changing your management style towards Management 3.0

Government Agile transformations can feel like overwhelming efforts – but do not abandon hope! This interactive, audience-driven presentation reviews how government and large organizations ESCAPE common Agile adoption challenges.
You - the audience - will prioritize your pain points; we’ll focus on the five Agile hells most highly prioritized. We will discuss real examples of “escaping” out of each Agile hell, with pro tips and success patterns you can apply.
The Agile hells we've escaped include:

• No Transformation hell - A federal program or department wants to change but can’t start or can’t finish
• Too Fast hell - Newly Agile federal programs sometimes respond TOO rapidly, too often changing priorities.
• Technical hell - Programs can become bogged down in technical debt and manual processes.
• No Trust hell - Government delivery can be slowed by lack of trust between contractors and feds, between business and IT, or between compliance and delivery groups.
• Product Owners hell - Government Product Owners can be unavailable, think they are managers, aren’t empowered to provide vision, or struggle with prioritization
• Too Big hell- A frequent pattern in federal Agile! Large batches produce slow progress, low visibility and high complexity, seen in big programs, big deployments, and big contracts.
• Collaboration hell - Government teams can struggle with collaboration within the same organization across roles and across the fed-contractor divide.
• Stove-piped hell - Government organizations can struggle to collaborate across contractual or organizational boundaries within the same enterprise
• Leadership hell - An organization can only be as agile as its leadership. In the government, how can you work with leaders who aren't ready to be agile?

For each Agile hell, we focus on successful techniques to escape from these common dynamics. Unlike other presentations, we won't be doing a deep dive, but we will cover the most important challenges our audience face.

My team was asked to build an integration with an old legacy application which had no programming API whatsoever, and we were so excited. How did we tackle that challenge? Did we succeed? What happened next? Come and listen to find out. And I promise the ending will surprise and/or depress you.

Within the Agile and technology communities, it can be easy to assume that the language we use every day is common knowledge and shared throughout our professional spaces. Certainly when we interact with other professionals and hear them using the same terms, this just reinforces our assumptions. Especially when we leave the boundaries of technically specific language and enter the realm of jargon or “buzzwords” it can be easy to find validation through other people’s language preferences.

However, using this type of language can not only create divisions within our teams, it can obfuscate meaning, delay action, and create misunderstandings that can inhibit a team's ability to deliver. By examining the differences between jargon and technical language, we will look at how this use of language can create in- and out- groups and break down trust within an organization.

By committing to using broadly understood language and being direct in the way we interact with each other, we can improve our ability to perform at a high level in the fast paced technology space.

Changing the practices, behaviors, and beliefs of people and teams is hard; and organizations are many multiples harder. As agilest, we are educated to seek and deliver value. But that is one of the first big issues. What are the chances that we can know what is truly valuable for the people within the team or organization, both individually and collectively?

Another big issue is that most agilists are well-educated in frameworks, practices, and tools, but our training doesn’t generally prepare us for the other aspects imperative to implementing lasting agility and change. There is little focus in our standard training on the impact of systems and structures, and even less on internal aspects such as morals/ethics, ego, psychology, and culture.

I would like to present to you two models which opened my eyes over the past 6 years to a much larger awareness and understanding of how to approach agile transformation for impactful lasting change, and show you how to apply them to your work efforts. Seeing people, teams, and organizations through the lens of these models has greatly changed my understanding and approach and I believe has strongly benefited the outcomes of my efforts.

Spiral Dynamics Integral (SDi) is a bio-psycho-social developmental model showing itself through color bands representing levels of increasing inclusive evolution. AQAL – All Quadrants, All Levels [All Lines] – models a set of quadrants depicting our internal and external, individual and collective attributes and aspects. Woah! Don’t be thrown by that crazy-sounding stuff. Stick with me.

While those models might not sound very applicable to decreasing your cycle time to deliver your latest microservices through your fully-automated DevSecOps pipeline, without awareness of these models, you may never actually lead your team(s) to the point of decreasing cycle times, much less get your organization to the point of benefiting from DevSecOps practices.

Please join us for this session as we explore how these models allow us to be more successful in our work as Scrum Masters, Coaches, and/or Leaders. Benefit from learning new ways to see your system, avoiding and removing challenges and impediments you face in your sluggish, stuck, or failing agile journeys. Begin to see the world in a whole new way, not just at work, but in all aspects of life.

We all know the Agile Frameworks - Scrum, Kanban...they are on the web for all to see, but what brings Agile to life? In this discussion, Allan Guyet, Agile Coaching Practice Leader, will discuss how "being intentional" in your role as a coach will 10x the performance of your Agile teams and create excited teams and customers.

Geared toward new Coaches but with plenty of tricks for veterans, Allan will share his experiences on how "being intentional" helped prioritize features, build trust with stakeholders, and shift mindsets. Filled with his classic anecdotes and analogies, the stories will make you feel like you were there.