Coming Soon!

How Agile has changed the global certification scenario? A snapshot from yesterday, today and getting ready for the future

When I joined GoJek 2 years ago, I was given the title of Product Engineer. And my job description was one a one liner -- "Solve hard problems?"
Ambiguous? Yes.

What ensued was a hypergrowth story in Indonesia that is still interesting and growing.

We have had multiple tech issues and yet we have an uptime of 99.99% Even in cases of downtime, we hardly lose transactions. We handle more food orders in a day than all food companies in India put together. We are the largest food delivery service anywhere in the world outside of China. Our teams are lean, with sizes typically one tenth of what most Indian product companies have. As a company with dev centres in Singapore, Bangalore and Jakarta; there are bound to be confusions, and challenges with language. Yet we constantly manage to overcome it. It is here that I truly saw that titles mean nothing.

All this requires some constant work and re-evaluation. Some lean XP principles. In this talk, I want to share how we do what we do.

What we are building is basically "Hidup Tanpa Batas" - A Life without Limits

The effectiveness of network of cameras is primarily limited by the demand places on human supervisors to monitor real time video feed simultaneously. The aim of the automated video analytics system is to reduce the burden on the operators by including software in system. This discussion will be able to record the events in real time and able to analyze the data stored from the database. Finally, this algorithm generates real time alert in case of abnormal activities and perform analysis such as occupancy, traffic analysis along with results

"Why are you doing this to me?" - said the weeping Product Owner while shackled around the chains of a virtual conference where the hysteria of a development team built a mountain of expectations that crumpled on the shoulders of an individual who merely wished for happiness. Isn't this real?

The intention of this talk is not to demean the profession of Product Ownership and I'm definitely not saying that killing them is a solution; in fact, the opposite. I wish to highlight the dysfunctions around this (cool) profession and make ourselves realise how development teams may hijack the Product Owner's responsibilities which may end up killing the credibility and the value chain driven by product ownership.

This talk is based on this article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/killing-thy-product-owner-vishal-prasad

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are being developed to automate and/or enhance vehicle systems for safety and better driving. Safety features are designed to avoid collisions and accidents by offering technologies that alert the driver to potential problems. Many safety features are considered under an ADAS such as blind spot detection, pedestrian detection, lane departure warning indication, cruise control, hazard recognition, collision avoidance, parking assistance, fatigue warning etc. Basically, ADAS systems help the driver in the driving process and enables safe driving.

The current buzz in the industry is all about Business Agility. The majority of the literature, publications, and marketing makes the case that to achieve business agility organization’s need to undertake an agile transformation. And those organizations that do not adopt agile, will struggle in the market and be challenged with their current business model. The session will address the description of Business Agility, describe what is an Agile Transformation, and look at the relationship between business agility and agile transformation.

The ongoing challenge that we are all faced with in
every genre of life is change. The most common and
most feared is aging because we have seen how over
time it appears that it is a subject that we have no control
over. Thus the marketplace makes billions of preying on
this fear. It is merely an element of change.
In our world the corporate working world mastering
change, predicting change preparing change initiating
change well it's what we are all about. Great Agility it
ultimately minimizes the cost of change well it should
shouldn't it? Then why is it really feared?
Could the reason be that we are still looking at it as mere
individuals how is it going to affect me.? Is this systemic
posture the real issue. May I suggest that our focus be
collaboration.
History has shown that collaboration truly is the power
that makes change happen in a way that brings collective
value. Now we may not appreciate the value directive
that different groups throughout history have had
however the effects of their messaging and adaptation of
their desired change within those groups have been
undeniable.

Present a case study where SAFe was implemented successfully across teams that are spread in different timezones. Since the timezones are not overlapping, it was a challenge to schedule synch-up meetings

Based on my hands-on experience of implementing SAFe framework in one of the Fortune 500 companies for a group of 400+ members, I would like to share my experiences, thoughts and tips about the recommended practices of SAFe implementation.

Working in a Offshore R&D Captive always is challenging considering the "Factory" mindset of development team. Lack of domain knowledge and the user often elevate problems as the acceptability of the solutions provided is hampered and this causes a lot of rework.

I and my colleagues (initially just 2 of us) tried to explore this problem and bring in a more "Product" centric mindset by helping projects in User Experience and Design thinking aspects. Business, Technology and Design being the key constituents of a successful enterprise, we decided to strengthen the Design aspects as we were doing fine in the other two.

We explored this area using online webinars, professional training and certifications and a lot of hands on activities which helped us apply these techniques to transform the way in which we now approach our development.Integration with Agile principles have brought in various Operational benefits for us. Although this is just a start to a long journey of Ux , We (now a group of 8 colleagues) are proud to say that we are in the right direction to institutionalize Ux not only in our business unit but also trying to collaborate with other groups within the company.

"Institutionalization of Ux within the organization is a phrase coming from Eric Schaffer (Human Factors International) who also has a book with this this name, is the transformation of an organization by bringing in the user centric aspects in the product development process.

Product Owners and others responsible for creating and maintaining the Product Backlog often focus on functional items.

With good engagement in the Backlog Management process from the Development Team and Architects, technical and architectural items also find their way into the Product Backlog.

But what about the human-centric items related to accessibility, inclusivity, internationalization and sustainability?

Through the talk and with the help of several supporting examples and a short exercise, I would like to highlight the importance of addressing these aspects in the Product Backlog. The examples will include examples of good and bad backlog items and design decisions.

I will also share some tips on how Product Owners and supporting roles can work these aspects into the Backlog Management process. These will include some ideas from Design Thinking but will not be limited to that.

Coach performs various roles during his/her assignment. At times, he will be a trainer and at times he will wear hat of consultant, mentor, facilitator, and coach (of course). These roles portrait him/her as a leader, as Leader is not designation given but earned. In this talk, I would like to present various leadership orientation for an Agile Leader. I will talk about five different attributes of leadership orientation G.R.E.A.T. This session will throw lights on different orientation required for a successful leader (read person) and share my experience.

ScrumMaster who take their role seriously are beset with difficulties. As a process Owner and problem solver, the issues are many and systemic fixes needed. So what can/should they do? As with many other competencies, problem solving needs practice. Here we confront a fictitious case-study (based on two real projects) with help from India's first Scrum coach. As he takes you through the thicket of a complex situation (aren't all real situations complex, and not just "complicated"?) you will get a series of in-depth example SM situations. Further a moderated discussion on how to handle them. Some will be your own. This will be different from a Certified Advanced ScrumMaster class, this doesn't have much coaching content, but a strong problem solving slant.

NOTE: Case study here is of a "cummulative" type, which allows drawing wider lessons based on familiar common experience. The situation is meant to illustrate common (and one or two not so common) problems and their treatment.

Many organizations are introducing agile transformation programs or maturing their existing programs. However overall business outcome of the transformation journey is not substantially high. While there could be many reasons for this, one of the major reason is focus on transformation of one small unit in entire organization - called product development. This session will help the attendees to understand what is business agility and how to rethink your enterprise agile transformation strategy for greater business outcomes.

"Religion is omnipresent. It cannot be dispelled. If you try to dispel a religion, you will 'be' the religion." True enough for Agile methodologies. Since the advent of Agile, software development teams have been reeling in the power of quicker deliveries and self-organized teams, blissfully unware that scientific research has been employing these principles for centuries, already knowing and acknowledging the significance of this omnipresent religion.

Genomics is a highly sophisticated cutting-edge science for human health. Interestingly, it is at the intersection of Health and technology where speed, innovation, trial and error are core to the development of out of the box solutions.

Through this session, I will touch upon interesting case studies in Genomics, where Agile principles have contributed to accelerate the pace of breakthroughs in Personalized medicine.

I will elaborate on how “Scientific research” in Genomics embraces Rapid prototyping for assays, develops usable bits of code (bioinformatics scripts) iteratively and strives to continuously experiment to arrive at MVP for complex human diseases.

One of the most widely used Scrum anti-patterns is the infamous Sprint Zero. This iteration is used by many teams across the globe as a period for homework activities before kicking off a project. Activities may typically include backlog refinement with the product owner, setting up development environments, reading deployment pipelines, applying logging frameworks, etc.

It has been mentioned multiple times by the innovators of the Scrum Guide that it shouldn't take more than a day to begin a project, alas as the Scrum Guide mentions, Scrum is simple to understand, difficult to master; and the difficulty increases exponentially as we scale. So here's a workshop to master a one-day project kick-off using an extension of the white elephant exercise which I like to call - the Grand White Elephant for scaled teams.

While most of the agile teams struggle to have "ownership" from their team members, how can we establish Entrepreneur mindset and how will it really benefit the teams is the real question.

This session is to explain what Entrepreneur mindset is and how it can help Agile teams

Every organisation hopes / expects / demands high performance from their employees and teams. It's not very long ago when most effective organisations in the world had a ritual called yearly goal - setting. Many organisations still continue with this where the HR cascades a set of goals set by the organisation's leaders for their employees. This is usually followed by a quarterly to yearly review cycle which with most organisations are linked with incentives. In general terms, there ain't any flaw with this system; goal setting is an efficient way to continuously improve oneself. However, the execution of this process may be flawed and may lead to unoptimized results.

With the advent of business agility, this focus shifted towards continuously learning & improving organisations. This meant that faster feedback was highly recommended for performance improvement and the idea of year-long goal setting seemed a talk of the yesteryears. Many organisations embraced this change by completely abolishing the yearly goal setting practice and instead relying on mentor relationships for an individual's performance improvement. This did improve relationships at the same time hindered transparency since the organisation goals were no longer directly accessed by every employee.

When seen from the perspective of game theory, it's evident that optimum results are obtained when employees achieve goals which are highly beneficial to them at the same time aligned with the organisation's goals. With the former approach explained above, it's pretty clear that the employees in the first case were aware of the organisation's goals, even if the goals were not aligned with their personal goals. Whereas in the latter case, the lack of transparency meant that the individual's goals were highly focused and may not be in-line with the organisation's objectives.

This is where Performance Kaizen aligns these two systems with a flavour of Management 3.0 in order to create an optimum setup where high performing individuals, teams, and organisations can thrive. In this session, we present a case study of this implementation at Springer Nature along with our results and learnings; followed by a brief hands-on exercise for the attendees.

Emotional intelligence (EQ/EI) by definition is the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically. Emotional intelligence is the key to both personal and professional growth.

The world is highly competitive and lot of importance is attached to being highly intellect in order to succeed in professional and student life. But researchers have shown that our success at work or in life depends on Emotional Intelligence 80% and only 20% of intellect.

Studies have shown that people with high EQ perform better at work place, they have strong leadership skills, and are better at mental health. These are the qualities every project manager, execs of organization, individuals aspire for. Intellectual Intelligence on its own is not sufficient to be successful at work or in life.

EQ is often an ignored angle when focusing on building self organizing teams. It is unimaginable how amazing results can be acheived if people focus on EQ. In this session, we will look at why EQ matters in building high performing teams.