Are you a Scrum Master that has a strong affinity to sticky notes, dry erase markers, and other tools of Agile facilitation? Are you tired of seeing the same old blue painters tape on every kanban board? Want to learn some new facilitation techniques that you can use in retrospectives or to build awesome information radiators with your team?

If so, join me for my session on the Super Agile Satchel.

During the session, I’ll briefly talk about how the satchel came to be and its awesome contents.  Then we’ll jump right in to actual examples of information radiators that I created with the tools the satchel contains.  I'll discuss why choosing the right materials, colors, and sizes are critical to facilitation and creating information radiators that draw attention, are maintainable, and focus the team on what's truly important.

Can a federal agency’s PMO support Agile teams that are focused on delivering working software frequently? What about all the needed documentation, reviews, and sign-offs from a myriad of groups including systems engineering, privacy, PRA and cyber security? In this session we’ll look at a federal agency’s PMO processes and the concept of minimum viable bureaucracy. We’ll explore the roles and relationship between the PMO, PM, Product Owner, ScrumMaster, and team. We’ll see how projects get initiated and the decision criteria needed to start or defer a project. We’ll walk through a lightweight gate review process and the activities and deliverables of each phase. We’ll also see how gate reviews can co-exists with a continuous delivery pipeline. We’ll share lessons learned and take a look at the challenges ahead. Come to this session to see how a lean PMO is operating in a Federal Agency.

The role of project manager is viewed by many Agilists as an oxymoron, and students fresh out of a CSM course will certainly tell you that there is no project manager on a Scrum team.  Why then do organizations that claim to "do Agile" or even "be Agile" continue to have roles for these old school command and control relics?  Why are companies hiring and government RFPs asking for "Agile Project Managers?"  Do project managers have a place in an Agile environment?  This session will explore this topic through interactive discussions on defining what an Agile project manager is, project managers as Scrum Masters or Product Owners, and common pitfalls of adding a PM into the mix.