We often use tools like Roman Pichler’s Product Canvas to define what the right features are for users, but why do we not use tools to assess how to build it? Teams default to frameworks like Scrum or Kanban because it is mandated or popular but as Agile Coaches we should assess our environment before coaching people to adhere to a process that may not be a good fit.

My journey consisted of on-boarding many teams using Scrum. Why Scrum? Well because Scrum = Agile… or at least is does to the folks who hired me to coach teams. The next few months always consisted of forcing, breaking, and tailoring a process that had issues in execution from the beginning. This led to the birth of the Agile Coach’s cheat sheet. It is intended to aid in creating or tailoring processes before bringing it to a team based on factors like team location, working environment, and team roles.

Retrospectives are not just about making you feel bad for missing your commitments, pointing fingers at your colleagues, and hearing your talkative team members go on and on. They are supposed to help your team become great. This workshop is for anyone that participates in retrospectives, doesn’t always feel they are useful and wants to learn a better way to accomplish the intended goal.

We will explore several different topics to help revive retros such as:

• Understanding people's perspectives to retros
• The psychology of blame
• Looking for what is working in the team
• Problem solving strategies
• Getting the team's feelings out on the table
• Understand team perceptions
• Using data to determine the way forward
• Improving team interactions in a remote environment

Knowing and believing in the reasons for your work is crucial to engineering successful products.

Have you ever been on a project that was kept alive but never seemed to impress anyone? Sadly, this is an issue that too many teams face. One of the key factors of engineering a successful project is knowing which problems it will solve and how it’s benefiting the end user. This is known as a product’s value.

This session will go over why it’s essential for everyone on the team to understand the value of what they are creating.There will be an emphasis on alignment of product management and engineering visions, tips on how that can be done using an agile mindset, and how this idea should be sustained throughout the entire software development lifecycle. These discussions will help provide prioritized work and ensure your product will satisfy customers.