
James Gifford
Specialises In
James Gifford is an industry respected Agile/Lean coach that has executed multiple enterprise level transformation during his 15-year technology career. James is a co-founder and board member of the Agile Uprising. James has effectively had a positive impact on hundreds of teams in a variety of industries which facilitated amazing outcomes for companies and customers. With an intentional focus on building high performing teams geared towards cultures of trust and transparency, James’ coaching has optimized many teams’ flow and engagement, while also improving product quality and reducing cycle time. While most agile coaches excel in web or mobile product transformations, James has emerged as one of the few coaches internationally with proven success applying agile practices to ERP implementations. James has direct experience working with the most common agile software tools and is a regular speaker at the most popular agile conferences.
-
keyboard_arrow_down
Descaling the Enterprise Instead of Scaling Agility
120 Mins
Workshop
Intermediate
In spite of all of the nuanced discussions, debates and frequent diatribes, scaling agile is about one thing: getting large groups of teams to deliver value in an organized fashion while maintaining empathy, rapport, trust, safety, and ownership across the enterprise. During this session, we will explore, Re-designing your organization instead of trying to Scale Agility. This session focus on organization design, challenges and success. Focusing in on topics ranging from
-
To Scale or not to Scale
-
The Dunbar number
-
Organizational Designs Product Based
-
Organizational Designs Product customer Journey
-
Matrix, Functional, Functional Matrix benefits and drawbacks
-
Craving the Organization methods and things to consider
The second half of the session is a workshop focused on re-designing your organization based on presentions portion
-
-
keyboard_arrow_down
5 Metrics to Create Safety and High Performing Teams
60 Mins
Talk
Intermediate
Description:
I see that a lot of organizations use metrics in inappropriate ways to measure teams. At the heart of these metrics, nine times out of ten, are velocity and story points. These metrics lead to a lot of mistrust, fear, and bad technical practices. This talk will focus on shifting the focus to diagnostic metrics.
Before shifting focus to diagnostic metrics, we need to understand what inappropriate metrics are. When questioning teams about why their velocity was lower from one sprint to another, teams are more likely to inflate their estimates to avoid questions in the future. This is one of my scenarios. We will explore this case and my other top-ten based on the 165 teams I have interacted with. Focusing on one metric does not provide a balanced view of the team.
For balance, I promote five metrics. The combination of metrics balances each other. These five metrics are lead time, quality, happiness, agile maturity, and business value. Focusing on these five metric areas can be used as a diagnostic tool to help teams grow and support coaching. During the session, we will use my Excel-based tool and visual model to simulate this balance.
When you push shorter lead times (how fast) on a team with a lower agile maturity, the first thing to change is quality, followed by happiness and then the delivery of value. Conversely, if a team focuses on TDD, the first thing to change is quality, followed by agile maturity, reduction in lead time, and increased delivery of value.
Teaching teams to harness data in a positive way will help them to flourish.
-
keyboard_arrow_down
Descaling the Enterprise Instead of Scaling Agility
90 Mins
Workshop
Intermediate
In spite of all of the nuanced discussions, debates and frequent diatribes, scaling agile is about one thing: getting large groups of teams to deliver value in an organized fashion while maintaining empathy, rapport, trust, safety, and ownership across the enterprise. During this session, we will explore the case study of the Value Steam Container, looking at organization design, challenges and success. Focusing in on topics ranging from
-
Organization designs used by WL Gore, The Dunbar number
-
Delivery Triads - Product, Delivery, Technical Excellence
-
Venture capital style funding
-
Focusing on business value
The second half of the session is a workshop focused on creating a Value Stream Container and resource based on team funding
-
-
keyboard_arrow_down
5 Metrics to Create Safety and High Performing Teams
60 Mins
Talk
Intermediate
Description:
I see that a lot of organizations use metrics in inappropriate ways to measure teams. At the heart of these metrics, nine times out of ten, are velocity and story points. These metrics lead to a lot of mistrust, fear, and bad technical practices. This talk will focus on shifting the focus to diagnostic metrics.
Before shifting focus to diagnostic metrics, we need to understand what inappropriate metrics are. When questioning teams about why their velocity was lower from one sprint to another, teams are more likely to inflate their estimates to avoid questions in the future. This is one of my scenarios. We will explore this case and my other top-ten based on the 165 teams I have interacted with. Focusing on one metric does not provide a balanced view of the team.
For balance, I promote five metrics. The combination of metrics balances each other. These five metrics are lead time, quality, happiness, agile maturity, and business value. Focusing on these five metric areas can be used as a diagnostic tool to help teams grow and support coaching. During the session, we will use my Excel-based tool and visual model to simulate this balance.
When you push shorter lead times (how fast) on a team with a lower agile maturity, the first thing to change is quality, followed by happiness and then the delivery of value. Conversely, if a team focuses on TDD, the first thing to change is quality, followed by agile maturity, reduction in lead time, and increased delivery of value.
Teaching teams to harness data in a positive way will help them to flourish.
-
keyboard_arrow_down
Descaling the Enterprise Instead of Scaling Agility
45 Mins
Workshop
Intermediate
In spite of all of the nuanced discussions, debates and frequent diatribes, scaling agile is about one thing: getting large groups of teams to deliver value in an organized fashion while maintaining empathy, rapport, trust, safety, and ownership across the enterprise. During this session, we will explore the case study of the Value Steam Container, looking at organization design, challenges and success. Focusing in on topics ranging from
-
Organization designs used by WL Gore, The Dunbar number
-
Delivery Triads - Product, Delivery, Technical Excellence
-
Venture capital style funding
-
Focusing on business value
The second half of the session is a workshop focused on creating a Value Stream Container and resource based on team funding
-
-
keyboard_arrow_down
5 Metrics to Create Safety and High Performing Teams
45 Mins
Tutorial
Intermediate
Description:
I see that a lot of organizations use metrics in inappropriate ways to measure teams. At the heart of these metrics, nine times out of ten, are velocity and story points. These metrics lead to a lot of mistrust, fear, and bad technical practices. This talk will focus on shifting the focus to diagnostic metrics.
Before shifting focus to diagnostic metrics, we need to understand what inappropriate metrics are. When questioning teams about why their velocity was lower from one sprint to another, teams are more likely to inflate their estimates to avoid questions in the future. This is one of my scenarios. We will explore this case and my other top-ten based on the 165 teams I have interacted with. Focusing on one metric does not provide a balanced view of the team.
For balance, I promote five metrics. The combination of metrics balances each other. These five metrics are lead time, quality, happiness, agile maturity, and business value. Focusing on these five metric areas can be used as a diagnostic tool to help teams grow and support coaching. During the session, we will use my Excel-based tool and visual model to simulate this balance.
When you push shorter lead times (how fast) on a team with a lower agile maturity, the first thing to change is quality, followed by happiness and then the delivery of value. Conversely, if a team focuses on TDD, the first thing to change is quality, followed by agile maturity, reduction in lead time, and increased delivery of value.
Teaching teams to harness data in a positive way will help them to flourish.
-
keyboard_arrow_down
Fibonacci Maru - The Unbeatable Product Development Simulator
90 Mins
Workshop
Beginner
The Kobayashi Maru is a Starfleet training exercise designed to test the character of cadets in the command track at Starfleet Academy. The Kobayashi Maru test was first depicted in the opening scene of the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and again appears in the 2009 Star Trek film. The tests describe a no-win scenario or a solution that involves redefining the problem and testing one's character. This exercise was the inspiration for the Fibonacci Maru. Teams will be put to the test as they develop a product and release it to their customer base. As the feedback and metrics pore in real time. Will the teams stay the course or pivot based on the build measure learn cycles? This is a 90 minute highly interactive workshop that will educate Agile professionals on developing products using the Lean Startup to plan and shape the product.
-
keyboard_arrow_down
Doing Agile with a Big Bang Product Release
45 Mins
Talk
Intermediate
Are you tired of the debate about not being Agile because you only release once every 6-12 month?
I sure am. During the session I will share my experience on keeping the Agile Principles front and center even when the Product can’t be release incrementally. Thought out the session experience based concepts of
- Obtaining validated learning through user experience engagement
- Story Mapping /Story Flow Mapping designed to keep the product team in sync with the customer feedback loop
- Product Change Management
- Customer focus groups
-
No more submissions exist.
-
No more submissions exist.