You’ve been working with a team for a while now and you’ve noticed that planning meetings always go overtime, we can never seem to agree on an estimate, design discussions always go down a technical rabbit hole, and the requirements are always too sparse.

On the other hand, the end of the sprint feels like a giant rush, there’s always unfinished work that bumps to the next sprint, and the customer is still complaining about not having their product yet.  What is going on?  Where are all these issues coming from?

It could be that your team has trouble starting, and trouble stopping.  Join this session to learn about what happens in our minds as we think about our work and how to get started, and stopped - with some fun along the way.

Everything we do carries some amount of risk, from getting out of the bed in the morning to skydiving. Even writing software is risky! How do we handle those risks? Are common approaches to risk management still applicable in the Agile world?

If you've ever struggled with how to handle risk on an Agile program then come join us to see why our brains make is react in a mostly risk adverse way, what we can do about it, and how Agile specifically addresses many aspects of software risk. Also, we will look at how an Agile program can live in harmony with enterprise risk departments.

You’re a project manager and you’ve just been given an Agile project to look after. You ask for reports and you get burndown charts, velocity graphs, and cumulative flow diagrams. What in the world are these, and why do you suddenly have a migraine headache?
Metrics are different in Agile, but the questions remain the same. Come and see what your brain needs to understand the tracking of products built in an Agile way. We’ll build an Agile dashboard that you can take into your next meeting.

The wheel of life, not a song from a Disney movie, not an invention of prehistoric man. It is a coaching tool used by professional business, career, and personal coaches to help people do a self-assessment and find ways to move forward.

The wheel of agile? What could this be, and how could you use it to move your people and teams forward?

You’re a project manager and you’ve just been given an Agile project to look after. You ask for reports and you get burndown charts, velocity graphs, and cumulative flow diagrams. What in the world are these, and why do you suddenly have a migraine headache?

Metrics are different in Agile, but the questions remain the same. Come and see what your brain needs to understand the tracking of products built in an Agile way. We’ll build an Agile dashboard that you can take into your next meeting.

The Scottish poet Robert Burns famously wrote "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry" because even in 1786 people realized that planning is difficult. It’s something we do every day and still it seems so hard to get it right.

Find out,

• Why plans make our brains feel so comfortable
• What aspects of typical project plans often fall short
• Alternate ways to plan drawn from everyday experience
• How to trick our brains into feeling good with adaptive planning

Come with your brain, an open mind, and leave with a few techniques you can use on your next project.

Have you ever found yourself saying, “Estimating is HARD”, “These estimates are WAY off”, or “Who estimated THIS??!?” These reactions are all too common. Ever wonder why?

This workshop will take you on a journey through your brain where you will discover some of the cognitive biases that behavioral psychologists have found to affect our ability to estimate. We will look at 3 different estimation techniques and examine the factors that make each more/less successful. Practice sessions will highlight pitfalls you need to be aware of in your next estimating session.

Come prepared to have fun participating in revealing interactive exercises. Learn practical techniques for effective estimating that will help you choose the best approach for your team/project.

Have you ever found yourself saying, “Estimating is HARD”, “These estimates are WAY off”, or “Who estimated THIS??!?” These reactions are all too common. Ever wonder why?

This workshop will take you on a journey through your brain where you will discover some of the cognitive biases that behavioral psychologists have found to affect our ability to estimate. We will look at 3 different estimation techniques and examine the factors that make each more/less successful. Practice sessions will highlight pitfalls you need to be aware of in your next estimating session.

Come prepared to have fun participating in revealing interactive exercises. Learn practical techniques for effective estimating that will help you choose the best approach for your team/project.