Keynote Speakers
9:10 – 9:50 a.m. | Doug Kaufman
The CEO’s First Rule of Agile: Don’t Talk About Agile
As the popularity of Agile has grown across organizations, so has the divide between Agile practitioners and senior-level executives. If you’ve tried integrating Agile in your organization, you may have felt that executives “just don’t get it”. Is it true that executives simply don’t get Agile? Join us as we examine this topic, explore whether Agile practitioners and executives speak different languages, ways to bridge the gap and achieve success, and more.
2:10 – 3:00 p.m. | Jen Krieger
How Red Hat modernized Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 design, process, and culture
In the spring of 2015, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux team started the journey towards the next release. With over 1,500 people working on the operating system and over 2 years since the last major release, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 leadership team realized that they could no longer rely on methods of the past. They launched a 3-year effort to completely revamp and revitalize the way the division delivers its software—all while recognizing our main release themes weren’t even technically possible in the beginning.
Today, the teams use a combination of waterfall, scrum, and kanban software development, calling on practices from extreme programming and DevOps. While we are still growing as an organization, we have addressed many problems (for example, how to get all roles in our teams engaged and involved, how to shorten our planning process, and most importantly, how to release userspace updates separately from the kernel).
In this session, we’ll detail the journey of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, told through the lens of digital transformation. You’ll learn about the team’s primary methods of changing the organization, how we effectively targeted our messaging based on different audiences, what we succeeded and failed at changing, and what we are working on today.
Sessions
10:00 – 10:50 a.m.
Sarah Gray | Speaker
Forging Better Teams Through Gaming: using board and video games to accelerate team building and practice Agile principles
Forging connections and team methods for conflict resolution, support, communication, decision making, and appreciation can be a lengthy process! Fortunately, commercial entertainment has some great tools to assist in the form of existing, readily available board and video games. In this session, learn from an experienced team-builder how games can help you build better teams faster, what qualities to look for in a team-building game, examples of how games have assisted teams in an Agile working environment, and some great games to use and how to use them.
Arjay Hinek | Workshop
Scaling Scrum: Downwards?
What if you have fewer than 3 people available on a project? In Agile, Scale is a hot topic, but how do you scale down a process like Scrum for teams of 1-2 people and still make it deliver value? This is a scenario facing a lot of people who want to follow Scrum but don’t have a team around them.
In this session, we’ll do some hands-on work to look closely at the differences in team interaction. Then we’ll talk about how groups have modified “traditional” Scrum to design the Small Scale variation and have successfully launched projects and released them to the community to grow and expand. We want to tell you about our journey and invite you to join us in our Open Practice to refine the Small Scale Scrum model.
Jen Oleniczak Brown | Workshop
Yes, And Failure
We fail to launch because we’re too worried about failure – yet we don’t learn unless we launch. This session will use improv based activities and thinking to explore ideation, execution, failure and success. Get that project activated with improv.
11:10 a.m. – Noon
Dean Peters | Speaker
Using Experimentation to Deliver Value at SuperSonic Speed
Slides
As far back as 1922, aeronautic experts knew how to travel at supersonic speeds, but not without the plane breaking apart and killing the pilot. Have rapid advancements in continuous integration over the past quarter-century placed software delivery in a similar dilemma? In this workshop, Dean Peters will speak to the question “How do we rapidly deliver valuable software without breaking the product and killing the company?”
Josh Anderson & Eric Hannan (special guest) | Speaker
The Meta-Cast comes “Alive”
Recording | Slides
Since 2010, Bob Galen and Josh Anderson have been recording the Meta-Cast podcast. It’s an agile focused discussion that has literally covered every agile topic in its nearly 10 years and over 150 episodes. The podcast reaches listeners on virtually every continent and has received numerous accolades from listeners and fellow podcasters alike.
In this session, Bob and Josh will bring the Meta-cast to you, a live audience. We will gather your most challenging, interesting, and potentially exasperating agile questions and challenges. Then we’ll answer each of them with our collaborative and fun style. This session will prove to be fun, insightful, and driven by YOUR needs. So please, join the Meta-cast and try to “stump the chumps” or simply get some free coaching towards your greatest Practically Agile challenges.
Matt Takane & Tim Beattie | Workshop
The Open Practice Library: What it is and how to use it
The Open Practice Library is a growing repository of practices used by Red Hat and Open Innovation Labs Residencies. Whether you have heard about it before, or not, this session will explain the site and showcase how it gets used on Labs Residencies. Then, stay to experience how YOU can leverage the Library for any project ongoing or just starting.
1:00 – 1:50 p.m.
Jason Schreuder & Chris Curry | Workshop
Facilitative Leadership: Creating a Collaborative Culture in Your Organization
Do your meetings suck? Do you find that groups and teams within your organization lack focus, cannot arrive at action items, and fail to really get anything done in meetings? In this workshop, you will learn some key concepts related to facilitation and see how to incorporate them as a leader or member in your organization. Facilitative leadership is a crucial skill for Agile leaders. Successful Agile teams need great process guided by the skillful hand of an Agile facilitator. Meetings are real work, and facilitation is required!
Raj Motwani | Workshop
Tools to Establish Psychological Safety
We often talk about the importance of Psychological safety and its relation to the success of agile teams. But scrum masters and coaches often struggle to identify and establish/improve psychological safety on teams. In this interactive workshop we will share several tools that I along with a few other coaches have successfully applied in multiple situations and as a result, improved the level of psychological safety on that team. We will also share our experience and learning from using these tools.
Ted Copeland | Workshop
Agile Game: Machine of Death
Have you always felt like your Agile team would make a great group of assassins, if only they were given the chance? Come check out Machine of Death and find out*! This game is a fast-paced iteration simulation that rewards constant communication, flexible planning, and innovative thinking. You can print or buy the game at machineofdeath.net to play it with your own teams.
*No actual assassinations will take place, all targets are fictional, and also evil and totally deserve it.