13Nov I am almost speechless. This was by and far THE most powerful talk at ADP this year. Forget ADP, this was one of the most powerful talks I’ve ever heard. For me to try to convey the emotion and passion that was so much a part of this talk would be a disservice. All I can say is if you ever have the chance to hear Linda Rising speak…DON’T miss it!
I don’t even want to try to give you the blow by blow on this one. Let’s just file it under: How stereotypes and prejudices can alter teamwork. Linda describes it “A weird talk”. I describe it as life changing, powerful, and moving. It’s essentially a discussion about the connection of what cognitive scientists and evolutionary biologists are telling us about the way we came to be and what those implications are for agile software development. But it is far more than that. It is a message of hope for all of us that we can work together to solve bigger problems.
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12Nov So, your organization wants to go agile? Great. How do you role out agile across a big organization? Tricky! David Wilby, the VP of Products from Borland Software, gave a great look at how Borland rolled out agile throughout their development organization.
First, why did Borland go agile? High-profile strategic projects were sending up some serious signal flares. They were being developed using the traditional waterfall methodology. Borland’s development was living in a reactive environment and the reaction time was SLOW. To rescue the sinking ship, they needed rapid discovery and resolution of problems.
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12Nov Rachel Weston and I gave a talk on Agile Contracting today at ADP. Here’s a quick summary, the slide deck and the handout we gave to our session attendees. Many software development organizations work within the bounds of contractual agreements where the limitations imposed by the “Iron Triangle” of fixed timelines, budgets, and scope challenge their ability to embrace change and focus on value delivery. Agile practitioners often comment that agile contracting is a difficult problem, but proven solutions are rarely presented. In our session, Rachel and I offered some tools that we have used in our own agile contracting work to help agile practitioners deal with different contracting scenarios while promoting agile practices, protecting the development organization, and still providing value and protection to the client’s organization. We conducted a combined workshop and facilitated collaborative session, and presented new agile contracting tools that can be added to your toolbox. Hopefully, we offered practical solutions for dealing with contracts in an agile manner. Here’s the deck and the handout:
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12Nov It’s budget season. The economy is in the tank. You know budget cuts are are on their way. How do you make sure your team and projects survive? Prove that agile increases value. That’s exactly the message Richard Leavitt and Michael Mah presented this morning. But, to get your executives to keep your team and your funding, they don’t really need to understand agile per se, they need to understand the financial value of agile. That’s what they understand and care about. The numbers. So Richard and Michael gave the numbers and explained how to talk to the C-level when trying to show the advantages of agile development practices.
The main question: What are the documented financial returns of agile? Here are the 3 main financial impacts that your executives will understand:
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