Keynotes Recap from the Agile, Better Software & DevOps Conferences
Last week we were at the Agile Development, Better Software & DevOps Conferences East in Orlando, Florida, for a jam-packed week with more than a hundred learning and networking opportunities.
The event is three conferences in one and included sessions on implementing agile, leading projects and teams, and going mobile.
Continuous Everything
In his keynote presentation, Jeffery Payne, CEO and founder of Coveros, talked about the link between agile and continuous software engineering principles.
Payne stressed the importance of collaboration in agile—he said communication is talking back and forth, but true collaboration is finishing one another’s sentences. Payne also addressed automation and how it won’t actually replace software testers; rather, it frees us up to think, which is necessary for agility.
He went on to talk about how if we want to deliver software with quality and better security, it’s important to not just do agile, but to truly be agile. Finally, he said we should be continually showing customers what they want, because they don’t know it until they see it. This is why we should focus on building a minimal viable product.
The GROWS Method for Software Development
Keynote speaker Andy Hunt addressed the limitations of the agile development process and said it is, in fact, hindering software development. When we rely too much on a process and it conflicts with our reality, he said, often practitioners will abandon it altogether instead of being agile.
Instead, Hunt has developed what he calls the GROWS method, which is based on four key ideas: the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition, evidence-based practice, inclusivity, and local customization.
With this method, teams are encouraged to experiment and use evidence-based practice to make decisions and answer questions with actual outcomes.
Agile methodology has not changed in over a decade, and it is consistently misapplied, misunderstood, and misused. Hunt encourages teams to remember that they are not actually agile if they are following a guideline for agile by the book. Even experts need to continually embrace a beginner’s mindset to prevent ending up in a software development rut.
Scaling Agile
In his keynote “Scaling Agile: A Guide for the Perplexed,” Sanjiv Augustine talked about ways to scale agile that make sense for your organization.
Agile methods are in their second decade of adoption, and organizations are starting to scale their agile efforts beyond teams to products and portfolios, which doesn’t come without its challenges.
"You need grassroots support and top-down cover to successfully scale agile,” Augustine said. You also need to limit work in progress, grow small and stable teams, build a network of small teams, and manage flow.
Augustine also remarked that the highest barrier to agile adoption is organizational resistance to change, so having small teams where you can get easily get buy-in is key.
The next Agile Development, Better Software & DevOps Conferences are June 5–10, 2016, in Las Vegas. For details, go to http://adc-bsc-west.techwell.com.
