Code retreat is a day-long, intensive practice event, focusing on the fundamentals of software development and design. By providing developers the opportunity to take part in focused practice, away from the pressures of ‘getting things done’, the code retreat format has proven itself to be a highly effective means of skill improvement. Practicing the basic principles of modular and object-oriented design, developers can improve their ability to write code that minimizes the cost of change over time.

JavaScript has often been thought of as a toy language, used for tasks like enabling and disabling blink tags on your chihuahua’s website or making a dynamic web 2.0 todo list. While the core language has remained quirky and downright confusing at times, it has spread like a virus from the web to the server and into other aspects of your every day life. We’ll ignore the benefits and drawbacks of using JavaScript powered toasters for this precompiler and focus instead on server side development with Node.js. This precompiler will not advocate the use of Node.js for every problem ever just because it is the new hawtness. While it may be hawt, and it may look good on your resume, it is not the best solution for all problems. We will openly discuss it’s strengths and weaknesses and focus in on the type of applications that make sense for Node.js. Specifically, this session will hone in on providing real time, two way communication between web clients and server side applications. If you have ever encountered this scenario, or think you might in the future, you should definitely think about leveraging the benefits of Node.js. We’ll use a structured curriculum to guide students through introductory aspects of Node.js, eventually building a realtime web socket solution that shows off it’s true power. This precompiler assumes 0 knowledge of anything Node.js, although you may need a pair partner if you are not very familiar with the JavaScript programming language. Bring a laptop, a friend, and your brain, and walk away with a life-altering, mind-expanding experience (or at least enough Node.js knowledge to land a new job).

Walk through building a sample application with AngularJS to learn some of the basics along with some commentary that contrasts it with jQuery / Backbone.JS

As an Agillist, I want to learn what Ken and Alistair have been up to and what I can do to help the agile movement.

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Scrum on!

Continuous Delivery begins with a deceptively simple question. Continuous Delivery of what, exactly? In this session, we will introduce a thinking tool that we call FSGD (“Fizz-Good”). You’ll learn how to use FSGD to plan your work in ways that make continuous delivery easier to achieve.  We’ll talk about how to pair FSGD with well-known Lean tools like “5 Whys” as well as some new ones. And you’ll hear about the lessons we learned at LeanKit as we went through the growing pains of a small company getting bigger, and the challenges of simultaneously delivering multiple products on multiple platforms in a fast-paced emerging market.

A time elapsed skit will take you down a company’s path from Waterfall to agile.  This comedy of errors will highlight discoveries, bumps, and opportunities the IGS Energy team has experienced since launching on the Agile path in 2010.

Culture is what binds us as a society. It is the underlying, unspoken (and sometimes spoken) rules that guide everyday behavior. In the corporate world, culture refers to the shared values, attitudes, standards, and beliefs that characterize members of an organization and define its nature. Agile software brings its own set of beliefs, practices, and standards that often do not mix easily into existing cultures. Our panelists will discuss the profits and pitfalls of building and adapting their company cultures and how agile played a role.

There was a time when economies of scale swamped all other corporate attributes – and a time of stable competitive advantage – where sticking to a single core competency was sufficient. Big companies dominated. Sure, they were slow to react to market change, but they had huge cost advantages and could lock down distribution channels, suppliers, and other sources of strength.

But that is last decade’s thinking. Seventy percent of the companies that were on the Fortune 1000 list a mere ten years ago have now vanished –unable to adapt to change.  Today, when every industry faces turbulent change as a matter of course, a company’s ability to identify opportunities and threats and react accordingly can be the difference between sustaining performance and falling behind. There are notable examples of successful companies, some wildly so, that are changing the game by using Agile principles, principles that have typically been associated with software development, to successfully respond to and learn from external events, to innovate technically and organizationally, and to plan and execute new courses of action.

In an effort to break free from the stranglehold of inertia caused by adherence to outdated business strategies, businesses are looking to the principles of Agile to help sense opportunities and threats early and often, to quickly identify and solve problems and to change the enterprise’s resource base as needed to respond – giving rise to the notion of Business Agility.

Business Agility is a cultivated capability that enables an organization to embrace market and operational changes as a matter of routine, to identify the most important initiatives/opportunities and respond in a timely, effective, and sustainable way.

The Business Agility workshop covers the following topics:

• The Dirty Little Secret of Agile
• Agile Can’t be Just for Software Anymore.
• Introducing Business Agility
• Benefits of an Business Agility
• Examples of Agile Businesses
• The Business Agility Paradigm Shift
• Steps to Business Agility
• Where do we go from here? – The Role of Agilists in the new Paradigm

Who should attend:

• Executives
• Executive Vice Presidents
• Senior Vice Presidents
• Vice Presidents
• Directors
• Senior Managers

The State of Agile turns 9 this year. Join Brian Watson as we dive into this year’s state of agile and discuss which agile trends have changed over the last 9 years and what practices have remained the same.

The most productive software work unit is three developers that have worked together previously, understand the domain, and are masters of the technology. Everything else is less productive, requiring more inputs per unit of output.

So what motivates organizations to want to scale initiatives beyond the three developers? Is there a point where the drop in productivity is too great to sustain? We will explore the variables that diminish productivity as organizations scale projects and software initiatives.

Then we will inspect a solution for scaling Scrum that sustains productivity. It has emerged during my client work over the last twenty years.

In this solution, a Nexus framework coordinates multiple Scrum teams. Specific practices drive productivity and reduce waste. Productivity is managed. When productivity becomes unacceptable, we descale or Scrumble. When rigorously applied, productive scaling results.?”

The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is one of the fastest growing frameworks for large teams doing agile. Scrum looks to help small co-located teams develop solutions in an agile fashion, but up until now most teams have had to scale agile for large teams, teams of teams and program management on their own. SAFe targets teams of 50-150 people or more and collects the wisdom of all who use it. At only three years old SAFe has quickly become the most popular technique for scaled agile.

This session assumes you know agile, the agile manifesto and Scrum very well, but are brand new to what SAFe is, how it is organized, and how to get started using it. We will explore the SAFe model and make it simple to understand. We will show the team, program and portfolio levels of SAFe and demystify what all the major ideas are in that model. We will also share how-to-get-started tips for those interested in moving forward with SAFe. Many clients make adopting SAFe too difficult and this session will show the simple path to adoption of this exciting model for large teams.

Transitioning some frameworks and practices to other parts of life.

Applying Agile frameworks and practices to business units and at home can be amazing.  Ty Crocket shares his experiences in several scenarios.  Hear about what the successes and failures he faced, and how he and teams adapted.

Riddle me this: How many people does it take to bring an enterprise into the Cloud era? How much will it cost?  How long will it take?   What are the challenges that we will encounter?  What are the problems we are trying to solve?  Of course, security plays a huge factor – does that change anything? These are all tough, but relevant questions.

In addition, our clients are caffeinated, tech-savvy, and under high-pressure deadlines to deliver elegant solutions for cutting-edge, complex systems – all at warp speed within an agile framework.  We need to be able to anticipate their needs ast they adjust to our customers’.

So, how can we stay one step ahead of them?  These are some of the challenges that our team faces every day.  This is Fuse’s work-in-progress story of how we are building a nimble, scalable, repeatable, and secure platform that enables our developers to transform requirements into customer value more effectively and efficiently as we change The Future of Health and Wellness.

Implementing a test strategy that includes automation sounds easy enough, but the path from predominantly manual testing to automation can be snarled with peril. Come and discover some of the common pitfalls organizations fall into as they transition from manual to automated testing. We’ll cover a variety of organizations and types of software, including web applications, data warehouses and mobile. While each new transition presents new challenges, by examining these outcomes we may be able to avoid some of yesterday’s mistakes.​

Intended audience for this presentation is individuals seeking to or struggling with adoption of automation with respect to converting an existing workforce. Attendees will receive guidance on avoiding or overcoming some of the common challenges in automation adoption.

How do we effect change in large organizations, particularly ones like Federal Government agencies? How can culture can get in the way of the business or mission goals we are trying to accomplish? Agile approaches are used to achieve business goals, but your organizational culture can crush these efforts. How can we get past these?

This talk will focus on how to align the changes with the business/mission and overcome the culture that can prevent you from achieving your organizational business goals through its Agile Journey. You will learn how to break down your organizational transformation into small synergistic sets of organizational habits to change, and lastly how to consider how much change to take on at anyone time. These will be aligned with not only a target culture, but with your business objectives. Along the way, we’ll examine the differences between an Aspirational Model and an End-State Model and why an Aspirational Model is a better fit for Agile Transformations. We’ll explore a few models and concepts so you walk away with some things to try yourself as you create your own Journey.

What’s more, during this exploration, I’ll relay how I have used this approach in the Federal Government sector to help an Agency get their transformation underway. I’ll also talk about challenges that cropped up and where ignoring some of this approach served to hinder transformation.

This talk is suitable for change agents, coaches, leadership, and mid-level management that need to effect change in larger, established organizations.

Many agile initiatives suffer from a feeble launch. As Aristotle once stated “Well begun is half done”. Performing the activities associated with developing a sound team charter can help increase the likelihood of success for a team, organization or a project kickoff .

In Well Begun is Half Done, we use retrospective techniques to develop consensus around objectives, vision, and mission. In this workshop we introduce the components of a good team charter and how those components help focus the teammates toward a common goal. In addition, the development of the recommended team charter components ensures that key questions are succinctly answered during the kickoff of an effort or team.

Participants will learn the various types of charters and their recommended content. During the workshop activity teams will develop a complete team charter based on provided case studies using provided templates. Teams are invited to this workshop to develop their own team charter.

Learning Outcomes:

Participants will gain a fundamental understanding of how to create a team charter to more effectively define their purpose and set goals and objectives.

Learning outcomes include:

• understanding the difference between a team and project charter
• leverage the team charter to effectively launch teams and organizations
• components of a useful team charter
• understand the value of a team charter
• takeaway templates for various types of team charters
• practice developing a team charter

Intended Audience:

Recommended for Scrum Masters, Coaches, Project Leads and team members

Social coding revolutionized how we share useful code with others. Bundler, npm, and Github made publishing and consuming code so convenient that our dependencies have become smaller and more numerous. Nowadays, most projects quickly resemble a Jenga tower, with layer upon layer of poorly understood single points of failure.

Despite our progress, we’d benefit from pausing to reflect on our relationship with open source. Convenience and ego drive most open source adoption, but these shortsighted motivations raise long-term problems we need to clearly identify if we can ever hope to solve them.

Like many businesses today, Nationwide needed a better way to respond to changing market conditions, speed time to market and support new channels for customer interaction. DevOps provided all that — and more.

Steve Farley will speak about Nationwide’s devops journey. As a result the company is now more agile as a business and more responsive to customers – with a 50% improvement in code quality and reduction in system downtime by 70%.

Steve will talk about Nationwide’s  philosophy, metrics, tools. He’ll also discuss how devops can be applied in a mainframe world.

We’ll discuss 7 impediments in communication and self-awareness for leadership thinking. Have you led meetings and had something you said taken the wrong way? Have you heard something you aren’t quite sure what you heard? For years we have focused on our speech patterns to control conversations, drive outcomes, and have those critical conversations. Communication has been a leading continuous improvement topic for years in product and project management. How well do you hear yourself?

For the first time ever, four generations are all co-existing in the workplace together. With this being true, many are asking how do we all work together?

Here the story of a millennial that a broken all stereotypes and taken corporate America by storm, coaching teams, departments, and executive through agile implementations and transformations.

This tale includes the ups and downs of working across multiple generations and dives deep into the research discovering what makes each generation tick.

Find out from a millennial what it is like to work with boomers, Xers, and Y’s and learn tools and techniques any generation can utilize to break through the barriers and create a productive, high-performing environment.

Learning Objectives:

• The audience will be exposed to and learn a new perspective on generational research and what actually makes each generation tick.
• The audience will learn The Responsibility Process, a process model that can be utilized to break through the barriers of the generations and create a common language.
• The audience will hear a true story from a millennial about our perspective in the workplace and what is like to work with the Boomers, Xers, and Ys.

At a recent cookout, my 4 year old son, Dawson, ran for the back yard and easily joined a game of hide and seek. Watching this unfold, I realized that these kids are naturally agile. They got straight to playing (the value) and didn’t need a lot of ceremony to get there. They kids all did a quick hello, told Dawson what game they were playing, and invited him to join in (daily scrum). Then they played.

He and his friends self-organize, self-manage, and solve problems on the fly. They naturally exhibit the agile values and scrum practices that many adults struggle with daily.

For example, most parents have been bombarded with an unending stream of “Why’s?” from their child. Why does this work? Why did that happen? Why? Why? Why? While this line of questioning can be stressing, it is also invaluable to finding the root cause of an issue. Scrum teams use this approach – called The 5-Why’s – to get past technical issues and down to interpersonal issues that could be hindering the team.

This session is a fun discussion about the behaviors I’ve noticed in my son and how they translate to important lessons that all scrum master need to learn to better serve their teams.

Rust aims to build a solid foundation for building safe software systems faster. We can ensure fewer mistakes enter our code base with immutability by default, no concept of null, and proven memory safety. Rust’s state of the art compiler helps developers catch errors as early as possible without paying a penalty at runtime. Developers can write high level code in a modern language without sacrificing expressiveness, development time, or execution speed.

We will explore how Rust’s concept of Ownership is the key to providing compile-time safety. These guarantees apply even in the face of concurrency, allowing you to easily write multi-threaded programs correctly the first time.

Rust 1.0 was released May 15th. Start building better software today.

The Scrum Guide states that the Product Owner “is responsible for maximizing the value of the product and the work of the Development Team.”  This definition opens a Pandora’s Box of potential roles and responsibilities including Product Management, Project Management, Business Analysis, System Architecture, Technical Writing, and User Experience Design among others.

Additionally, a Product Owner is expected to engage frequently with the Scrum Team, help lead Sprint Reviews, maintain the Product Backlog, thoroughly review and test the product increments, work with stakeholders, and ensure the current and future success of the Product.

How is one person expected to be effective amidst such overwhelming responsibility?  In this interactive session we will examine the Product Owner role more closely, discuss common pain points, and leave you with useful ideas for improving Product Ownership in your organization.

Intended Audience

Anyone interested in learning more about Product Ownership!  This is a 102 level talk.

Learn how to leverage Cucumber/Gherkin tests in your .NET applications

A key concept of any Agile methodology is communication. It’s no longer normal or acceptable for developers to sit and develop applications in isolation from the business. To that end, developers and business domain experts have been trying to find better ways to communicate. While developers tend to speak in terms of “code and technology” most business domain experts are more comfortable communicating in terms of scenarios, workflows and business rules.

Test Driven Development (TDD) was the first step in getting these two groups to communicate in the same way. Developers could write unit tests that expressed business requirements with the hope that business users could validate that what was being tested was in fact what the desired behavior was. But, unit tests are still code and while it was better, the communication was still stilted and inefficient.

To help this communication new techniques such as Behavior Driven Development (BDD) and Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD) have become popular. Along with these new ideas, new tools like SpecFlow have become popular as a means to express unit tests in a way that the business can better understand and validate.

This session will demonstrate how SpecFlow can be leveraged in your BDD or ATDD practices. The Gherkin language and the “Given, When, Then” paradigm will be explained and you will see how to write tests in a way that business users are not only capable of reading, but can also help you create them.

Intended Audience: Software developers, technical BAs, testers

What can Agile teams learn from the passion and self-organizing attributes of environmental activists and eco-pirates like Sea Shepherd, featured in the Animal Planet hit TV series, “Whale Wars?”

Join our speaker, Michael Mah, who traveled with Sea Shepherd to Taiji Japan as part of their Cove Guardian team to help stop the slaughter of thousands of dolphins, as featured in the Oscar-winning documentary, “The Cove.” When not flying airplanes and chasing dolphin killers, Michael is a past Path to Agility Keynote Speaker, and international lecturer on Agile Productivity, Software Measurement and Estimating as the managing partner of QSM Associates, Inc. and the Benchmark Practice Director for Cutter Consortium.

Hear his take on what passionate teams muster to move a needle towards a “tipping point,” and what software professionals might draw from a global environmental conservation movement.

I believe that leadership teams should practice what they preach. If we want teams to live the Agile values and work in highest value order with complete transparency and accountability, we need to practice in our daily lives.

This talk will cover several Agile & Lean techniques that our company has been practicing and adapting alongside our customers over the past 6 years.

“Seeing the Whole” includes customers, projects, applications, people, leadership, financials and Standard Work.  We will discuss what it means to see the whole and  explore a few examples of how forward-thinking leaderships teams have accomplished this.

Managing backlog at the software product level is much easier than managing backlog at the leadership team level. How can leaders share a common personal time-management practice to work through their backlog?  We will discuss the practice of “Inbox Zero” as well as other techniques aimed at creating a high-performing, “T-Shaped” leadership team that prioritizes the highest value goals of the day.

Decision making is another common challenge that can bog down the workflow. To address this challenge, we will cover several proven, lightweight practices aimed at reducing the waste that analytical people often encounter when trying to come to consensus.

We will also share collaboration techniques to balance autonomy and control while adapting to achieve business, customer, and people delight.  We will focus on maintaining the correct cadence of ceremonies and meetings, while striving to keep it Lean.

Your organization has “gone Agile.”  Now what?  Whether you are at the beginning or in the middle of transforming your organization, sustainability should be a top priority.  Does it matter if you increase revenues, reduce costs, improve quality, deliver products to market faster, or lower employee turnover if that change is not sustainable?

In this session, we will discuss:

• What does sustainability really mean;
• Where does organizational agility start;
• Common barriers to organizational agility; and
• Actions your organization can take to improve sustainability and achieve organizational agility.

This session is targeted at all levels of leadership, Agile practitioners, and Agile coaches in pursuit of spreading agility throughout their organization… and sustaining it.

Attendees will walk away with an understanding of:

• Why sustainability should be a top priority for any organization;
• The crucial starting point for organizational agility;
• Success factors for sustaining organizational agility; and
• Ideas for how leadership can improve sustainability.

In his book Thinking Fast and Slow, Nobel winner Daniel Kahneman introduces two mental systems, one that is fast and the other slow. Together they shape our impressions of the world around us and help us make choices. System 1 is largely unconscious and makes snap judgments based upon our memory of similar events and our emotions. System 2 is painfully slow, and is the process by which we consciously check the facts and think carefully and rationally. However, System 2 is easily distracted and System 1 is wrong quite often. System 1 is easily swayed by our emotions. Examples he cites include the fact that pro golfers are more accurate when putting for par than they are for birdie (regardless of distance), and people buy more cans of soup when there’s a sign on the display that says “Limit 12 per customer.” In this session we will, through interactive games, learn how our minds can affect our abilities to investigate, observe, and recall events. We’ll discuss some strategies to minimize our minds erroneous impacts to those abilities.

AngularJS and NodeJS are arguably two of the hottest technologies today. This talk will cover the basics of both Angular and Node but it will also cover how to do it in the real world, where not everyone on your team has 5 years of Angular under their belt. ​So if you are looking for a quick overview, or want to know some secrets to getting started fast with a team that just knows jQuery, stop on by.

This presentation describes a visual, iterative approach to eliciting and documenting requirements for software projects. The process described in this session discusses the concept of applying agile techniques within the requirements process that are both visual and engaging. Many projects continue to utilize a waterfall approach for the requirements process and only apply agile concepts to the design and development effort.

This session is intended for business analysts, iteration managers, product owners, developers, and testers. Attendees will come away with an increased understanding of how to deliver business value earlier in the Solution Development Lifecycle using engaging visual techniques.

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The naive implementation of old-school agile, invented in the 1990s and aimed at small, co-located teams, actually works remarkably well. Since that time, not only have we learned Why it works, but also how to use that Why to approach larger, more difficult, and even quite different problems.

This keynote introduces the modern science of designing in teams. It includes ideas, strategies and techniques not found in the standard agile texts. Learn how the best teams make use of the ideas presented to deliver unexpected good results.

Johanna Rothman | 03:15 – 04:30

Abstract

You have more than one project team who needs to collaborate with another team. Maybe you only have one technical team and a bunch of other people you need around the organization so you can release. And, you’ve heard of “frameworks” and “discipline” that don’t sound heavyweight, and maybe not so agile. Can you have a larger program and still be agile?

Yes. We already know how to use program management to deliver larger efforts. Agile and lean program management uses small-world networks of collaborative teams to solve problems and deliver features fast. That demands the entire program be agile and lean—to collaborate across the organization. Johanna Rothman shares how to see and use agile roadmaps and create small world networks to create a culture of delivery that works. Help your project teams to become more lean and more agile so that you have working product releases all the time..

Speaker

Johanna Rothman, known as the “Pragmatic Manager,” provides frank advice for your tough problems. She helps organizational leaders see problems and risks in their product development so they can remove impediments.

Johanna is the author of these books:

• Project Portfolio Tips: Twelve Ideas for Focusing on the Work You Need to Start & Finish
• Diving for Hidden Treasures: Finding the Value in Your Project Portfolio
• Essays on Estimation
• Manage Your Job Search
• Hiring Geeks That Fit
• Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects
• The 2008 Jolt Productivity award-winning Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management
• Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management
• Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets and Science of Hiring Technical People

She is writing a book about agile and lean program management. She writes columns for Stickyminds.com and projectmanagment.com, and writes two blogs on her web site, jrothman.com, as well as a blog on createadaptablelife.com.

Ken Schwaber | 03:15 – 04:30

Abstract

I do not know what the state of agile is. I do not know if it is better than waterfall. I think it is, it certainly feels better, all of the surveys say that it is better. However, when a customer asks me how they are doing, I’m stumped. All I have is circumstantial evidence, not proof. I asked them to get ALM tools. I encouraged test first development. But has the organization received more value in return? Neither they nor I know.

I’ll describe a practice derived from medicine, Evidence Based Management, in which we can evaluate our improvement efforts based on indisputable outcomes that measure organizational value. We’ll look at how we can relate these outcomes to circumstantial evidence of development capability. Whatever, we can move from software being seen as an expense.

Speaker

Ken Schwaber is a co-founder of the worldwide Agile software movement and co-creator, with Jeff Sutherland, of the Scrum technique for building software in 30 days. Ken was a signatory to the Agile Manifesto in 2001, and helped to found the Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance. He is now president of Scrum.org, a software consulting firm headquartered in Boston, and the author of many seminal books and articles. The most recent, with Jeff Sutherland, is “Software in 30 Days: How Agile Managers Beat the Odds, Delight their Customers, and Leave Competitors in the Dust.” When it comes to the profession of software development, he has more than 40 years experience from hacked to procedural to object, from bottle-washer to cook.

Facilitator – Mary Kaufmann | 12:00 — 01:15

Abstract

To truly innovate you need to have agility.  Often times, truly innovative organizations create things they do not expect or find a new problem they can solve with their existing products. Join us for an interactive discussion that with people who lead innovation for organizations from startups to billion dollar companies.

Facilitator

Mary Kaufmann is the Chief Learning Officer at Pillar Technology. Mary spent the past five years serving as an Assistant Professor at Muskingum University teaching in a graduate program called MISST that integrates business and technology into one degree. She also contributed to a book published in 2002, written in association with the Sandberg Leadership Center.

Mary holds a BS in Computer Science and Business, an MBA, and a Master of Divinity. Over the course of her 30 years of professional experience, she has worked with public, private, and non-profit companies. Consistently an engineer for positive change, she led the way in implementing new technology, leading management development, as well as strategic design and implementation.

As a passionate student of change, Mary has spent most of her career as a “change agent.” She lives on a farm in Dresden, Ohio with her husband Brad, and her two children, Emily (19) and William (15).

Panelists

Mekka Don is a hip-hop artist, attorney, and entrepreneur who has led the pack in revolutionizing the way Independent artists fund their music production and generate revenue. In 2014, Mekka Don crowdfunded his debut album with a goal of raising $12,500 in 35 days. In that time he raised over $21,000 – over 150% of his goal.  As a result he was featured on several news media from MTV News, Yahoo!, to The Source Magazine.  Most importantly, he was able to successfully release his album (“The Dream Goes On”) which reached #2 on Amazon’s “hottest releases” in the first week.

Being an attorney also helped Mekka Don navigate the business side of the music industry, and as a result he has signed over a dozen music licensing agreements with various companies and networks including: The Ohio State University, ESPN Networks, Big Ten Network, 10TV, Big East Network, and many more.  Additionally, Mekka Don’s music has been played on WNCI, Power 107.5, Sunny 95, Sirius Radio, at The Schottenstein Center, and at every home game in The Shoe (OSU) the past two years.

Mekka Don is from Columbus, Ohio but currently lives in New York City.  He is a former Ohio State University football player where he graduated cum laude with a degree in Political Science (c/o 2002) in only three years and was a member of OSU’s Homecoming court.  He then went on to get his J.D. from NYU School of Law.  Upon graduation, Mekka Don practiced as an attorney in New York at Weil, Gotshal, and Manges before jumping out on his own to pursue his musical and entrepreneurial dreams. His motto is, “Follow Your Heart, But Use Your Brain.”

Kevin Fisher is Associate Vice President of Digital Marketing at Nationwide and oversees Digital Strategy, and Advisory Services.   He leads the client-facing Digital teams that support all brands in the enterprise through a combination of strategic advisory, education, and execution services.          Kevin is a ScrumAlliance Certified ScrumMaster, and Certified Product Owner and he has trained 150+ Nationwide Associates on the transition to Agile methods.  Recent speaking engagements for Kevin include:  Agile 2013, Agile Leaders Network 2011, Agile 2010, Scrum Gathering 2010, Agile 2009.  Prior to joining Nationwide, Kevin’s experience includes Internet Product Management and technology consulting for insurance, financial services, and high tech companies ranging from early stage startups to Fortune 500.  Kevin is a graduate of The Ohio State University.

Rich Langdale is a serial entrepreneur who started his first businesses in high school. In 1986, while attending the Ohio State University, Langdale founded Digital Storage (a wholesaler of computer storage) which led to international partnerships in Holland, France and Latin America. These partnerships were later complimented by offices in Canada and the Pacific Rim.

To begin to more appropriately manage what was becoming a conglomerate of businesses that were making further investments, Langdale formed a holding company which was later named NCT Ventures.   Through this 20+ year history Langdale has made over 30 investments.  The companies have had offices all around the globe, sold and raised hundreds of millions of dollars, once hired 1,000 people in a three-month period, launched new products, lead industries, and are fun places to work with vibrant ethical cultures.

Additionally, Rich co-founded and co-funded the Center for Entrepreneurship at The Ohio State University, which quickly earned a tier one ranking from Entrepreneur Magazine.  In addition, he was instrumental in the development of OSU’s entrepreneurship and commercialization curriculum.

Langdale is an avid supporter of Central Ohio and chaired the Columbus Chamber of Commerce’s Entrepreneurship Steering Committee (ESC) for three years.  He previously served on the Board of Directors for Nationwide Children’s Hospital Research Board, the Columbus Museum of Art and Columbus Technology Council/Business Technology Center. His awards include the Power 100, Fast 50, OSUs Supporter of Entrepreneurship Award and  Inc. Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year.    Rich is also a member of the Young President’s Organization and previously served as Education Chair and Chapter Chair.

In addition to growing successful businesses, Rich has also grown his most important asset, his family. He has been blessed with a wonderful wife, Paige, and three incredible children. Rich enjoys spending time with his family, mountain biking, skiing, painting, and playing basketball, golf, and the guitar.

Wil Schroter is a serial entrepreneur and fundraising veteran, having founded nine Internet companies in the last 20 years, the last three venture backed.

At age 19 he started his first company, Blue Diesel, which merged with what is today inVentiv, a company that now generates over $2 billion per year in billings and has over 13,000 employees globally.

Wil is currently the CEO and Co-Founder of Fundable.com, a crowdfunding platform for small businesses that allows them to raise capital online.  In the past year over $50 million has been committed to startups on Fundable.

Wil has been named Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Association and has also been recognized by the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year program.   He is a regular contributor to Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine and The Wall Street Journal.

Brent Stutz is a Senior Vice President at Cardinal Health, a Fortune 21 health care products and services company dedicated to improving the cost-effectiveness of health care. Brent has nearly 25 years of software development, IT strategy and operations experience. As the Pharmaceutical Segment’s CTO, Brent’s role is leading an organization focused on delivering technology enabled services to our customers by providing capabilities that not only complement the core Cardinal Health business but improve clinical efficacy and patient care.  Working across all the business units, Brent is responsible for the multi-year plan, architectural approach and delivery of these commercialized solutions.

Brent’s most recent past role at Cardinal Health was Chief Architect for the Enterprise Information Technology organization reporting directly to the CIO. In this role he had enterprise-wide responsibilities for all aspects of architecture and IT strategy. Previously Brent was VP of Operations, responsible for the day-to-day infrastructure maintenance and support of key solutions including the companies SAP, database and middleware solutions.

Prior to Cardinal Health, Brent led a commercial software organization for MCI WorldCom focusing on internet solutions targeted towards the Fortune 500 sector of companies. He has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems from the College of Engineering from The Ohio State University.

James Goebel | 01:45 – 03:00

Abstract

Many teams attempt to adopt agile by focusing on the process, the practices, or the tools.  All too often, this results in a new vocabulary but the same old outcomes.  Imagine adopting agile with the goal of intentionally changing the relationships between team members.  Perhaps effective agile adoption is best seen as a deep culture change initiative.  What kind of outcomes could your team achieve if you cultivate transparency, actively remove fear from the environment, and focus on creating joyful results for your customers?

Speaker

James Goebel is a founding partner of Menlo Innovations. Menlo uses highly collaborative project teams to design and implement innovative products for clients that place high value on user adoption.

The team he helped build at Menlo Innovations has successfully blended an Extreme Programming development team, usability design specialists, a quality assurance practice, and formal project management. Representatives from start-up companies as well as large Fortune 500 firms routinely tour Menlo’s Software Factory environment to study its implementation of agile.

James has worked in a variety of environments, from 2 employee startups up to billion dollar organizations. As a coach and change agent, James has helped organizations achieve dramatic transformations in both process and culture. He enjoys speaking at conferences, teaching classes, and speaking to small local groups in order to share the lessons he has learned.

James is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), a certified Scrum Master, and has an MBA from Eastern Michigan University. He has practiced software product development for more than twenty years as a developer, team lead, system architect, project manager, practice director, and executive coach. For the past fifteen years he has been building and managing Agile software teams.

Michael (Doc) Norton  | 01:45 – 03:00

Abstract

Groupon is one of the fastest growing companies in history; from a staff of 10 to a staff of 10,000+ in three short years. As our own CEO says, “Nobody should grow that fast. Nobody.” Now that the dust has settled a bit and we’re stabilizing, how does engineering retro-fit a culture across 8 major development centers on several different continents? Truth be told, we’re still learning. Doc Norton, Groupon’s Global Director of Engineering Culture shares the philosophy, successes, and failures as he tells the story of Groupon’s rapid growth and movement toward agility.

Speaker

Doc is Global Director of Engineering Culture at Groupon. Once a dedicated code slinger, Doc has turned his energy toward helping teams, departments, and companies better work together in the pursuit of better software.

Scott Preston | 01:45 – 03:00

Abstract

Agile is moving out of the team room and into the boardroom. With executives catching onto the success of agile, how will this affect the teams that started it all? What foundational elements can we put in place before portfolio managers and PMO’s take over agile within in an organization?

In this session we will look at factors critical to successfully scaling agile across the enterprise, patterns that will endanger its success, and discuss how the SAFe frameworks fits.

Speaker

Brian is an Agile and Product coach for VersionOne. He has over 18 years of experience providing Project Management, Business Analysis, and Agile coaching on small to enterprise level projects in web and software development, process improvement, communications, healthcare education, marketing, aeronautics, mergers and consolidations, long distance telecom, wireless, distribution, and government industries. Since 2004, Brian has been an Agile transformation coach helping consulting software development teams, insurance, manufacturing, workers compensation, and government agencies realize the benefits of agile. In his spare time Brian enjoys golfing and craft beer.

Anthony Crain | 01:45 – 03:00

Abstract

This session will walk through real metrics from real agile projects and show how we use these metrics to understand Productivity, Quality and Scope.

There will be a lot of interaction in the session, showing a metric and asking the audience to explain how they might use the metric, and also to judge the health of the project containing that metric.

Metrics are only useful if they lead to corrective action when yellow or red. In fact well defined metrics need to explain the default corrective action path.

The metrics will not only be useful and actionable, but it takes teams without any agile tools a mere 10-30 minutes per iteration to collect the necessary data for the metrics we will share.

Speaker

Anthony has worked at IBM Rational leading iterative projects, agile projects and organizational change efforts for over fifteen years. He is known for his outstanding mentoring and teaching abilities, clearly explaining the practical side to theoretical concepts in an exciting manner.

He has introduced thousands of people to iterative, agile and other engineering topics at multiple internal IBM events, at seven Rational User’s Conferences, the Rational European Technical Conference (where he had the privilege of presenting six times and was rated the best speaker), to over 800 IBM partners, at the Share conference, at the IEEE conference and in private and public training venues including as a Keynote Speaker.  His audience sizes have ranged from 6 to 300 people, from every development discipline and to every level from practitioner to VPs and CxOs.

He has led transformations in many diverse industries including commercial banking, software development, automotive, healthcare, financial, government, retail, automated controls, manufacturing, power, telecom, home mortgage and more.

Facilitator – Mark Harris | 01:45 — 03:00

Abstract

To modify a common saying, “Quality is in the eye of the beholder.” It takes the whole team working together to deliver quality in the customers’ eyes. In a world where technology can do almost anything and customers don’t really know what they want until it’s delivered it is easy to fall into the trap of delivering too much or too little. Careful choreography of the relationship among developers, testers, user experience, business analysts, and the product owner can help deliver the right product.

This panel will discuss and explore with the audience techniques and strategies for delivering the right solution to the right problem every time.

Facilitator

Mark Harris realized the need for quality while shipping Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 R2 during his 15-year stint at Microsoft. After leaving Microsoft in 2010, he started a QA team at Grange Insurance and ignited the Columbus QA revolution with the “QA or the Highway” conference. Following that, he shortened his commute and sharpened his skills with open source at  Manta Media.  Mark has a set of strong opinions, held weakly, on software development, which he will generally share at a moment’s notice.  A father of 3 and husband of 1, he spends his free time exploring brands of single-malt scotch and writing iPhone apps (usually not together).

Panelists

Kymberli Cassidy is director of product management for nChannel in Columbus, OH where she provides project leadership and strategic oversight on product development and specialty projects with enterprises and government entities.  Kymberli has over 14 years’ experience in software and platform product management where she relishes strategic planning and cross-functional leadership. Kymberli previously worked as Director of eCommerce Product Development for Sears Holdings Corporate Online Business Unit with mygofer.com, the incubation/innovation eCommerce project for both Kmart Pharmacy and Kmart.com.  Kymberli was responsible for strategy, execution and marketing and held P&L accountability driving a 29% YoY increase.  Kymberli has also led development teams at Manta Media overseeing their premium subscription product lines, and with Electronic Arts where she led cross-functional teams to deliver graphics and infrastructure for multiple games including, Madden 08-11, NCAA 08-11, NFL Tour, and NFL Head Coach.   Kymberli’s solid technical background and expertise in new product and services development enables her to work with clients to carefully gathering requirements, uncover hidden needs and help produce deliverables that exceed expectations.

Bill Gray is a former developer, tester, designer, analyst, architect, DBA, engineer, trainer, project manager, and single guy with a glorious head of flowing blonde hair…unfortunately, this was all during his waterfall days.

Bill is a current servant leader of over three dozen software craftsman/women practicing Agile at Northwoods, father of four, husband of one, and bald as the day he was born…and he wouldn’t trade it for all the blonde hair in Sweden!

I’m Jon Kruger and I am an independent consultant in Columbus, OH.  I specialize in software solutions, project leadership, and Agile coaching and training and I have experience in a wide range of industries and environments. I use my experience as a leader and software developer to find ways to create better quality software, improve the software development process, and maximize value for the business. On the side, I run the Columbus ATDD Developers Group and provide test-driven development training (tddbootcamp.com). You can follow me on my blog (jonkruger.com) or on Twitter (@JonKruger).

Joe Ours is the Director of Quality Assurance and Testing Services for Cohesion. Joseph draws on 15 years’ experience providing executive-level leadership while managing high profile initiatives with a demonstrated ability to lead people towards successful delivery. Throughout his diverse career, he has built a solid reputation as a thought leader who exhibits a results-driven business approach and exceptional ability to achieve success. He is a strong leader in business processes with a proven history of providing project and portfolio management of large technology initiatives. Joseph brings both a strategic and tactical thought process to solving IT related issues. Joseph holds Bachelor’s degrees in Electronic Engineering Technology and Technical Management in addition to a Masters of Business Administration.

Jeff “Cheezy” Morgan  | 01:45 – 03:00

Abstract

Many Agile teams focus on Velocity as their measure of progress. They build burn-up charts to track it over time and make it the focus of much of their discussion during Sprint Planning and Retrospectives. Is the strong focus on this metric truly in line with the principles of Agile Software Development?

Join Cheezy and Ardita as they lead us through a hands on workshop to explore this question. In this workshop you will discover how a focus on Value first, instead of Velocity, changes how the team approaches the work to be completed. Through a series of structured activities you will work with a Story Map for a fictitious project and assign value to the discovered stories. You will learn the practices and skills necessary to track Earned Value on your project and also learn the valuable lesson on how to discover what not to build. The outcome will be a set of new skills that you can take back with you and immediately apply to your current team development planning efforts. This session will be fun and educational. This is one workshop you don’t want to miss.

Speaker

Chief technology officer and a cofounder of LeanDog, Jeff “Cheezy” Morgan has been teaching classes and coaching teams on agile and lean techniques since early 2004. Most of his work has focused on the engineering practices used by developers and testers. For the past few years he has experienced great success and recognition for his work focused on helping teams adopt Acceptance Test Driven Development using Cucumber. He has authored several popular Ruby gems used by software testers and is the author of the book, Cucumber & Cheese—A Testers Workshop.

Matt Anderson, Angela Metoyer & Glenn Watson | 01:45 – 03:00

Abstract

The path to agile is more of a journey than a destination. At Grange, this has definitely been the case over many years. Join us as we discuss OUR reality of an agile transformation; the beginnings, the successes, the challenges, and the future. We won’t be sharing ‘best practices’, secret sauces, or silver bullets. We will share an honest overview of the Grange journey, including what has and hasn’t worked, the ups and downs, the victories and the defeats.

Speakers

Glenn Watson is Associate Vice President, IT Application Development at Grange Insurance.

Matt Anderson has over 20 years of experience in the Financial Services and Insurance industries, with several years in management consulting. He has held various leadership positions in both IT and operations, supporting systems development ranging from day-to-day support to enterprise integration efforts across mission-critical platforms.

Matt is passionate about the intersection of agile, complexity, and leadership in today’s organizations.

Angela Metoyer is a leader within the PMO organization at Grange Insurance. She has 30+  years in both the business and technology delivery areas. In her role, she has oversight for project management, agile and business requirements functions. Angela leads the Commercial Lines business unit through their strategic and operational priorities from planning through execution.

Over the last 5 years, Angela has focused much of her time, energy and passion leading the PMO, IT and QA teams through transformation from traditional development methods to agile. “My passion for leveraging agile for software development is driven from my belief that empowerment enables innovation and high performance”.

Glenn Watson is Associate Vice President, IT Application Development at Grange Insurance.

In his role, Watson oversees all personal and life application development.  Over the past several years there has been a growing focus on leveraging agile principles.  He has been practicing agile techniques for over the past 10 years.  He has developed his IT leadership skills during a long career in insurance.

Scott Preston | 01:45 – 03:00

Abstract

Ever walk to an agile board and feel like you’re playing a board game from when you’re a kid? Game play is fun. Building software is fun. This session will explore the similarities of games and agile software development.

Speaker

Scott Preston is a software craftsman and roboticist from Columbus, Ohio. Over the past decade he has worked for some of the largest companies in the world and built & programmed lots of web sites and robots. When he’s not working on a new robot or web project, he consults and solves hard problems for ICC, which he joined in 2014. He is also a renowned speaker and has spoken at many events large and small to promote web development and robotics. You can find out more about Scott by visiting his website: http://www.scottpreston.com or his robot project site http://www.scottsbots.com.

Christopher Avery & Scotty Bevill | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

Our world suffers from terminal normality. (Notice the mediocrity around you and ask yourself “Is this really what I want?”). Our world also suffers from too much false expertise, wrong answers, manipulative influence, and bad advice.

In this chaos we are taught to make our way ­­ to be a success! ­­ focused on paying attention to right and wrong. And we get skewered. Frequently. We’re told to lead, that leadership is influence ­­ but those in power, i.e., The Leaders, are notoriously poor at more than they admit.

So, we ask: How Do You Know? How do you gain perspective? How do you think for yourself and then lead yourself and others with confidence?

Indeed, how do you organize and lead chaos itself?

With more than 50+ years of leadership study, Scotty and Christopher challenge you today to explore leadership in 5 deceptively simple words they use as guideposts everyday: Intention, Integration, Awareness, Confront, and Contribution.

Speakers

Christopher Avery is a sought-after, international speaker, author, and business advisor on responsible leadership, teamwork, and change for companies like GAP, Wells Fargo, and Ebay. Known for his cutting-edge work to demystify and then develop practical team leadership skills for engineers and other technical professionals, Christopher wrote the popular classic Teamwork Is An Individual Skill for everyone who is fed up with working in bad teams. Fortune magazine called it the only book on teamwork you need to read.

As the visionary force behind the worldwide Leadership Gift community, Christopher applies groundbreaking discoveries about personal responsibility and performance to support leaders intent on rapidly building highly reliable, agile, sustainable, and accelerating teams and cultures.

Christopher is president of Partnerwerks Inc., the company he co-founded in 1991 to document best practices for collaborating under competitive conditions. He is an agile coach with Rally Software,  teaching Scrum and Product Owner workshops. Christopher is also a Senior Consultant with the IT and Agile Project Management practices of the Cutter Consortium, a Boston-area think tank. He co-authored the Declaration of Interdependence and co-founded the Agile Project Leadership Network dedicated to connecting, developing, and supporting great project leaders.

Christopher earned his Doctorate in Communication of Technology from The University of Texas at Austin where he occasionally lectures. He is a Visiting Scholar at Capella University.

The author of hundreds of articles and commentaries about individual and collective performance at work, Christopher is a popular source for the media.

As a mentor and certified coach, Scotty Bevill has made it a personal mission to assist others in their journey to personal actualization.  From executives and functional management to project teams and independents, a understanding of self as a state of “Agile Being…”

Scotty is a Certified Executive Leadership Coach among other things.  As the Founder and CEO of Bevill Edge®, he keeps a focus on consulting in State Government & Enterprise Business Process Management assessments  and implementations.    Scotty is a Certified Executive Leadership Coach, Project Management Professional (PMP®), PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP℠), Certified Professional Coach (CPC), Certified Scrum Professional (CSP), Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Innovation Games® Trained Facilitator (IGTF),  and Innovation Games® Qualified Instructor (IGQI).

Chris Hefley | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

Agile teams the world over are discovering the power of Kanban to improve flow, shorten delivery times, improve quality, and drive continuous improvement. And the power of Kanban can be summed up as “Visualize Work” and “Limit Work-In-Process (WIP)”. Visualizing work is easy. But limiting WIP is not.  Neural pathways forged in our hunter-gatherer past make the very idea of limiting WIP seem unnatural. But in our complex, collaborative, modern workplace, added effort often doesn’t lead directly to added value.  In this talk, we’ll examine what makes limiting WIP hard, how to overcome the barriers, and the benefits you’ll see from enforcing WIP limits. We’ll look at the benefits and barriers from the perspective of an individual, a team, and an entire company, and see examples of how one company transformed itself by limiting WIP at every level, from the CEO on down.

Speaker

Chris Hefley is a founding fellow of the Lean Systems Society, a Lean-Kanban University certified Kanban Coaching Professional, a Brickell Key Award nominee, and the CEO of LeanKit, the leader in Kanban software.

Damon Poole | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

Culture is the shared beliefs and behaviors of an organization. There is organization-wide culture and culture specific to functional areas including business, architecture, PMO, developers, QA, infrastructure, and management. In addition, all of this is set against the backdrop of 40+ years of software development and IT industry culture. Agile brings a new set of beliefs and behaviors which may either reinforce the organization’s existing culture, or create an opportunity to consider new possibilities. Agile also brings with it new practices, techniques, and software tools that support a shift in culture and can help to ease any potential conflict.

This session will examine the kinds of cultural and behavioral changes that Agile can bring, the benefits of those changes, and how to move towards a more Agile supportive culture. Specifically, we’ll look at the role of culture in the following areas: raising impediments; long standing cross-functional teams; self-organization; frequent business and development interaction; breaking down silos; and managing, measuring, and compensating people.

Speaker

Damon Poole’s 23 years of software experience spans from small co-located teams all the way up global development organizations with hundreds of teams. Damon is a past President and Vice President of Agile New England. He writes frequently on the topic of Agile development, is the author of the web book “Do It Yourself Agile,” and a pioneer in the area of Multistage Continuous Integration and mixing Scrum and Kanban.

Damon’s speaking engagements include: Agile and Beyond 2010-2012, Agile Business Conference, many AgilePaloozas, Agile 2008-2013, Agile DC 2012-2013, Agile Development Practices, numerous Agile community groups, and has trained thousands of people on Agile techniques.

He is also a co-founder and past CEO and CTO of AccuRev where he created multiple Award winning products including AccuRev and AccuWorkflow.

Sean Heuer | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

As Agile moves further into the mainstream we are encountering more and more risk averse companies. These companies require a path and will be highly resistant until you can show how Agile can work in their world. A key component of showing the path is showing them how to organize their people into teams and chains of teams that can deliver on business objectives. For this purpose, we created the Team Canvas.

The Team Canvas is a design and modeling tool that allows you to integrate various aspects of team formation with value-stream optimization. As a design tool you can use it to do initial analysis, to iterate the design and test various scenarios and combinations, and then to improve over time as you learn about the dynamics of your Agile organization.

To help us address these challenges in Agile adoption, the Team Canvas is a simple, 1-page tool that will help you…

• Visualize how team assignments impact other teams and the organization as a whole
• Understand how teams can chain together to create a value stream
• Represent the team as the atomic unit of delivery
• Enable continuous improvement at the organizational level with the Team design being at the core

Come learn how to leverage the Team Canvas!

Speaker

Sean Heuer is an experienced agile practitioner and agile evangelist. He has a passion for helping people improve and realize their full potential through agile. He has a thirst for knowledge, which he seeks to appease through reading every book, blog, and article he can find on agile, business, psychology, teaching and learning, and anything else that catches his eye.

Facilitator – Alan Czako | 10:00 — 11:15

Abstract

In many ways the initial Agile transformation may have been the easy part of the process.  We ran it like any other project.  It had clear objectives, a budget, and a deadline.  As IT leaders, this was just the kind of thing we know how to run well.  We created a vision, rallied the stakeholders, and became cheerleaders.  During that initial 6-12 months we tore down walls, put up boards, started stand-ups, engaged product owners, and started talking about value.  It certainly seemed like the effort had been a success.  It was an enormous achievement.

But, there was more.  It turns out we had only just begun the effort.  People and organizations don’t change old habits easily.  Old technologies don’t upgrade themselves or become easier to maintain.  Executives still wanted everything they expected, on a specific date, and for a predetermined cost.  The Agile transformation requires a lot more operational change within IT and the broader organization than any project can address.  This isn’t just about how we build software in IT.  It’s about how the organization manages critical assets, budgets, and the people that build, support, and use them.

Join us for an in-depth discussion of the ongoing challenges and opportunities facing senior IT leaders as they tackle the broader changes within their organization.

Facilitator

Alan Czako started his career with CareWorks in January of 2013, as a Director of IT, where he managed the IT systems and infrastructure of the CareWorks third party administrator.  In this role he was responsible for addressing numerous infrastructure, operations, and development challenges as well as running an agile transformation.   Mr. Czako later transferred his expertise in Agile transformations to a Columbus-based client of Careworks Technology and has been working with that client for the last 6 months.

Mr. Czako has worked in the technology field for over 27 years. Prior to joining the CareWorks Family of Companies, he held the position of Vice President of Information Technology and Delivery for 2Checkout.com.  His responsibilities included overall oversight of IT and the delivery of new projects.  Prior to 2Checkout, Mr. Czako spent five years at Quick Solutions, Inc. as a Project Manager, Program Manager, and a Solutions Delivery Manager.  In these roles, he managed projects and engagements for numerous clients including IQ Innovations, Sedgwick CMS, State of Ohio Attorney General, and Worthington Industries.  His background also includes 10 years as the Operations & Infrastructure Manager for the U.S. Trotting Association, and five years as a programmer analyst and project leader for The Limited, Inc.

Mr. Czako attended The Ohio State University for both his undergraduate and graduate studies, earning his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in 1987 and a Masters of Business Administration from the OSU Fisher College of Business in 2007.  In addition, he holds the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, Six Sigma Green Belt, and Professional Scrum Master (PSM) certification.  He is a Certified Agile Coach and recognized Agile presenter.

He resides in Galena, Ohio with his wife and daughters.  Alan Czako is a long-time member of the Westerville Community United Church of Christ, where he has served on various boards and is currently a high school youth group leader.  Within the community he has acted as a poll worker, served on the Westerville City Board of Zoning Appeals, and volunteered in various events sponsored by the Westerville police department.  He currently holds a position on the Harlem Township Zoning Commission.

Panelists

Steve Farley is the Vice President of the Application Development Center at Nationwide Insurance located in Columbus, Ohio. He has over 28 years of Information Technology experience with a focus on development operations and the resulting value for business partners.

During his career, Steve has led technology implementations and business capability improvements that have included new product introductions, international expansions, large scale record keeping changes, service center improvements, and internet capabilities that all focused on value based delivery for customers.

In his current role as Vice President of the Nationwide Development Center he leads a team of software development professionals with a focus on delivery effectiveness through Agile practice adoption, Lean concepts, and a culture of Continuous Improvement. The Application Development Center currently consists of 37 agile development teams and is one of the first enterprise-scale Agile organizations to achieve CMMI Level III.

Tim Heller is an Executive Director at JP Morgan Chase & Co in Columbus, Ohio. As Chief Development Officer for the Mortgage Bank accountable for strategic development, he supports numerous development teams around the globe and is leading the Agile Transformation across the organization. He is an experienced Agilist specializing in enterprise-scale Lean management and Agile software development transformations. Tim has played numerous roles in IT over his 20 year career and is an active member of the Agile community. Previously, he helped transform Nationwide’s application development culture through the introduction of Lean and Agile concepts

Rob Richardson is a Technology Executive with over 25 years of experience and currently leading the Enterprise IT Automation and Governance practice for CareWorks Tech.  In this role he is responsible for P&L, business development, implementation and most importantly customer satisfaction.

Prior to joining CareWorks Tech, Richardson served as SVP and Director of Application Shared Services where he was responsible for Enterprise Architecture, Application Developments (SDLC), SOA Services, Quality Assurance, Change, Release & Configuration Management, and Application Production Support

Prior to joining Huntington Bank, Richardson served as Chief Information Officer at Worthington Industries where he led several key efforts including a major ERP implementation, Transformational change, Business Intelligence, and Analytics.

Before joining Worthington, Richardson worked at Ashland Incorporated for nearly 9 years, in various IT management roles encompassing various aspects of the IT and business functions.  In 2004, he was named as IT Director – Global Architecture & Standards, which included IT Strategy and Performance Management.  Previous to this role, he served as IT Director – Computing Services Center, providing a variety of end user support services via a shared services structure to the organization.

Before joining Ashland, Richardson was employed by Alkon Corporation.  For over twelve years he worked in varying business roles (technology and customer facing) supporting the manufacturing solutions, customer support, system implementation, software development, system design, technical sales, project management and product management.

He also served as a member of the Audit Committee for the State of Ohio from 2009 till 2012.  Richardson earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Franklin University in Electronics Engineering Technology with a minor in Computer Science in 1985.  He is married with two children and resides in Blacklick, Ohio.

Don McGreal | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

Whether you are a professional trainer or trying to bring agility to your organization or team, there is no doubt that you have encountered the difficulty in conveying agile values and principles. Learning practices and techniques is easy in comparison; You learn by doing. But how do you teach a philosophy or mindset? How do you ‘do’ a value?

Through trial and error, and through training thousands of agile practitioners, we have put together a set of best practices (and not-so-best practices) for delivering powerful agile learning experiences. Participants in this session will walk away with a set of tools they can put to use the next day. These will include scenario simulations, learning games, discussion generators, reenforcement exercises, student patterns, common pitfalls, and other activities to help you get out of the way and let the learning happen.

Speaker

As VP of Learning Solutions at Improving Enterprises, Don McGreal is a hands-on consultant and instructor.
As an instructor and a Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer, he has authored and taught classes for thousands of software professionals around the globe, specializing in Scrum, Acceptance Testing, Object-Oriented-Design, and Test-Driven Development.
On projects and in the classroom, Don is known for his enthusiasm and dedication. He has published articles for both the Agile Journal and the Scrum Alliance and is co-founder of TastyCupcakes.org, a comprehensive collection of games and exercises for accelerating the adoption of agile principles.

Brandon Childers & David Lim | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

Would you pay to see LeBron James stretch?  Neither would we.  Agility is one component of his repertoire, alongside strength, power, skill, and competitiveness.  Organizations are demanding more of the IT function as all industries look to technology as a competitive advantage.  Being able to respond to change is extremely important, but is that all it takes to win?  In this session, we’ll tell you how to take your organization beyond agility and become athletic.

Speaker

As the Vice President of IT and Operations at IGS Energy, Brandon Childers oversees all aspects of IT solution delivery, infrastructure, and operations.  His passion lies in building IT organizations that are not only agile, but athletic—incorporating flexibility, reliability, and high-performance.  Realizing that culture plays a tremendous role in solutions delivery optimization, Brandon focuses on creating a vibrant work environment where people are respected, empowered, and engaged.

David Lim is a Program Manager at IGS Energy.  He works alongside multiple development teams and assists with core systems and business process strategy in IT and Operations.  David is a PMI Certified Project Management Professional and Scrum.org Certified Scrum Master specializing in business analysis, process improvement, and operational change management.  David enjoys learning about process design, business leadership, psychology and the intersection between them in application.  He also practices martial arts, enjoys traveling, theatre, singing, and trying new places to eat.  David believes that beyond Agility, “taking care of business” requires a degree of personal and professional Athleticism.

Jim Holmes | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

This talk doesn’t even pretend to give you simplistic answers on how to effect change in your organization; however, you will learn some practical tips on how to start making that change happen. We’ll discuss forming a clear vision for the change you want to implement, refining that vision, getting stakeholders on board, and dealing with forces resisting change. You’ll also learn critical concepts like clarifying your idea, speaking the right language, creating a good pitch, and figuring out who owns the money you’ll need for your idea.

Some of the real world examples you’ll hear include working to set expectations, getting appropriate hardware and software for testing environments, dealing with offshore/outsourced contractors, and creating an organization-wide culture that cares about quality.

You’ll leave this session with ideas based on Jim’s successes – and you’ll have learned from his frank discussions on where he’s failed.

Speaker

Jim is the Vice President of ALM and Testing for Falafel Consulting. Jim has been in various corners of the IT world since joining the US Air Force in 1982. He’s spent time in LAN/WAN and server management roles in addition to many years helping teams and customers deliver great systems. Jim has lead successful delivery teams at software consulting firms and product companies alike. He’s worked with organizations ranging from start ups to Fortune 100 companies to improve their delivery processes and ship better value to their customers. Jim’s worked in many different environments but greatly prefers those adopting practices from Lean and Agile communities.

When not at work you might find Jim in the kitchen with a glass of wine, playing Xbox, hiking with his family, or banished to the garage while trying to practice his guitar.

Srini Koushik | 08:00 – 09:30

Abstract

This talk will focus on trends that are driving the next generation of technology enabled business experiences and discuss how enterprises can rapidly embrace the underlying technologies that are shaping the Always-On World.

Speaker

Srini Koushik is President and CEO of the NTT Innovation Institute Inc. (NTT I³, pronounced NTT I Cube) the Silicon Valley based R&D arm of the NTT Group, a global leader in information and communications technology ($132B in Revenue. In 2012).  Srini was 30 years of experience as Programmer, Architect,  CDO, CIO and CTO for Fortune 100 Companies including IBM, HP and Nationwide.

Srini is an Open Group Distinguished Certified Architecture Profession Leader.  He has published several articles, holds 3 patents and co-authored a best-selling book on “Patterns for e-business” in 2001.  He was elected into the IBM Academy of Technology and named an IBM Distinguished Engineer.  He was also named an Elite 8 CIO by Insurance and Technology, a Top 25 CTO by Infoworld,, a Top 10 All Star in the Financial Services Industry by TechDecisions and a Computerworld Premier 100 Technology Leader.

Srini enjoys skydiving, hang gliding and other extreme sports. He is currently working towards his private pilot license.  He enjoys traveling and has been to 51 countries and wants to visit the other 144 countries in his lifetime.   He lives with his wife, daughter and Sheltie in Monte Sereno, California.

Raju Gandhi | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

You have been using Git for a while now. You use topic branches, have committed and merged code. You know all your repository history is available to you at all times, that branching is cheap, and often hear of developers “rewriting history” and it makes you wonder how Git does what it does. The answer lies in the DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) that Git creates to manage your code-base’s history. Understanding how the DAG works, and how different commands like merge and rebase affect that graph are key to Git mastery.

In this session we will take a peek at the datastructure that drives Git. We will see how Git uses it to manage your history, and perhaps even glean a software lesson or two from Git’s approach.

Speaker

Raju is a Clojure/Java/Ruby developer and a programming language geek. He has been writing software for the better part of a decade in several industries including education, finance, construction and the manufacturing sector. Raju has a graduate degree in Industrial Engineering from Ohio University. Raju is Integrallis’ Clojure man and teaches Ruby/Rails, jQuery/JavaScript and of course Clojure.

In his spare time you will find Raju reading, watching movies, or playing with yet another programming language. Raju is the founder and host of inclojure, the Columbus Clojure User Group.

Elizabeth Naramore | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

It’s no secret that at GitHub, we use GitHub to write the code that runs GitHub. But what you may not know is that we also use GitHub to manage GitHub the company. In this talk, I’ll show you practical ways that we use our own system in a non-code context. You’ll learn how we track projects and to-do lists, discuss and collaborate on corporate policies, communicate news to a highly distributed company, coordinate events, update and collaborate on internal and external documentation, and even onboard new employees. You’ll come away from this talk with a whole new perspective on using GitHub.

Speaker

Elizabeth is an author, speaker, mentor, and recovering web developer. She currently works on the Community Team at GitHub, and she’s all about looking at new ways to solve old problems. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her partner, their 3 children, and a dog named Raisin.

Venkat Subramaniam | 03:15 – 04:30

Abstract

We’ve been told to keep things simple. It turns out, that’s easily said than done. Creating something simple is, well, not really that simple. If simple was sitting next to us, would we even recognize it? Is my design simple, is yours simple? How can we tell? That’s a simple question, but the answer to it is… well come to this talk to find out.

Speaker

Dr. Venkat Subramaniam is an award-winning author, founder of Agile Developer, Inc., and an instructional professor at the University of Houston.

He has trained and mentored thousands of software developers in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia, and is a regularly-invited speaker at several international conferences. Venkat helps his clients effectively apply and succeed with agile practices on their software projects.

Venkat is a (co)author of multiple books, including the 2007 Jolt Productivity award winning book Practices of an Agile Developer. His latest book is Functional Programming in Java: Harnessing the Power of Java 8 Lambda Expressions. You can reach him by email at venkats@agiledeveloper.com or on twitter at @venkat_s.

Rob Keefer | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

We are ‘makers’. We like to get things done. The more productive we are, the happier we are. This connection between productivity and happiness has been researched in the field of positive psychology as flow: the theory that people are happiest when they are in a state of absorption with an activity, or in the zone (credit: M. Csiksgentmihalyi). Practices such as Personal Kanban, the Pomodoro technique, TDD, and more, promote both individual and team flow, which in turn increases the peace of mind in their deliverables. In this highly interactive session, participants will experience first-hand (via LEGO) how these practices contribute to flow. Though some of these practices are developer-centric, the whole team (Project Managers, Testers, UX Designers, etc.) will discover how individual disciplines contribute to team peace of mind.

Speaker

Rob Keefer, PhD, is Co-founder and Innovation Director of POMIET. He has 20+ years of experience delivering innovative software solutions, leading teams, and implementing approaches for better human/computer interaction. Along the way Rob has encouraged teams to follow personal team practices that optimize productivity and promote confidence in deliverables.

Zach Briggs | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

Writing production quality JavaScript is hard, but it’s not impossible. This talk looks at the patterns, tools, libraries and workflows that Test Double uses to be successful with this challenging language in the browser. I talk about the pain we’ve felt from mistakes we’ve made and how that informed Lineman.js, our build tool.

We’ll cover when it’s a good idea to isolate the frontend code and how to do that. I’ll talk about stubbing API calls so that frontend workflow can be free of server side concerns. Finally, we’ll cover the testing libraries and tools that Test Double uses to keep code sane.

Speaker

Zach Briggs is Double Agent 005 for Test Double where builds thick client interfaces with JavaScript and JSON APIs with Node and Ruby. He writes about rapid learning, sustainable programming models, medium data, dev ops, and metacognition.

Zach probably wants to be your friend. He lives in Chicago, IL.

Dave Hoover | 11:45 – 01:00

Abstract

Many years ago, Alistair Cockburn described software development as a cooperative, goal-seeking, team-based game. This idea will be unpacked and we will learn how to apply the concept of collaborative gaming to our work as software developers. One critical aspect of gaming is setting yourself up for the next move in the game. We will focus on apprenticeship as a key strategy for winning the game.

Speaker

Dave Hoover is a co-founder of Dev Bootcamp and author of Apprenticeship Patterns: Guidance for the aspiring software craftsman. He has been a software developer for 14 years, and has worked at ThoughtWorks, Obtiva, and Groupon before he decided to bring Dev Bootcamp to Chicago. Dave has been married for almost 17 years and is spending more and more time with his wife and 3 kids.

Nilanjan Raychaudhuri | 08:00 – 09:30

Abstract

Is Programming an Art or Science? Or is it both?

Is writing a program like composing poetry or music? It does give us both emotional and intellectual satisfaction.

Or the most important thing is beautiful code?

Lets find out whether we can find answers for these questions in next hour or so.

Speaker

Nilanjan is a consultant/trainer and core member of Play framework team. He works for Typesafe. He has more than 12 years of experience managing and developing software solutions in Java, Ruby, Groovy and also in Scala. He is zealous about programming in Scala ever since he got introduced to this beautiful language. He enjoys sharing his experience via talks in various conferences and he is also the author of the “Scala in Action” and upcoming “Play recipes” book.

John Huston & Mark Kaufmann | 10:00 – 03:00

Abstract

To properly plan for the workshop, we ask that attendees register for the workshop:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/innovation-empowered-by-creativity-tickets-9979084711

Innovation is not an accident.  In fact we believe it is not something you do.  It is an outcome not an input.  In this session participants will experience 7 aspects of a framework that will help you produce innovations.

• Creativity
• Ambiguity
• Curiosity
• Inspiration
• Pattern-Ization
• Experience
• Intuition

We believe innovation doesn’t just happen.  The practices that lead to innovation can be learned and developed.  This interactive hands-on session will allow attendees to experience and begin to master each of these techniques and leave with practical and powerful steps to redefine your future.

Facilitator

John Huston is an experienced IT leader, generalist and agilist with over 20 years experience in the field. His passion for learning and coaching has led him to a variety of leadership roles, including Application Development, Enterprise Architecture, Quality, and Operations /Infrastructure. He has led the effort to deploy agile methods at the enterprise and team level. Since joining Pillar, John has turned his passion to the human development aspects of agile teams and is currently responsible for Talent Learning and Development within the organization.

Mary Kaufmann, Chief learning Officer for Pillar Technology, brings structure and advancement to Pillar’s commitment to employee engagement and knowledge transformation. Prior to joining Pillar, she spent five years serving as Assistant Professor at Muskingum University teaching in a an innovative masters program integrating learning in both business and technology. She holds a BS in Computer Science and Business, and two masters degrees; an MBA and a Master of Divinity. She has over 25 years professional experience leading teams, implementing new technology, leading strategic design and management development. She is passionate about applying creativity in learning to transform how teams work together and drive innovative results.  Mary lives on a farm in Dresden, Ohio with her husband, Brad, and children, Emily (19) and William (16).

Christopher Avery | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

Selling agile for management has become a favorite calling and pastime. And resistance to agile by management continues to be a common response. Most of us know of stories where management in large corporations actually say “don’t talk to us about ‘agile’”.
So what’s the agile evangelist to do?

When faced with this challenge I decided to search for other approaches to managing that “felt” agile but (a) did not use the same name and (b) originated in management (as opposed to development). That means I was looking for proven approaches that are holistic, empirical, and rooted in systems thinking.

And I found some. This session will share what I found and make two promises:
For agilists challenged with selling agile to management, it will provide agile-like alternatives that executives may be more receptive to hearing, and thus to trying.

For executives attracted to agile challenged with understanding how agile could work in management, operations, strategy, sales, etc., this session will provide alternatives that have been developed and proven in those management arenas.

Speaker

Christopher is a sought-after, international speaker, author, and business advisor on responsible leadership, teamwork, and change for companies like GAP, Wells Fargo, and Ebay. Known for his cutting-edge work to demystify and then develop practical team leadership skills for engineers and other technical professionals, Christopher wrote the popular classic Teamwork Is An Individual Skill for everyone who is fed up with working in bad teams. Fortune magazine called it the only book on teamwork you need to read.

As the visionary force behind the worldwide Leadership Gift community, Christopher applies groundbreaking discoveries about personal responsibility and performance to support leaders intent on rapidly building highly reliable, agile, sustainable, and accelerating teams and cultures.

Christopher is president of Partnerwerks Inc., the company he co-founded in 1991 to document best practices for collaborating under competitive conditions. He is an agile coach with Rally Software, teaching Scrum and Product Owner workshops. Christopher is also a Senior Consultant with the IT and Agile Project Management practices of the Cutter Consortium, a Boston-area think tank. He co-authored the Declaration of Interdependence and co-founded the Agile Project Leadership Network dedicated to connecting, developing, and supporting great project leaders.

Christopher earned his Doctorate in Communication of Technology from The University of Texas at Austin where he occasionally lectures. He is a Visiting Scholar at Capella University.

The author of hundreds of articles and commentaries about individual and collective performance at work, Christopher is a popular source for the media.

Bob Myers | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

This talk is for new and maturing leaders in the Agile community.  It will discuss how to discover your personal and organizational why and how the next generation of agile leadership must think differently, add hyper creativity and new learning methods to respond to the insatiable demand of consumers and our organizations.  Trends like Growth Hacking, Maker Movement and other topics will be discussed as practical but creative extensions of the core why(s) of the Agile movement.

Speaker

With Bob, it’s all about vision. Big vision. Serving as the CEO of Pillar, he’s harnessing over 20 years in the IT industry to create the next evolution in business solutions. For the past 10 years, Bob has focused on strategic technology engagements that impact business process improvement, sales growth, cost displacement, and new business operating models. Pillar is where his energy and experience are dedicated to optimizing results as well as satisfaction for all involved. You could say he’s a connoisseur of the win-win.

Efficient as he is knowledgeable, Bob’s inspiring primary skills are in the area of Business Innovation, IT Engineering and Value-Based Craftmanship. Prior to joining Pillar, Bob served as a CIO, CTO, and IT Director. He was a consultant for CGE&Y and was a Director/Partner in one of the world’s largest Internet growth companies. He has also been a founding partner in the creation and sale of two Internet-related start-up companies. By the way, Bob’s got a huge heart for everything he does. You’ll know it as soon as you meet him.

Scotty Bevill | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

As more and more organizations are tapping into the power of shared responsibility and high performing, self-organizing teams, every role is finding itself in the middle of facilitation.  New Ideas, structures, and behaviors are manifesting as companies change models and transform their environments.

When new ideas are as emergent as product requirements, “collaboration architects” are more and more in demand.  In this session, let’s talk about the different relationship boundaries we face together and the “we stuff” and “me stuff” of each role and it’s new game.

Speaker

As a mentor and certified coach, Scotty Bevill has made it a personal mission to assist others in their journey to personal actualization. From executives and functional management to project teams and independents, a understanding of self as a state of “Agile Being…”

Scotty is a Certified Executive Leadership Coach among other things. As the Founder and CEO of Bevill Edge®, he keeps a focus on consulting in State Government & Enterprise Business Process Management assessments and implementations. Scotty is a Certified Executive Leadership Coach, Project Management Professional (PMP®), PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP℠), Certified Professional Coach (CPC), Certified Scrum Professional (CSP), Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Innovation Games® Trained Facilitator (IGTF), and Innovation Games® Qualified Instructor (IGQI).

Anthony Crain | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

When transforming an organization, it is important to list out all of the skills the teams need to master, teach them about those skills, but then to actually measure and reward growth in those skills. Especially when the skills are complex, require mentoring, and might be changing as the organization masters them based on discoveries and lessons learned.

This session will describe a skill growth program that awards skill levels based on meeting specific objective criteria. The technique requires the use of mentors for difficult skills as a quality control and encourages team members to grow skills both inside and outside their usual role. The use of objective tasks sets this approach apart from similar skill management approaches that rely on self assessment or management opinion.

Much like “gamification” techniques, earning skills and levels in skills becomes a lot like a game of earning merit badges and people become competitive in who can gain the most, the fastest, the most diversity, personally fill a known skill gap, etc.

Companies who have adopted this approach have credited it as the most significant factor in changing their culture, including at a major grocery chain, a major telecom, a life critical automated controls company and a food manufacturer.

Come learn how this approach works and see if it is a candidate for changing your companies culture to a more agile mindset.

Speaker

Anthony has worked at IBM Rational leading iterative projects, agile projects and organizational change efforts for over thirteen years. He is known for his outstanding mentoring and teaching abilities, clearly explaining the practical side to theoretical concepts in an exciting manner.

He has introduced thousands of people to iterative, agile and other engineering topics at multiple internal IBM events, at seven Rational User’s Conferences, the Rational European Technical Conference (where he had the privilege of presenting six times and was rated the best speaker), to over 800 IBM partners, at the Share conference, at the IEEE conference and in private and public training venues including as a Keynote Speaker.  His audience sizes have ranged from 6 to 300 people, from every development discipline and to every level from practitioner to VPs and CxOs.

He has led transformations in many diverse industries including commercial software development, automotive, healthcare, financial, government, retail, automated controls, manufacturing, power, telecom, home mortgage and more.

Scot Burdette | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

Organizations cannot be average in today’s business climate.  Driving business value begins with an understanding of the leading trends facing your business in a highly competitive market.  Successful Information Technology leaders must transform technology and business trends into competitive advantages.

This interactive session will show you how to move the conversation beyond “How” agile development works, to explain “What” your agile organization should be delivering and “Why”.  Driving real business value through transformation is critical for your business sponsors and stakeholders in today’s economy.

Speaker

For 28 years Scot has designed, developed and delivered enterprise solutions producing measureable business value.  Since 2002, Scot has led ICC’s Application and Integration Services (AIS) division to rapid growth through the creation of integrated solutions to unique challenges facing national and global businesses. Through ICC’s business centric agile approach, ICC develops high value solutions to complex technical and business requirements.

Facilitator – Ben Blanquera | 01:30 — 02:45

Abstract

The 2012 VersionOne State of Agile survey indicated that Agile adoption is growing. Respondents with plans to implement agile grew from 59% in 2011 to 83% in 2012. Nearly half (48%) said their organization has 5+ agile teams, compared to only 33% in 2011. Agile is going mainstream and organizations are now faced with challenges of scaling.

In this panel we’ll discuss the concept of enterprise agile. What is it? Why do it? What kind of challenges are there? How do you approach it? What are implementation strategy options?

Facilitator

Ben Blanquera (www.linkedin.com/in/benblanquera/)  is husband, dad, thought leader, entrepreneur, geek, wanna be jock and unabashed advocate for technology and entrepreneurship. By day, in his role as delivery executive for Pillar Technology he is a strategic transformation advisor and execution accelerator to CEO’s and CIO’s.

In 2011, Ben  was named by Computer World to its Premiere100 list of top IT leaders nationwide. Senior leadership roles previously held by Ben include  VP of IS for Progressive Medical, Director of the Columbus Technology Council, and Director at Owens Corning.

Ben is a frequent conference speaker on a wide range of topics including project management, enterprise agile, entrepreneurship and lean startup. Additionally teams that Ben has lead have won numerous industry recognitions such as: Computerworld 100 Best Places To Work, InformationWeek 500, TechColumbus Innovation Awards.

As a community leader Ben facilitates the Central Ohio agile executive forum, is the founder of TechLife Columbus , writes a blog chronicling the Columbus Tech community – www.techlifeohio.com  and is the curator of the Columbus Startup Digest.

Ben resides in Dublin with his wife Sandy and his 4 daughters.

Panelists

Ken Green is the Chief Information Officer for NetJets Inc, reporting directly to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jordan Hansell. In his position, Ken oversees all of NetJets Information Technology and is responsible for all technology, technology projects, and technology systems. Additionally, Ken is responsible for the operations and infrastructure, the software development, and quality assurance of those products. Finally, he is responsible for information security and business continuity and disaster recovery.

Ken graduated from Miami University in 1990 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Science. He joined the NetJets team in August 2007 as the Vice President of New Solutions and assumed his current role in November 2009. Prior to working at NetJets, Ken served in various technology roles including software developer and project manager for software development, and a variety of senior management roles.

Ken currently resides in Lewis Center with his wife and three children.

Tim Heller is an Executive Director at JP Morgan Chase & Co. He works for multiple development teams and is leading the Agile Transformation in Mortgage Banking. He is an experienced Agilist specializing in enterprise-scale Lean management and Agile software development transformations. Tim is an active member of the Agile community and has previously helped transform Nationwide’s application development culture through Lean and Agile concepts.

As a VP of Application Development at JPMorgan Chase, Dustin Potts has directed the transformation of traditional waterfall development teams to agile, lean, CMMI® compliant, high-performing teams. He has more than seven years of experience leading successful agile transformations at Fortune 100 companies and more than twenty years of experience in the IT industry. He is a frequent speaker at agile conferences and has trained many on agile techniques such as Scrum and XP.

Cam Wolff is a long time advocate of agile management and development practices. Believe leadership is responsible for setting the culture that feeds agile transformations.

Author of the agileandleanatscale.com blog. Led transformations at Virtual Hold Technology and Nationwide Insurance.

Learned leadership skills at Qwest (now CenturyLink Communications) and software development at AT&T Bell Laboratories.

Love to teach programming and the “agile way”. Big believer in culture as a key component to companies being successful. Fan of Jurgen Appelo’s “Management 3.0, and the garden metaphor for agile leadership practices.

Current position is VP of Product Development at Virtual Hold Technology.

Isaac Montgomery | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

If you’ve established an agile team and provided the appropriate support you’re likely seeing amazing results.  If you’ve grown that to 3 or 5 teams, you’re likely still seeing those result, though you’re also probably starting to get concerned about cross-team dependencies and coordinated multi-team initiatives.  If you’re contemplating scaling to a 200, 500 or 1000 person software development organization – you’re going to need to scale your thinking.  In this session we will explore proven practices and specific examples of applying agile at enterprise scale based on the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and Rally Software’s more than a decade of experience working with the largest and most progressive organizations in the world.

Speaker

Isaac is a Strategic Solutions Consultant with Rally Software. His experience includes over 15 years of project leadership, management and consulting for software development organizations in the military, energy, financial services and medical solutions industries.

Isaac’s passion is guiding technology focused organizations through their transformation from a rigid, bureaucratic cost centers to a nimble, high performing value delivery engines through the power and simplicity of empowered Agile teams, and incorporating Lean principles in the organization’s management systems.

Isaac enjoys collaborating with his clients and colleagues and experimenting with innovative approaches to increasing the value, flexibility and joy involved in delivering exceptional solutions.

Isaac is a Certified SAFe Program Consultant (SPC) and holds a B.S. in Information Management and a Masters in Business Administration. In his free time you will find Isaac at the park with his twin sons or on the golf course destroying his self esteem.

Michael Mah | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

Agile has not only gone mainstream, it’s gone global.  Data patterns on Agile team performance on time-to-market and quality have been emerging over the last decade from research by QSM Associates. Results have been published in research reports, books and articles around the world.

In 2012 Columbus, Ohio participated in the first ever “Agile vs. the World” study.  Data patterns revealed schedule performance that was 31% faster than industry norms. More astonishing was the fact that defect levels were 75% lower than industry norms.

Enter Munich Germany. At their OOP 2013 conference, the Columbus results were presented to a European audience.  The result was an Agile Throwdown; German companies decided to participate in a QSM study of their own to challenge Columbus.

Who’s been chopped?  Come join us for an inside look at data patterns for both Munich and Columbus, illustrated side by side. The results might surprise you. You will see how both cities compared against the QSM worldworld database of 12,000 completed projects. And finally, we will discuss what future might lie ahead.

Speaker

As managing partner at QSM Associates Inc., Michael Mah teaches, writes, and consults to technology companies on measuring, estimating and managing software projects, whether in-house, offshore, waterfall, or agile.

He is the director of the Benchmarking Practice at the Cutter Consortium, a Boston-based IT think-tank, and served as past editor of the IT Metrics Strategies publication. With over 25 years of experience, Michael and his partners at QSM have derived productivity patterns for thousands of projects collected in its worldwide database across engineering and business applications. His work examines time-pressure dynamics of teams, and its role in project success and failure. QSM is the creator of the SLIM® model, a suite of tools for software release planning, measurement, and estimation.

Michael’s background began in physics and electrical engineering and expanded into software. His graduate training was in the field of mediation, facilitation, and dispute resolution. Michael is also a private pilot and lives in the mountains of western Massachusetts with his two children. He can be reached at www.qsma.com.

Ellen Gottesdiener | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

“Value” is the beacon, watchword, end game, justification, and mantra for Agile practitioners. You make product decisions at every turn throughout discovery and delivery, balancing multiple perspectives. And yet, many agile teams struggle to clearly, concisely, and continually use value as the basis for making product decisions. Join Ellen to explore a lightweight framework for collaboratively—and continually—identifying stakeholder values and making value-based decisions on what to build, and when.

Three winners will receive one of Ellen’s book via a drawing from live attendees. The books to be given away are:

Discover to Deliver: Agile Product Planning and Analysis by Ellen Gottesdiener and Mary Gorman (EBG Consulting, Inc., 2012)

The Software Requirements Memory Jogger: A Pocket Guide to Help Software and Business Teams Develop and Manage Requirements (GOAL/QPC, 2005)

Requirements by Collaboration: Workshops for Defining Needs (Addison-Wesley, 2002)

Speaker

EBG Consulting, Inc. (http://www.ebgconsulting.com), Principal Consultant and Founder Ellen Gottesdiener is an internationally recognized facilitator, coach, trainer, and speaker. She is an expert in requirements and business analysis, Agile product and project management practices, product envisioning and roadmapping, retrospectives, and collaboration. Ellen’s latest book, co-authored with Mary Gorman, is  Discover to Deliver: Agile Product Planning and Analysis. Ellen is author of two other acclaimed books: Requirements by Collaboration and The Software Requirements Memory Jogger. Ellen works with global clients and speaks at numerous industry conferences.

Damon Poole | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

There are many widely used solutions that support Agile at the team level such as Scrum, XP, Kanban and many more. But there are few similar solutions for achieving Agility at the Enterprise level. The purpose of the Enterprise Agility Model is to provide guidance for achieving Enterprise Agility based on the shared experience of many organizations and practitioners.

This model for achieving Enterprise Agility is based on the principles and values of the Agile Manifesto as well as the principle of “The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work.” To that end, the Enterprise Agility Model is a short and simple document, much like the Scrum Guide, a diagram that describes the model visually, and a spreadsheet for measuring Agile maturity.

There are three main components of the model: the set of principles and practices that make up the model, a diagram that shows the interaction between the practices, and an Enterprise Agile Maturity Matrix which is a tool for assessing an organization’s current level of Agility at both a team and organizational level. This session introduces the model, provides a tour through the practices, and explains how the Enterprise Agile Maturity Matrix works.

Speaker

Damon’s 22 years of software experience spans from small co-located
teams all the way up global development organizations with hundreds
of teams. Damon is a past President and Vice President of Agile New
England. He writes frequently on the topic of Agile development, is the
author of the web book “Do It Yourself Agile,” and a pioneer in the
area of Multistage Continuous Integration and mixing Scrum and
Kanban. Damon has spoken at numerous conferences including Agile
and Beyond 2010-2012, Agile Business Conference, Q-Con, Agile
2008-2012, and Agile Development Practices and has trained
thousands of people on Agile techniques. He is also a co-founder and
past CEO and CTO of AccuRev where he created multiple Jolt Award
winning products including AccuRev and AccuWorkflow.

Todd Greene | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

Business agility is the ability of a business to adapt rapidly and cost efficiently in response to changes in the business environment.  Business agility will provide a significant competitive advantage, but achieving it will require organizational intelligence, cross-functional collaboration, motivation, courage and leadership.  Many organizations have adopted an Agile approach to project or product delivery, but few have achieved the level of business agility needed to capitalize on the demands and opportunities that come with the increasing amount of change in today’s marketplace.  This session will go beyond the boundaries of teams and sprints to expose the most pervasive constraints that commonly prevent businesses from achieving agility.  This interactive discussion will emphasize business agility from idea to implementation, including: thin/vertical slicing of work, continuous customer focus, impact evaluation, product ownership, business intelligence, and delivery considerations.

Speaker

Todd Greene is the leader of Agile Advisory Services for the Cardinal Solutions Group, and a Professional Scrum Master (PSM), Product Owner (PSPO), and Foundations (PSF) Trainer for Scrum.org.  With over 11 years of professional software development and leadership experience, Todd has a proven track-record of successfully coaching and leading teams and organizations through organizational change and continuous improvement.  Todd has been a Development Team Member, Iteration Manager, Scrum Master, Product Owner, Project Sponsor, Advisory Team Coach, Trainer, and Change Agent for Fortune 500 insurance and healthcare organizations, top academic universities, financial institutions, a state department, a market leading internet start-up company and a public utilities company.

Dr. Chuck Suscheck | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

Self directed agile teams often don’t have hierarchical management. This session is about using psychological tools to influence team members who don’t report to you. If you need to influence others, this workshop will give you the tools. Through examples, exercises, and practice targeted to selling agile concepts, you will apply Cialdini’s psychological tools (reciprocity, scarcity, commitment consistency, authority, liking, and social proof) to craft persuasive positions.

Speaker

Dr. Charles Suscheck specializes in software development methodologies, and project management.  He is one of only 8 people in the world and 4 in the USA certified to teach the entire scrum.org curriculum. He has over 25 years of professional experience in information technology, beginning his career as a software developer.  Dr. Suscheck’s holds a Doctorate, Masters, and Bachelors in Computer Science and is a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST), Professional Scrum Master (PSM I and II), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), certified Scrum Practitioner (CSP) and certified RUP specialist.  An educator at heart, he has over 30 published articles and conference proceedings and has spoken nationally and internationally at various software management conferences.

Joe Astolfi | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

Have you hired a coach to help improve agility?  Or has someone in the organization become the “de facto” coach?  Maybe you’ve been asked to take on the coach role?  How’s that working out for you?

How do you know if you have a “good” coach?  How do you know if you’re a good coach?  What are the behaviors and qualities exemplified in a coach that will unleash the power and abilities of your organization?

In this session you will experience the different approaches a coach may use to enable agility and move towards a high-performing workplace.  Through the use of vignettes, you will experience those coaching behaviors and tactics that can enable or disable the team and your agile adoption efforts.

This session is for leaders, managers, coaches, and team members looking for new additions to their toolkit, and validation that their coaching strategy is meeting their organizational needs.

Speakers

Joe Astolfi is a Director at Quick Solutions, leading the Agile and PMO Service Offerings.  He is also the Vice-Chair and a Board Member of the Central Ohio Agile Association (COHAA).  Joe has over 20 years of IT experience in leadership positions within agile and traditional organizations.  His expertise includes enterprise agile transformation, agile coaching and adoption, portfolio management, PMO operations, project management, and organizational change.

Joe is a Professional Scrum Master (PSM), Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), and a Project Management Professional (PMP).  Joe is passionate about helping others improve their agility to achieve personal success and deliver business value to their organizations.

John Dages is a consultant focusing on maximizing value for client technology initiatives. John has worked with numerous Midwest organizations to support process improvements and implement advanced application lifecycle management solutions. As a director and technology service line lead at Quick Solutions, John seeks to develop a perfect collaboration between teams and process with supporting technology tools and applications. John is a certified scrum master and a certified scrum developer.

Terry Wiegmann is a longtime software quality engineering practitioner in commercial and backoffice software in both plan-driven and agile approaches.  She was an Awesome Woman in Agile nominee and is one of the few people in the world to be both an IIBA Certified Business Analysis Professional and an ASQ Certified Software Quality Engineer, and is also a Professional Scrum Product Owner, Advanced Gold Toastmaster and Ambassador for the Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foundation.  She presents and teaches frequently throughout the Midwest on quality, analysis and agile topics; as Director and the People Service Line Lead with Quick Solutions, she is passionate about helping analysts and teams celebrate learning and working with agility, efficiency and joy

Brian Watson | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

Building effective agile development teams is a process that is larger than simply buying some fancy tables and co-locating a group of developers. This presentation covers a proven process to harness the skills of individuals from the business and technical worlds and mold them into a working team. We will examine core and supporting principles of building teams, discuss each step in team building, stages of team development, and how to effectively scale agile within your organization.

Speaker

Brian is an Agile and Product coach for VersionOne. He has over 16 years of experience providing Project Management, Business Analysis, and Agile coaching on small to enterprise level projects in web and software development, process improvement, communications, healthcare education, marketing, aeronautics, mergers and consolidations, long distance telecom, wireless, distribution, and government industries. Since 2005, Brian has been an Agile transformation coach helping consulting software development factories, insurance, manufacturing, workers compensation, and government agencies achieve the benefits of agile. In his spare time Brian enjoys golfing and craft beer.

Jim Holmes | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

How do you build a successful suite of automated tests for your system? One test at a time. With lots of careful thought and a willingness to backtrack and adjust. In this talk Jim shares his experiences building up a test automation effort for a five year old legacy software product that had zero planned testing, manual or automated, prior to his taking on a job as a tester. You’ll learn approaches for getting your own test automation effort in place, including making the case for automation, planning out infrastructure needs, and identifying tools to use for your automation. You’ll also learn how to build up a team to be successful with automation, and you’ll also discover why it’s so critical to treat test automation as a software engineering effort – BECAUSE IT IS ONE! Explore how to deal with fundamental problems common to any automation effort: managing expectations, dealing with technical challenges, and empowering your testers via education. We’ll also discuss the number one factor for failure or success: the organization’s culture toward quality. This session focuses on one specific team’s experience, but draws from Jim’s years of experience in the field. You’ll take away practical advice on what works, what doesn’t, and some frank discussion around areas where Jim’s failed with his teams in the past – and ideas on how to avoid those problems in your own automation efforts!

Speaker

Father.  Husband.  Geek. Veteran. Director of Engineering for Telerik’s Test Studio, an awesome set of tools to help teams deliver better software. Around 25 years IT experience. Co-author of “Windows Developer Power Tools.” Coffee Roaster.  MVP for C#.  Chief Cat Herder of the CodeMash Conference. Diabetic. Runner. Liked 5th grade so much he did it twice. One-time setter, middle blocker, and weakside hitter. Blogger (http://FrazzledDad.com). Big fan of naps.

Facilitator – Justin Browder | 01:30 — 02:45

Abstract

Delivering quality requires more than just good developers doing XP.  It is a whole team activity.  Regularly delivering business value via working software where quality is a given – because it is cheaper and better in the long run – is about creating a culture.  Leading organizations, teams, and ourselves to achieve that culture requires the ability to recognize, measure and communicate incremental progress towards “being agile.”  The panel will take questions (come prepared with tough ones please!) and share their experiences.

Facilitator

Justin Browder is an Agile Project Manager and Coach with a solid record of accomplishment in transforming and leading software development teams through complex projects and the challenging transition from Waterfall to Agile processes. He is a proven leader experienced in the application of Agile approaches and a strong believer in continuous process improvement to increase project efficiency. Justin has a strong technology background and has led successful projects using both Waterfall and Agile methodologies. He has deep experience managing project financials and working closely with executives on high-budget and high-visibility projects utilizing co-located and globally distributed teams. Justin has developed an expertise in planning and implementing technology solutions for retail distribution, public sector, and entrepreneurial start-up organizations. Justin has been active with COHAA since its inception and has also been active in the national Agile community since being introduced to iterative development concepts.

Panelists

In 2000 Gene Johnson founded Fairhaven Solutions, a business and IT services company with a focus on helping clients become nimble, reliable and efficient by empowering their teams and dramatically increasing operational efficiency. We have supported several clients including L-3 Communications, Bank of New York Mellon, The Street, Standard and Poor’s, Gap Inc. Direct, Nationwide Insurance, J.D. Power and UBS Investment Bank by helping to establish and improve solution delivery methodologies and reach business goals.

I have over 25 years of software development experience including both commercial product development and enterprise-wide system development. I’ve presented both nationally and locally, including presenting at Agile 2010, and an appearance on “The Next Wave” television series hosted by Leonard Nimoy. I am a certified Scrum Master, a founding member of PMI’s Agile Formation Steering Committee, a member of the Central Ohio Agile Alliance, and have served as President of the Columbus Chapter of the IIBA. I earned a Masters in Systems Engineering and reside in a northern suburb of Columbus with my childhood sweetheart (my wife).

Mark Harris’s 20-year career has led him from engineering to project management, sales, QA, and now back to engineering. Straight out of The Ohio State University in 1995, he joined the Windows Engineering Team at Microsoft, with responsibility for the RPC and COM API set. He cut his project management teeth when he became responsible for the development & release of two major versions of Windows (XP SP2 and Server 2003 R2). After leaving Microsoft in 2010, he started a QA team at Grange Insurance and ignited the Columbus QA revolution with the “QA or the Highway” conference. Most recently, Mark joined Manta Media, the world’s largest small-business social network, as the Director of Application Engineering. With this background, he has developed a set of strong opinions (held weakly) on software development. Mark returned to his hometown of Columbus, Ohio in 2006, where he now resides with his wife and three children, and spends his free time convincing people that Columbus is a technology metropolis in the making

Chief technology officer and a co-ounder of LeanDog, Jeff “Cheezy” Morgan has been coaching teams on agile and lean techniques since 2004 with a focus on the engineering practices. For the past three years he has experienced great success and recognition for his work focused on helping teams adopt Acceptance Test-driven Development using Cucumber. He has authored several popular Ruby gems used by software testers throughout the world, teaches Cucumber classes and workshops, and is the author of the book, Cucumber & Cheese—A Testers Workshop.

Russ Wangler started his IT career as Developer at Accenture and played delivery roles from Analyst to Architect and Tech Lead to Program Manager on custom build project. Hanging up his suitcase, he joined Nationwide Insurance where helped establish Nationwide’s Agile methods, lead the Agile training efforts at its Application Development Center, and served as an Application Delivery Leader. Russ now serves as a Director of Agile Technical Management for the Growth, Innovation and Digital division of The Gap in Columbus Ohio. Russ is also a husband, father of two and a practicing musician.

Facilitator – John Huston | 10:00 – 04:30

Abstract

Looking for a non-technical Day 1 session?

REGISTER at http://www.regonline.com/DayintheLifeCMHMay

This session is targeted at people of all roles that want to experience Agile and learn the core principles in the process.

This single-day agile project simulation that is engaging, educational, provocative, and fun. We divide attendees into teams and each team spends most of the day breaking down and completing an agile project. This Simulation introduces concepts like time-boxed iterations, user stories, collective estimation, commitment to a product owner for iteration scope, formal verification ritual at iteration conclusion, tracking velocity, and making results big and visible through burndown or burn-up charts. The exercise is designed to simulate not only how agile teams and practices work, but the inevitable challenges and hiccups that arise as teams attempt to adopt several such practices at the same time.

Facilitator

John is an experienced IT leader, generalist and agilist with over 20 years experience in the field. His passion for learning and coaching has led him to a variety of leadership roles, including Application Development, Enterprise Architecture, Quality, and Operations /Infrastructure. He has led the effort to deploy agile methods at the enterprise and team level. Since joining Pillar, John has turned his passion to the human development aspects of agile teams and is currently responsible for Talent, Learning and Development within the organization.

Corey Haines | 03:30 – 04:30

Abstract

TBD

Speaker

Corey Haines spent much of his 14+-year professional career in the Microsoft ecosystem before moving out of the corporate world and into the wild world of Ruby on Rails. In 2008 he began a year-long journey, traveling the midwest and east coast of the United States on a pair-programming tour. He spent anywhere from a day to a week at different places, pairing with people in exchange for room and board. While on the road, he also focused on expanding and defining the message of the Software Craftsmanship movement, as it pertains to both professionalism and career development.

Corey has been engaged in practicing the Extreme Programming techniques for over 7 years, following the Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) ideas since the first rumblings in 2005. Lately, he has been actively mentoring others in the BDD workflow, as it pertains to day-to-day engineering practices, such as TDD and executable acceptance criteria.

In 2010, Corey hosted a series of Code Retreats throughout the USA and abroad, including Belgium, Sweden and Australia, in which he shared his ideas surrounding the agile process and test-drive development. In 2011, he continues this activity, focused on helping developers improve their skills through practicing the fundamentals of software development.

Over the past year, he has been actively working on his own startup, exploring how quality development practices provide value at such a quick pace.

Jim Weirich | 03:15 – 04:30

Abstract

A Code Kata is a simple programming exercise, practiced repeatably by a developer. Much like a musician practices scales and finger exercises to develop his musical skills, a developer will practice code katas to develop his programming skills.

This talk will be a live performance of a simple TDD-based code Kata, followed by an analysis of the forces and choices involved in the feedback loop between the code and the tests encountered during the kata. By examining this interaction of tests and code, we come to a better understanding of how to use tests to actively affect the direction of our design. By reflecting on the process, we understand how to pick “what to test next”.

This talk is targeted for developers who have started using Test Driven Design (TDD) and feel that they don’t quite “get it” yet, and are looking for guidance in the technique.

Speaker

Jim Weirich first learned about computers when his college adviser suggested he take a computer science course: “It will be useful, and you might enjoy it.” With those prophetic words, Jim has been developing now for over 25 years, working with everything from crunching rocket launch data on supercomputers to wiring up servos and LEDs on micro-controllers.  Currently he loves working in Ruby and Rails as the Chief Scientist at New Context, but you can also find him strumming on his ukulele as time permits.

Andy Hunt | 3:15 – 4:30

Abstract

It’s been over ten years since we coined the term agile. Are you finally comfortable with being agile? If you are comfortable, then that’s too bad, because it means you’re doing it wrong.  Join Andy Hunt, one of the 17 authors of the Agile Manifesto for an important look back at what it means to be agile, and how to progress from simply following agile practices to becoming a true self-directed, self-correcting agile practitioner.

Speaker

Andy started in the do-it-yourself days of CP/M and the S100 bus, of Heathkits and Radio Electronics. Andy wrote his first real program, a combination text editor and database manager, for an Ohio Scientific Challenger 4P. It was a great era for tinkering. Andy started hacking in 6502 assembler, modifying operating systems, and wrote his first commercial program (a Manufacturing Resources Planning system) in 1981. He taught himself Unix and C, and began to design and architect larger, more connected systems.

Working at large companies, Andy kept an ear on Usenet, and started his early email habit via a direct bang-path to ihnp4. Next he settled into electronic pre-press and computer graphics, and worked on that wondrous eye-candy that was Silicon Graphics machines. By now a firm command of several flavors of Unix, from BSD to System V, led Andy to try consulting. His knack for stirring things up really began to come in handy, and it soon became obvious that many of his clients each suffered similar problems—-problems that Andy had already seen and fixed before.

Andy joined up with Dave Thomas and they wrote the seminal software development book, The Pragmatic Programmer, followed a year later by the original Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer’s Guide, which introduced the Western world to this new language from Japan. Together they founded The Pragmatic Programmers and have became increasingly well known, as founders of the agile movement and authors of the Agile Manifesto, as well as proponents of Ruby and more flexible programming paradigms, and their Pragmatic Bookshelf publishing business, helping keep developers at the top of their game.

Andy is a founder of the Pragmatic Programmers, founder of the Agile Alliance and author of the Agile Manifesto, and author of seven books. He is an active musician and woodworker, and continues looking for new areas where he can stir things up.

Ken Schwaber | 11:45 – 01:00

Abstract

This talk provides an overview of how to baseline a company’s current state of Agility and how incremental course corrections, sustained over time, can improve a company’s overall value to the customer and its return on investment. It will also touch on why such metrics are crucial to the Agile community specifically and to improving the profession of software development as a whole.

Over the past two decades, many organizations have made great strides in using Scrum, an Agile framework structured to support complex product development. Software developers get it. But few developers today work within truly Agile organizations. Although Scrum provides the foundation for Agility, an organization has to transform its practices and outlook to take advantage of iterative, incremental development, to become truly Agile.

How do we effectively build Agile capabilities on top of Scrum? This talk drives home the point that it is through the measurement and implementation of incremental and sustainable business practices that will translate into competitive advantage and greater ROI. In the end, it will be managers taking charge of this path to Agility.

Speaker

Ken Schwaber is a co-founder of the worldwide Agile software movement and co-creator, with Jeff Sutherland, of the Scrum technique for building software in 30 days. Ken was a signatory to the Agile Manifesto in 2001, and helped to found the Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance. He is now president of Scrum.org, a software consulting firm headquartered in Boston, and the author of many seminal books and articles. The most recent, with Jeff Sutherland, is “Software in 30 Days: How Agile Managers Beat the Odds, Delight their Customers, and Leave Competitors in the Dust.” When it comes to the profession of software development, he has more than 40 years experience from hacked to procedural to object, from bottle-washer to cook.

Facilitator – Bart Murphy | 11:45 — 01:00

Abstract

Hear from a panel of featured speakers on the current industry trends and discuss where the Agile movement is headed over the next few years.

Facilitator

Bart Murphy is the Chief Technology Officer of the CareWorks Family of Companies and President of CareWorks Tech. He has over 16 years of management and consulting experience.

Throughout his career, he has performed many roles including Shared Services Executive, Delivery Executive, Engagement Manager, Program Manager, Project Manager, Project Lead, Business Analyst, Developer, and Test Analyst. He specializes in Agile delivery execution and management, implementing solutions on a variety of initiatives, from software implementations to business process re-engineering and organizational change.

He serves on the board of the Central Ohio Agile Association, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the use of Agile practices and principles in project management, software development, quality assurance, and business analysis with an emphasis on solution delivery.

Bart graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BSE in Biomedical Engineering and a minor in Mathematics.

Panelists

Christopher Avery is a sought-after, international speaker, author, and business advisor on responsible leadership, teamwork, and change for companies like GAP, Wells Fargo, and Ebay. Known for his cutting-edge work to demystify and then develop practical team leadership skills for engineers and other technical professionals, Christopher wrote the popular classic Teamwork Is An Individual Skill for everyone who is fed up with working in bad teams. Fortune magazine called it the only book on teamwork you need to read.

As the visionary force behind the worldwide Leadership Gift community, Christopher applies groundbreaking discoveries about personal responsibility and performance to support leaders intent on rapidly building highly reliable, agile, sustainable, and accelerating teams and cultures.

Christopher is president of Partnerwerks Inc., the company he co-founded in 1991 to document best practices for collaborating under competitive conditions. He is an agile coach with Rally Software, teaching Scrum and Product Owner workshops. Christopher is also a Senior Consultant with the IT and Agile Project Management practices of the Cutter Consortium, a Boston-area think tank. He co-authored the Declaration of Interdependence and co-founded the Agile Project Leadership Network dedicated to connecting, developing, and supporting great project leaders.

Ellen Gottesdiener is Founder and Principal with EBG Consulting, experts helping you deliver high-value products your customers want and need. Ellen is an internationally recognized facilitator, coach, trainer, speaker, and expert in agile product management practices, product envisioning and roadmapping, business analysis and requirements, retrospectives and collaboration. Ellen works with global clients and speaks at numerous industry conferences. Author of two acclaimed books—Requirements by Collaboration and The Software Requirements Memory Jogger—Ellen is co-authoring a book with Mary Gorman on practical agile planning and analysis practices available in August 2012. View her articles, tweets, blog, free eNewsletter, and useful practitioner resources on EBG’s web site.

As managing partner at QSM Associates Inc., Michael Mah teaches, writes, and consults to technology companies on measuring, estimating and managing software projects, whether in-house, offshore, waterfall, or agile.

He is the director of the Benchmarking Practice at the Cutter Consortium, a Boston-based IT think-tank, and served as past editor of the IT Metrics Strategies publication. With over 25 years of experience, Michael and his partners at QSM have derived productivity patterns for thousands of projects collected in its worldwide database across engineering and business applications. His work examines time-pressure dynamics of teams, and its role in project success and failure. QSM is the creator of the SLIM® model, a suite of tools for software release planning, measurement, and estimation.

Michael’s background began in physics and electrical engineering and expanded into software. His graduate training was in the field of mediation, facilitation, and dispute resolution. Michael is also a private pilot and lives in the mountains of western Massachusetts with his two children. He can be reached at www.qsma.com.

Ken Schwaber is a co-founder of the worldwide Agile software movement and co-creator, with Jeff Sutherland, of the Scrum technique for building software in 30 days. Ken was a signatory to the Agile Manifesto in 2001, and helped to found the Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance. He is now president of Scrum.org, a software consulting firm headquartered in Boston, and the author of many seminal books and articles. The most recent, with Jeff Sutherland, is “Software in 30 Days: How Agile Managers Beat the Odds, Delight their Customers, and Leave Competitors in the Dust.” When it comes to the profession of software development, he has more than 40 years experience from hacked to procedural to object, from bottle-washer to cook.

David Anderson | 8:00 – 9:30

Abstract

Even more than being faster, stronger, and better, decision makers and technical teams rely on predictability to succeed. Kanban delivers greater predictability to existing development methods for new project development as well as maintenance and support work. Organizations are using kanban to successfully match their capabilities to their expectations and needs for reliable configuration management, code quality, effective deployment and delivery cadence. How do they maintain the flexibility to navigate the ever-changing business environment and still predictably deliver critical work?

By using measurement, formulas and a scientific approach to change management, we can balance the factors of observed capability, staffing, and delivery targets to achieve predictable outcomes. By analyzing and understanding the nature of the work we do, we can allocate our efforts appropriately. By being methodical in our approach to continuous improvement, we can minimize disruption and achieve lasting benefit.

Speaker

David J. Anderson is a thought leader in managing effective technology development. He leads a consulting, training and publishing business dedicated to developing, promoting and implementing sustainable evolutionary approaches for management of knowledge workers.

He has 30 years of experience in the high technology industry. He has led software teams delivering superior productivity and quality using innovative agile methods at large companies such as Sprint, Motorola, and Microsoft.

David is the author of three books, Agile Management for Software Engineering – Applying the Theory of Constraints for Business Results, Kanban – Successful Evolutionary Change for your Technology Business, and Lessons in Agile Management: On the Road to Kanban.

David is CEO of Lean-Kanban University, a business dedicated to assuring quality of training in Lean and Kanban throughout the world.

Carl Erickson | 11:45 – 01:00

Abstract

Software craftsmanship demands more from people than a mere job. Correspondingly, a company built around craftsmanship looks very different than a conventional company. Companies built around craftsmen need to be shaped by the values of those craftsmen in order to be successful. Innovation services firms are natural homes for craftsmen.

From practical issues like facilities, to the tricky question of ownership, innovation services firms look very different than typical corporate America. This talk will consider issues of compensation, workspace, assignments, governance, evaluation, culture, finances, ownership, sales, marketing, size and growth.

Carl will share how Atomic Object is organized and run, mistakes we’ve made, and challenges we continue to face. He will conclude with his thoughts on what it takes for a software development firm to be sustainably successful.

Speaker

Carl Erickson is the president and co-founder of Atomic Object, a 40-person software design and development consultancy with offices in Grand Rapids and Detroit, Michigan. Atomic Object builds web, mobile and embedded software products for clients ranging from startups to the Fortune 500.

Before founding Atomic in 2001, Carl was a VP of Engineering at a failed dot-com startup (briefly), and a university professor (not so briefly). Great Not Big is a blog for Carl to share his experiences building and running a company worthy of software craftsmen.

Carin Meier | 11:45 – 01:00

Abstract

We will take a journey that begins with a child’s dream of having a “real” robot friend.  Along the way, we will discover the blessings of a functional language, the power of the Clojure language, the thrill of flying with a REPL, and maybe even gems of wisdom long lost under the snow of the AI Winter.

Speaker

Carin started off as a professional ballet dancer, studied Physics in college, and has been developing software for both the enterprise and entrepreneur ever since. She has a thing for Clojure and can be usually found with a cup of tea in her hand, hacking on her Roomba and AR Parrot Drone.

She builds software with the awesome folks at Neo in Cincinnati, where she also helps organize the Cincinnati Functional Programmers and Clojure Code and Coffee user groups.

Jeff “Cheezy” Morgan & Michael “Doc” Norton | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

There is an epic battle brewing.  This battle is poised to shake the development community to its’ very foundation.  It is the battle between the Innies and the Outies.  Watch, in horror, as two well known belly buttons, one from Detroit and the other from London, direct Doc and Cheezy to take two radically different approaches to test driving the same application.  One will take an inside-out approach to developing the application while the other will work outside-in.  To add more intrigue to this battle, Doc and Cheezy will be using _TWO DIFFERENT EDITORS_.  If you’re a craftsman this is one battle you will not want to miss because the winner of this battle will define the future of software development.

Speakers

Chief technology officer and a co-founder of LeanDog, Jeff “Cheezy” Morgan has been coaching teams on agile and lean techniques since 2004 with a focus on the engineering practices. For the past three years he has experienced great success and recognition for his work focused on helping teams adopt Acceptance Test-driven Development using Cucumber. He has authored several popular Ruby gems used by software testers throughout the world, teaches Cucumber classes and workshops, and is the author of the book, Cucumber & Cheese—A Testers Workshop.

Michael Norton (Doc) is a software delivery professional working to make the world of software development a better place. Having spent several years as an agile coach, Doc helped teams of all sizes learn and apply the principles of agile software development. Today, as Director of Engineering for Groupon, Doc shares this experience in a uniquely face-paced environment. Doc’s experience covers a wide range of development topics. He declares expertise in no single language or methodology and is immediately suspicious of anyone who declares such expertise. A frequent speaker, Doc is passionate about helping others become better developers, working with teams to improve delivery, and Software Craftsmanship.

Guy Royse | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

Mark Twain said that history doesn’t repeat but that it often rhymes.  This is true not only of the history of civilization but also of software development.

The history of computing, like anything, has recurring patterns, cycles, and trends.  Some of them are quite large, others are tiny.  Some are significant and others merely amusing.  In this session we will look at some of these from the early days of ENIAC all the way to modern mobile phones.  We will plot them out over the decades, observe their cycles, and come to understand them.  Then, grounded in that history, we will explore some possible outcomes for the next few years and wax poetic about what the more distant future might bring.

If you want to know history and are willing to risk predicting the future, come and join us.

Speaker

Guy works for Pillar Technology in Columbus, Ohio as an instructor, a consultant, and software engineer.  He has programmed in numerous languages — many of them semi-colon delimited — but has more recently been working with Ruby and JavaScript.  He is also the chief organizer for the Columbus JavaScript User Group and is active in the local development community.

In his personal life, Guy is a hard-boiled geek interested in role-playing games, science fiction, and technology.  He also has a slightly less geeky interest in history and linguistics.  In his spare time he volunteers as Cubmaster for his kids’ Cub Scout Pack.

Charley Baker | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

Change and acceptance of change plagues us in our daily lives as well as our lives as software developers. We’ll take a look at the ways that change affect software as well as how it affects you and what can be done about working with it instead of against it.

Speaker

Code Wrangler, tester, coach, teacher, father, 5840 or so days of experience. Currently working at Groupon and improving the developer experience.

Justin Searls | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

In the past few years, we’ve watched JavaScript interpreters and libraries mature, CSS preprocessors emerge, and even witnessed “HTML 5” manage to break through the public’s collective consciousness. As developers, we’ve started to realize that there can be numerous benefits to separating concerns by segregating our client & server code such that they only communicate via an API.

So why do our web frameworks still subordinate our client-side code to a subdirectory of our server-side project? Why don’t they support CoffeeScript or Less/Sass? Why is it still so hard to deploy concatenated and minified JS & CSS to production? Not to mention JavaScript testing—why is that so awkward to set up?

We struggled with these questions too, and that’s why we wrote Lineman. Lineman is a Node.js-based project build tool that’s specifically designed to address all of the above front-end concerns, whether you’re writing code, running in CI, or deploying to production.

In this talk we’ll give you a sense for how tools like Lineman can improve your productivity and happiness by helping you finally treat your client-side code as a first class citizen!

Speaker

Justin Searls has two professional passions: writing great software and sharing what he’s learned in order to help others write even greater software. He recently co-founded a new software studio called Test Double, where he’s currently helping clients build well-crafted user experiences for the web.

Neal Ford | 08:00 – 09:30

Abstract

Computer science is built on a shaky tower of abstractions, but we’ve been distracted by other things until we believe it is reality. This talk teases apart some of the tangled abstractions that have become so common they are invisible yet impact important decisions. I cover languages, tools, platforms, and burrow all the way down to fundamental concepts. This wide-ranging keynote answers these questions and more:

• Why does my keyboard look the way it does?
• Why is the iPad is the most revolutionary device in the last 30 years?
• Why do some people hate Maven so much?
• How can I choose technologies with long shelf lives?
• Is hiding always a good thing?

Oh, and some jokes too.

Speaker

Neal is Director, Software Architect, and Meme Wrangler at ThoughtWorks, a global IT consultancy with an exclusive focus on end-to-end software development and delivery. Before joining ThoughtWorks, Neal was the Chief Technology Officer at The DSW Group, Ltd., a nationally recognized training and development firm.

Neal has a degree in Computer Science from Georgia State University specializing in languages and compilers and a minor in mathematics specializing in statistical analysis. He is also the designer and developer of applications, instructional materials, magazine articles, and video presentations. He is also the author of 5 books, including the most recent Presentation Patterns. Given his degree, Neal is a bit of a language geek, with affections including but not limited to Ruby, Clojure, Java, Groovy, JavaScript, Scala and C#/.NET. His primary consulting focus is the design and construction of large-scale enterprise applications. Neal is an internationally acclaimed speaker, having spoken at over 300 developer conferences worldwide, delivering more than 2000 presentations. If you have an insatiable curiosity about Neal, visit his web site at nealford.com. He welcomes feedback and can be reached at nford@thoughtworks.com.

Zack Dennis | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

This talk applies the concepts of chaos theory to software development
using the Bak–Tang–Wiesenfeld sand pile model as the vehicle for
exploration. The sand pile model, which is used to show how a complex
system is attracted to living on the edge of chaos, will be used as a
both a powerful metaphor and analogy for building software. Software,
it turns out, has its own natural attraction to living in its own edge
of chaos. In this talk, we’ll explore what this means and entertain
questions for what to do about it.

The speaker’s hypothesis is that by understanding how complex systems
work we can gain insights to better understand and improve the act of
building software. By looking through the lens of the sand pile model
we’ll explore the following:

what the sand pile model can tell us about software development
how software is naturally attracted to its own chaos
* the impacts on software living perpetually on the edge of chaos
* how existing software practices can be used to detract software away
from chaos
* what this means not only for our software, but for our teams, and
ourselves individually

This thought-provoking perspective will leave you with new ways to
think about software. You’ll walk away having learned a little about
chaos, complexity, and how they apply to software with a
thought-provoking perspective and inspiration for thinking about
software in new ways.

Speaker

Zach Dennis is a Software Craftsman/Partner at Mutually Human Software
in Grand Rapids, MI. He’s a proven RSpec and Ruby guru, founder of the
Michigan Ruby User Group and co-author of The RSpec Book. He’s
contributed to several projects such as Ruby’s standard library
documentation, Ruby on Rails, as well as many of his own. He’s been
leading and mentoring teams for almost an entire decade. In his spare
time he reads copiously and plays the guitar. You can find him as
@zachdennis on Twitter and @zdennis on Github.

Cory Flanigan | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

Stagnation is the quiet enemy of progress. It adds friction to our problem solving process and limits our ability to innovative and discover new ideas. In order to grow as individuals and as a community, we must expand our horizons. Let’s challenge ourselves and stretch our limits by exploring ways of distilling lessons from other domains in order to apply their wisdom to our practice. Plus, as the title suggests, we will be discussing some delicious eats! You don’t want to miss out on this one.

Speaker

A developer at Groupon in Denver, CO, Cory spends most days practicing software craft by collaborating on things like open source projects, code retreats, and community meetups. Working primarily with Ruby, current areas of focus are apprenticeship/mentorship, principles of functional programming, and TDD as an interface design approach.

Brandon Keepers | 11:45 – 01:00

Abstract

Odors are communication devices. They exist for a reason and are usually trying to tell us something.

Our code smells and it is trying to tell us what is wrong. Does a test case require an abundance of setup? Maybe the code being tested is doing too much, or it is not isolated enough for the test? Does an object have an abundance of instance variables? Maybe it should be split into multiple objects? Is a view brittle? Maybe it is too tightly coupled to a model, or maybe the logic needs abstracted into an object that can be tested?

In this talk, I will walk through code from projects that I work on every day, looking for smells that indicate problems, understanding why it smells, what the smell is trying to tell us, and how to refactor it.

Speaker

Brandon believes that software can always be better. His addiction to beautiful code is perfectly matched with his passion for testing and maintainability. As a Developer at GitHub, he spends most of his time on Gaug.es and SpeakerDeck.com. Brandon has created and maintains many open-source projects, and shares about his endeavors at opensoul.org.

Leon Gersing & Charley Baker | 11:45 – 01:00

Abstract

As developers, we have a plethora of tools, techniques and processes that have emerged over the years aimed at reducing the amount of bugs, the time to market and cost of change. The promise of which states that if we are diligent in these practices then our code will be better for it. In practice, however, these notions have been used to validate our existence; to define ourselves as developers based on process and practice rather than the products, services and the code we leave behind. This session examines the practices of the Agile, XP, and TDD movements, the myths that have endured and our quest for the truth hidden therein. Join Charley Baker and Leon Gersing in a lively, open discussion of who we have become and where we are heading on the path to software enlightenment.

Speaker

Charley Baker Code Wrangler, tester, coach, teacher, father, 5840 or so days of experience. Currently working at Groupon and improving the developer experience.

Leon Gersing is a software artisan with EdgeCase, LLC. (edgecase.com). He works primary with web technologies providing custom solutions to our worldwide clients. He has recently started a new endeavor No Spoon Software, with co-founder Jerry Nummi, that seeks to bring new and exciting solutions to the emerging mobile markets. No Spoon’s first app is a Campfire business chat client called Sparks which is available now for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch in the Apple App Store. You can read more about No Spoon Software at http://nospoonsoftware.com.

Joe O’Brien | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

We spend a large portion of our time thinking about code and technical project issues. What about the people side of things? The majority of project failures occur because of people, not technology. What we need are guides that help us navigate the waters between the people around us.
People Patterns introduces my latest effort to capture the subtleties and nuances of interpersonal relations. I’m distilling a lot of experience, a bit of psychology and a substantial amount of research and have come up with a series of patterns that can help everyone be more successful in teams and at work. How do you have those critical conversations? How do you get your point across when you think the other person is incompetent? Come and help me reveal these and join a lively discussion.

Speaker

Joe is a father, business owner, speaker and developer. In 2006 he co-founded EdgeCase, a leading Ruby and Ruby on Rails training and consulting company. They have had a tremendous amount of success helping companies as large as Ingersoll Rand, GAP and AT&T Interactive as well as those startups still in the inception stage. Through a partnership he has been giving training for well over three years on testing and development with Ruby on Rails. He is a speaker and has spoken at conferences ranging from RailsConf to numerous regional conferences and countless user groups.

David Starr | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) and Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD) offer new ways to think about developer testing. These approaches evolve the conversation of Test-Driven Development and bridge the gap between those asking for the software and those delivering it.

This session discusses technologies and techniques that are paving our path to achieving executable specifications in .NET. This talk includes real examples of applying it in software projects and introductions to techniques and tools evolving in this dynamic space. This session shows that these techniques are usable on real projects, and helps you see if it they are appropriate to your next project.

Learning points

• Know how BDD and ATDD can aide in helping developers talk to business analysts
• Understand various tools and techniques for testing software using the BDD model
• Understand the emerging field of executable specification on the .NET stack.

Speaker

David Starr is the Chief Craftsman for Scrum.org where he works to improve the professional of software development. He focuses on agile software development, the Visual Studio ALM platform, and patterns and practices in .NET.  He enjoys helping software development teams improve and expressing human intent to computers.

David is a technical contributor at Pluralsight, a Microsoft Visual Studio ALM MVP, and the founder of the blogging community ElegantCode.com. He has over 20 years of software development experience, most of them spent practicing adaptive engineering techniques like test-first development and reducing wait time between feedback cycles.

After the Path is our opportunity to celebrate learning, reconnecting with old friends and making new connections! Join us as we retrospect on the conference while enjoying dinner and drinks provided by The Big Bar on High.

All conference attendees receive complimentary admission — please bring your conference badge as your admission ticket.

Conference Attendees | 04:30 – 06:30

Abstract

All conference attendees are invited to the Ohio Union Performance Hall for a conference retrospective and happy hour!  Food and drinks will be provided.  All sponsor giveaways will be done during the happy hour.

Facilitator

COHAA Board

Conference Attendees | 10:00 – 04:30

Abstract

The Stained Glass Lounge at the top of the stairs will serve as a space to facilitate peer-to-peer learning, collaboration and creativity.

The exact process is not important to understand in advance – the process will become clear as it happens.  The important part is that all those gathered will have the opportunity to put conference sessions on the agenda.  No session will be voted off or ‘won’t happen’ for some other reason. All sessions are welcome.

The area will have circlular tables and chairs and a board to track all open space sessions.

Jon Stahl & Michael “Doc” Martin | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

Agile & User Experience is a topic that many companies struggle to understand.  We will help you recognize your company’s UX appetite, discuss how Agile changes things and share some of the best emerging practices including user story mapping and flash design/build.

Speakers

Jon co-founded LeanDog after 18 years of experience providing IT leadership in both Fortune 500 and start up organizations. His passion is eliminating waste, optimizing the performance of IT teams and helping organizations become lean and agile. Jon provides extensive hands on experience in organizational transformations to Agile and Lean practices. He is an active leader in the Agile and Entrepreneurial community. He openly shares his learnings at conferences and meet-ups.

In addition to providing a home for over a dozen monthly user group meetings at the LeanDog Studio in Cleveland, he has co-organized events such as Ignite Cleveland, Cleveland Startup Weekend and Code Retreat. He received his degrees from Ohio State University. He is married with two lovely children and two ugly bull dogs named Otis and Iggy.

Michael Norton (Doc) is an Agile Coach and a partner with LeanDog living in Wadsworth, OH. Doc’s experience covers a wide range of development topics. Doc declares expertise in no single language or methodology and is immediately suspicious of anyone who declares such expertise. A frequent speaker, Doc is passionate about helping others become better developers, working with teams to improve delivery, and Software Craftsmanship. As a member of LeanDog, Doc provides coaching, mentoring, training, and delivery in Agile/XP/Lean software development techniques. He has more than 20 years of experience in software development and has been a promoter and practitioner of Agile since 1999. Past roles include Senior Consultant at ThoughtWorks, VP of Technology at the Samara Technology Group and Software Architect at Ohio Savings Bank.

Phil Japikse | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

Improved Quality. Better Design. SOLID Code. These are all benefits of driving your design with tests. But where Test Driven Development falls short is in retaining the User’s Voice. User Stories are a great tool, but not always a natural way of speaking for non-geeks. I will show you the power of writing Context Specifications in the User’s voice, and then use Machine.Specifications (MSpec) to turn those specs into test driven code that all parties can understand! I assume the attendees have a solid foundation in Test Driven Development.

Speaker

An international speaker, Microsoft MVP, MCSD, CSM, and CSP, and a passionate member of the developer community, Phil Japikse has been working with .Net since the first betas, developing software for over 20 years, and heavily involved in the agile community since 2005. Phil works as the Agile Practices Evangelist for Telerik’s Agile Project Management Division (http://www.telerik.com/teampulse), serves as the Lead Director for the Cincinnati .Net User’s Group and the Cincinnati Software Architect Group, and is the host of the Zero To Agile podcast (www.telerik.com/zerotoagile). Phil also founded Agile Conferences, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to advancing agile in all aspects of software development. Phil also serves as Cub Master for his sons’ Cub Scout Pack, volunteers for the National Ski Patrol, and is a recently retired Firefighter/Paramedic. You can follow Phil on twitter via www.twitter.com/skimedic and read his blog at www.skimedic.com/blog.

Facilitator – Kelley Allan | 01:30 — 02:45

Abstract

The incredible potential of agile/lean development methods are too often constrained by corporate management policies.  The problems are clearly revealed in a recent survey of 450 Columbus area developers.  We will provide highlights of the survey findings which can help employers, managers, and recruiters gain insight into what attracts and keeps talent.  One key finding from this survey is that prevailing “command and control” or “carrot and stick” management approaches drive talent away.  Fortunately, the roots of the Agile Development stem from the work of Taiichi Ohno (LEAN) and W. Edwards Deming (New Philosophy of Management).  Ohno and Deming provided means by which to transform entire organizations to function as effectively as Agile does for development.  The panelists will address questions from the audience and provide case examples of how to proceed with spreading the positive power of Agile to the entire company.

The panelists point out that the need to move away from “command and control” management methods is a very practical consideration and is closely connected to competitive advantage. And, competitive advantage is very important to growing companies.  Please join us for a robust discussion.

Facilitator

Kelly L. Allan is a Senior Associate of Kelly Allan Associates, Ltd., a company with 24+ associates that has been in business since 1974.  Kelly has published articles, commentary and letters in a variety of journals, including Business First, Fast Company, Personnel Journal, Marketing News, Business Marketing Association News, Nature Conservancy, Harvard Business Review, and The Wall Street Journal.  Has has been featured in Fast Company, The Columbus Dispatch, Sam’s Club The Source, Tanning Trends, Quality Progress, The Masterful Coaching Fieldbook, The Knowing-Doing Gap, and Abolishing Performance Appraisals.

In 1999, poor health forced Peter Scholtes (The Team Handbook, and The Leader’s Handbook) to retire from conducting seminars and consulting.  Peter asked Kelly to continue the seminars and consulting practice.  Scholtes says, “There is much to appreciate about Kelly.  His exceptional ability to combine theory with real world implementations is perhaps what clients appreciate the most.”

In 2004 Kelly was 1 of only 12 people selected by the W. Edwards Deming Institute to conduct Dr. Deming’s famous “Four Day Seminars.”  Kelly is also a member of AMA and ASQ.

Panelists

Brandon Childers specializes in leading and enabling agile transformations at all levels.  His passion lies in building lean organizations that deliver high-quality software and can quickly adapt to change.  A developer at heart, you will often find him discussing patterns, architecture, and the hottest new framework; however, he realizes the greater importance of vibrant work environment where people are respected, empowered, and engaged.

As the Director of Application Development at IGS Energy, Brandon oversees cross-functional teams comprising analysts, developers, and testers.  He studied Computer Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University where he still mentors students and prospective developers.

Poorani Jeyasekar is a workforce development professional with an engineering background. She uses a combination of quality tools and performance improvement techniques to solve organizational problems. She is a skilled facilitator and analyst.

Poorani has worked in multicultural environments and her expertise includes process improvement, needs analysis, job and task analysis, e-learning, marketing, and instructional design.  She is an experienced researcher and is responsible for the survey that was conducted with 450 Columbus area developers in regard to job satisfaction and related topics.

She has an MA from The Ohio State University and has Six Sigma Black Belt training.

Joe O’Brien is a father, business owner, speaker and developer. In 2006 he co-founded EdgeCase, a leading Ruby and Ruby on Rails training and consulting company. They have had a tremendous amount of success helping companies as large as Ingersoll Rand, GAP and AT&T Interactive as well as those startups still in the inception stage. Through a partnership he has been giving training for well over three years on testing and development with Ruby on Rails. He is a speaker and has spoken at conferences ranging from RailsConf to numerous regional conferences and countless user groups

Terry Wiegmann & Ayan Dave | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

Agile Avengers Assemble!

Do your projects sometimes seem to have been chartered by a demon like Loki?

Is your team made up of superheroes and highly skilled specialists on a mission to avenge poor software practices? Do you want to take your superpowers to a new level?

Are you thinking that automating testing within the iteration just might be the Tesserac that will get you off late-cycle test/debug treadmill and back to adding value and wondering how others did it?

Join Terry Wiegmann and Ayan Dave as they share their experience on an Agile Avengers Initiative of their own.

Hear how a collection of strangers came together, formed a team and articulated their Definition of Done then tackled the challenges of automating tests within the iteration using gherkin and the gherkinSalad framework; all the while making mistakes, learning how to leverage disparate skills, sharing learning, continuously improving their practices and having fun.

You’re sure hear something new, something that validates your thinking or something that extends it.

Speakers

She might not be the Black Widow, but Terry Wiegmann was an Awesome Woman in Agile nominee! When she is not conquering ineffective software practices, she is a Director and Service Line Lead with Quick Solutions. She is one of the few people in the world to be both a Certified Business Analysis Professional and Certified Software Quality Engineer, and is also a PSPO and Advanced Gold Toastmaster. Her roots are in concurrent engineering and on her past several projects has been blending business analysis and quality engineering and testing skills to add value to her team.

Ayan Dave is a software engineer with eight years of experience in building and delivering high quality applications using languages and components in JVM ecosystem. He is passionate about software development and enjoys exploring open source projects. He is enthusiastic about Agile & Extreme Programming and frequently advocates for them. Over the years he has provided consulting service to several organizations and has played many different roles. Most recently he is the “Architectus Oryzus” for a small project team with big ideas and subscribes to the idea that running code is the system of truth.

Ayan has a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering from University of Houston Clear Lake and holds PMP, PSM and OCMJEA certifications. He is also a speaker on various technical topics at local user groups and community events. He currently lives in Columbus Ohio where works with Quick Solutions Inc. In the digital world he can be found at http://daveayan.com.

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Matt VanVleet & DJ Daugherty | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

There are many Agile Practices that sound radical and often people ask “Do you do that on your own internal projects?”.  Well yes we do.  This presentation will walk through a project that uses advanced agile practices.  This project does crazy things like:

• Deploys to production many times a week
• Throws out the backlog every week or two
• Tracks value not points
• etc.

Come learn how we “Eat our own dog food” and you will likely find an Agile Practice that you could get additional value from.

Speaker

Mr. Van Vleet holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Management Information Systems from Ohio University. He joined Pillar in 2005 as Vice President of Fulfillment for the Ohio Valley Region after years of notable accomplishments. Matt has developed a testing practice focused on functional test automation and application performance management. Mr. Van Vleet founded a company, Solstice Software, that wrote Automated Unit and Integration Testing Products and continues to push the envelope of what is possible with test automation. Within Pillar he is one of the key innovators around our approach, Speed To Value, focusing on the critical areas of project management practices, requirements management, and test driven development. Due to Matt’s skills and experience, he has developed Pillar’s Practice Management model that maximizes the impact of productivity by enforcing those proven concepts and training.

DJ has been using state models and asynchronous processing for many
years to solve business problems for companies of all sizes.  As small
as a logistics software company responsible for the routing of trucks,
a web hosting company responsible for the handling of website malware
detection, to large-scale financial electronic processing and natural
gas logistics management.  I currently freelance within the technology
and agile world along side Pillar Technology Consultants.  I like to
create business solutions for business problems… this might include
the use of technology.  I am all about people.  I love to take
seemingly complex problems and find simple solutions, providing
business value and hopefully a great return on investment.  I am a big
fan of the under-rated vi editor and I love to ‘eat, sleep, and
breathe’… fly fishing.

Dan Greenleaf & Dr. Charles Suscheck | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

Agile frameworks like Scrum and XP are gaining popularity in the marketplace, but there’s something missing – what do you do when the teams begin to plateau with Scrum, multiple teams are contributing to a project or multiple product lines are being simultaneously developed, or executives need more a better understanding of the large-scale view of the development organization?  Much of the answer lies in lean software development – an evolutionary step in agile processes.

Lean is a philosophy that manufacturing and software organizations have adopted to develop the agility needed to meet overwhelming global challenges — reducing waste, enhancing iteration speed, and continuous improvement through improved innovation.  By viewing your Agile development cycles in conjunction with Lean Software principles, you will find guidelines at the enterprise level to add value to the company and quickly deliver the valuable software to your customers.

If you think of lean as six sigma, kanban, or a competing ideology to agile then this presentation is for you.  It will clarify much of the confusion around lean software development.

Speakers

Dan GreenLeaf is an Agile Coach, Mentor, Team Member and Evangelist.
He began his career as a Business Analyst in a traditional command and
control environment. After learning about agile, he sought out and
joined his first Agile team in 2005, and has found Agile to be more
productive, and more enjoyable than traditional environments. Dan has
a passion for helping people deliver better software by leveraging
Agile values and principles. He is a board member of COHAA, and is
currently responsible for programming. He also enjoys presenting at
conferences and events. Dan joined Improving Enterprises in 2011,
where he has focused on the people and interactions side of Agile,
helping multiple organizations change not just their process, but
their culture.

Dr. Charles Suscheck specializes in software development methodologies
and project management and has over 25 years of professional
experience in information technology.  Dr. Suscheck has held positions
of Process Architect, Director of Research, Principle Consultant, and
Professional Trainer at some of the most recognized companies in
America.  He has spoken at national and international conferences such
as Agile 20XX, OOPSLA, ECOOP, and Borcon on topics related to project
management.  He has also has over 30 articles published in academic
and industry journals.

Jeff Hunsaker & Todd Greene | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

Much of an agile team’s success hinges on the effectiveness of the product owner. You as the product owner need to guide the team on the “what” while letting the team figure out the “how”. In this session, we’ll help you become the absolutely best product owner you can be—all while avoiding common pitfalls of poorly performing product owners. And, if you’re working with a challenging product owner, we’ll help you identify dysfunctional behavior and how to address it.

Speakers

Jeff Hunsaker is the Director of Client Services for Cardinal Solutions Group in their Columbus, Ohio office. He is a Scrum.org Professional Scrum Developer (PSD) and Foundation (PSF) Trainer, an ALM/Visual Studio Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), a certified Scrum Master and co-founder of the Central Ohio Application Lifecycle Management Group (COALMG www.coalmg.org). Jeff assists clients with architecting and developing custom Microsoft applications, Team Foundation Server (TFS), Azure/Online Services and Microsoft Business Intelligence (MSBI) solutions. Jeff also enjoys optimizing the development process to produce business value and create an effective environment for the team. A frequent presenter at client and regional events, Jeff gets passionate about efficient, resourceful, and elegant technology solutions, agile development techniques and providing value for clients quickly and regularly. In his spare time, Jeff enjoys his family (two boys, wife Lisa), reading, and writing. You can keep up with Jeff by visiting his blog (www.JeffreyHunsaker.com) or on Twitter at @jeffhunsaker.

Todd Greene is the leader of Agile Advisory Services for the Cardinal Solutions Group, and a Professional Scrum Master (PSM) Trainer and Foundations (PSF) Trainer for Scrum.org.  With over 11 years of professional software development and leadership experience, Todd has a proven track-record of successfully coaching and leading teams and organizations through organizational change and continuous improvement.  Todd has been a Development Team Member, Iteration Manager, Scrum Master, Product Owner, Project Sponsor, Advisory Team Coach, Trainer, and Change Agent for Fortune 500 insurance and healthcare organizations, top academic universities, financial institutions, a market leading internet start-up company and a public utilities company.

Scot Burdette | 01:30 – 02:45

Abstract

Many organizations adopt agile development processes to increase business collaboration and flexibility. Through the implementation of agile methods they find themselves focusing on the efficiency of agile. Unfortunately in many cases, that is where they stop.  While yielding results, the return is limited without a focus on the business value being generated within the organization.

This interactive session moves the conversation beyond the “how” agile development works to highlight the “what” your agile organization should be delivering, and why.    Driving your organization to capture and measure true business value will produce the results your business sponsors and stakeholder demand in today’s economy.

Speakers

Scot leverages 28 years of application development and integration experience to deliver enterprise platforms and solutions producing measureable business value.  For the past 10 years Scot has led ICC’s Application Services division in creating technical solutions to drive revenue and reduce costs for national and global businesses. Through ICC’s business centric agile approach, ICC develops high value solutions to complex technical and business requirements.

Ken Schwaber | 11:45 – 01:00

Abstract

Scrum is a framework that can be used for continuous improvement. For instance, product backlog is more than just list of requirements. How can it be used to create roadmaps, plan releases, and optimize value?

Another topic will be the steps beyond Scrum’s initial use that can be used to improve value and enterprise competitiveness. Ken will also discuss recent changes in Scrum, and his and Jeff Sutherland’s new book, “Software in Thirty Days.”

Speaker

Ken Schwaber developed the Scrum process with Jeff Sutherland in the early 1990’s and has gone on to test and popularize its use. Ken was a signatory to the Agile Manifesto in 2001, and has founded the Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance. Ken has been a software developer for over 30 years, from hacked to procedural to object, from bottle-washer to cook.

Michael Mah | 11:45 – 01:00

Abstract

Kent Beck, the visionary behind Extreme Programming, once said that Agile projects would be considered more successful – in the sense that they’d deliver more functionality with fewer defects.  In essence, higher productivity and quality.

With Agile now becoming mainstream, is that truly the case?  What are the patterns being found here in Columbus OH?

Industry research from QSM reveals varying degrees of Agile success.  Some of the best teams – whether they be XP, SCRUM, Lean, etc. are finding Beck’s statement to be true. Others are not.  What factors can make a meaningful difference?

The Columbus Agile Productivity vs. Industry study is looking to discover such patterns.  Whether new to Agile or not, we’ll be determining baselines for this vibrant Columbus Agile community.  Using a combination of velocity, burndown, and quality metrics, we will seek to understand productivity, time-to-market, quality, and cost patterns as this community matures.  Serving as a comparison framework is the QSM SLIM industry database, with more than 10,000 completed projects (waterfall, agile, offshore, onshore) collected worldwide.

This talk will describe the group progress observed thus far, with initial discoveries that can help accelerate your Agile success.  Join us for an overview of this project, and find out how you can participate if these goals are also important to you, your development, and your executive teams.

Speaker

As managing partner at QSM Associates Inc., Michael Mah teaches, writes, and consults to technology companies on measuring, estimating and managing software projects, whether in-house, offshore, waterfall, or agile.

He is the director of the Benchmarking Practice at the Cutter Consortium, a Boston-based IT think-tank, and served as past editor of the IT Metrics Strategies publication. With over 25 years of experience, Michael and his partners at QSM have derived productivity patterns for thousands of projects collected in its worldwide database across engineering and business applications. His work examines time-pressure dynamics of teams, and its role in project success and failure.  QSM is the creator of the SLIM® model, a suite of tools for software release planning, measurement, and estimation.

Michael’s background began in physics and electrical engineering and expanded into software. His graduate training was in the field of mediation, facilitation, and dispute resolution.  Michael is also a private pilot and lives in the mountains of western Massachusetts with his two children. He can be reached at www.qsma.com

Ellen Gottesdiener | 11:45 – 1:00

Abstract

Collaborate for Value: Using Facilitated Sessions to Discover and Deliver Product Neeeds.

For continual delivery of high-value product options, your agile team needs to reach a shared understanding of product needs and collaborate on plans. Learn how nimble, timely facilitated discovery sessions enable product stakeholders to act as partners. Partners explore and evaluate product options and allocate the high-value options to plans. You will understand how these sessions use facilitation practices, emphasize structured conversations, the importance of transparent decision-making, and how to holistically discover and allocate options for delivery.

Speaker

Ellen Gottesdiener is Founder and Principal with EBG Consulting, experts helping you deliver high-value products your customers want and need. Ellen is an internationally recognized facilitator, coach, trainer, speaker, and expert in agile product management practices, product envisioning and roadmapping, business analysis and requirements, retrospectives and collaboration. Ellen works with global clients and speaks at numerous industry conferences. Author of two acclaimed books—Requirements by Collaboration and The Software Requirements Memory Jogger—Ellen is co-authoring a book with Mary Gorman on practical agile planning and analysis practices available in August 2012. View her articles, tweets, blog, free eNewsletter, and useful practitioner resources on EBG’s web site.

Facilitator – Ben Blanquera | 01:30 — 02:45

Abstract
Transforming a large enterprise to Agile is a big undertaking. During this panel discussion, you will hear first-hand from local leaders who have led, or are currently leading, their enterprises through an Agile Transformation. Learn the different approaches employed by each company to transform their organizations to Agile, and the tips and tricks used to ensure success.

Facilitator
Ben Blanquera is the Vice President of Information Services for Progressive Medical, Inc . In his role Ben is responsible for project/portfolio management, application development, business intelligence, and business analysis. He is currently leading a wide-ranging initiative to transform Progressive’s IS group to Agile. The first pilot effort is completed successfully and now other teams are coming on-board. Progressive Medical, Inc. is a nationwide, managed care and health care cost containment company. It coordinates care for workers’ compensation, auto-no-fault and personal injury protection cases. Progressive Medical is an Inc. 500 Hall of Fame company. Ben is also the founder of TechLife Columbus – a “grassroots tribe” to build connectivity and a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in Central Ohio. Ben also writes a blog chronicling the Columbus Tech community – www.columbustech.blogspot.com

Panelists

Jeff Dennes, a nationally recognized leader in the online, mobile, and payments industry, has joined Huntington (NASDAQ: HBAN; www.huntington.com) as Senior Vice President, Chief Digital Officer. With nearly 20 years of experience in online and mobile services innovation, Dennes will lead Huntington’s efforts to expand its online banking platform with an increased focus on mobile and iTouch banking. Jeff’s teams support Huntington’s online, mobile, ATM and future digital channels by developing strategy and supporting the day to day operations. Jeff has been recognized as a leader in the mobile space for the past several years.

Prior to joining Huntington, Dennes managed award-winning online and mobile banking and payment services at USAA Federal Savings Bank. Dennes led the development and implementation of a ground-breaking Remote Deposit Capture feature that allows banking customers to take a photo of a check and make a deposit using their mobile device.

Dennes’ extensive background also includes experience in integrated banking, investments and insurance self-service strategies and solutions. He was recently recognized as one of the “Elite 8 in Banking Technology” by Banking Technology News, and was also recognized by American Banker as the number five Innovator of the Year in 2009.

Dennes earned his bachelor’s degree in Management from Texas State University in San Marcus, TX.

Michael Fergang is vice president, chief information officer of Grange Insurance and is responsible for developing and managing the company’s growing information technology department. Joining the company in 2000, Fergang has developed a team that is recognized for its excellence in the field by industry leaders, receiving the highest scores for customer satisfaction from independent insurance agents for six consecutive years.

Fergang brings more than two decades of IT experience to his position. Before joining Grange, he was chief information officer/vice president, information services and technology for Swiss Re Life & Health/Midland Life Insurance Company, where he helped increase company growth and reduce operating costs. In addition, Fergang also has worked with numerous financial companies, building their information technology departments to serve as a critical resource for creating and managing business processes more effectively.

Fergang graduated from the University of Delaware with a bachelor’s degree in operations management and has completed graduate courses in telecommunications through New York University. He also devotes time to worthy community causes including Amythest.

Fergang and his family reside in Columbus, Ohio.

Grange Insurance, with $2 billion in assets and $1.2 billion in annual revenue, is an insurance provider based in Columbus, Ohio. Through its network of independent agents, Grange offers auto, home, life and business insurance protection. Established in 1935, the company and its affiliates serve policyholders in Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. For more information, visit www.grangeinsurance.com.

Bill Gray is a former developer, tester, designer, analyst, architect, DBA, engineer, trainer, project manager, and single guy with a glorious head of flowing blonde hair…unfortunately, this was all during his waterfall days.

Bill is a current servant leader of over three dozen software craftsman/women practicing Agile at Northwoods, father of four, husband of one, and bald as the day he was born…and he wouldn’t trade it for all the blonde hair in Sweden.

As a director of IT applications at Nationwide Insurance’s Application Development Center, Dustin Potts has directed the transformation of waterfall-based software development teams to CMMI® compliant, lean, agile, high-performing teams. He has more than six years of experience leading successful agile transformations and teams at the enterprise level with more than twenty years of experience in the IT industry. He is a frequent speaker at agile conferences and has trained many on agiletechniques of Scrum and XP.

Russ Wangler has 17 Years Experience in IT, 10 with Accenture and 6 with Nationwide and currently working at Gap Inc. Direct. He has 4 years in the Agile space helping lead Agile Organizational Change – primarily in Nationwide’s Application Development Center.

Todd Kaufman | 11:45 – 01:00

Abstract

Lightning talks consist of short presentations given at a conference or similar forum. Unlike other presentations, lightning talks last only a few minutes and several will usually be delivered in a single period by different speakers.

For this session, we will engage The Path to Craftsmanship speakers to provide quick presentations for the benefit of The Path to Agility attendees.

Facilitator

Todd Kaufman has developed, coached, and managed software development teams in Java, Ruby and .NET. Regardless of platform, he is passionate about finding better ways to build systems with low ceremony and high quality. He has been known to occasionally run long distances and drink scotch, although not necessarily at the same time. Todd currently delivers outstanding software to his clients through Test Double, a software studio.

This quick-hitting “agile from the firehose” session will excite and motivate those new to Agile and Lean to further pursue a greater knowledge and understanding. Attendees will be exposed to a passionate presentation surrounding Agile & Lean values covering 31 practices. We will also cover some of the social and environmental factors which go into a healthy and sustainable Agile ecosystem. Attendees will receive a copy of an Agile Discussion Guide which covers all 31 practices. We will inspire you to help promote eliminate waste, increase productivity, communication, and collaboration within your own organization.

Israel Gat | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

Agile, the software method that was conceived as a way to cope with change, is itself dramatically changing. What we are now witnessing is the emergence of Agile 2.0. Three rapidly converging trends are driving the emergence of Agile 2.0:

• Markets are becoming hyper-segmented;
• Markets are also becoming fleetingly transient; and
• The value chains that serve the markets are dramatically different from yesterday’s value chains.

Traditionally, the Agile movement responded to change by “merging” two strands — development and testing — at the team level. Agile 2.0 extends this single-level approach by simultaneously applying Agile principles at three tiers:

1. The tier at which development, testing and operations merge
2. The tier at which strategy and delivery merge
3. The tier at which problem and solution merge

Agile 2.0 addresses the key challenge posed by “change is changing”: how to solve a problem when it is not understood well enough to produce a viable solution. Rapidly interlinked iterations at all three levels make it possible to substitute learning for planning. It’s through tight feedback loops in and amongst the three levels that the pace of learning accelerates to match the speed of change.

In this presentation, Cutter Fellow and Director of Cutter’s Agile practice, Israel Gat, will divulge the details you need to know about how to implement Agile 2.0 in your organization/company. You’ll get a blueprint for assessing and responding to the new realities of the competitive environment — without compromising the tried and true Agile tenets.

Speaker

Dr. Israel Gat is a Cutter Consortium Fellow and Director of the Agile Product & Project Management practice. He is recognized as the architect of the agile transformation at BMC Software where, under his leadership, Scrum users increased from zero to 1,000, resulting in nearly three times faster time to market than industry average and 20%-50% improvement in team productivity. Among other accolades for leading this transition, Dr. Gat was presented with an Innovator of the Year Award from Application Development Trends in 2006.

Dr. Gat’s executive career spans top technology companies, including IBM, Microsoft, Digital, and EMC. He has led the development of products such as BMC Performance Manager and Microsoft Operations Manager, enabling the two companies to move toward next-generation system management technology. Dr. Gat is also well versed in growing smaller companies and holds advisory and venture capital positions for companies in new, high-growth markets.

Dr. Gat currently splits his time between consulting and writing. He focuses on technical debt, large-scale implementations of lean software methods, and devops. His e-book, The Concise Executive Guide to Agile, explains how the three can be tied together to form an effective software governance framework. Dr. Gat holds a PhD in computer science and an MBA. In addition to publishing with Cutter and the IEEE, he posts frequently at The Agile Executive and tweets as agile_exec. He can be reached at consulting@cutter.com.

Daniel Vacanti | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

This talk presents a brief introduction to Lean Thinking using Kanban.  The application of Lean Principles for software development goes way beyond a mindless mapping of manufacturing practices to a new domain.  In this session, we will explore why those principles are valid in our world by discussing things like how the simple act of limiting work in progress positively affects the efficiency and effectiveness of your organization.  Join us to learn how Lean and Kanban can improve and augment your current team practices.

Speaker

Daniel Vacanti is a 17-year software industry veteran who got his start as a Java Developer/Architect and who has spent most of the last 12 years focusing on Lean and Agile practices.  In 2007, he helped to develop the Kanban Method for knowledge work with David Anderson.  He managed the world’s first project implementation of Kanban that year, and has been conducting Kanban training, coaching, and consulting ever since.  In 2011 he founded Corporate Kanban, Inc., which provides world-class Lean training and consulting to clients all over the globe–including several Fortune 100 companies.  Daniel holds a Masters in Business Administration and regularly teaches a class on lean principles for software management at the University of California Berkeley.

Facilitator – Joe Astolfi | 10:00 — 11:15

Abstract
The model for successful leadership has changed.  Leaders within agile organizations must use and exhibit a different set of behaviors from those practiced in traditional command and control environments.  In this interactive and engaging session, you will learn the leadership qualities and skills needed to allow self-directed agile teams to thrive and flourish.  Whether you are an Agile Coach, Scrum Master, or Manager within your organization, you will glean insights into how your behaviors influence the performance of your team.  The panelists will draw on their deep agile leadership experience to help answer your questions and set you on your path to leadership success.

Facilitator

Joe is a Director at Quick Solutions, holding the positions of Agile Service Offering Lead and Process Service Line Lead.  He is also the Vice-Chair and a Board Member of the Central Ohio Agile Association.  Joe is passionate about helping others improve their agility to achieve personal success and deliver business value to their organizations.  He openly shares his agile-related experiences and transformation war wounds through networking with other agilists and speaking at national and local agile conferences and events.

Joe has over 20 years of IT experience in leadership positions within agile and traditional organizations.  His expertise includes enterprise agile transformation, agile team coaching and adoption, portfolio management, PMO establishment and leadership, project management, organizational change, and staff career development.  Joe is a Professional Scrum Master (PSM), Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), and a Project Management Professional (PMP).

Panelist
Alan Czako – Coming Soon!

Steve Jones is a Professional Scrum Master at Worthington Industries Inc. with fourteen years of IT experience. A graduate of Ohio University with a degree in Business Management, he started his career in IT in the consulting world doing everything from mainframe programming to systems and database administration. Steve, combining his programming skills and drive for quality, spent ten years executing test automation for a number of companies which eventually brought him to his current employer. After leading Worthington Industries’ testing team for a number of years, he was chosen to lead the IT department’s Agile Transformation and has found a new focus.

Paul Mazak is a Director at Quick Solutions and heads up Enterprise Application Development.  He enjoys writing tools that facilitate Agile using Java, Groovy, Ruby, and JavaScript.  He currently subscribes to the motto that “anything can be automated”.

Facilitator – Daryl Kulak | 10:00 — 11:15

Abstract
Daryl Kulak is a consultant, author and speaker with Pillar Technology.  His first book was “Use Cases: Requirements in Context” (Addison Wesley, 2003) which sold 30,000 copies and was translated into two languages. Daryl’s involvement in Agile dates back to the late 1990s, when he began experimenting with iterative/incremental processes in the software lifecycle. His upcoming book “Agile in the Enterprise” explores the complexities of scaling and sustaining Agile in the enterprise, using the power of systems thinking.

Facilitator
Learn about the complexities and compromises that come with scaling an Agile initiative to the enterprise level with our knowledgeable panel.  The initial Agile pilot is just a first step.  Once you engage groups like the PMO, Resource Management, HR and Corporate Methodology, things start to get interesting.  This will be a lively dialogue with the focus on your questions about various scalability issues. Our panel includes participants from various stages in scaling, from just beginning to more mature.

Panelists
Andrew Clute is the Director of Product Engineering for McGraw-Hill School Education’s Center for Digital Innovation (CDI). He is responsible for the full product and software development lifecyle for MHSE’s core K-12 digital business. Before that, he was the Chief Information Office for the eTech Ohio Commission. Andrew holds a BS in Computer Science & Engineering from The Ohio State University, and an MBA in Finance from Capital University.

Molly Harr has worked in the field of Human Resources for over 12 years. Currently she works for Grange Insurance as the HR Business Partner supporting the IT, Corporate Strategy, Sales and Marketing, Personal Lines and PMO executive leadership team. Her areas of expertise include Talent Management, Employee Relations, Change Management and Organizational Development. Molly was an key member of the Agile transformation and implementation team at Grange Insurance.

Brian Knickle is a software deliver manager at Huntington Bank.  Brian began his career at Huntington Bank as a J2EE solution architect on a multiyear development effort. Brian has managed groups of solution architects and development teams for the past 4 years.   Last year Huntington built their first collaborative space and aligned 6 teams consisting of both business and technology to delivery our online and mobile portfolio to our customers.  Brian is now leading an “expansion of Agile” building the 2^nd collaborative space and standing up 4 more agile teams.

Facilitator – Terry Wiegman | 10:00 — 11:15

Abstract

Are you a BA/Tester/QA person struggling to find your place on an agile team? Looking for ways to add more value? Wondering what it’s been like for others? Join our panel of practitioners as they discuss what they have learned, what is effective, what got in their way, how they handled challenges, and the opportunities agile presents to us!

Facilitator

She might not be the Black Widow, but Terry Wiegmann was an Awesome Woman in Agile nominee! When she is not conquering ineffective software practices, she is a Director and Service Line Lead with Quick Solutions. She is one of the few people in the world to be both a Certified Business Analysis Professional and Certified Software Quality Engineer, and is also a PSPO and Advanced Gold Toastmaster. Her roots are in concurrent engineering and on her past several projects has been blending business analysis and quality engineering and testing skills to add value to her team.

Panelists

Linda Farrenkopf is currently an Agile Delivery Lead at Pillar Technologies. During the past year, she has coached teams at Worthington Industries and GE Aviation through their agile transformation. Ms. Farrenkopf is a Certified Scrum Master with over 7 years experience leading agile teams to deliver successfully. She has a passion for coaching and mentoring others to maximize their performance. She was the founder and past president of the XP User’s Group and is currently the Director of the Agile PM LIG for the local chapter of the PMI.

Leo Gilbert works as a Quality Assurance Manager for Huntington National Bank. He is currently involved with developing current testing practices to be more efficient working with Agile/Scrum methodologies. Leo has 20 years in Information Technology and holds a degree in Computer Science. He has held several IT certifications and has lectured at companies, schools and colleges on various IT topics.

Ellen Gottesdiener is Founder and Principal with EBG Consulting, experts helping you deliver high-value products your customers want and need. Ellen is an internationally recognized facilitator, coach, trainer, speaker, and expert in agile product management practices, product envisioning and roadmapping, business analysis and requirements, retrospectives and collaboration. Ellen works with global clients and speaks at numerous industry conferences. Author of two acclaimed books—Requirements by Collaboration and The Software Requirements Memory Jogger—Ellen is co-authoring a book with Mary Gorman on practical agile planning and analysis practices available in August 2012. View her articles, tweets, blog, free eNewsletter, and useful practitioner resources on EBG’s web site.

Dan Kohler is a Sr Business Systems Analyst at American Electric Power.  Dan started on an agile pilot project at AEP as a subject matter expert representing a small subset of the users.  While learning and embracing the agile framework, he became the product owner and has been a mainstay on an agile team that has produced several highly successful projects.   Dan has lived in both the traditional waterfall approach and in an agile approach to project management and thrives on being able to do more than just the traditional BA role.  After working on an agile team for the last two years, he claims he will never do a waterfall project again!

Gene Johnson | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

We know it’s all about expediting feedback to control the cost of change, but what happens when Agile enters a highly dynamic environment such as retail?

What are the drivers that impact the use of Agile and the resulting guardrails that should be in place?

In this dialogue, Gene will share several pragmatic insights by drawing upon his experience on the front lines of several players in the retail domain who are embracing Agile as their enterprise level approach

Speaker

Gene Johnson, Agile Transformation Coach, Fairhaven Solutions is sought after for his experience with a variety of solution delivery approaches as a strategist, change agent and coach. Since 2000, Gene has supported numerous financial, retail and Department of Defense clients including Bank of New York, Standard & Poor’s, TheStreet.com, Gap, J. Crew, and L-3.

Gene has over 30 years of experience in software development and has played all roles, including sponsor. He has presented both nationally and locally on various Agile topics, including an appearance on “The Next Wave” television series hosted by Leonard Nimoy. Gene is certified as a ScrumMaster and is founding member of the PMI’s Agile Formation Steering Committee, a member of the Central Ohio Agile Alliance and past President of the Columbus Chapter of the IIBA.

Gene earned a Masters in Systems Engineering from Wright State University and resides in a northern suburb of Columbus with his wife and daughter.

Jon Kruger | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

The QA team at IGS Energy has gone through a drastic transformation over the 6 months, going from no process, long hours, and all manual testing to an agile testing approach involving automated testing and QA involvement throughout the entire lifecycle of a feature.  Come hear our story of what we did to get there, what we’ve learned, what happened along the way, and where we’re going from here.

Speakers

Jon Kruger is an independent consultant in Columbus, OH where he provides software solutions, project leadership, and Agile coaching and training.  Jon has over 10 years experience in various different programming languages (mostly Ruby and .NET) and is always looking for ways to create better quality software and speed up the software development process. You can follow Jon on his blog (jonkruger.com) or on Twitter (@JonKruger).

Brandon Childers specializes in leading and enabling agile transformations at all levels.  His passion lies in building lean organizations that deliver high-quality software and can quickly adapt to change.  A developer at heart, you will often find him discussing patterns, architecture, and the hottest new framework; however, he realizes the greater importance of vibrant work environment where people are respected, empowered, and engaged.

As the Director of Application Development at IGS Energy, Brandon oversees cross-functional teams comprising analysts, developers, and testers.  He studied Computer Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University where he still mentors students and prospective developers.

Laurel Odronic is currently a systems analyst at IGS Energy in Dublin, where she has also spent time as an operations analyst and QA tester. Her previous energy industry experience includes scheduling and purchasing of electricity, as well as acquisition coordination with 3rd party marketing and sales organizations.  In her spare time she enjoys rowing and biking with her awesome development team on her lunch break.

Chris Hoover and Lan Bloch

Isaac Montgomery | 10:00 – 11:15

Abstract

Organizational culture and strategic alignment are critical to your success.  Yet cultural change cannot be achieved by leadership decree.  Our culture emerges from the individual choices and behaviors we exhibit each day.  Join us to discuss how leaders can influence and shape their organization to encourage the culture we seek

Speaker

Isaac Montgomery is an Agile Coach with Rally Software. His experience includes over 20 years of leadership and management consulting with  organizations in the military, energy, financial services and medical solutions industries. Isaac’s passion is transforming organizations from rigid, bureaucratic cost centers into nimble, high performing value delivery engines through the power and simplicity of empowered teams, enlightened leadership and lean principles.
Isaac is a certified PMP, PMI-ACP and Scrum Master / Practitioner. He holds a B.S. in Information Management and a Masters in Business Administration. In his free time you will find Isaac at the park with his twin sons or on the golf course destroying his self -esteem.

Paul Boos serves as as a coach helping executives, senior managers, and teams transform their software development thinking and how to effectively lead. A passionate learner, he has continued to experientially learn better ways to do things in management positions inside the Federal Government, in contractors, in the commercial software product industry and as a naval officer over his 27 year career.

Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob) | 3:15 – 4:30

Abstract

So we’ve heard the message about Clean Code.  And we’ve been practicing TDD for some time now.  But what about architecture and design?  Don’t we have to worry about that?  Or is it enough that we keep our functions small, and write lots of tests?  In this talk, Uncle Bob talks about the next level up.  What is the goal of architecture and design?  What makes a design clean?  How can we evolve our systems towards clean architectures and designs in an incremental Agile way.

Speaker

Robert C. Martin, aka, Uncle Bob has been a software professional since 1970 and an international software consultant since 1990. In the last 40 years, he has worked in various capacities on literally hundreds of software projects. In 2001, he initiated the meeting of the group that created Agile Software Development from Extreme Programming techniques and served as the first chairman of the Agile Alliance.  He is also a leading member of the Worldwide Software Craftsmanship Movement – Clean Code.

He has authored “landmark” books on Agile Programming, Extreme Programming, UML, Object-Oriented Programming,  C++ Programming and most recently Clean Code and Clean Coder. He has published dozens of articles in various trade journals.
He has written, directed and produced numerous “Code Casts” videos for software professionals.
Bob is a regular speaker at international conferences and trade shows.
Mr. Martin is the founder, CEO, and president of Uncle Bob Consulting, LLC and Object Mentor Incorporated.

Uncle Bob has published dozens of articles in various trade journals, and is a regular speaker at international conferences and trade shows.

Chet Hendrickson & Ron Jeffries | 8:00 – 9:30

Abstract

In creating Extreme Programming, Kent Beck said his goal was to make the world safe for programmers.  The Software Craftsmanship movement can trace its roots to Kent’s statement.

But, is that all Craftsmanship should be about?

Should it server a higher purpose?  Must it serve a higher purpose?

In this talk, Ron and Chet will explore the state of Agile software development and how the Software Craftsmanship movement can be leveraged to make the world safe not just of programmers, but for the Whole Team.

Unless, they change their minds and talk about something else entirely.

Speakers

Ron Jeffries has been developing software longer than most people have been alive. He holds advanced degrees in mathematics and computer science, both earned before negative integers had been invented. His teams have built operating systems, compilers, relational database systems, and a large range of applications. Ron’s software products have produced revenue of over half a billion dollars, and he wonders why he didn’t get any of it.

Chet Hendrickson has a quarter century’s experience in information technology and software development. He has been active in Agile software development since its beginning, and was the team leader on the Chrysler C3 project, the first project to follow all the practices of Extreme Programming. Chet was the first signatory of the Agile Manifesto.

They first presented the ideas that became Extreme Programming at the 1996 Smalltalk Solution conference. Since then, they have taught courses on many facets of XP across North America and Europe. In addition to their rightly famous “Small Card Planning Game”, they are often conference favorites with their unique combination of humor and insight.

Ron and Chet are the co-curators of the new Agile knowledge site, www.agileatlas.org.

Jurgen Appelo | 3:15 – 4:30

Abstract

“How do I make my managers more Agile?”
“How can I convince developers to educate themselves?”
“How can I make customers more cooperative?”
“How do I start a European network of Agile and Lean practitioners?”

When transforming organizations and other social systems people usually encounter obstacles. And these obstacles very often involve changing other people’s behaviors. Of course, we cannot really _make_ people behave in a different way. We also cannot really make people laugh, and we cannot really make people happy. But… we can certainly try!

This session is about Change Management 3.0. It is a new change management “super model” which views organizations as complex adaptive systems and social networks. The Change Management 3.0 supermodel wraps various existing models (PDCA, ADKAR, Adoption Curve and The 5 I’s). It lists a few dozen hard questions that can help people in their attempts to change the behaviors of other people in an organization and beyond. No matter whether you are a manager, Scrum Master, Product Owner, software developer or writer, anyone will find it useful to know how to change the world around them.

Speaker

Jurgen Appelo is a writer, speaker, trainer, entrepreneur, illustrator, developer, manager, blogger, reader, dreamer, leader, freethinker, and… Dutch guy.

Since 2008 Jurgen writes a popular blog at www.noop.nl, which deals with development management, software engineering, business improvement, personal development, and complexity theory. He is the author of the book Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders, which describes the role of the manager in agile organizations. And he wrote the little book How to Change the World, which describes his new supermodel for change management. He is also a speaker, being regularly invited to talk at business seminars and conferences around the world.

Jurgen is co-founder of the Agile Lean Europe network (for Agile & Lean thinkers and practitioners in Europe) and the Stoos Network (focusing on change agents for organizational transformation).

After studying Software Engineering at the Delft University of Technology, and earning his Master’s degree in 1994, Jurgen Appelo has busied himself starting up and leading a variety of Dutch businesses, always in the position of team leader, manager, or executive. Jurgen has experience in leading a horde of 100 software developers, development managers, project managers, business consultants, quality managers, service managers, and kangaroos, some of which he hired accidentally.

Nowadays he works full-time developing innovative courseware, books, and other types of original content. But sometimes Jurgen puts it all aside to do some programming himself, or to spend time on his ever-growing collection of science fiction and fantasy literature, which he stacks in a self-designed book case. It is 4 meters high.

Jurgen lives in Rotterdam (The Netherlands) — and sometimes in Brussels (Belgium) — with his partner Raoul. He has two kids, and an imaginary hamster called George.

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Christopher Avery | 8:00 – 9:30

Abstract

Field research on the front lines of IT leadership over the last twenty years provides the first how-to approach for taking, teaching, and inspiring personal responsibility—the first principle of success in any endeavor. Many leaders consider it the essence of self-organization, learning, growth, agility, and change.

You were born with the Leadership Gift; everyone is. Every act of real leadership taps into it. But few people ever discover this gift by themselves. Now any individual, team, or business culture can master it.

You can apply this research to expand your leadership power and ability everyday, build unstoppable teams, and develop a culture of amazing agility

Speaker

Christopher is a sought-after, international speaker, author, and business advisor on responsible leadership, teamwork, and change for companies like GAP, Wells Fargo, and Ebay. Known for his cutting-edge work to demystify and then develop practical team leadership skills for engineers and other technical professionals, Christopher wrote the popular classic Teamwork Is An Individual Skill for everyone who is fed up with working in bad teams. Fortune magazine called it the only book on teamwork you need to read.

As the visionary force behind the worldwide Leadership Gift community, Christopher applies groundbreaking discoveries about personal responsibility and performance to support leaders intent on rapidly building highly reliable, agile, sustainable, and accelerating teams and cultures.

Christopher is president of Partnerwerks Inc., the company he co-founded in 1991 to document best practices for collaborating under competitive conditions. He is an agile coach with Rally Software,  teaching Scrum and Product Owner workshops. Christopher is also a Senior Consultant with the IT and Agile Project Management practices of the Cutter Consortium, a Boston-area think tank. He co-authored the Declaration of Interdependence and co-founded the Agile Project Leadership Network dedicated to connecting, developing, and supporting great project leaders.

Christopher earned his Doctorate in Communication of Technology from The University of Texas at Austin where he occasionally lectures. He is a Visiting Scholar at Capella University.

The author of hundreds of articles and commentaries about individual and collective performance at work, Christopher is a popular source for the media.

Isaac Montgomery | 10:00am — 11:15am

Abstract
Organizations don’t invest their time, energy and money to “be agile”. They expect to see tangible improvements in productivity, predictability, quality, responsiveness, customer and employee satisfaction. They expect results. we’ll discuss 7 metrics to drive improvement in your organization. For each, we’ll show you how to calculate and interpret them; we’ll discuss abuse cases that can have undesired effects and how to avoid those. Additionally, we’ll discuss the applicability of each metric. Is it useful for benchmarking? Driving behavior? Correlation with leading indicators? Planning?

The aim of this session is to drive discussion on how to create and sustain a culture of measurement in organizations transitioning to Agile. We will leverage approximately 45 minutes worth of presentation material to instigate questions and comments that yield an ongoing conversation with and amongst participants.

Rather than a typical presentation followed by Q&A, we will engage the audience continuously by asking questions of the audience, and soliciting comments. We will keep the discussion moving by time-boxing each area of measurement (see learning objectives) up to 10 minutes.

Bio
Isaac Montgomery is an Agile Coach and Consultant with Rally Software. His experience includes over 15 years of project leadership, management and consulting for software development organizations in the military, energy, financial services and medical solutions industries.

Isaac’s passion is focused on guiding IT organizations through their transformation from a rigid, bureaucratic cost center to a nimble, high performing value delivery engine by harnessing the power and simplicity of empowered Agile teams, and incorporating Lean principles in the organization’s management systems.

Isaac enjoys collaborating with his clients and colleagues; and experimenting with innovative approaches to increasing the value, flexibility and joy involved in delivering exceptional solutions.

Isaac is a certified PMP and Scrum Master / Practitioner. He holds a B.S. in Information Management and a Masters in Business Administration. In his free time you will find Isaac at the park with his twin sons or on the golf course destroying his self-esteem.

John Huston, Jon Stahl, Mike Jones, Gene Johnson | 10:00am to 11:15am

Abstract
Leading agile teams is about leading change. Change is felt throughout the organization, not just within the project teams. Individuals leading solution delivery recast their individual value statements, team motivation is altered and the influence of transparency permeates all interactions. Whether you are just starting or whether your efforts to adopt agile are well underway, aligning your leadership philosophy to Agile and the goals of the transformation will dramatically influence the path of this journey. Please join 4 leaders that have experience in starting, developing, maintaining and sustaining agile in organizations across the globe. This session promises to be highly interactive and will benefit team leads, managers and executives alike.

Bios
John Huston is an experienced IT leader, generalist and agilist with over 20 years of experience in the field. His passion for learning and coaching has led him to a variety of leadership roles, including Application Development, Enterprise Architecture, Quality, and Operations/Infrastructure. He has led the effort to deploy agile methods at the enterprise and team level. As a member of Pillar Technology’s executive team, John balances his coaching engagements with his passion for the human development aspects of agile teams and is currently responsible for Talent, Learning and Development within Pillar.

Jon Stahl co-founded LeanDog after 18 years of experience providing IT leadership in both Fortune 500 and start up organizations. His passion is eliminating waste, optimizing the performance of IT teams and helping organizations become Lean and Agile. He openly shares his learnings at conferences and meet-ups, most recently coaching on Agile From the Top Down, Kanban and A3. LeanDog is known for Agile Transformation coaching, training, and software delivery. They also serve the community by providing a home for many monthly user group meetings and they co-organize events in Cleveland such as GiveCamps, Ignites, Startup Weekends, Code Retreats, Cleveland Agile Meet Up, Cleveland Ruby Meet Up and Great Lakes Ruby Bash.

Gene Johnson helps clients become nimble, reliable and efficient by empowering their teams and transforming their organizations. His clients include Nationwide Insurance, UBS, KeyCorp, PNC, Gap, and Standard & Poor’s. Gene is currently onsite with TheStreet.com in NYC instilling Agile and Lean values. He has 28 years of experience in software development and has presented both nationally and locally, including an appearance on “The Next Wave” television series hosted by Leonard Nimoy. Gene is certified as a ScrumMaster and is founding member of the PMI’s Agile Formation Steering Committee. He earned a Masters in Systems Engineering from Wright State University and resides in a northern suburb of Columbus, Ohio with his wife and daughter.

Michael Jones has more than 10 years of experience in the IT industry including developer, analyst, and leadership roles. He is currently a Manager, IT Applications at Nationwide and leads Agile development teams focused on building and enhancing Nationwide Financial websites. Prior to NF, Michael led the team that created Nationwide’s Customer Information Management application. He has the Professional Scrum Master certification and a Master of Business Administration from Ohio State University.