The Agile MiniCon is over, but the content lives on!
If you couldn’t attend Agile MiniCon, or want to go back and catch some of the sessions you may have missed, you can now view videos from each presentation. Sessions like Esther Derby’s inspiring keynote, great talks from Martin Alaimo, Doc Norton, and Cheryl Hammond, and our fantastic panel “Creating Spaces Women in Agile” can all be viewed for FREE for 30 days. Sessions will then become available on our website as part of our members-only resources. Registration is open to everyone, but we encourage you to become an Agile Alliance member and help support our important mission.
Thank you to our Agile MinCon Sponsors!
Esther Derby
Author
KEYNOTE SESSION – 12:00 PM ET
“The Next Wave”
We have reached the point where some mid-career developers have never known anything but agile (or some definition of agile). I wonder, on balance, though, how they feel about the way they work. Do they feel pride in their work? Do they feel a sense of accomplishment when they release software on a regular cadence? Or is work still a grind – with micro-management and arbitrary deadlines? Some undoubtedly feel the former, and too many the latter.
So, what can we do? Create the next wave. I have some ideas, which we’ll explore in this session!
About the Speaker
Esther Derby is an expert in organizational dynamics and a leading thinker in bringing agility to organizations, management, and teams.
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“I’m an expert in organizational dynamics and a leading thinker in bringing agility to organizations, management, and teams. I started my career as a programmer, and over the years I’ve worn many hats, including business owner, internal consultant, and manager. From all these perspectives, one thing became clear: our level of individual, team and company success was deeply impacted by our work environment and organizational dynamics. As a result, I have spent the last twenty-five years helping companies evolve their environment, culture, and human dynamics for optimum success.”
Martin Alaimo
Consultant, Trainer, and Speaker
SPEAKER SESSION – 1:00 PM ET
“Product-led agility: moving beyond feature delivery to define success”
Gone are the days where the deployment of a user story was the ultimate signal of an achieved goal. Successful agile teams now look beyond the acceptance criteria and production environments to learn if a feature, or an entire release, is worth the effort of building it. This shift requires a candid look into the users’ eyes (and feelings) to deeply understand their problems and deliver a suggested, often imperfect, solution as the starting point towards a thriving product. In this session, we’ll go through some product-led development patterns that emerge from this perspective and explore how they impact teams’ everyday work, pushing the limits of agile as we know it.
About the Speaker
Martin Alaimo is a consultant, trainer, and speaker on state-of-the-art methods for creating mind-blowing tech products.
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Martin Alaimo (@martinalaimo) is a consultant, trainer, and speaker on state-of-the-art methods for creating mind-blowing tech products. “Over the years, I’ve supported 40+ companies and trained 6,000+ professionals on their agile transformation journey to build profitable digital products that people love. During this endeavor, I’ve funded two consulting companies; published five books about the benefits of agility, Scrum, and coaching in digital innovation, and delivered over 30 talks and keynote sessions at different international conferences. I am driven by the purpose of giving digital experience creators a chance to take pride in their work.”
Cheryl Hammond
VP, Consulting, Artium
SPEAKER SESSION – 1:00 PM ET
“Fortress Agile: nurturing and growing healthy practices in a hostile environment”
When the broader organization just isn’t agile, teams can get stuck. They’re waiting for their knight in shining armor – the ‘enlightened’ executive – to transform it all. What happens when the hero isn’t coming? Is it possible to realistically accept an organization’s limitations without killing morale? Can a manager or coach ‘shield’ a team without losing momentum? Is there any point to making incremental change at the team or division level when ‘real’ progress seems eternally blocked by external impediments? This session explores practical tips to care for the humans in your realm; provide them a safe, comfortable, and defensible space in which to work; and make it inviting enough to win over (some of) the forces outside. Help your teams become self-rescuing princesses, and create the happily-ever-after that your people deserve!
About the Speaker
Cheryl Hammond has a couple of decades of experience as a software leader in the private and public sectors. Whether consulting or in-house, Cheryl endeavors to make life suck less for software delivery organizations and the humans who inhabit them.
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“I build teams. Whether it’s admissions volunteers for my alma mater, or regional recruiters for multiple competing Ivy-caliber colleges, or high-achieving low-income first-gen college applicants, or amateur colonial-to-medieval genealogists, or software engineers and IT pros, you’ll find me corralling dozens or hundreds of cross-functional high-performers and uniting them in pursuit of a common mission. Even when I didn’t mean to. I can’t not.
I am obsessed with agile and Lean principles and have used them to successfully plan and execute weddings, house moves, world travel, and my exchange student’s midterm grades recovery plan just in time for graduation. I have run family meetings using StrengthsFinder.
[Because you know you want to know: Strategic, Ideation, Context, Significance/Competition, Command.]
I don’t like or pursue certifications, though I’ve picked up a few over the years (some for mercenary reasons). I learn and do and teach these things because they are useful and fun, not because someone allowed me to pay them for the privilege.
My colleagues (and sometimes clients) call me an agent of chaos because I delight in upending conventional wisdom and showing people a new way to think about—and love—their everyday work. If “the usual” hasn’t worked for you, I can help. I’m anything but.”
Doc Norton
Co-Founder, OnBelay
SPEAKER SESSION – 1:00 PM ET
“Agile Architectures”
Some folks swear a microservices architecture is always a good choice and that a monolith architecture is always a bad choice. But is this true? And is this true for you and your product? Come to think of it – what architecture is a good choice for you and your product?
Not all software architectures are equal. When choosing an architecture, we need to consider how the code is logically broken into modules (separation of concerns), how common behavior like observability, authentication, and error handling are managed (cross-cutting concerns), how easy it is to change the system (malleability), how easy it is to test the system (testability), and how scalable and available the solution is. Each architectural pattern has its trade-offs. In this session, we’ll look at a few architectural patterns and explore their pros and cons. In the end, you’ll be able to identify some architecture patterns, recognize which ones amplify agility and which ones impede agility, and better understand what architecture is most suitable to your needs.
About the Speaker
Doc Norton is passionate about working with teams to improve delivery and build great organizations. Once a dedicated code slinger, Doc has turned his energy towards helping teams.
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Doc is a software delivery professional working to make the world of software development a better place. His 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 and well-rated international speaker, Doc is passionate about helping others become better developers, working with teams to improve delivery, and building great organizations. In his role at OnBelay, Doc is provided opportunities to realize his passion every day.
PANEL DISCUSSION – 1:00 PM ET
“Creating Spaces for Women in Agile”
a co-presentation with Agile Testing Days
For the past 20 years, Agile Alliance has been the leading non-profit membership organization dedicated to supporting Agile ways of working. This conversation–the 5th in the series of Women in Agile panels co-presented by Agile Testing Days and Agile Alliance–will highlight some of the women who have been involved in helping Agile Alliance fulfill its mission and become a more inclusive community.
NETWORKING – 2:00 PM ET
Agile MiniCon After Party
Meet up with your fellow Agile MiniCon attendees at 2 PM ET in the Virtual Lounge for networking and socializing. Our speakers and panelists will also be available in the online space for follow-up questions and more in-depth conversations. Agile Alliance staff will be there as well to answer any membership questions you might have. We look forward to seeing you in our Virtual Lounge!
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