Track description
With distributed first becoming the new operational model for many companies and organizations, this track aims to explore what this transition implies in theory and practice.
Moving from the crisis management that was needed during the pandemic towards a world where hybrid and distributed teamwork is the norm comes with many uncertainties. In this track we will explore what we know so far, what we have learnt and what we think currently.
Speakers
Marcin Floryan (Spotify)
Title: Spotify Work From Anywhere – what have we learnt so far and what next?
Abstract: In March 2020 all Spotify employees started working from home and a year later, still amids a global pandemic, we announced an option to Work From Anywhere for all employees. Why did we make this decision? What does it mean in practice? What have we learnt so far? Where is it going? Join this talk to explore these questions and learn what we believe might be needed for the future of hybrid work to prove successful.
Marcin Floryan: A passionate technology leader focused on creating an environment where people can do their best work together. I see engineering teams as complex adaptive systems and work by applying principles and practices from many sources to allow for the desirable outcomes to emerge in presence of sensible guiding constraints. Striving to be an inclusive and compassionate leader who cares about creating an environment of psychological safety where failure is encouraged and used as an opportunity to learn. Currently tweaking the system of work as a Technology Operations Lead at Spotify. http://pronoun.is/he
Darja Smite (BTH)
Title: What do employees want and what will the companies allow?
Abstract: Unexpectedly positive experiences with remote work during the pandemic have led to the formation of the “hybrid world”, in which employees want to decide when and where to work. Yet, our research shows that not all companies are ready to provide unlimited flexibility. In this talk, you will receive insights into the corporate work policies and strategies with respect to office presence, employee relocation, and office transformations.
Darja Šmite is a full professor of software engineering at Blekinge Institute of Technology, in Sweden and a part-time research scientist in SINTEF, in Norway. She spent the past 18 years studying distributed software development, large-scale agile development and outsourcing and is one of the leading experts in quantifying the impacts of offshoring in software companies. In her research projects, Darja has worked with such industry partners as Ericsson, Spotify, ABB, DXC, Emerson Process Management, and Boss Media. Her recent research efforts have focused on the topics of remote work from home, corporate culture, autonomy, organizational decentralization, communities of practice and employee-driven innovation.
Nils Brede Moe (SINTEF)
Title: How teams make hybrid software development work
Abstract: Most developers favor a hybrid approach, returning to the office regularly but not daily. Therefore, many software development environments will increasingly be places of “hybrid software development” – where developers in the same teams will work from home, others from the traditional office, and others in some combination of the two. While hybrid work creates many benefits and opportunities, it has also created some communication and coordination problems, such as synchronization of co-located and remote developers and organizing collaborative work and meetings. I will share some findings and good practices from teams and managers managing hybrid software development in this talk.
Nils Brede Moe is a Chief Scientist with SINTEF, Norway, one of Europe’s largest independent research organizations. He also holds an adjunct position at the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden. His work primarily centers around software process improvement, agile software development, and global software development. His research interests are related to organizational, socio-technical, and global/distributed aspects. Nils’s recent research includes understanding the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic on the effectiveness of software engineers and, in particular, studying the dynamics between management and employees in Nordic software engineering companies since 2020. Nils was recognized as a home office expert by the Norwegian government and was awarded SINTEF Digital’s communication prize in 2020 for communication of research activities and results with the general media.
Track description
As companies grow out of being a start-up, economical success often comes with an increase in staff. At some point the question of scaling comes up and often scaling frameworks are used as a starting point to get a grip on the emerging complexity. However, most of the time this creates just more overhead and works against a company’s agility. So how can we grow without becoming slow?
Speakers
Marcin Floryan (Spotify), Hendrik Esser (Ericsson), Darja Smite (BTH)
Title: How not to scale
Abstract: Most companies want to grow – to increase impact, achieve bigger goals and profits. They want to be able to do more faster and also better. Organizational growth often happens by increasing the number of people – aiming to increase the capacity to deliver work and value. But growth does not come without its cost. At some point the growth triggers thinking about the need to “scale” (note, primarily scaling up) in order to meet the demands of increasing organizational complexity. A common approach to dealing with this “scaling” leads organizations to focus on: uniformity or consistency of processes and ways of working, efficiency, predictability and control. Join us to explore what pitfalls are hidden in this approach to growing by scaling and what are some possible alternatives.
Marcin Floryan: A passionate technology leader focused on creating an environment where people can do their best work together. I see engineering teams as complex adaptive systems and work by applying principles and practices from many sources to allow for the desirable outcomes to emerge in presence of sensible guiding constraints. Striving to be an inclusive and compassionate leader who cares about creating an environment of psychological safety where failure is encouraged and used as an opportunity to learn. Currently tweaking the system of work as a Technology Operations Lead at Spotify. http://pronoun.is/he
Darja Smite: Darja Šmite is a full professor of software engineering at Blekinge Institute of Technology, in Sweden and a part-time research scientist in SINTEF, in Norway. She spent the past 18 years studying distributed software development, large-scale agile development and outsourcing and is one of the leading experts in quantifying the impacts of offshoring in software companies. In her research projects, Darja has worked with such industry partners as Ericsson, Spotify, ABB, DXC, Emerson Process Management, and Boss Media. Her recent research efforts have focused on the topics of remote work from home, corporate culture, autonomy, organizational decentralization, communities of practice and employee-driven innovation.
Mina Nakicenovic-Boström, CTO (Flightradar24)
Title: Rapid Growth – what can possibly go wrong?
Abstract: Imagine: you have found a great value proposition, a perfect market fit and investors have started investing lots of money. You have great business plans for the future and therefore you need to grow your company. Everything feels great. Couple of years later you realize that you built a complex organization, which you can hardly handle, costs have increased the revenue, the company has become slow and you can’t deliver on plans. What happened?
In my talk I will share my thoughts and experience, both from the generic growth and M&As perspectives, about all important aspects concerning the rapid growth: organizational structure, leadership, processes, business development, technical scalability. There are some common mistakes which are possible to avoid.
Mina Boström Nakicenovic works as a Chief Technology Officer at Flightradar24. Mina has created unique perspectives stemming from her 20+ years of experience on how software architecture, strategy and leadership intersect and how to leverage them for innovation and competitive advantage.
Mina holds a PhLic in Computer Science. She was selected as one of the 125 most powerful business women in Sweden by Dagens Industri (2022), she was included in the “Nordic 100 in Data, Analytics & AI” list by Hyperight (2021), she was recognised as one of 100 female thought-leaders worldwide by Lean in Agile (2019) and she was awarded 3rd best software engineer in Sweden by IDG (2016),
Track description
Today, companies and organizations adopt agile methods in units outside software development, in sales, marketing, legal, and operations, across all sectors. This broader adoption of agile methods has been labeled agile transformation. This session discusses the need for a holistic and integrated approach to agile transformation involving all the units.
Speakers
Anders Haugeto (Iterate)
Title: Transformation story – how Iterate is making innovation our core business
Abstract: Six years ago Iterate started a transformation from being a consultancy to building and investing in ventures. We had no other end goal than to get better at what we do, to have more fun at work, and to allow everyone to be part of something bigger and more meaningful. Today, we’ve doubled the number of employees, we have made over 20 investments and the valuation of the company has grown 25x. Talk about the journey, what was fun, what was hard and our experiences with creative transitions.
Anders Haugeto, software engineer, entrepreneur and investor working helping teams and organisations take bolder bets and succeed with missions to use technology and disruptive businesses to build a better tomorrow.
Jorgen Hesselberg (Comparative Agility)
Title: Unlocking Agility: It’s not about the answers – it’s about asking better questions!
Abstract: The fact that today’s business environment is dynamic and ever-changing is old news. Yet, the way organizations choose to address the challenge is quite traditional: hiring consulting firms, deploying top-down “solutions”, and enthusiastically adding new business terms without actually changing how work gets done.
In this talk, I’ll share my thoughts and provide examples of how some organizations are realizing that changing how they work does not mean coming up with the answers – it’s about asking better questions and acting on meaningful intelligence. I’ll share some techniques and simple tools that quickly illuminate where organizations need to focus their efforts first, and how to embrace a culture of data-driven continuous improvement.
Jorgen Hesselberg is the author of Unlocking Agility and co-founder of Comparative Agility, the world’s largest agile assessment and continuous improvement platform. A proven thought leader of numerous successful enterprise transformation efforts since 2009, Jorgen provides strategic guidance, executive counsel, and coaching to some of the world’s most respected companies both as an internal change agent and an external consultant. He has trained thousands of people on agile and Scrum, disruptive innovation, and enterprise transformation strategy.
Passionate about making the world a better place to work, Jorgen is the former director and an active member of Supporting Agile Adoption, an Agile Alliance program dedicated to supporting those who apply agile principles and practices for agile transformation. Jorgen is a frequent speaker at international industry conferences. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Missouri, his MBA at Iowa State University, and an MS in information technology at Northwestern University. He completed postgraduate coursework in finance and disruptive innovation at Harvard Business School.
Anette Bøgebjerg (Energinet)
Title: “Agile transformation – does that also apply to me as a leader?”
Abstract: Agile transformation is the new “normal” in many organisations, and many of us are brought up in our business career with a very different leadership style than required when you are to lead in an agile environment. It can feel a bit uncomfortable not knowing what is required of you as a leader and many questions might pop up – and the brave ones dare to ask them J You might wonder: “Is it possible to empower your teams and still be close to them?”, “Is it actually possible to change your mindset and leadership style and still be an authentic leader where the new leadership style feels natural?”, “How do I approach the agile transformation myself?” I have been in three different companies, three different leadership roles, tried three different approaches and have definitely gotten three different outcomes. I will share my learnings to inspire you to select your approach carefully.
Anette Falk Bøgebjerg, Director and Centerhead of IT Strategy & Transformation at Energinet (“Energy grid”). Anette brings extensive leadership experience from the LEGO Group, Bankdata and Energinet. She feels strongly about creating business results through people, their mindset and their ways of working. Most of her career she has been working in the interface between business and IT. She is highly experienced in leading agile transformations focusing on building the right capabilities, mindset and culture.
Track description
As the old will never come back and the new is just a vague scheme, slowly emerging from the fog of the future, there is a need for leadership that gives people orientation. In this track, we will explore what that leadership might look like.
Speakers
Eric Abelen (ING Bank)
Title: Leadership in hybrid mode – Get a grip!
Abstract: When it comes to leadership skills, we have learned a lot during the Covid pandemic. A key lesson learned is that when working from home, or -more current- in hybrid mode, leadership skills matter even more. With fewer quality contact moments, the impact you can make in such contact matters more. Eric Abelen will talk about leadership lessons learned during recent years and how these have changed his perspective. More than ever, clear and to-the-point communication is key. Organizational target setting is often performed in a hasty way, and with fewer contact points to re-adjust course, this can easily derail teams and organizations. We need agile ways of working to accommodate to this need for to-the-point communication. And this does not mean we need more agile ceremonies. We need better ones. Project management principles might provide us guidance.
Eric Abelen works as an Agility Way of Working Coach at ING Bank in The Netherlands. He helps ING departments to realize strategic intent via practical ways of working. In his work, he builds on his change management experience for big organizational and cultural transformations in diverse areas as Customer Care, Logistics, Operations Support, HR, Marketing, and IT driven delivery. Eric’s professional background is that of Agile Coach, Lean Consultant, Business Manager, Process Manager, and Program/Change Manager. Eric enjoys reflecting on enterprise agility health, which occasionally leads to conference talks or publications. He feeds his boundless curiosity by exploring the world and Architecture and Art.
Erik Schön (Erlang Solutions)
Title: Art of Leadership – Leadership from First Principles in Times of Change
Abstract: When exploring what kinds of leadership are suitable for volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times, how can we be inspired by Elon Musk’s science and engineering from first principles when disrupting the space and automotive industries? What are the “first principles” for leadership, how can we identify them, and, what outcomes are organisations like Haier (China), GE Appliances (US), Fujitsu (Japan + Europe), Trifork (Europe) seeing when using them? Let’s explore this together in this session where I will take you on a journey in time and space starting from Kent Beck’s recent tweet: “Purpose is a surer path to productivity than pressure. Pressure keeps knocking you off the path. Purpose keeps bringing you back onto the path.”
Erik Schön is an executive and strategist who has successfully led organizations of up to 400 people for more than 20 years. Originally a coder and software researcher, Erik has been a big fan of XP ever since reading Kent Beck’s Extreme Programming Explained in 2000. He is an applied systems thinker and the author of two books: The Art of Leadership and The Art of Strategy. Twitter: @erik_schon
Diana Larsen (Agile Fluency)
Title: Leading without Blame: Building Resiliency
Abstract: We face an unpredictable future. Learning has emerged as a key competency for every leader from the boardroom to the front line. Learning leaders encourage safe environments where blaming no longer has a place. We recognize the courage of a leader who can see, embrace, and learn from mistakes. We become leaders who have the compassion to encourage others to do the same. We lead boldly with confidence that we can respond with resilience to emergent conditions. Diana Larsen will describe four resilience factors for future focused teams from her new book, Lead without Blame. Celebrate the “learning leader” potential in all of us.
The agile community knows Diana Larsen for her contributions to the foundations and extensions of Agile thought and practices. As consulting partner, mentor, and speaker, she’s worked with forward-looking leaders throughout her career. Diana co-authored several influential books. Liftoff: Start and Sustain Successful Agile Teams, 2nd ed. gives clear instructions for chartering and setting a tone for productive teamwork. In Five Rules for Accelerated Learning, leaders find guidance for supporting more effective learning. Agile Retrospectives provides a framework for team learning and improvement. (2nd edition coming later in 2022!) The Agile Fluency® Model: A Brief Guide to Success with Agile is available as a free eBook. The past year she provided content for James Shore’s The Art of Agile Development, 2nd edition. Diana also has been hard at work pair-writing the upcoming book, Lead Without Blame: Building Resilient Learning Teams with Tricia Broderick (available mid-2022).
Benoit Baudry, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Title: Opportunities for building robust software supply chains
Abstract: Software applications depend on large supply chains of open source libraries. In this talk we review the latest works that aim at hardening the software supply chain of applications. We discuss dependency management, debloating, and reproducible builds. Then, we turn to an outlook of the opportunities for more research and industrial collaboration to make software reuse reliable and safe.
Benoit Baudry is a Professor in Software Technology at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and the director of the CASTOR software research center. He received his PhD in 2003 from the University of Rennes, France and was a research scientist at INRIA from 2004 to 2017. His research interests include automated software engineering, software diversity and software testing. In 2017, he received a WASP endowed chair to support his research at KTH, and in 2018 he received the CNIL-INRIA “Privacy Protection” Award for his work on browser fingerprinting.