Title: Agile Way of Dealing with Uncertainty in a Complex Adaptive World

Author(s):

Naresh Jain
Tech-­Startup Founder and Agile/Lean Evangelist
AgileFAQs
India

Abstract:

It is human nature to look for patterns while solving new problems. We have a dangerous tendency to reuse what we already know to solve the next problem. We rarely discard what we've learned; we simply build on top of it. Sometimes this is a useful tactic, but often new problems and their context are slightly (if not vastly) different than the previous ones. And applying our previous way of doing things, will not be best suited for tackling the new problem.

In the software world, we've seen a similar desire to find the "one true way", "the BEST method", "the silver bullet" to solve all software development problems. Alas, after decades of trying we've not found one.

In this workshop, I'll let you discover why this is not possible and possibly explain how best to deal with this problem. This ideas in this workshop are based on my experience backed by latest research from Cognitive Science, Complex Adaptive System’s Theory and Evolutionary Psychology.

Keywords:

Cognitive_Science, Complex_Adaptive_System_Theory, Evolutionary_Psychology, Silve_Bullet, Uncertainty

Duration:

90 mins

Session Type:

Workshop

Comments:

Topic(s):

Leadership and Org Transformation

Title: Turning into an Agile Engineering Manager

Author(s):

DEBASHIS BANERJEE
Senior Manager
Yahoo! India R&D
India

Abstract:

The role of a manager in Agile Scrum is often heavily debated not just by managers themselves but within teams who want to understand how they can get more value from managers and those whose aspiration is to be a manager but are individual contributors themselves. In this session given in Agile india 2012 in bangalore in Feb (Slides at: https://www.slideshare.net/debashisb/agile-india2012-turningintoanagileenggmanagerv02) we cover various scenarios such as 4Is (Intention,Intution,Influence, Intervention) and 3 Ps (People,Project and Product) and map these to various real world scenarios that agile teams face like a person leaving, product shutdowns, technology track changes, global working scrum teams, company acquisitions and how teams can leverage managers and vice versa.

A referral for this session is available in linked in complete profile and pasted here below:

“Attended Debashis's talk in Agile India 2012 session on "Turning into an Agile Engineering Manager".
His topic was relevant to the dynamics of the software industry today. He really carved out a good picture on how an Engineering Manager should be in Agile World. Some great insights from his experience.
Debashis was able to involve the audience and was able to get the best of of them.

I thoroughly enjoyed the session and would recommend for any future conferences.” March 26, 2012

1st Prateek Shrivastava, Experienced Technical Program and Product Manager, Nokia India Pvt. Limited
was with another company when working with Debashis at Yahoo!

Keywords:

agile teams, people management in agile, managers in agile

Duration:

60 mins

Session Type:

Experience Report

Comments:

None

Topic(s):

Agile Product Management
Culture, People and Teams

Title: What is Kanban and why should I care?

Author(s):

Sreekanth Tadipatri
Consultant
Cisco Systems
India

Abstract:

Kanban in software development has been documented to be successful in a project at Microsoft. With its roots in lean manufacturing, Kanban as a framework for software delivery, is simple to implement and not as disruptive as more traditional software delivery frameworks. For example, Kanban does not involve changes in roles or titles, thus less disruptive to organization. Changes through small continuous improvements are identified at grass roots level, and implemented (keizen).

This framework is applicable to new software development or to maintenance projects or to production support. Key concepts to understand are -
- mapping the value stream
- identifying the bottlenecks through applying limit to work in progress
- focus on removing the bottlenecks

Through this workshop the participants learn the above concepts and understand the value of applying Kanban to software development

Keywords:

Agile, Lean, Kanban,

Duration:

90 mins

Session Type:

Workshop

Comments:

The workshop will be divided into 3 parts -
1. Introduction (15-20 minutes)
2. Hands on exercise for groups of 7-8 people as participants (and 15-20 people as observers for each group) - two rounds; each round of 20 minutes.
3. Feedback from participants and observers (20 minutes)

Topic(s):

Lean Principles and Practices

Title: Agile Evolution and Academic Imperatives

Author(s):

Raja Bavani
Chief Architect
MindTree
India

Abstract:

The popularity of agile methods has increased over years. The academic imperatives are worth analyzing by means of exploring what more or what else needs to be considered in order to improve the employability or industry readiness of fresh graduates. The objective of this session is to present the current state of agile adoption and put forward the challenges in inducting fresh graduate into projects that follow agile methods. In this session, we will provide a set of takeaways or guidelines to enhance the employability and industry readiness of fresh graduates.

Keywords:

agile_adoption, academic_imperatives, fresh_graduate

Duration:

60 mins

Session Type:

Talk

Comments:

Topic(s):

Culture, People and Teams
Leadership and Org Transformation

Title: Embracing Scrum - One step at a time - A real life case study with real world challenges

Author(s):

Niraj Kumar Bhandari
Product Owner
MNC
India

Abstract:

Have you ever wondered what is a best way to introduce your team to Agile development methodology? Have you ever looked at suggestions on how to go up the Agile path and said, but I have issues of x,y,z nature and it wouldn’t work for me?

If you answer to any of the thoughts in affirmative then stay put, we are going to embark on a journey wherein we will illustrate the journey of 18-member development team of a leading internet company on the path to Agile, a approach with which the purists may not agree, but it did work for us.

This session traces the journey of a 18-member team to become more Agile. Adding to the complexity was the composition of team, a newly formed team of 4 full time employees of the firm and 14 members from a service provider.

The session will take you through the pain that the team faced when moving to embrace scrum, steps taken to reduce the pain while continuing to consolidate the gains and how one can use the pace of adoption to achieve the twin goals of more gain and less pain.

The session doesn’t provide any quick fix or any framework. The session through the mix of lecture and case study encourages you to think about embracing scrum from different perspectives and chart your own path. It doesn’t provide you with a path to follow!

We would start with the discussion of the case study, invite suggestion from audience on how it could have been handled, provide details on what we actually did and then again invite suggestions from audience on how could we make it better under similar conditions.

Keywords:

Embracing Scrum, Mixed Team, Culture Clashes, Team Dynamics

Duration:

60 mins

Session Type:

Experience Report

Comments:

In this session we are going to look at a case study of a development team at a leading internet company working on a consumer facing product. So, why is this case worth your time – Primarily because the team in this case is what most of development teams today are and faces some real life team dynamics problem which most of the teams face in real world. Let us delve a little more into the team details, the context, and the dynamics, and the takeaways from the session will become self evident. The team in question was an 18 member team, large from even the traditional development methodology perspective and then there were internal conflicts as the team was composed of four members from the host organization and rest from a third party service provider leading to a silo based mentality within the team. Adding on to these real world problems was the work context. The team was working on consumer facing internet product for a leading internet company and as generally happens with most of the features added to existing flows, the adoption of features would be generally slow and issues with the product surface only later in the cycle, forcing team to quickly shift focus on to the production issues and put everything else they were working on a back-burner. This session will cover the journey of this team from traditional development methodology to Agile development methodology and how in the process, the approach adopted helped solve the issue of team dynamics. The approach employed was an iteration based approach, which allowed team to prioritize what they needed to build first, at the same time giving them flexibility in sprint planning and standup to ease the pain generally associated with the movement from one methodology to other. The session will not give you any quick fixes but would rather leave you with food for thought and encourage each one to take out their own learning and in the process I also expect to learn from audience.

The case study which I am going to present is from my past employer Yahoo!. We were in the midst of transitioning a product line to India and I was handling one of the sub-teams for the same. We had formed an eighteen member strong team, four of them from Yahoo! and rest from one of our service provider partners. The team was new, people had just come together and then there were team dynamics as mentioned earlier. And on top of that we were getting a feeling that productivity of the team was lower than what it could have been. To address these issues, we decided to go Agile, embracing scrum, but in a step by step manner. To have a big bang approach to go Agile would have been a recipe for disaster under those conditions. We took baby steps, going Agile, a step at a time. In the process we reaped benefits, addressed team issues while minimizing the pains associated with such a transition. True, we did take longer than what other team would have taken, but we were more concerned about issues facing team and were looking for more of a smooth transition and that is I would like people to have a key takeaway from the session. Design your own strategy, each situation is unique. Seek inspiration but follow your own path. The decision to participate in the Scrum gathering came as an afterthought of a discussion I had with one of the Scrum Coaches last week. I had left Yahoo! to a year ago to pursue MBA from IIM Calcutta, one of the premier B-Schools of India. Post-MBA, I took up the opportunity of Product Owner with McKinsey & Co in their India office. Few weeks into my new job, we were having an interaction with one of the scrum coaches and it was during this discussion that the coach expressed his desire to discuss more about the approach I had employed in my past company, whish set me thinking that perhaps we need to share our story with a larger audience and hence this proposal.

Topic(s):

Culture, People and Teams

Title: Implementing Agile: Do's and Don'ts

Author(s):

Anay Kamat
Consultant/Co-founder
PresentSoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
India

Abstract:

Some organizations often try to implement agile practices as just another process as part of organization's existing processes. In most of the cases, this results in the teams loosing their confidence on effectiveness and value of agile practices. This talk identifies some areas and practices that organizations should try to focus on and practices which could be avoided for better agile implementation. These practices belong to:

1) Project planning
2) Project management
3) Development
4) Quality analysis
5) Releases
6) Skill enhancements

This talk would provide real life examples/experiences observed while helping/coaching different teams and organizations trying to implement agile practices at project/organization level.

Keywords:

implementing agile, agile development, agile project management

Duration:

60 mins

Session Type:

Talk

Comments:

Topic(s):

Agile Development Practices
Enterprise Agile
Leadership and Org Transformation

Title: Let Tests Drive Your Design...Yeah right!

Author(s):

Naresh Jain
Tech-­Startup Founder and Agile/Lean Evangelist
AgileFAQs
India

Abstract:

Over the past decade, eXtreme Programming practices like Test-Driven Development (TDD) and Refactoring have fundamentally changed software development processes and inherently how engineers work. Practitioners claim that it has helped them significantly improve their development speed, design & code quality and responsiveness to changing requirements. Software professionals across the board, from internet startups to medical device companies to space research organizations, today have embraced these practices.

Is this just another process fad; amplified by consultants? Or is there some real substance behind all this hype? Well, many organizations continue to live in the dark ignoring these practices. Where do you stand?

Experience it to believe it! Come participate in a hands-on live demo of TDD. Whether you are a skeptic or a practitioner, you'll surely have some take-aways.

Slides: https://www.slideshare.net/nashjain/why-test-driven-development
https://www.slideshare.net/nashjain/tdd-overview
https://www.slideshare.net/nashjain/avatars-of-tdd

Video: http://vimeo.com/6627976

Keywords:

tdd, bdd, extreme programming, testing, designing, refactoring

Duration:

90 mins

Session Type:

Demo

Comments:

Topic(s):

Agile Development Practices
Craftsmanship

Title: Respect in the Agile context

Author(s):

Ravichandran J.V.
Independent Agile Consultant, Coach, Trainer
Independent/ Freelancer
India

Abstract:

Many of the Agile values are often perfect candidates for misinterpretation leading to oftem faulty understanding of the real benefits of Agile.

This is a workshop that will help better understanding of What Respect is, in the Agile context. Below are some pointers on which the workshop will be moderated on -

http://ravichandranjv.blogspot.in/2012/08/respect-in-agile-context-with-jan.html

Keywords:

Respect, Agile team, Agile values

Duration:

30 mins

Session Type:

Workshop

Comments:

Role-play based discussion. Audience the chief stakeholders.

Topic(s):

Agile Development Practices
Culture, People and Teams

Title: Challenges in doing Agile in IT Services

Author(s):

Srinath Chandrasekharan
Senior Manager - Consulting
HCL Technologies
India

Abstract:

The talk will begin with the experiences in the current organization w.r.t implementing Agile. It will start from the complexities that exist in the organization due to the way it has grown traditionally.

The next section will then focus on specific challenges , along with project examples, in the areas of
a. Client expectations on Agile
b. Estimation
c. Execution
d. Metrics
e. Project Comparison

Then the summary on where are we as an organization with these challenges and how are we trying to resolve these.

Finally, the session will conclude with some learning’s which can potentially help others.

Keywords:

Challenges

Duration:

60 mins

Session Type:

Talk

Comments:

Topic(s):

Culture, People and Teams
Leadership and Org Transformation