Talks - Turku Agile Day

Agile Transformation: What to do with Managers

Moving to modern software development methods does not change only the development practices, but often influences also the management practices. Success in adapting new leadership principles often defines the outcome of the whole transformation. In this session I'll talk about:

the role of managers in an agile transformation
why managers might resist the transformation
how to reduce resistance

Do you want to be Agile or die trying? - Coaching Agile Transitions

Agile transitions do not only change how a development team works but how the whole organization is structured, how it behaves and how it runs its product portfolio. This makes the transition have a significant financial risk and can not just be done by sending the team to one two day course. Most agile transitions fail to achieve substantial results because they lack proper coaching of the transition. With coaching an organization can significantly lower the risk of failure and increase the benefits of an agile transition. This talk will explain the importance of coaching the whole organization by an qualified agile coach. The listener will also get an idea how an agile transition is approached.

Exploratory Testing Explained and Experienced

There's a lot of misconceptions on what it means to do exploratory testing and why would that be relevant both as agile way of doing testing and as an essential feedback mechanism in agile projects. In this presentation, we go through what exploratory testing is with a couple of exercises and discuss the common misconceptions of its role and purpose in agile.

I Want to go to Agile. Where is it?

This presentation is for managers and other process oriented people who have decided to improve their software development methods, who have become interested in Agile, but don't know where and how to start the change. Nowadays there is a number of different methods that are called agile, and these methods should be used based on what is wanted to be achieved. Choosing the right approach can be a tricky task. Eveliina and Jarkko from Nokia Siemens Networks will tell what were the goals for the agile transformation of their department three years ago when the transformation started, and which methods were chosen to achieve these goals. They will also discuss how the chosen approaches worked and what would they do differently now.

The Purpose of Leadership and Governance

Development teams are complex *adaptive* systems, meaning that they should be doing their own rule-making, as self-organizing systems. However, self-organization alone is not enough. Management is needed for imposing boundaries and constraints. Agile software development regularly refers to self-organization, but leaves out the important topics of leadership and governance. Those are often the responsibilities of people standing outside of a Scrum team (development management, project management). This session explains how to treat a self-organizing team which is embedded in a larger organization (with two or more Scrum teams).

Reclaim your legacy systems - Toe-dipping with the Mikado Method

For any code base there comes a time when you want to change it. If your changes are extensive, it’s easy to get lost in a jungle of dependencies, or on a sea of broken code. Ultimately, you might just give up and stove it away under the legacy label. Instead, come learn The Mikado Method ([http://mikadomethod.wordpress.com](http://mikadomethod.wordpress.com)), a systematic approach to reclaim your code. It helps you visualize, prepare and perform business-value- focused changes, while delivering, and without having a broken code-base in the process. It enhances team communication, collaboration and learning, and helps individuals stay on track. **Intended audience:**
Anyone who wants to get some hands-on practice on how to work their way out of messy code while keeping the delivery frequency and business-value focus. **Prerequisites:**
* Previous experience of ill-structured code * Intermediate Java or C# development skills * Some experience with ‘classic’ refactorings * Laptop with development environment for Java or C#.

Rules of Engagement

In Scrum framework and in Scrum/Agile projects, we have and create rules for various purposes. In this interactive presentation, we take a look at the various rules, why they are there, and how do we use them appropriately. It is expected that people in the audience have at least a rudimentary understanding of the Scrum framework and Agile projects.

The Bastard Agile Coach From Hell

A good Agile Coach can have a profound impact on the organization. The role is a tricky and paradoxal balancing act between theory and practice, requiring both technical expertise and political talent. But above all it's a fantastic opportunity to learn about team and organizational dynamics. Come and listen to the lessons learned trying not to be a Bastard Agile Coach from Hell!

The Red Bead Experiment

Targets, rewards, motivational speeches, ranking, individual bonuses, and even punishments, are to this day common management practices to get results from the workers. Are they effective in getting us to do better work? The world famous consultant Dr W Edwards Deming, who was "the man who taught the Japanese, America and many other countries about quality", created The Red Bead Experiment in 1982 to communicate his take on the subject. In this session we will run a version of the experiment that has been slightly adapted for software development by David P. Joyce. The experiment introduces many of Deming’s ideas about management, the principles of variation and statistical process control charts. And it is a humorous and fun experience for both participants and audience! After the experiment there will be a presentation followed by a group discussions on the learning points and how they can be related to software development and the management of software development teams.

Soft Skill Essentials for Software Craftsmen

One of the most interesting recent evolutions in the agile world is the Software Craftsmanship movement, where a lot of emphasis is put on the skills of each individual programmer. This presentation makes a case on why, on the top of the programming skills, a software craftsman should also train his soft skills capabilities in order to excel in communicating with colleagues, managers and customers. Some basic techniques coming from various coaching schools (Solution Focused, Transactional Analysis, Improvisational Theatre, NLP - this list needs to be trimmed after the actual topic selection - see below...) will be presented in a practical and experiential format so they can be applied to the daily life of software projects.