The thrust for the success of Agile transformation is the cultural change over and above the process change. Significant importance needs to be given to the softer aspects and the non-tangible influences. Attendees will learn about the successful transition to Agile in our organization not just by changing the process model but also by bringing about a cultural change. This talk will demonstrate the improvements in self management, collaboration, productivity and professional behavior supported by empirical data in our Agile journey.

Realtime monitoring provides everyone on a team, as well as interested stakeholders, with a shared and deepened understanding of how a system performs. Visualize it and you get direct feedback from the heart of your system. In this session we want to share our experiences with introducing monitoring and how the feedback it provided influenced both system design and team collaboration. We will use Graphite as an example to show how a monitoring tool like this; simple to use, instantly available and used continuously; was instrumental in implementing change in behaviour and collaboration.

How does a geographically-distributed team collaborate across distance, culture, and even language? What can an organization do to encourage successful teamwork? What technologies and practices increase collaboration?

This workshop will explore the patterns that enable companies to successfully deliver software with a distributed team. It will be presented by an Agile coach that assisted with the transition of a company that adopted Agile for teams in three time zones with two languages and cultures, and (travel permitting) the VP Technology of that company.

I was born a prisoner in South Africa, and my thinking was set by apartheid. Then, suddenly, I was free. But I still carried hatred, distrust and a multitude of conflicting emotions, yet I must work harmoniously with the “enemy”. The challenges of the teams with whom I work are fractals of 300 year long conflict. In this seminar, I share my life lessons as a nation transitioned peacefully from apartheid to a democracy of interwoven cultures. As a second generation South African Indian my conflicted identity helped me deal with diversity, value conflicts, and collaboration struggles in teams.

Enterprises are complex animals to deal with, and so are their processes. Agile adoption in Enterprises can sustain itself if the processes go lighter.

Experimenting with DevOps came as a natural extension to the Agile adoption of this Enterprise, and turned this process-heavy Enterprise unit into an extremely agile team with thin processes. I would like to talk about how DevOps helped us build high levels of automation, great collaboration between teams that develop and maintain applications, as our high performing teams deliver frequently to cater to need of business sponsors.

Application Test Driven Development or ATDD is also called as agile acceptance testing or story test driven development in which requirements are deduced collaboratively by product owners, testers, business analysts and developers. A collaborative appraoach to deduce requirements and to arrive at a common understanding is imperative for delivering high quality features that meet the expectations of the business.
Session focus: Collaborative approach to discovering user stories using ATDD. Creating and maintaining executable specifications. Develop a System Under Test.