The Path to Agility Conference

Speaker Details:

Featuring - Keynote Speakers: Ken Schwaber and Michael Mah Ken Schwaber "State of Scrum" The Agile Manifesto was created and signed in 2001. In 2008, more organizations reported using agile processes to develop software than waterfall. Of these organizations, 84% reported using Scrum as their agile process. Is that good, or bad, or somewhere in between. This questions has pertinence because less than 505 of the organizations reportedly using Scrum also reported using iterative, incremental techniques. Even worse, Martin Fowler reported on observing many cases of “flaccid” Scrum. Scrum has been around for 19 years, proving both its worth and the difficulty to effectively use it. Ken will discuss this history, the findings, the current state of Scrum, and the next steps. Ken Schwaber developed the Scrum process with Jeff Sutherland in the early 1990’s and has gone on to test and popularize its use. Ken was a signatory to the Agile Manifesto in 2001, and has founded the Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance. Ken has been a software developer for over 30 years, from hacked to procedural to object, from bottle-washer to cook. Michael Mah "Agile vs Industry" Many companies are adopting Agile practices in an effort to increase project throughput, reduce cost, and improve quality. But are they working? Drawing from industry statistics, Michael answers vital questions about Agile’s effectiveness, which may be turning the “law of software physics” upside down. Until now, there have been predictable relationships among schedule, staffing, and quality; industry data indicates Agile may be changing all this. See productivity findings at 5 Agile companies, and the results for time-to-market, productivity, and quality. Learn the right practices for your environment, including characteristics of successful measurement. See how metrics reveal insights into Agile approaches that are becoming mainstream. As managing partner at QSM Associates Inc. based in Massachusetts, Michael Mah teaches, writes, and consults to technology companies on estimating and managing software projects, whether in-house, offshore, waterfall, or agile. He is the director of the Benchmarking Practice at the Cutter Consortium, a Boston-based IT think-tank, and served as past editor of the IT Metrics Strategies publication. With over 25 years of experience, Michael and his partners at QSM have derived productivity patterns for thousands of projects collected worldwide across engineering and business applications. His current work examines time-pressure dynamics of teams, and its role in project success and failure. In addition to his background in physics and electrical engineering, he is a mediator specializing in dispute resolution for technology projects. Michael lives in the mountains of western Massachusetts with his two children. He can be reached at www.qsma.com.