REGISTER:
DIRECTIONS TO MICROSOFT WALTHAM.
WEDNESDAY January 23 2011, 630PM
DAN MEZICK ON : TWELVE STEPS TO AGILITY
Dan Mezick is an coach and trusted advisor to executives, project sponsors, managers and teams developing complex products using Agile and Scrum. Dan’s firm New Technology Solutions delivers Agile training, coaching and consulting to businesses of all sizes. Clients include The Hartford Insurance companies, Siemens Corporation, Sikorsky Aircraft and dozens of mid-market organizations. Dan is the author of books from McGraw Hill and is a software patent holder. His articles on Agile and Scrum appear on the pages Agile Journal and the Scrum Alliance. His is a writer at InfoQ with dozens of articles published on agile & Scrum topics. Dan led the Manifesting Agility Stage of the Agile2009 conference and is a past presenter at the Agile2008 and Agile2007 conference events.
(NOTE: Twelve Steps to Agility is a proposed session for Agile2011 in Salt Lake City). The content is taken directly from specific Agile coaching engagements over the past 18 months.
Twelve Steps to Agility
You’re trying to do Agile & it isn’t really taking. You are running into problems at various levels, from naysayers on teams all the way up to C-level execs. At your company, everything is a “top priority” & frequent interruptions are the norm. Finding one Product Owner is complicated.
Explaining “who does what when” is also complicated, & there is no clear answer on how to simplify that story. Most meetings you attend are a waste of time in your view. Your company is not quite ready for Scrum. You ended up relating to many of the “Scrum-butt” stories you found on the web. The reality is, you are really in a “pre-Agile” state of being. . You know Agile is part of the solution, but you ask yourself: What steps can we can take now that are quick, cheap & effective?
This session is all about a short list of things you can do right now that prepare your people to really “get” Agile. Most of these steps are not costly, and every one of them is effective. The steps are from direct experienced delivering Agile coaching. These steps answer the question “Short of doing Agile “by the book”, what can we do now that can help us get better? What steps can we take now that are immediately actionable, not costly, and really effective?”
Attend this session to learn twelve simple steps to Agility. Over 80% of these steps will not cost you a dime. Each of the steps is a kind of pre-Agility practice that can help move your organization forward. When you are doing most of these steps well, you can confidently move into Agile practices. All of these steps prepare you to execute on genuine Agile in your organization. These “pre Agile” practices are 100% aligned with and support authentic Agile thinking and Agile practices. If you can learn to do a few of them well, you’ll be MORE ready for adopting Agile.
If you organization is trying to adopt Agile and it isn’t really taking, what you need and want are these Twelve Steps to Agility. This session provides the specific details on implementing each Step. You exit this session with immediately actionable guidance on twelve specific pre-Agile steps you can implement tomorrow in your organization.
We’ll do some experiental exercises around these techniques during the session.
This session describes 12 steps to Agility in detail:
Step 01: Be Punctual
Step 02: Get Coached
Step 03: Play Games
Step 04: Announce Your Intentions
Step 05: Manage Visually
Step 06: Structure Your Interactions
Step 07: Conduct Frequent, Cheap Experiments
Step 08: Examine Your Norms
Step 09: Promote Specific Books
Step 10: Inspect Frequently
Step 11: Pay Explicit Attention
Step 12: Manage Your Boundaries
Learning outcomes
* Learn the specific details of implementing the Twelve (specific) Steps to get ready for Agility
* Discover how you can implement up to ten of the Twelve Steps without spending a dime
* Learn how to gauge the “organizational willingness” to proceed
* Discover how to make sense of exactly what is holding your organization back !
* Take away directly actionable guidance that is effective in moving your organization towards Agility
MEETING AGENDA:
6:30 PM: PART ONE: Intro to Scrum Fundamentals. Scrum is simple to explain and difficult to implement. Come hear the simple explanation and consider taking a shot at the often-difficult implementation.
7:00 PM: Food & socializing & networking time
7:25 PM: PART 02, MAIN EVENT: DAN MEZICK ON 12 STEPS TO AGILITY
8:25 PM: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION OF MEETING
REGISTER:
DIRECTIONS TO MICROSOFT WALTHAM.
NOTE: Please don’t register casually for this meeting, as you do us a big disservice to us by distorting the actual count for the seating and food. Registration is an explicit commitment to attend.