fbpx

Highlights of Agile India 2016

Last week I spoke at and attended the Agile India Conference, a great conference in Bangalore. It had a great mix of national and international speakers and participants. If you are based in Australia it is a great way to network with international thought leaders and it is ‘only’ 14 hours away.

I couldn’t attend the entire conference because of other speaking obligations, but here are some of my highlights of the conference (besides chatting, discussing and arguing with some of the most interesting people in the international Agile Community).Richard Sheridan : @menloprezThe conference started for me with a keynote by Richard Sheridan, the author of Joy Inc. I had been wanting to see Richard Sheridan in person for a long time. His stories about the company he built, Menlo, are amazing. The level of discipline, trust, professionalism, and joy are unbelievable.

Here’s a recording of this talk at another conference:

JTNDaWZyYW1lJTIwc3JjJTNEJTIyaHR0cHMlM0ElMkYlMkZ3d3cueW91dHViZS5jb20lMkZlbWJlZCUyRjhzZEhxZTVRY1lNJTIyJTIwd2lkdGglM0QlMjI1MDAlMjIlMjBoZWlnaHQlM0QlMjIyODElMjIlMjBmcmFtZWJvcmRlciUzRCUyMjAlMjIlMjB3ZWJraXRhbGxvd2Z1bGxzY3JlZW4lMjBtb3phbGxvd2Z1bGxzY3JlZW4lMjBhbGxvd2Z1bGxzY3JlZW4lM0UlM0MlMkZpZnJhbWUlM0U=Erwin van der Koogh : @evanderkooghStraight after Richard it was my turn to talk about the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Organisations. My talk on how to take the principles and mindset of Agile to the entire organisation. The questions after my talk show that while there is a lot to be done with regards to Agile in India, there are some really exciting things happening there as well.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Organisations can be found here:

JTNDaWZyYW1lJTIwd2lkdGglM0QlMjI1NjAlMjIlMjBoZWlnaHQlM0QlMjIzMTUlMjIlMjBzcmMlM0QlMjJodHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRnd3dy55b3V0dWJlLmNvbSUyRmVtYmVkJTJGLTFXdExETDZLYVElMjIlMjBmcmFtZWJvcmRlciUzRCUyMjAlMjIlMjBhbGxvd2Z1bGxzY3JlZW4lM0UlM0MlMkZpZnJhbWUlM0U=Michael (Doc) Norton : @docondevWhenever you have the opportunity to see Doc talk you should take it. I first met him when we were the last two speakers at a conference in his native Chicago. And I felt very lucky I was the second to last speaker. And this time he certainly did not disappoint.

I have been teaching the complexity framework Cynefin for a number of years, but Doc managed to add a layer around it with regard to management styles. It always had been sort of implied, but to make that explicit was a stroke of genius.

See the recording of this talk at Øredev here:

JTNDaWZyYW1lJTIwc3JjJTNEJTIyaHR0cHMlM0ElMkYlMkZwbGF5ZXIudmltZW8uY29tJTJGdmlkZW8lMkYxNDQ4NjIwOTclMjIlMjB3aWR0aCUzRCUyMjUwMCUyMiUyMGhlaWdodCUzRCUyMjI4MSUyMiUyMGZyYW1lYm9yZGVyJTNEJTIyMCUyMiUyMHdlYmtpdGFsbG93ZnVsbHNjcmVlbiUyMG1vemFsbG93ZnVsbHNjcmVlbiUyMGFsbG93ZnVsbHNjcmVlbiUzRSUzQyUyRmlmcmFtZSUzRQ==Evan Leybourn : @eleybournOriginally from Melbourne, Evan is currently working with IBM in Singapore. He is always challenging people’s assumptions and his current target is projects. His talk was about how if we are to embrace Agile we need to let go of projects. The premise is that projects are long & temporary and have no place in our fast & continuous world.

I couldn’t agree more with Evan, but it was good to see these topics appearing at a  mainstream conference, and the discussions afterwards were insightful.

A good introduction on #noprojects is up on InfoQ here.James Shore : @jamesshoreJames is one of those people who can think big, but does so from the small. That means when he talks big picture there is a very solid foundation underneath it. His presentation was talking about his experiences scaling Agile from the ground up, based on autonomous teams. But again really grounded in reality.

An absolute must see talk by anyone who is interested in scaling beyond a few teams. I will update the post when the video becomes available.