Agile MiniCon Spring 2024

“The Art of Scaling & Descaling”

Friday, April 12, 2024 • 11 AM EST • Virtual Event

Agile practices are game-changers for communication and efficiency in small teams, but expanding to larger, more complex projects with multiple teams can be challenging. This is where scaling Agile comes in.

In this edition of our biannual Agile MiniCon, we’ve gathered leading voices from across the Agile community to explore innovative approaches to scaling Agile. Discussions will also cover the strategic use of descaling, highlighting how simplifying processes and organizational bureaucracy can create more responsive and adaptable environments.

FREE for members or just $49 for non-members

The Agile MiniCon is a twice-annual online event featuring deep Agile learning with speakers and discussions covering a range of Agile concepts, followed by an after-party for meeting up and networking with fellow Agilists. Registration is FREE for Agile Alliance members and just $49 for non-members. If you’re not already a member, you can join us today and take advantage of this and many other online events throughout the year.

Niall McShane

Niall McShane

CONCURRENT SESSION – 11:05 AM

How to scale Agile without Scaled Agile: the power of constraints

The theory of constraints is a useful tool to help organizations understand, identify and ultimately remove the root-cause constraints holding back an organization from realizing the full potential of what agile at scale promises.

In this presentation, Niall will draw from his experience in launching over a dozen Agile Release Trains together with examples where he utilized selected elements of scaling frameworks where they made sense for an organization’s context. Using a case study format Niall will walk through an anonymized consulting engagement in which the client had adopted a scaled agile framework, but the implementation failed to produce the benefits promised. Niall will showcase what he did to surface the deeper constraints in the system as well as share the experiments he ran to discover a way forward to agile at scale benefits.

To sum up what I offer as a professional, I have this sentence: performance with purpose through Agility. Essentially, I am a performance coach who works with Agile systems to enable them to deliver value to organizations and the wider society.

To enable organizational Agility, I advise on how to adopt a modern way of working together with the appropriate organizational design BUT the only way to get high-performance operational delivery is through the people doing the work; this is where I shine! What fuels my work is reconnecting the people in the system to their professional purpose and the outcomes the organization seeks; this more than anything drives positive change in an organization’s processes and culture.

Website  |  LinkedIn

Eren Özdemir

Eren Özdemir

CONCURRENT SESSION – 11:05 AM

The Future of Agile: Scale Your Transformation

Agile transformation sounds simple in theory but implementing it is tough. My session will explore this challenge, focusing on how approaches like Disciplined Agile and SAFe can streamline the process. Leadership, iterative improvement, and adaptability are key. Let’s navigate this journey together for a stronger, more responsive organization.

Eren Özdemir collaborates with organizations to realize their business agility objectives. With extensive experience as an Agility Consultant and in Lean Portfolio/Program Management across diverse industries, he brings a wealth of expertise to his clients. Eren is the esteemed author of two impactful books: “Agile Project Management” and “Organizational Agile Transformation with 5 Steps”. As a candidate for SPCT certification, he stands among a select group globally, possessing the expertise to teach PMI Disciplined Agile Value Stream Consultants and Coach courses, a distinction held by fewer than 20 individuals worldwide.
 

LinkedIn

Peter Merel

Peter Merel

CONCURRENT SESSION – 11:05 AM

Descaling Metrics, Methods and Manifesto

In the era of AI-driven development, scaling means bureaucracy. NASDAQ’s top ten companies operate on 12-hour planning cycles, not 3-month ones. XP, BDD, ToC, and Throughput Accounting remain vital but Scrum and SAFe are dodos. AIDD, MobAI, FAST, and XSCALE focus on the real bottleneck in modern businesses – the flow of learning within and between teams, streams, and markets. If your business can’t accelerate that, AI will eat you alive and spit out the bones.

Peter was credited with the first XP book and created the first Agile training games which he ran as a keynote at the first Agile conference (XP2K). He coached transformations at GMAC and Websense in the US, and IAG, CBA, and Ray White in Australia, and served as architect, manager, and director in multiple industries over four decades.

In 2015 Peter created XSCALE, an AI & Agile Alignment Toolkit recognized by Gartner in its Market Guide to Enterprise Agility. Peter is the founder and CEO of the XSCALE Alliance, whose Descaling Manifesto forms the basis for this session.

LinkedIn  |  The Agile Tao Book

Devon Morris

Devon Morris

CONCURRENT SESSION – 12:00 PM

Agile Rehab: Putting People First in Agile Descaling!

When it comes to getting your organization firing on all cylinders, there’s one key element that often gets shoved to the back burner: the human side of things. Sure, Agile scaling frameworks give us a roadmap for tackling big transformations, but sometimes, they end up creating more problems than they solve. Agile Rehabilitation isn’t just about tweaking processes. It’s about putting people first, plain and simple. This session dives deep into why the human element is so damn important when it comes to scaling back and dishing out some strategies to help you navigate this critical piece of the puzzle.

Devon brings 20+ years of in-the-trenches Agile experiences and unbridled enthusiasm to everything he touches. He specializes in helping people, teams, and organizations transform to grow while achieving operational excellence. Devon founded the highly successful training and consulting firm BeardedEagle, which has served organizations such as Coca-Cola, McKesson, Elevance (Anthem), and countless other organizations desiring to transform their ability to deliver solutions.

Leading with his heart, Devon is passionate about serving others and giving back. As the first Black Certified Scrum Trainer, he led the charge of certifying over 300 African American people in the wake of the George Floyd murder and pandemic struggles. This led to the weekly Unfiltered Show on YouTube and many other opportunities for potential Agilists experiencing hardship in these times.

LinkedIn  |  YouTube

Quinton Ron Quartel

Quinton Quartel

CONCURRENT SESSION – 12:00 PM

Scaling and Static are Not Friends. Learn how Fluid Teaming Supports Bidirectional Scaling in Fluid Scaling Technology.

When it comes to scaling agile, the pattern of small and static teams may not be the best approach. Moving instead to a dynamic network structure where people can fluidly create teams and self-select in and out of them allows for an organization to be more adaptive and, well, more agile. Not only can people, skills, talent, and workforce move to where it is most needed as we discover new things, but it can also be moved out should the demand change. Working this way scales in both directions.

Quinton’s passion is to make the world a better place through the win-win of helping businesses be more effective, adaptable, innovative, and profitable – while co-creating healthy workplaces as growth environments for humans to flourish. Quinton’s background is in software, and his career has followed different roles always related to software and agility. Those roles exposed him to many flavors of agile. Finally frustrated with the predominance of “dark agile”, Quinton began experimenting with better ways of working and has had some major breakthroughs. He is now a consultant, facilitator, trainer, and keynote speaker at worldwide public and private events, sharing his findings and helping progressive organizations reach the next level.

LinkedIn  |  Mastodon  |  Medium

Prateek Singh

Prateek Singh

Director of Business Agility
UKG

CONCURRENT SESSION – 12:00 PM

Issues with scaling and how descaling helps

With so many Agile frameworks out there, some larger than others, how do you choose what is right for you? What heuristics do you use when choosing practices to implement? What are the risks associated with taking a bulk set of practices en masse and applying them? If de-scaling is a way to scale, how do you do that? Also, what does agility have to do with early 20th-century car manufacturers? Come find out as we talk about Ford’s Frameworks and Toyota’s Theories.

Prateek Singh has been leading and working on agile teams for almost two decades. Starting with XP, then Scrum, and now working mostly with Kanban, he has gained a breadth and depth of knowledge regarding agile techniques, practices, and implementation principles. Prateek regularly conducts training and coaching for teams in Kanban and lean principles. Prateek has played the roles of Software Engineer, Scrum Master, Manager of Software Engineering, Director of Engineering, Principal Agile Coach, and Director of Business Agility. He continues to help teams and organizations operate effectively and efficiently. He is the author of ‘Scaling Simplified’ – a book that helps organizations scale without relying on frameworks. Prateek is currently the Head of Learning and Development at ProKanban.org

Twitter  |  LinkedIn  |  Website

FEATURED PANEL – 1:00 PM

In and Out: A Panel Discussion on Scaling and Descaling

Ellen Grove

Ellen Grove

Agile Coach and Consultant

Kumar Dattatreyan

Devon Morris

Devon Morris

Agile Coach, Consultant, AI Expert
Prateek Singh

Prateek Singh

Director of Business Agility, UKG
Quinton Ron Quartel

Quinton Quartel

Agile Coach and Speaker

Your Agile MiniCon Hosts and Facilitators

April Jefferson – Member Enagagement

April Jefferson

Agile Alliance Global
Member Engagement Ambassador

Kristen Belcher

Kristen Belcher

Organizational Change Coach, CTO
AgileXtended
Andrea Pratt-Smith

Andrea Pratt-Smith

CEO and Project Management Consultant Creative Minds Projects
NETWORKING – 2:00 PM ET

Agile MiniCon After Party

Meet up with your fellow Agile MiniCon attendees at 2 PM ET in the Virtual Lounge for networking and socializing. Our speakers and panelists will also be available in the online space for follow-up questions and more in-depth conversations. Agile Alliance staff will be there as well to answer any membership questions you might have. We look forward to seeing you in our Virtual Lounge!

Agile Alliance Virtual Lounge

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