Agile Caravanserai

This episode of Agile Caravanserai is a presentation from Bob Martin given at our recent Lean + Agile DC Conference. Bob Martin self proclaims himself as the Agile Curmudgeon yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn.  In this talk, he will describe was agile was, is, and should be.  No muss, no fuss, no adjectives like Lean, Scaled, SAFE, LESS, or anything else.  Just agile, the whole agile, and nothing but the agile.   If you are looking to hear from other practiced Agile experts and industry leaders, check out our upcoming Global Agility + Innovation Summit: https://www.agilityinnovationsummit.com/

Today’s press is full of AI prognostications, many predicting a dire future. They are all wrong. History tells us that predicting technology’s path is futile. However, preparing for it is not. What does history tell us about past technology advances that we can use to prepare for the future—for both we as individuals and our businesses? Join Jim Highsmith whose recent book, Wild West to Agile, delves into the history of software development and establishes an historical framework that helps prepare us for the future. If you are looking to hear from other practiced Agile experts and industry leaders, check out our upcoming Global Agility + Innovation Summit: https://www.agilityinnovationsummit.com/

Mary Lynn Manns is an author, educator and leading change consultant based in Asheville, North Carolina.  I’ve had the privilege of knowing Mary Lynn for close to two decades. Along with Linda Rising, she is the co-author of the “Fearless Change” Books.  “Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas” was released in 2005, and “More Fearless Change: Strategies for Making Your Ideas Happen” came out 10 years later in 2015. Mary Lynn has presented and led workshops for conferences and organizations such as Microsoft, Amazon, Proctor & Gamble, and Avon. Mary Lynn has had a 38-year career as a professor at UNC Asheville where she is now a Professor Emerita.

Diana Larsen is Chief Connector & Co-Founder of the Agile Fluency® Project.   Along with James Shore, her co-founder, Diana focuses The Agile Fluency Model on achieving fluent proficiency on an agile development team.   Diana also founded FutureWorks where she led Agile software development, team leadership, and Agile transitions.   She has co-authored several books including: “Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great,” “Liftoff: Start and Sustain Successful Agile Teams,” and “Five Rules for Accelerated Learning.”   Diana has been very influential in the development of the agile movement, including as a former board member of the Agile Alliance Board of Directors.

Jurgen Appelo is an entrepreneur, speaker, and author on agility, leadership, and innovation. Jurgen is CEO of the business network Happy Melly and co-founder of the Agile Lean Europe network. Since 2008, Jurgen has worked on his blog at NOOP.NL which offers ideas on the creative economy, agile leadership, organizational change, and personal development. Inc.com has called Jurgen a Top 50 Leadership Expert and a Top 100 Great Leadership Speaker. Jurgen’s latest book is “Startup Scaleup Screwup.” His other books include “Management 3.0,” “How to Change the World,” and “Managing for Happiness.” When he’s not speaking, writing, running or working, Jurgen likes to paint and illustrate.

Jim Benson is a pioneer of knowledge work and creator of Personal Kanban. He is also a public speaker, consultant, and author who is an expert in effectiveness for individuals, teams, and organizations. After three decades as a business owner, team leader, and employee in both commercial & government agencies, Jim has shifted his focus to helping people and teams work out sticky  problems. Jim founded Modus Cooperandi in 2007, a management consultancy which uses Lean, systems thinking, agile management, and brain science to help their clients communicate and manage their work by building collaborative management systems. Jim is also the founding partner of the Modus Institute and co-author of "Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life" which won the Shingo Research Award in 2013.

Laurie Williams is a Distinguished Professor in the Computer Science Department of the College of Engineering at North Carolina State University (NCSU). Laurie's research focuses on software security; agile software development practices and processes, particularly continuous deployment; and software reliability, software testing and analysis. Over the last 21+ years, Laurie has served NCSU at all levels of professorship as well as associate & interim department head. Laurie also leads the Software Engineering Realsearch research group at NCSU. Alongside her students, Laurie has been working collaboratively with high tech organizations like Cisco, IBM Corporation, Microsoft, Red Hat, and more! Laurie was one of the founders of the first agile conferences, XP Universe, in 2001 which has since grown into the Agile 200x annual conference. She is also the lead author of the book “Pair Programming Illuminated” and co-editor of “Extreme Programming Perspectives.”

Max Keeler is the Chief Projects Officer and Project Lead for Investor Island at The Motley Fool. His specialty is Agile Project Management. Over the last 25 years, Max has worked at the Motley Fool in a variety of different positions including VP of Business Processes, VP of Project Management, and Head of Global Operations. I’ve known Max since 2007, when we helped his team get started with agile methods. Max and his crew quickly evolved into agile experts themselves. They have pioneered many advances in agile, including with agile portfolio management and agile performance management. When he’s not on Investor Island, Max is a guitarist, cross-fitter, and video gamer.

Johanna Rothman, also known as the “Pragmatic Manager,” is a coach, consultant, speaker, and advisor. Johanna offers frank advice for tough problems with managing projects, programs, and project portfolios.  Essentially, Johanna helps leaders and teams do reasonable things that work. Johanna started her career in software engineering.  She started managing cross-functional projects in 1979, then managing programs in 1988. She founded the Rothman Consulting Group, Inc. in 1994. She has had a virtual team long before 2020! Additionally, Johanna is the author of 18 books (non-fiction & fiction) and hundreds of articles.  She works on a monthly newsletter, and blogs regularly at jrothman.com and createadaptablelife.com. Johanna has served as a program chair for the Agile Alliance for 6 years, as well as a technical editor for TechWell, and a contributing writer to TestRail by Gurock. Johanna was recently a guest speaker at the DC Lean + Agile Meetup where she covered Modern Management. Follow Johanna on Twitter @johannarothman

Esther Derby is a consultant, advisor, author, and speaker. Esther has spent the last 25 years helping companies design their organization for success.  She has a Master’s degree in Organizational Leadership and a certificate in Human Systems Dynamics. In 1997, she founded her own consulting business, Esther Derby Associates. She works with both start-ups and Fortune 500 companies. Esther is the author of more than 100 articles and several books. Esther started her career as a programmer, and has also worked as a business owner, internal consultant, and manager. Esther is also the host of the Change by Attraction podcast that’s designed for people who want to bring change to their team, department, or organization. Follow Esther on Twitter @estherderby.

David Anderson is an internationally recognized thought leader and pioneer of the Kanban Methodology. He’s the founder of the David J Anderson School of Management as well as the CEO of  Mauvius Group Inc. David is the author of seven books on Kanban. David co-created the Kanban Maturity Model, the Fit for Purpose Framework, and Enterprise Services Planning. His degree in electronics and computer science started him out in the gaming industry, where he then pivoted to the software industry as an acclaimed author, coach, speaker, and consultant. Over the last 25 years, David has worked at IBM, Sprint, Motorola, and Microsoft. In the early 2000s, a group of agilists including LitheSpeed founder Sanjiv Augustine and David Anderson co-authored the Declaration of Interdependence and also co-founded the Agile Project Leadership Network. One of the key things on which David and Sanjiv connected is the passionate belief that organizations should always be networked, with a “thin center.” That is, a very small central unit in a completely distributed network. That federated mindset imbues all of David’s work.

Naresh Jain is an award-winning, internationally recognized Technology & Product Development Expert. Naresh is the Founder of the tech startup Xnsio, as well as a veteran conference producer and agile/lean expert. Over the last 15 years, Naresh has helped many Unicorns and fortune 500 companies like Jio, Google, Amazon, JP Morgan, Hike, Directi, HP, Siemens Medical, GE Energy, Schlumberger, EMC, CATechnologies, etc. to streamline their product development. His hands-on approach of coaching teams by focusing on product discovery and engineering excellence is really a key differentiator. Naresh is also responsible for creating and organizing over 100 international conferences including Agile India, Agile Coach Camp, Functional Conf, Open Data Science Conference, Simple Design And Testing Conference (SDTConf), Selenium Conf, Appium Conf, jQuery & Open Web Conference, and Eclipse Summit India.

Evan Leybourn is the Co-Founder and CEO of the Business Agility Institute. As well as leading the Business Agility Institute, Evan is also the author of Directing the Agile Organisation (2012) and #noprojects; a culture of continuous value (2018). AGILE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT IS ABOUT CHANGE; CHANGING HOW YOU THINK, CHANGING HOW YOU WORK, AND CHANGING THE WAY YOU INTERACT. BY ACCEPTING, EMBRACING, AND SHAPING CHANGE ACROSS YOUR ORGANISATION, YOU CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF NEW OPPORTUNITIES TO OUTPERFORM, AND OUT-COMPETE, IN THE MARKET. Today, Evan continues to help evolve SAFe®’s knowledge base of proven best practices, and bring the benefits of software agility and lean thinking to the largest software enterprises. This episode is proudly sponsored by Emergence, the journal of business agility. This quarterly publication brings you inspiring stories from the most innovative companies and explores themes of new ways of working, reclaiming management, and humanizing business. Each issue is hand illustrated and 100% content. Use the promo code lithespeed to get a 10% discount on your annual subscription. Visit businessagility.institute/emergence to find out more.

Dean Leffingwell is the Cofounder and Chief Methodologist at Scaled Agile. Dean is an entrepreneur who is best known for creating the Scaled Agile Framework for the enterprise, or SAFe®. He has long history of entrepreneurship, having founded several successful startups, including Requisite, Inc. (acquired by Rational). Dean is also the author of several foundational books, including Agile Software Requirements, Scaling Software Agility, and SAFe® Distilled. Today, Dean continues to help evolve SAFe’s knowledge base of proven best practices, and bring the benefits of software agility and lean thinking to the largest software enterprises.

Howard Sublett is the Chief Product Owner and CEO of the Scrum Alliance. Howard has been a force to reckon with in the Scrum and Agile communities for a while. He has a talent for bringing people together in his inimitable style. Howard is focused on people – who they are and what they need, and lives according to the mantra that strangers are only friends he hasn’t met. He is passionate about making workplaces joyful, sustainable, and prosperous with agile principles, practices, and values—and about sharing this message with the world. Today, Howard is leading the Scrum Alliance in our turbulent world. Without doubt, he has a deep commitment to the mission of the Scrum Alliance, and to the agile movement at large.

Professor Rashina Hoda is the Associate Dean in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University, Melbourne. Rashina is an award-winning researcher and an international expert in human-centered software engineering specializing in agile software development. Her research covers agile transformations, self-organizing agile teams, agile project management, large-scale agile, and serious game design for 21st century skills. Today, Rashina continues to play a hugely valuable role in academia by providing the theoretical bases for agile methods and for the success that the rest of us take for granted.

Deepti Jain is the founder of the India-based agile consulting firm Agile Virgin, and an agile coach, trainer and mentor. She is also the Agile Alliance’s India Community Development Chief. Personally, Deepti loves to connect and interact with people and prefers to call herself a social scientist. A tireless entrepreneur, she is the driving force behind several conferences including AgilityToday, Agile-A-Thon, FUnconf, Change Agents Summit, and Women-in-Agile-and-Tech. In 2021, the agile community is truly global. Since the agile movement was founded in the U.S.A, those of us based here have long been blessed with an embarrassment of agile riches. Deepti is doing her part to ensure that agilists in India and South Asia get to engage more fully in the global agile movement.

Ellen Grove is the Interim Managing Director of the Agile Alliance, and an agile coach, trainer and organizational change agent with Agile Partnership. In 2013, Ellen partnered with LitheSpeed on an agile transformation. As an Agile coach, Ellen has worked with organizations of all sizes – from software startups to public sector agencies and global data networking enterprises. She helps them transition to Agile work at the team and leadership levels using Scrum, Lean, Kanban, SAFe and other Agile frameworks. If you’ve had the pleasure of meeting Ellen in person, you’ll know that she has a calm, no-nonsense leadership presence.  Ellen has given selflessly to the agile community, and volunteered her time at tons of agile events worldwide over the years. Today, Ellen is leading the Agile Alliance in our turbulent pandemic world. As the Agile Alliance prepares for its very first completely virtual conference, Ellen certainly has her hands full.

After a series of Agile Caravanserai conversations with the authors of the Agile Manifesto, let's pivot to conversations with senior leaders in industry and also in the agile community. Michael Carrel is the Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Marketing & Enterprise Growth Solutions at Nationwide Insurance. I’ve been privileged to know Michael for 14 years. We first met in 2007 when we partnered with Michael and his amazing team of agile leaders. Today, as Nationwide moves decisively into a new era with many pandemic challenges, Michael is right there – this time at the helm of Marketing and Enterprise Growth IT.

Andy Hunt is one of the 17 Agile Manifesto authors, and a well-known author, publisher and musician. Andy has long impressed me with his commitment to the discipline of software development.  Unlike those who get lost in arcane techniques and tools, Andy has long championed a straightforward pragmatic approach. Along with fellow manifesto author Dave Hunt, Andy authored the seminal book, The Pragmatic Programmer as far back as October 1999. Andy and Dave also founded the Pragmatic Bookshelf series of books with a simple goal: to improve the lives of professional developers. Andy and Dave create timely, practical books and videos to help developers learn and practice their craft, and accelerate their careers. They incorporate stories and analogies like the broken windows theory and the boiling frog to convey concepts in simple, memorable ways. Andy has written over a dozen books, including science fiction novels, and tweets about code, life, and zen at @PragmaticAndy.