The Path to Agility

Tim Ottinger Agile Otter Blog @tottinge

Indulge An Aggressive Curiosity / Leading Knowledge Workers

Tim is a long-time programmer (since 1979), contributing editor, reviewer, author. He has been active in Design Patterns, Object-Oriented Design, and Agile software development.

He is a consultant, programmer, tester, teacher, agile team coach, manager, and writer.

Tim is one of the crew of experts at Industrial Logic, a premier agile consultancy, eLearning vendor, and thought leader. Here he joins with Bill Wake, Joshua Kerievsky, Woody Zuill, Arlo Belshee, Mike Hill, and other industry experts to help people develop the skills that will make them awesome.

In addition to his contributions in “Clean Code” and “Agile In A Flash”, Tim’s articles appeared in the C++ Journal, Pragmatic Bookshelf, InfoQ, CIO, and SmartBear.

Tim muses about of his experiences and ideas on the Agile Otter blog and the Industrial Logic company blog.

Christopher Avery www.christopheravery.com @christopheraver

The Responsibility Process

I support leaders and leadership teams looking for a better, more productive way to live and lead. I’m convinced at least 95% of leadership is self-leadership. If you are not leading yourself in ways that free you to be who you are, then you can’t very well lead others to results that matter. My intent is to accelerate performance, success, and happiness while increasing personal degrees of freedom, choice, and power.

Author of “Teamwork Is An Individual Skill: Getting Your Work Done When Sharing Responsibility” and of the book “Taking Responsibility: Leading Yourself and Authors to Freedom, Choice, and Power.” CEO of Partnerwerks, Inc., distributor of The Responsibility Process™ products and services. Host of The Leadership Gift Program™, for a better, more productive way to live and lead.

Daryl Kulak @darylkulak

Three Types of ROI - Thin, Thick and Thurmanator

Daryl Kulak is an author, speaker and consultant helping his clients move toward more value-driven software development. He uses Agile, Lean Startup, Software Craftsmanship, SAFe and systems thinking, among others, to help corporations, government agencies and nonprofits improve their ability to provide true value through software delivery. He is very interested in systems thinking and hopes to popularize it and introduce audiences to its power and possibility.

Daryl has been using iterative/incremental practices since 1998. Daryl’s first book was “Use Cases: Requirements in Context (Addison Wesley, 2003), Written with Eamonn Guiney, it sold 30,000 copies and was translated into Chinese and Japanese. His second book, which he co-authored with Dr. Hong Li, is called “The Journey to Enterprise Agility: Systems Thinking and Organizational Legacy” (Springer International, 2017).

Ryan Ripley www.agileanswerman.com @ryanripley

The #NoEstimates Movement

Ryan Ripley has worked on agile teams for the past 10 years in development, scrum master and management roles. He’s worked at various fortune 500 companies in the medical device, whole sale, and financial services industries. Ryan is great at taking tests and holds the PMI-ACP, PSM I, PSM II, PSE, PSPO I, PSD I, CSM and CSPO agile certifications. Ryan lives in Indiana with his wife Kristin and three children. He blogs at ryanripley.com and hosts the Agile for Humans podcast. You can also follow Ryan on twitter: @ryanripley

Mandar Malunjkar alliancedata.com @atomicboolean

Travelogue: Agility transformation journey at Alliance Data Systems and NetJets

Mandar Malunjkar is an Agile Software Development leader with broad technical expertise and strong focus on software engineering practices. For over a decade, Mandar has ledculturally diverse teams across North America, Europe & Asia.

All along his career Mandar has worn several different hats, working as a Developer, Tech Lead, Scrum Master and People Leader. He played a key role in agile transformation at Alliance Data, starting out in a technical leadership role and simultaneously taking on Scrum Master responsibilities. Presently he is responsible for overseeing a team of a baker’s dozen developers, working on multiple cross functional teams.

In his spare time, Mandar enjoys reading books, going on long walks, travelling and listening to music.

Raj Indugula lithespeed.com

Be Ready, Be Done: The Art of Slicing Stories

Raj Indugula leads the Agile Engineering practice at LitheSpeed, a boutique Agile transformation company based in Virginia, where he drives product development initiatives using Lean + Agile techniques, provides training, coaching and mentoring to organizations transitioning to Agile, and to those looking to deepen their Agile adoption with engineering practices such as CI/CD, test automation, TDD and BDD. He has 19 years of experience in the software industry, with 12 years of Agile, having led the implementation of multiple enterprise-scale software systems using Scrum and Extreme Programming practices.

Most recently, he was advancing the DevOps transformation at a large federal program, and with instituting Agile management practices in the state public education system. He has an M.S. in Computer Science.  He has certifications with Scrum Alliance, ICAgile and the Scaled Agile academy.

Sam O’Brien www.cohesion.com/ @frauobrien

12 Steps to an Agile Mindset

Sam O’Brien is an Agile Coach, Certified Scrum Master, SAFe Agilist and Retrospective Facilitator. Sam has worked with Fortune 20 clients to $100M companies in the US and internationally with distributed and diverse teams in all stages of Agile maturity. Since taking on her first Agile (XP) project sixteen years ago, her experience spans all Agile methods and implementation approaches. She has experience in Finance, Manufacturing, Government, Medical Research, Retail and Printing.

Sam is currently serving as the Director of Agile Services at Cohesion where she manages the direction, day-to-day activities, talent acquisition, and growth strategy for Cohesion Agile. Sam’s passion for Agile is contagious. She shares her home in Dayton with her loveable Springer-Aussie Shephard rescue, Charlie. Sam enjoys a proper pot of tea and can often be heard cheering for her favorite (football) soccer team or the local Dayton sports teams.

Peter Kananen teamgaslight.com/ @pkananen

Hands-on Flow Metrics

Peter Kananen is a Partner and VP of Project Delivery at Gaslight, an agile software development company that works with everyone from growing San Francisco startups and disruptive education companies to Fortune 500 giants like P&G and Omnicare. Peter spends his days tracking the happiness of teams and clients, always trying to provide just enough support and guidance to keep things headed in the right direction. Every project at Gaslight follows lean and agile principles and uses flow-based metrics to improve performance.

Hunter Willett captechconsulting.com/

Frameworks are Like New Golf Clubs, They Won't Fix a Terrible Swing - How Understanding the Principles of Agile is the First Step

Hunter Willett is a Senior Consultant within the Columbus, OH office of CapTech Consulting. He holds a degree in Information Technology from the University of Cincinnati. He has spent most of his career working as a Scrum Master and Agile Coach in the banking and insurance industries for Fortune 500 companies. Hunter has a passion for delivering custom-driven solutions at both the team and program levels that enhance culture and software delivery.

Kyle Mielke cardinalhealth.com

Applying Lean Principles to Your Sales & Marketing Teams

Kyle Mielke is a Certified Black Belt at Cardinal Health a fortune 25 health care services company. Kyle is part of the Operational Excellence division that has engaged more than 18,000 employees in 6,000+ projects improving processes an average of 40 to 60 percent. He was able to take his 15 years of sales experience and couple that with his passion and training on Lean Six Sigma to successfully lead several different projects with the sales and marketing teams. Projects included freeing up sales reps from customer service activities to create more selling time and creating an integrated selling model between two of the sales teams. He has also consulted with many different groups inside Cardinal Health helping them implement the Cardinal Health Operating Model.

Kalpesh Shah @agilebrightspot

Outcome over Output: Taking your Team to Next Level of Awesome !!!

Kalpesh Shah is Speaker, Trainer and Agile Coach with over 7 years of experience in creating and working with different shapes and sizes of Agile teams. He has worked with organizations ranging from Fortune 50 companies to startups, helping them make the transition to Agile way of working, implementing Agile at Scale, employ Lean Product Development approaches and instill Lean Startup mindset. As a monk on a spiritual journey, he is also on a journey of discovering, learning and implementing different agile techniques to create happier teams which in turn create better products, his version of enlightenment!

His latest passion is Culture Hacking through continuous experimentation which will promote innovative thinking, extend openness, embody rationality, and bring design thinking into teams.

Tommy Graves @TAGraves

Epistemology of Disagreeing

Tommy Graves is a front-end consultant with Improving. He is passionate about JavaScript architecture as well as questions and theories revolving around how we decide which technologies are worthwhile and appropriate for use. In his free time, he enjoys reading philosophy and watching basketball with his wife.

Dan Wiebe agilefantasies.wordpress.com @dnwiebe

Husbands a wife, fathers two daughters, grandfathers a grandson, develops software, plays and sings music, likes nickels, climbs stairs, worships on Saturday, flies airplanes, volunteers in prison, writes tests, fools with Arduinos, runs with scissors.

Kelly Kroskie alliancedata.com

Travelogue: Agility transformation journey at Alliance Data Systems and NetJets

Senior Director, Digital Acquisition Capabilities

Kelly Kroskie is an experienced digital leader in the financial services industry. As the Senior Director of Digital and Acquisition Capabilities, she brings more than 20 years of experience in strategic development and execution of large-scale digital projects and services.

Kelly’s teams focus on the identification of strategic initiatives across the digital & acquisition channels. She champions for key capabilities development and management that will enhance the overall customer experience.

Kelly is an experienced digital leader, having served multiple roles across large-enterprise initiatives in Fortune 100 financial services companies. Kelly is skilled in building high performing teams and enjoys activating the potential of employees at all levels.

Kelly holds a B.S. in Finance from Iowa State University. She volunteers her time at St. Paul School in Westerville, OH including serving as a School Board Member. She enjoys watching her daughter’s soccer and basketball events, playing golf, and gourmet cooking.

Eileen M. Ouellette alliancedata.com

Travelogue: Agility transformation journey at Alliance Data Systems and NetJets

Vice President, Information Technology – Alliance Data Card Services

Eileen M. Ouellette is an Information Technology leader within Alliance Data Card Services responsible for planning, development and maintenance of Digital, Back-office Processing and Care Center IT Solutions. Eileen has twenty years of experience in leading development and continuous improvement in the application development and maintenance space.

Eileen is an experienced delivery leader, having served multiple roles across large Tier 1 initiatives in a Fortune 100 Insurance and Financial Services company. Recent activities include management of 20M in strategic investments in underwriting rules automation, business intelligence and supporting advanced analytics related to Fraud, Pricing and Customer Insights.

Eileen values building a culture of learning and innovation to enable her team to deliver more with high quality, while building a strong sense of pride within the organization.

Steven Davidson ascenaretail.com

Agile Product Management Craftsmanship

Steven Davidson II, Senior Manager IT PMO Office @ Ascena Retail Group Inc.
Steven is a dedicated IT professional with a consistent record of efficient problem resolution. He is proficient in the design and development of systems to aid in achieving business transformation goals, as well as an effective communicator who adeptly converses with technical, non-technical, and C-level audiences. Steven is experienced in full lifecycle delivery management (Waterfall and Agile Methodologies), application design and development, business transformation, system conversions, end-user training, and mentoring of Project / Program Managers. Steven has extensive experience working with Fortune 500 companies. He is certified in ITIL v3 and is a Certified Scrum Master and Scaled Agile Framework Program Consultant and has been working in varying Agile roles for over 12 years.

Vicki Muscarella @@muscarellavicki

Explosive Growth without Killing the Culture

Vicki Muscarella has over 20 years experience in architecting, developing, and supporting highly scalable, reliable software solutions. Her passion lies in leading teams to produce quality software on time and within budget. She believes that the adoption of agile practices has been the answer to delivering customer-centric solutions as quickly as possible. When Vicki isn’t helping to build cool software or dodging nerf darts at CoverMyMeds, she’s spoiling her dogs with lots of hugs and long walks.

Matthew Badgley agilebacon.com @agilebaconbeer

Learning to Fly – Purpose-Driven Teams

Lean/Agile Coaching and Services Director at VersionOne
CSM, CSPO, SAFe SPC

With a career in Information Technology that has officially reached drinking age, Matt has worn one too many hats in roles from Systems Analyst to Programmer to IT Manager to Programmer to Director. He’s a seeker of new ideas and learning new things. Matt’s passion has been working with product delivery teams to develop into their own identity and simply build valuable solutions by making great software. Matt has been applying Lean / Agile ideas for a long time and leveraging their underlying practices with both a pragmatic and experimental purpose. At the end of the day, Matt believes in integrity, hard work, trial-and-error, people, and faith.

Nate Lusher @natelusher

Explosive Growth without Killing the Culture/
Keep Calm and Story Map On

Nate has been developing software and building software teams for more than 15 years. His focus is on helping build happy teams which delight customers with valuable software. He’s currently an agile coach at CoverMyMeds in Columbus, OH.

Kyle Jenkins improving.com @kjenkinsdev

Trust - Can we build it? Yes we can!

Kyle Jenkins is a full stack developer and consultant with Improving, a software development consulting and training company in Columbus, Ohio. He assists with organizing the DevOpsDays Columbus conference. While working directly with clients to accomplish projects, he always strives to improve the quality of code and life for the team. In his spare time, you may find him at a variety of user groups around town, or online playing video games with friends.

James Grafmeyer www.nationwide.com

Chat Bots and Chat Ops

Jim Grafmeyer is a forward-thinking architect at Nationwide with a passion for challenging teams to deliver faster through innovation. He has a history of delivering meaningful digital experiences with a focus on the customer. His background in development is the fuel for leading DevOps adoption with an eye towards automating the world.

Cynthia Payne www.nationwide.com

Chat Bots and Chat Ops

Cindy Payne is the Technology Consulting Leader for Nationwide. She is passionate about accelerating delivery for Nationwide businesses and ultimately Nationwide members. Cindy has presented at DevOps Enterprise Summit 2016 about Nationwide’s journey with Agile, Lean, and DevOps tools, practices and culture.

Barry Tarlton www.nationwide.com @btarlton

The MacGyver Mindset for Mastering Problem Solving

Barry Tarlton is passionate about learning, problem solving, and teaching.  He believes that software developers are problem solvers at heart and the languages and platforms we work with are simply the tools in our utility belt.  Barry can often be found inspiring and educating others both inside and outside of Nationwide.  Whether he’s teaching Sunday School, classes on API development, or firearms safety; he loves sharing new skills and knowledge with those around him. He began his career in software development over 16 years ago for a large consulting company, but has been at Nationwide Insurance for the past 11 years.  In his current role as a Technology Consultant within Nationwide, Barry enjoys the opportunities to solve a variety of problems across a wide range of technologies on a daily basis.

Patricia Kong

Evidence-Based Management & Metrics

Patricia Kong is the Product Owner of the Scrum.org enterprise program which includes the Nexus Framework, Evidence-Based Management, Agility Path, Scrum Studio and Scrum Development Kit. She also created and launched the Scrum.org Partners in Principle Program. Patricia is a people advocate and fascinated by organizational behavior and misbehaviors. She emerged through the financial services industry and has led product development, product management and marketing for several early stage companies in the US and Europe. At Forrester Research, Patricia worked with their largest clients focusing on business development and delivery engagements. Patricia holds several Professional Scrum certifications including Professional Scrum Master, Professional Product Owner, Professional Scrum Developer and Scaled Professional Scrum. She lived in France and now lives in her hometown of Boston. Patricia is fluent in 4 languages.

Linda Farrenkopf

Integrating Agile Into Your Manager's DNA

Ms. Farrenkopf is currently a Sr. Scrum Master / Agile Transformation Coach at NetJets. During her career, she has been a developer, a requirements analyst, a project manager and an agile coach. She has led Enterprise Agile Transformations at companies like John Deere, Huntington National Bank, and Worthington Industries. Ms. Farrenkopf is a PMP and a Professional Scrum Master with over 15 years experience leading agile teams to deliver successfully. She has a passion for coaching and mentoring others to maximize their performance.

Jason Blackhurst @alsoKnownAsSlim

Developer-Initiated DevOps

Developer. Leader. Husband. Father. Jack of all trades. Master of one. Mostly Honest. Abnormally Tall. Completely Harmless. I’ve been developing software for 15 years, mostly Java, mostly for the federal government. About two years ago I moved to Columbus and into the private sector and I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

Ben Thorp

The Elusive Magic of Teams

Ben’s passion is simple: to help IT professionals develop into the best versions of themselves by becoming a student of teaming practices and applying servant leadership principles. He uses his breadth of experience as Developer, Consultant, Coach, Trainer, Manager, and Scrum Master to guide teams towards self-organization and help team members find purpose and fun in their work. In his free time… he has no free time but does enjoy working outside, listening to sci-fi/fantasy/leadership audiobooks, camping, coaching kids sports, gaming, and hanging with his wife and 3 kids.