The Central Ohio Agile Association presents:

The Path to Agility

and featuring The Path to Craftsmanship

May 23 + 24 2018
Columbus, Ohio

Speakers

Keynote Speakers

Bob Galen www.rgalen.com @bobgalen

You Might Be An Agile Leader If / The Meta-cast Comes Alive!

Director, Agile Practices – Zenergy Technologies

Bob Galen is an Agile Methodologist, Practitioner & Coach based in Cary, NC. In this role he helps guide companies and teams in their pragmatic adoption and organizational shift towards Scrum and other agile methodologies and practices. He is Director, Agile Practices at Zenergy Technologies, a leading agile transformation company. He is also President and Head Coach at RGCG.

Bob regularly speaks at international conferences and professional groups on topics related to software development, project management, software testing and team leadership. He is a Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC), Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), and an active member of the Agile & Scrum Alliances.

He’s published three agile focused books: The Three Pillars of Agile Quality and Testing in 2015, Scrum Product Ownership, in 2009 – 2’nd Edition in 2013, and Agile Reflections in 2012.  He’s also a prolific writer & blogger (at – www.rgalen.com) and podcaster (at www.meta-cast.com)

Bob may be reached directly at: bob@rgalen.com or networking via: http://www.linkedin.com/in/bobgalen

Ben Kellie k2dron.es @northroadben

Lean by Nature – Stories from the Alaskan Backcountry and New Space Race

Ben Kellie, co-founder and CEO of K2 Dronotics, was raised as a bush pilot, trained as a mechanical engineer, and began his career helping SpaceX launch and land rockets on both US coasts. Based in Anchorage, K2 Dronotics deploys drones and expertise across Alaska to increase safety, lower costs, and make new discoveries. K2 Dronotics also provides consultation and design to the emerging small rocket industry in Alaska and across the US.

Featured Speakers

Don Gray donaldegray.com @donaldegray

Developing Software Development

Having worked in software for 30 years I focus my energy and efforts working with executives to create the conditions where teams can flourish developing business value. I facilitate team learning and interdependent work. This includes assessments, focused coaching, public and private workshops.

I lead sessions at Agile meetups across the southeast, from Richmond, VA to Knoxville, TN to Charleston, SC. Topics range from Agile fundamentals to team dynamics to shaping Agile Adoptions.

I co-wrote two books with Jerry Weinberg, Esther Derby and Johanna Rothman: “Center Enter Turn Sustain: Essays on Change Artistry” https://leanpub.com/changeartistry and “Readings for Problems-Solving Leadership” https://leanpub.com/pslreader You can find the articles I’ve written for free at http://www.donaldegray.com/category/article/

Joanne Perold agile42.com @joperold

Agile, Entropy and Human Systems/Visualising Your Way to Better Problem Solving

Joanne is passionate about helping teams and people grow and improve.

She is a graduate of PSL (Problem Solving Leadership) and has worked for more than a decade in the software industry in all areas of software development. She is a Certified Scrum Trainer, and has participated in both Kanban training and coaching on Kanban initiatives. She recently attended the Cognitive Edge training from Dave Snowdon on complexity thinking and sensemaking.

Interested in both people and process improvement, she is continuously learning and finding better ways to solve problems.  Joanne has been a Scrum Master and Agile coach since 2009. She has spoken at Let’s Test Australia, Let’s test Sweden and Big Apple Scrum Day. She has given workshops at both local and international Scrum Gatherings

Speakers

Matt Anderson

Thought Behind Measurement

Matt’s career has spanned industries, technologies, and methodologies. He has worked with agile teams at the team, program, and executive level both in industry roles and consulting roles. He is passionate about helping teams and organizations find new ways to deliver value more quickly.

Dennis Baldwin LinkedIn @baldwinbagile

Are You Being Agile or Acting Agile?

Dennis Baldwin is a Disciplined Agilist and serves as the Global Solutions Director for Experis’ Agile and PMO  Services. He is a member of PMI and an executive level Management Consultant with over 25 years of experience directing national consulting organizations and consulting to high profile clients for optimizing, coaching or delivering solutions supporting both IT and business objectives.

Dennis areas of specialization include:
– Agile Business and IT Transformation
– Agile Community of Practice Development
– PMO Road Mapping and Optimization

Dennis leads a practice that has helped +250 companies embrace or optimize their Agile culture. His background includes:
– 17+ years of directing Agile Professional Services organizations
– Nationwide speaker on Agile and DevOps Transformation
– Company President for 7 years
– Published articles on IT Strategy, Business Intelligence, and Managing Project Management for The Dallas Business Journal

Dennis spends much of his time helping organizations establish a thriving Agile and DevOps culture and process.  He has presented on Agile and DevOps transformations nationwide at PMI chapters, IIBA chapters, AITP conferences and numerous technical conferences and webinars.  Dennis received an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from East Texas State University.

Bonnie Bauer

Increasing Business Agility by Exploring Immunity to Change

As a Technical Manager and Agile Coach, Bonnie has worked to help several organizations through agile transformation focusing on driving meaningful change while emphasizing the people component to improve lives and outcomes.

Paul Boos excella.com @paul_boos

Pass to Perfection

As an IT Executive Coach with Excella Consulting, Paul Boos is keen on exploring ways to improve software development and particularly the leadership needed to make it successful. He works with executives, teams, and those in-between to develop pragmatic approaches to achieve enterprise agility applying Lean, Lean Start-up, or Iterative approaches, and portfolio management techniques. He straddles both the practical (hands-on) as well as theoretical (what could be done) and looks for unique opportunities to help people reach their fullest potential.

Join in his explorations and thoughts at http://nimblicious.com and on Excella’s blog at https://www.excella.com/insights/author/paul-boos

Cassandra Faris Linkedin @cassandrafaris

(Not So) Accidental Personal Branding

Cassandra Faris is a Support Agent at Test Double, a software development consulting agency. She leads Test Double’s employee and community outreach initiatives. She is responsible for the growth, support, and success of the company’s agents. Cassandra is passionate about growing the tech community and its people. She is an international speaker who specializes in teaching professional skills at technology conferences. She is also the President of the Microsoft and open source conference, DogFoodCon, and a Per Scholas Advisory Board member. She has an MBA in Organizational Leadership. When she’s not busy with the tech community, she is avid tabletop gamer, runner, and soccer fan who travels as much as possible.

Sam Genwright

Transformation within the Nationwide Digital Group

Samuel Genwright:  Samuel Genwright is a Consultant, IT Analyst at Nationwide.  With over 30 years of experience in business and systems analysis, Samuel holds a BS degree in Computer Information Systems from DeVry Institute of Technology and is Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO).   Samuel personal interest include spending time with family, watching motorsports and church activities.

Andrew Griffin

REST, Test, Repeat

Andy presently works as an Application Architect at Huntington National Bank, with a focus on automation development. He graduated from The Ohio State University with a degree in Computer Science, and has subsequently worked at multiple large firms in Central Ohio. His experience includes leading testing teams updating legacy applications, coordinating quality assurance efforts on teams from the ground-up, and architecting automation frameworks for enterprise applications. In his spare time, Andy enjoys traveling, golfing, fantasy football, and dominating at kickball.

April Jefferson @_AprilJefferson

Pass to Perfection

April enjoys helping organizations, executives, management, teams, and individuals on their journey to create awesome solutions with positive organizational cultures by leveraging lean and agile. Enjoys walking in curiosity, seeking to understand others, discovering new ways to solve problems collaboratively, motivating others with positivity, as well as, cultivating other’s potential. In like manner, passionate about empowering others to foster their gifts for social change.

Kyle Jenkins improving.com @kjenkinsdev

Tech Debt: Building it Up to Burn it Down

Kyle Jenkins is a full stack developer, avid video gamer, and senior 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.

John Krewson sketchdev.io @johnkrewson

The Show Must Go On – Agile Leadership Lessons from the Theatre

John Krewson is the founder and President of Sketch Development Services, a software development studio that provides Agile coaching, consulting and training. Sketch delivers software for its customers using Agile principles and practices, and helps other organizations with their Agile transformations. John has been an active member of the Agile community since 2003 as a developer, ScrumMaster, development leader, product leader, and coach. He recently led the agile transformation for MasterCard Worldwide, scaling agility to 10,000 team members across 6 continents and multiple product lines using the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). He was previously an agile coach with VersionOne, where he worked with dozens of companies from startups to the Fortune 50 to help them learn, adopt, and apply Agile, Scrum, and Lean/Kanban principles and practices. John is also a certified SAFe Program Consultant and an internationally recognized speaker at Agile and technology conferences.

Tammy Lawlor @TammyLawlor

The Care and Feeding of Product Development Teams

Creative, curious, & passionate about building products people love

Tammy Lawlor is a Product Consultant & Team Lead at Cardinal Solutions Group. She is passionate about creating meaningful digital product solutions for clients and loves the challenge of solving customer problems. Tammy is also a certified Product Owner and Scrum Master Professional. Outside of work, you can find her planning her next travel adventure, or deep in a book or conversation.

Manisha Mahawar braintwitter.blogspot.com @mmahawar

Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast

I am a Humanities Art graduate turned into Delivery Lead. I was one of those kids who lost interest in science when it started to become little difficult during high school. But in 1996 wrote my first c program with a friend and felt as if somebody gave me wings. I never looked back. I learned multiple languages for three years and then got a job in an embedded company in 2000. There I programmed lots of chip to digital analyzers. It was fun learning and earning at the same point. I use to learn memory arrangements in a night and apply them during the daytime. First few months were very rough when nights felt like minutes long and the day felt like months. I felt the same excitement after doing my scrum master course in 2009 and decided to turn towards delivery and execution side vs. development. This blogger is my medium to share my little everyday fight. Since my fight, which is still on because my ambitions are higher than my dream and I believe in YODA:  ‘No! Try Not, DO’.

Warner Moore Linkedin @warnermoore

Creating a Culture To Support DevOps

Warner Moore is a driven technology leader and architect with a background in web operations and information security. He has focused his career in working with high growth organizations where technology is their business and product. Within these organizations, Warner has an accomplished record of building successful security programs and high performing technology teams.

As an international speaker, Warner has been invited to present to university students, technology professionals, and business leaders in a classroom setting as well as at conferences such as Startup Week, CloudDevelop, Path to Agility, InfoSec Summit, CodeMash, Security BSides, and DevOpsDays.

Steve Patton

Product Owner & BSA Pairing

Steve has spent over a decade in a consultant \ analyst from small business consulting houses to Accenture. Prior to arriving at AEP Steve was working in the Higher Education sector where projects were primarily run with a waterfall methodology. Steve’s transition to agile has allowed him to get back to consulting roots where enhancement projects allowed him to work more closely with clients to identify and update functionality to maximize the value of applications.

Chris Philipsen Profile

An Agile Manager's Manifesto: Mission Empowerment

Chris is an Agile Coach and Jedi Scrum Master in Cardinal Solutions’ Columbus office. A consummate servant leader, Chris helps any program, project, or technology to delivery to meet or beat client expectations through a common-sense Agile approach – using simple goals, transparency, and keeping things moving. Being Agile should be focused and fun!

Darrin Reeb

Product Owner & BSA Pairing

Darrin is a member of the C&DS Organization at AEP Service Corp, where he serves as the Supervisor of Distribution Operations Support Analysis.  While Darrin facilitates and leads several continuous improvement activities, he is also the Product Owner of the DOVS (Distribution Outage Validation System) application and the owner of the EDDS Reliability Framework.  Darrin has spent 14 years with AEP in various roles, and hold a B.S. Operations Mgmt from Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University, and an A.S Electrical/ Electronics Engineering Technology from Zane State College.

 

Mario Sylvia @mariofsylvia

Big Room Planning

Mario Sylvia has been enabling teams and organizations in lean-agile practices since 2014.  He has a background in software development, business analysis and eCommerce/digital management.  Mario has helped leadership and teams learn how to be grounded in the agile manifesto, with practices like lean discovery, Kanban and Scrum and with enterprise frameworks like SAFe.  As part of LitheSpeed’s Digital Transformation practice, Mario is focused on coaching and consulting enterprise agile adoption across large to small companies and the public sector.

 

Addam Tait

12 Agile Principles as Building Blocks for Your Agile Journey

Addam Tait is an Agile Coach working in the DC and Baltimore metro areas. Addam is an agile evangelist working to promote happy, healthy, and sustainable teams that provide business agility. He has experience helping clients in government and health care on their agile journeys. He has a passion for the community and is highly active in local and regional Meetups.

Linz Vallelil Linkedin @linzphilip

Fuel Your Team's Daily Stand-Up

Linz has been in the IT industry for over 7 years. He has worked as a software developer and business analyst. He currently works as a business analyst at NetJets. He believes the culmination of small changes leads to big impact. He is energized about diving deep into topics of interest and sharing his findings with everyone. He is passionate about learning and applying techniques to identify and remove hurdles for teams to achieve excellence. He is deeply interested in implementing change which is sustainable and in building a team which has a culture of continuous improvement. He lives in Columbus with his wife and is a work-in-progress husband.

Shawn Wallace @ShawnWallace

Living in a Distracted World

Shawn Wallace is an Architect and National Application Development Lead with Centric Consulting. In his job he helps customers strategically leverage technology to improve productivity and to add business capability. Shawn is a former U.S. Marine Infantryman, enjoys all things tech, learning things, building things, shooting sports and his family. He and his family lives in Grove City, Ohio. (http://centricconsulting.com/shawn-wallace/)

Brian Watson agilebdub.com @agilebdub

Vision, Focus & Simplicity

Brian has more than 20 years of experience in software development and 12+ years practicing agile. Brian has supported enterprise clients across multiple industries including: government, insurance, utilities, consulting services, financial services and manufacturing. Previously Brian was a PMO and Director of Project Delivery for a consulting company. He has spoken at a number of conferences including: Better Software West, Cincinnati Day of Agile, Path to Agility, Agile Day Atlanta, Keep Austin Agile and Central Ohio PMI Professional Development Day. In addition to the Scrum Alliance, Brian is a member of PMI and President of the Columbus Chapter of the
IIBA. He has a Masters of Education from Purdue University. When not coaching, Brian enjoys golfing and drinking craft beer.

 

Bart Weaver LinkedIn

Transformation within the Nationwide Digital Group

Bart Weaver is an IT Senior Consultant responsible for requirements delivery in the Nationwide Enterprise Digital organization. With over 20 years of diverse IT experience in the retail, manufacturing, life sciences, and financial services industries, Bart has cobbled together a unique worldview of how IT can help an organization better compete in the global marketplace. Bart is a Management Information Systems graduate of The Ohio State University and is a certified SAFe Program Consultant and Certified Agile Leader (CAL1). When not relentlessly focused on improving organizational efficiency, he spends his time renovating an older home so both age gracefully.