The Path to Agility

Esther Derby estherderby.com @estherderby

Leaders At All Levels

I’m an expert in organizational dynamics and a leading thinker in bringing agility to organizations, management, and teams.

I started my career as a programmer, and over the years I’ve worn many hats, including business owner, internal consultant and manager. From all these perspectives, one thing became clear: our level of individual, team and company success was deeply impacted by our work environment and organizational dynamics. As a result, I have spent the last twenty-five years helping companies evolve their environment, culture, and human dynamics for optimum success.

Jodi Womack getmomentum.com @jodiwomack

Get Momentum When You Need It Most

Jodi brings her strength of executive coaching from the Get Momentum Leadership Academy to the stage. Her firsthand experience of business management, marketing and customer service translates to the fast paced and demanding roles that face busy professionals today. Jodi focuses on delivering immediately practical solutions to the opportunities all business professionals face. She coauthored a book with her husband, Jason Womack, titled, Get Momentum: How to start when you’re stuck. (Wiley, 2016). She writes about building your business by building your professional network for business magazines like Fast Company online and MariaShriver.com.

She started her first company (NoMoreNylons.com) because she saw a need in her business community. She attended local networking events and thought they were DREADFUL. So she started her own. It started off as a cocktail party with 13 friends that all owned their own companies or were senior managers in larger organizations. Since then, she’s hosted business gatherings as she traveled to New York, London, Zurich and beyond. As a result of producing her own events, she’s created an online coaching and training company with her husband, Jason, that teaches business professionals how to “Get Momentum” in work and life. (www.GetMomentum.com)

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.

Dustin Potts chase.com

Seven Deadly Sins of Agile Coaching

As a Chief Development Officer at JPMorgan Chase, Dustin Potts has directed the transformation of traditional waterfall development teams to Agile, Lean, CMMI® compliant, high-performing teams. He has more than ten years of experience leading successful Agile transformations at Fortune 100 companies and more than twenty years of experience in the IT industry. He is a frequent speaker at Agile conferences and has trained many on Agile techniques such as Scrum and X

Dave West scrum.org @DavidJWest

Who Is the Product Owner, Anyway?

‘To help people deliver software just a little bit better’

Dave West is the product owner at scrum.org. He is a frequent keynote at major industry conferences and is a widely published author of articles and research reports, along with his acclaimed book: Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design, that helped define new software modeling and application development processes. He led the development of the Rational Unified Process (RUP) for IBM/Rational. After IBM/Rational, West returned to consulting and managed Ivar Jacobson Consulting for North America. Then as VP, research director Forrester research where he ran the software development and delivery practice. Prior to joining Scrum.org he was Chief Product Officer at Tasktop where he was responsible for product management, engineering and architecture. As a member of the company’s executive management team was also instrumental in growing Tasktop from a services business into a VC backed product business with a team of almost 100.

Chris Nelson teamgaslight.com

GraphQL: What It Is and Why You Should Care

Chris Nelson is the Co-Founder and Apprenticeship Manager at Gaslight, an agile software development firm in Cincinnati. He heads up the company’s training program, mentors young developers and sets technology direction. What does he love most about his job? Sharing what he’s learned from nearly 20 years developing software across a wide range of industries. Chris has given workshops across the country in AngularJS and Ember.js, and spent time teaching at Dev Bootcamp in Chicago. He’s spoken at RailsConf, RubyConf, BackboneConf, JavaOne, HTML5 Developer Conference, No Fluff Just Stuff, CodeMash and many others.

Jon Fuller sep.com

Building Mobile Apps can be Hard

I’ve been making software professionally for the last 12 years. I’ve spent a lot of time in .NET/Mono and Ruby, making anything from desktop apps in WPF and WinForms to mobile apps with Xamarin to web apps with Ruby.

I’ve worked at SEP for 9 years, recently taking on the role of Director of Software Engineering.  I’ve spoken on technical (e.g. MongoDB [in it’s earliest of days], Dependency Injection) and non­technical (e.g. teams, team dynamics) subjects previously, both at local/regional conferences and local user groups. I have presented this topic at a local user group and will also be presenting this topic at an upcoming technical conference in Indianapolis ­ IndyCode().

Chris Slee @ChrisSlee

APIs and the Agile Transformation

Christopher Slee is a software engineer and principal at AWH, a software engineering firm committed to building great digital products. Chris has been geeked-out on programming for almost 40 years. Despite his geriatric appearance, he approaches technology with the glee of a teenager. He leads teams of programmers to create some of the most innovative digital architectures on the planet. With expertise ranging from enterprise architecture, web and mobile apps, to robotics and AI, this is the guy.

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.

Brielle Maxwell @briellemax

Embracing LEAN thinking and an Agile mindset

Brielle is a design entrepreneur with a mind for how design processes can align in a new breed of purpose driven businesses. She created Live With Design to focus on the intersection of design, technology and social innovation. Through an interdisciplinary approach, she hopes to expand the dialogue of design for social impact.
With a background in design management, Brielle communicates the importance of human centered design through a business lense. Brielle is a versed facilitator with 5 years of hosting panels and facilitating workshops for her Meetup New York Designers for Social Change. By day she is a UX architect, bringing creative web and mobile app solutions to life. Focusing on user-centered outcomes has allowed her diverse clientele of dynamic businesses, nonprofits and startups to expand their impact.

April Jefferson @_AprilJefferson

Embracing LEAN thinking and an Agile mindset

April is a coach that enjoys helping organizations, executives, management, teams, and individuals on their journey to create awesome solutions with positive organizational cultures by leveraging Agile and LEAN. She 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, she is passionate about empowering others to foster their gifts for social change.

April has been a speaker at self-conference, Toronto agile tour, agile & beyond the last two years, and has led talks at agile coach camp.

Jeff Dalton agilecxo.org @CMMIAppraiser

Agile Performance Holarchy

Jeff Dalton is Chief Evangelist at AgileCxO.org, an Agile Leadership Research and Development organization. Jeff began his career as an orchestral musician, playing with symphonies in Spain, Mexico, and the US, but made the transition to software in 1988 after being given an early CP/M luggable on which he first developed applications for music educators. With over 25 years as a developer, architect, director, VP, CIO, and consultant in the automotive, defense, and health care sectors, he applies his experience and unique approach to technology leadership to help software teams be more agile while building stronger capability. He is author of several books on Agile, Scrum, and CMMI, and is the principle author of the Agile Performance Holarchy, a new model for enabling large-scale self-organizing teams.

Kevin Fox icctechnology.com

Building Delivery Pipelines with Jenkins’ Pipeline as Code

With over 30 years in the IT field and experience across a wide range of industries and roles, I know firsthand that the one constant in technology is change and that most organizations struggle to accept this change as an opportunity, rather than a threat. As a hands-on architect, I get to help teams and clients make the most of those opportunities. Whether enabling development teams, leading organizations in transforming their technology environment or helping businesses to innovate through technology, I enjoy the challenge of meeting their immediate objectives while encouraging them to adapt, change and grow.

Kyle Udall www.nationwide.com

Visual Requirements - How to Decompose Scope

Kyle Udall is a Consultant IT Analyst at Nationwide.  Kyle has 15 years of experience in business analysis.  His professional interests are facilitation techniques as well as process improvement.  His personal interests include herbalism.

Christy Fenzl www.nationwide.com

Visual Requirements - How to Decompose Scope

Christy Fenzl is a Senior Consultant IT Analyst at Nationwide. With 20 years of experience in business analysis and IT leadership, Christy earned her MBA from Wright State University and is a Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) and Professional Scrum Master (PSM1). Her professional interests include facilitation techniques and building vibrant communities of practice. Her personal interests include sailing and racing on “kate”, a Precision 18.

Manisha Mahawar pillartechnology

How To Deliver Effective Feedback

I have managed and delivered software solutions for more than 15 years and specializing in large integrated multi-tiered business applications. I am playing the role of agile coach/scrum master/technical manager from past 6 years.

In the past I have helped companies in their transformation journey to delivery small to large enterprise projects. I have worked with clients like CAS, GAP, General Motors, Abercrombie & Fitch, TimeWarner Cables, JP Morgan Chase, Vodafone, Daimler Chrysler, Agilent & Schlumberger in various domains like banking, commerce, insurance, auto, telecommunication and retail.

Wendy Jacobs www.cardinalsolutions.com

Story Mapping

Wendy Jacobs is an Agile Coach and Product Owner with Cardinal Solutions Group.  She holds degrees in English and Law. She has 16 years of Product Management experience and her passions are building cool products and mentoring and coaching on Product Management topics.

Connie Kobal www.nationwide.com

Visual Requirements - How to Decompose Scope

Connie Kobal is a Requirements Consultant with Nationwide. She has over 30 years of experience of IT leadership with a background in project management, requirements analysis and facilitation. Connie was a 2015 International Association Facilitators’ Facilitation Impact Silver recipient. She holds a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) designation.

Jeremy Willets @JeremyWillets

Taking Agile Principles and Practices to the Rest of the Organization

Jeremy Willets has been coaching Agile teams at Hyland, creator of OnBase, in Westlake, Ohio, for four years. In that time, he’s worked with various methods and methodologies to satisfy the needs of cross-departmental teams within a vibrant and growing organization. He’s passionate about continuous learning, which is what this newly created talk is all about!

Jennifer Bentley www.nationwide.com

Visual Requirements - How to Decompose Scope

Jennifer Bentley is a Director of IT Analysis for Nationwide. She has over 30 years of diverse IT leadership experience spanning application development, program management and requirements management. Jennifer has been instrumental in the adoption of facilitation techniques to streamline the software development life cycle throughout Nationwide. Jennifer was an International Association of Facilitators’ 2014 Facilitation Impact Gold recipient and a 2015 Facilitation Impact Sliver recipient. She is a Stanford Certified Project Manager (SCPM) and holds a Masters Certification in Project Management from George Washington University.

Dan Greenleaf icctechnology.com

Agile Metrics

Dan GreenLeaf is an Agile Coach, Mentor, Team Member and Evangelist.

He began his career as a Business Analyst in a traditional command and control environment. After learning about agile, he sought out and joined his first Agile team in 2005, and has found Agile to be more productive, and more enjoyable than traditional environments. Dan has a passion for helping people deliver better software by leveraging Agile values and principles. He is a board member of COHAA, and is currently responsible for programming. He also enjoys presenting at conferences and events. Dan joined Improving Enterprises in 2011, where he has focused on the people and interactions side of Agile, helping multiple organizations change not just their process, but their culture

Warner Moore @warnermoore

Building a High Performing WebOps Team

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.

Warner is passionate about culture, innovation, and community. His
passion reflects in his volunteer work with organizations such as Ohio
LinuxFest, LOPSA, DevOpsDays, and Toastmasters.