I’ve wondered for some time whether much of Agile’s success was the result of the placebo effect, that is, good things happened because we believed they would. The placebo effect is a startling reminder of the power our minds have over our perceived reality. Now cognitive scientists tell us that this is only a small part of what our minds can do.

Research has identified what I like to call “an agile mindset,” an attitude that equates failure and problems with opportunities for learning, a belief that we can all improve over time, that our abilities are not fixed but evolve with effort.

Code is the stuff of software. It is the definition of the software. It is the enabler of functionality, the realizer of business value, the expression of understanding. It is also an expression of misunderstanding, a resister of change, a source of sunk costs.

But the word code has meanings beyond source and binary. In a broader sense, code and codes are also the stuff of software development. There are cultures of programming, principles of practice, manifestos of desire. Code refers to a set of conventions by which a group of people will govern themselves.

Dr. Barbara Fredrickson and her colleagues have found that positive emotions literally change the way the human brain works, widening people’s perspectives, and their outlooks on life. According to Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, this shift in mindset drives people to discover and build new traits, skills, and resources, and over time become better versions of themselves. In this presentation, Dr. Fredrickson will describe the science that backs up these claims and and describe the nonconscious upward spiral processes that enable people to thrive with agility.

You are used to working with software and hardware, but what about working with wetware—your own brain? Do you know the best ways to learn, or to think about solving problems? In this one workshop we’ll journey through bits of cognitive science, neuroscience, learning and behavioral theory. You’ll see surprising aspects of how brains work and see how to beat the system, improving your own learning and thinking skills.

In this tutorial, we’ll examine key challenges in applying agile to COTS projects and learn project-proven ways to address them without sacrificing focus on agile principles.

We’ll explore: Planning agile projects when user value is disconnected from COTS feature build-out; building an agile whole team with outsourced partners; creating user stories with out-of-the-box, configured and customized components; applying agile development techniques when conventional programming is the exception; and maintaining continuous integration with difficult to deploy and migrate COTS systems.

Well, sadly there isn’t a tried and true cookbook for large scale Agile transformation, but this session will enable attendees to explore one cookbook - how Cisco System’s Voice Technology Group has attacked the daunting transformational journey and gone from 0 to over 100 scrum teams in a year. This highly interactive session challenges participants to put on their apron and remove the common roadblocks preventing the start of and stalling out their transition to Agile. Tangible implementation ideas that attendees can take back to their teams will be the tasty treat you walk away with.

Pair programming madness is a collaborative coding game. Here’s what you need to know:

1. Bring a laptop with your favorite language setup with some testing framework
2. A code kata will be presented and everyone will pair up
3. We’ll work on the kata for 15 minutes, then we rotate pairs. One person stays + one person goes
4. Repeat

Because it’s possible that two people will be working in a language + env that they’re not familiar with, please have either an easy to use IDE, that’s kind of point and clicky or a vanilla text editor (no vim / emacs) and an easy way to run the tests.

User story maps help us understand the product we’re building, break in down into small pieces to build iteratively and incrementally, and effectively plan minimal viable product releases in holistic product slices. In this quick tutorial participants will learn the basics of user story mapping by building their own story map quickly and collaboratively. They’ll see examples and hear stories of a wide variety companies who’ve used story maps to simplify backlog building, planning, and delivery.

Sun Tzu’s Art of War is a classic on leadership & strategy, a practical and not merely philosophical treatise on the nature of reality! Its central message emphasizes attaining victory without battle wherever conflict arises, which is pretty much everywhere we live & work. It does not prescribe a new way of doing things but offers a new way of being that enables us to engage & work with conflict and chaos effectively. If you are working with Agile teams/organizations, fostering transformation, etc., join us to explore how to work effectively & artfully with chaotic situations and conflict.

Agile approach to testing needs to scale to work at the enterprise level. This workshop gives attendees a chance to experience the thrills and challenges Agile efforts have faced when traversing the demands enterprise testing and quality must meet. Using simulations, discussions , and a few post-its people will gain an ‘inside look’ at demands testing and quality must meet at the enterprise level. The workshop will conclude with the group developing a list of actionable items they are taking with them. having the group discuss how they would change their Agile testing approaches to .