Philly Emerging Tech Conference & Agile Philly Panel Discussion
Last Thursday 3/26 and Friday 3/27, I attended the Philadelphia Emerging Technologies Enterprise (ETE) Conference, and co-moderated a panel discussion for Agile Philly that leveraged off the conference.
Agile Philly Panel Discussion
On Thursday night Ahsen Jaffer, of Chariot Solutions, and I moderated the Agile Philly Panel Discussion. This included speakers who were presenting at the conference. They were, from left to right:
- Jim York – FoxHedge LTD
- Mike Vizdos – Vizdos Enterprises
- Ken Pugh – NetObjectives
- Corey Haines – Software Journeyman
- Brian Marick – Exampler Consulting
- Mike Bria – Industrial Logic
Transitioning an Organization to Agile or Choosing to Move On
A fair amount of the conference attendees stayed for the Agile Philly Panel Discussion. There were a number of tracks at the conference, with agile being only one, so many attending the panel discussion were from organizations with little in the way of established agile practices.
As a result, there were several questions about how to transition an organization to agile especially when there are skeptics in senior positions. The response, which I thought was appropriate, was to start small and work your way up. Corey also made the point that not all organizations are receptive to change, so sometimes you need to go elsewhere or choose to live with the situation as it is.
With Agile, Testers Get Involved Early
We also had a fair amount of testers attending, and they wanted to know when they should get involved, which is, as Ken pointed out, as early as possible.
Different Agile Methods Share a Core Philosophy
We had a question about the differences in agile methods (Lean, Scrum, Kanban, XP) and Mike explained that in his opinion, most agile methods, share a core philosophy that makes them more similar than different.
Get Rid of the Product Owner Role?
Brian was controversial when he said we need to get rid of the Product Owner Role in Scrum. Brian stated that after months working with a product owner on an engagement he eventually talked directly to the customers and, for the first time, got real, and useful information. Jim’s retort was that it wasn’t the Product Owner role that is the problem; it is that the person in the role wasn’t playing it right. I agree with Jim’s point, and I think Brian was making an extreme statement to get across just the point that Jim brought up.
Humans vs Resources
Brian closed the meeting with a statement that drew loud applause from the audience. I won’t do it justice here as I can’t remember the exact words, but it went something like this, “We are teetering on the edge (using a the edge of a 3 by 5 card as an example) of treating people like ‘humans‘ versus treating them like ‘resources‘.” The comment was pertaining to the lack of people to people contact, the assumption that people are fungible resources, and the negative results that this has wrought.
See You at Future Agile Philly Meeting
For those of you living the Philadelphia area, I hope to see you at a future Agile Philly Meeting.
