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Day 1 Programme, 8 April 2014

Day 2 Programme, 9 April 2014

 

“You don’t have to change. Survival is optional” – Optional Conference, Budapest, 8-9th April offers you an insight into Agile management with real-life examples and case studies. Experience the new project management trends, see what works. Although invented in the IT sector, Agile spreads out to other domains to help companies succeed in today’s white-water business environment.

Keynote speakers:

Jurgen Appelo

How to Change the World

“How do I make my managers more Agile?”

“How do I convince people to start learning?”

“How can I make customers more cooperative?”

When transforming organizations and other social systems we encounter obstacles. These obstacles often involve changing other people’s behaviors. Of course, we cannot really make people behave in a different way.

But… we can certainly try!

This session is about Change Management 3.0, a new change management “super model”.

Jutta Eckstein

Complex Projects aren’t planable but controllable

Science has finally approved it: Forecasting complex projects is a deception. Moreover, forecasts hinder innovations. Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize Winner in Economic Sciences and psychologist verified in many cases, that forecasting of complex projects is impossible. Yet still, we keep losing time trying to do exactly that. Beyond Budgeting came empirically to the same findings and offers a concept for controlling corporations without budgets. Additionally Beyond Budgeting provides advice for controlling even long-term complex projects. Agile methodologies generally recommend developing a long-term plan on a coarse-grained level only and coming up with detailed short-term plans iteratively.

Learning objectives:

– Understand why forecasting complex projects is impossible

– Become acquainted with the core ideas of Beyond Budgeting

– Understand how Beyond Budgeting can be applied on Agile projects

Diego Lo Giudice

VICE PRESIDENT, PRINCIPAL ANALYST SERVING APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS

With Forrester since July 2005, Diego primarily contributes to and advises on Forrester’s offerings for Application Development & Delivery Professionals. He partners with Forrester’s global application leaders and is a leading expert on SDLC processes and
practices, covering topics such as Agile development, Agile and Lean transformations, Agile development sourcing strategies and services, Agile testing practices and tools, DevOps, and Agile mobile development. Diego also covers requirements management, software quality, software metrics, and Open Source governance.
His 26 years of industry experience, in addition to application development, allow him to give expert advice in SOA change management programs, project and portfolio management, enterprise architecture programs, and IT management areas, such as BT strategies review and comparisons. He also has experience in complex mission-critical project and client engagement management.

Boris Gloger

Self-organization needs leadership or How to manage an agile organization

Self-organization needs direction. Agile product development teams need a vision and someone who can guide them in case they are in trouble. Leadership is even more essential in environments in which teams shall become hyper productive.

Thus the role of middle management in agile organizations is pretty clear: They have to  create an environment that fosters self-organization. But what does this really mean – how can we achieve this?

The good news:  it is simple! However it demands a paradigm shift of all involved parties. That means that we will need managers  who think in a totally different way from what they were taught by business and management schools.

First – they need to start leading!
Second – they need to get involved with their teams – creating a culture
Third – they need to  create structures that foster self-organization
Fourth – they need to create a completely new way of acknowledgment of their peers

Boris Gloger will talk about how to do this, based on real life experience – and it all starts with listening.

Simon Roberts

Radical Management

Many organizations are based on a hierarchical bureaucracy with managers who practice command and control. This approach is incompatible with much twenty-first century work, which is knowledge based and best carried out in self-organized teams.

Building on Steve Denning’s “Radical Management”, guidance will be provided on what managers should do to best support the work of agile teams.

This draws on experiences from multiple large-scale Agile transitions in Germany and the United Kingdom in the telecommunications and finance sectors.