In this session, we are going to look at the differences between estimating and forecasting. We will start out looking at examples of sizing work to make sure there aren’t hidden parts and then look at estimation approaches and finally at ways to produce forecasts that let us better predict the future. If you are looking to create more transparency and drive more efficient software development, this session will give you some good theory as well as simple concrete steps to accomplish your goal.

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This is a panel with two long-time Agile practitioners. They will share their reflections on Agile currently not delivering the level of success its creators and early adopters experienced, nor the level of success they feel it should. They are puzzled by several aspects of the current Agile Industry Complex. They will share their ideas, suggestions, and tips for Agile practitioners, Agile professionals, CEOs and decision-makers to improve this situation and get the expected benefits of genuine Agile.

The panel:

Chris Matts

Chris Matts is retired. He used to care about Agile. Now he really only cares about people and that's why he thinks the work Dan and Luca are doing around the Agile Industrial Complex is so important. He is just delighted to be allowed to see his name alongside these two chaps.

• https://twitter.com/PapaChrisMatts
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-matts-9a7b531/

Daniel Mezick

Coaching executives and teams in Agile since 2006, Daniel Mezick leads Improving Agility. Daniel has guided dozens of organisations in the art and science of Agile improvement. An author and co-author of three books on organisation change, Daniel is a frequent keynote speaker at industry conferences and events.

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielmezick/
• https://twitter.com/DanielMezick

Luca Minudel

Luca Minudel is an Agile practitioner and member of the Agile Community since the beginnings of the movement. He is a Lean-Agile Coach & Trainer, Transformation lead, and author of Living Complexity, with 20+ years in professional software delivery and digital product development, most of them with Lean and Agile.

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucaminudel/
• https://twitter.com/lukadotnet

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Agile narrows what "Dependencies" means, often saying "just don't have any." This session explains why that isn't possible or wise by making a broader examination of what dependencies are in software development. We will also discuss some quick wins; ways of improving an organization's ability to live with the needed dependencies while purging our processes of others.

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This session is going to look at some techniques for managing user stories for tracking development work. We will look at the use of story points for sizing work, planning poker for creating quick consensus, alternative approaches to sizing work, splitting techniques to deliver small pieces of value, and common pitfalls in the definition of done.

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People have been programming computers for more than 80 years, but there is little agreement on how to design software or even what a good design looks like. As a community, we talk a lot about tools and processes, but hardly at all about design. In this talk I will describe my recent work to identify and communicate a set of software design principles, including a new software design course at Stanford that is taught more like an English writing seminar than a traditional programming class, and a book on software design, which is based on the concepts from the class. I will also present a few of the design principles, such as "classes should be deep" and "define errors out of existence."

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In this short ultra-focused 30 minute session, we are going to discuss ways to create a sense of urgency that will help create a healthly working environment for your team. We'll also look at pitfalls -- things to avoid that create unhealthy urgency and drive counterproductive behavior.

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Five people working together at one computer?! How can that possibly be productive?

While this is a reasonable question, it's not easily answered - until we begin to understand the power of flow.

Mob Programming grew from one team's quest to learn how to work well together. Once we started working as a true team we almost immediately noticed that working this way provided better results in a variety of ways.

In this presentation we'll share the results of that exploration, and see if we can get a better understanding of Mob Programming and the power of flow.

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What does your software project have in common with the Sphex Wasp and Sumo Robots? They both exhibit complex behavior that can be defined using simple examples. In this session, we will look at how behavior driven development works and how it can be used to help build quality into the software development process.

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Are you tired of spending more time estimating and forecasting when work will be done than you spend actually doing the work? Exaggeration or not, if you calculate the value of the time used by your experts to go deep into requirements to break down tasks and estimate time, how much does it cost? How often do those expensive estimates turn out to be wrong despite your investment? The exciting news is that there's a way that you can save money and stress to quickly generate forecasts that are as reliable, or better, than the ones you're slaving over today.

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Burr Sutter from Redhat has graciously agreed to spend an hour demonstrating Kubernetes & talking about microservices. If you and your team want to know what these are and why they matter, you won't want to miss this talk and live demonstration.

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