Marsha Acker

Invisible group dynamics undermine relationships and performance, being able to see and name the dynamics empowers teams to change the outcome.

Heidi J. Musser

This talk introduces the agile mindset and essential principles for people and organizations to master to thrive in the world of digital disruption. It also addresses the critical considerations for transforming cultures and designing new eco-systems to rapidly adapt to constant change, which may be the single greatest competitive advantage in the 21st century.

To thrive in a world of digital disruption and continuous change, we must become Agile.

Adam Weisbart

If there's one thing Agilists seem to have STRONG opinions about, it's estimation.

If you've experienced these strong opinions first hand, you know it can feel like a holy war... both sides "knowing" their side is the "right" side.

But what if this well-meaning attachment to specific estimation approaches is doing more harm than good for us all?

In this session, you'll discover:

  • Reasons to estimate work (and when to skip estimation entirely)
  • The #1 reason your team fears estimation, and what it's costing your organization
  • What professional horse handicappers can tell you about your estimates
  • Who should estimate work
  • The SINGLE thing that should guide which estimation method you use
  • Exactly how a specific (and very common) agile "metric" hurts everyone it touches, and what to do instead

Join Adam for this session and discover values and principles you can use to help your team and organization deliver value together, instead of hyper focusing on "doing estimation right".

Linda Rising

Most of us know how cognitive biases affect our decision making, thanks to the work of Daniel Kahneman and his important book Thinking Fast and Slow. Fewer of us know how noise affects our thinking. Noise here means the variability in inputs and cognitive processing we contend with when making individual and collective judgments. Noise comes from a variety of sources. We are affected by the time of day, the weather, if our favorite sports team just won or lost. Everyone is now focused on reducing bias, but in many cases, noise is a greater source of error than bias. Linda will introduce you to some surprising research about noise and decision making and offer suggestions for reducing noise. Note: if you reduce noise, you will also reduce bias. As Kahneman has said, "Wherever there is judgment, there is noise and more of it than you think."