Importance of Reflection within Agile Software Teams

Embedding Reflection and Learning into Agile Software Development by Jeffry Babb, Rashina Hoda, and Jacob Norbjerg is an interesting study that emphasizes the importance of reflection and continuous learning for software teams via Reflective Agile Learning Model (REALM). The study emphasizes both Reflection-In-Action and Reflection-On-Action within Agile teams.



It showcases this concept within Agile Ceremonies:



It also points out that when teams are working at an unsustainable pace, they often remove their opportunities to be reflective and minimize their opportunities to improve.

While the concepts in the article should not be new to experienced agile practitioners, the Reflective Agile Learning Model (REALM) is worth looking into more. I am also encouraged that studies like this are being done.

Read more at:
http://computingnow.computer.org/cms/Computer.org/ComputingNow/issues/2014/07//mso2014040051.pdf

Using Lean Startup to Ace Your Job Search

On May 21st, 2014, Debbie Madden presented onUsing Lean Startup Tactics To Ace Your Job Search at the Agile / Lean Practitioners meetup.  

Using Lean Startup to Ace Your Job Search from Debbie Madden

Event Description:

For 10 years, Debbie Madden ran Cyrus Innovation, a 50 person Agile consultancy in NYC. On January 9th, I exited. On January 10th, I asked myself "What's next?" I had a million ideas and couldn't figure out how to make sense of it all. I decided right then and there to use Lean Startup to guide me in finding my next career move. Several months in, I can't imagine doing a job search any other way. In the past 2 months, I've been a startup founder for a services company, a CEO at a company (for 3 days), retired, an advisor, and a startup founder for a product company. This is all true, and I did it intentionally, well most of it. The key was I intentionally tried to fail hypotheses and pivoted fast. I'll share with you my successes, my failures and the lessons I learned along the way. 

Bio:

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Debbie Madden is a seasoned executive and an entrepreneur. For 20 years, she has guided tech companies and created strategic plans that result in year over year profitability and efficiency. Her focus is on creating scalable processes that enable sustained growth. As the CEO of Cyrus Innovation, she grew the company into a profitable, close-knit family of over 50 employees. Cyrus landed on the Inc 5000 Fastest Growing Companies list 5 years in a row, and was Crain's NY Best Places to work in 2012. Debbie is now exploring her next venture.

Evolving Alignment Across Multiple Agile Teams - Agile / Lean Practitioner's Meetup

On April 29, 2014, I gave a a presentation entitled Evolving Alignment across Multiple Agile Teams, at the Agile / Lean Practitioners Meetup. 

Evolving Alignment Across Multiple Agile Teams from Ilio Krumins-Beens

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Event Description:
Agile principles emphasize empowered, self-organizing teams but provide little guidance in how create alignment across multiple agile teams. In this presentation, Ilio Krumins-Beens will share experiences gained trying to improve strategic and operational alignment with more than 10 agile teams. Discussion will include experiments with different ways of sharing teams’ roadmaps, identifying dependencies, risks, synergies and achieving operational alignment.

Presented by: 

Ilio Krumins-Beens is an agile practitioner and coach with over 18 years working with teams to build software and web applications. He has spent more than half of his career working with companies / teams to roll out Agile / Lean practices. Currently, Ilio is the Executive Director of Agile Practices, at Kaplan Test Prep.


Ilio has presented and co-authored the following work at various agile conferences and events including National Agile Conferences, AgileNYC, Agile NJ, and HICSS

Building Successful In-House Innovation Teams w/ Jeff Gothelf @ Agile / Lean Practitioner's Meetup

On March 11th, 2014, Jeff Gothelf, presented Building Successful In-House Innovation Teams at the Agile / Lean Practitioners Meetup Group.  View Jeff giving a recent presentation in Stockholm on this topic.

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Event Description:
You’ve read The Innovator’s Dilemma. You’ve bought in to The Lean Startup. You’re ready to kickstart your company’s product innovation efforts. There’s just one problem: you’re not sure where to begin:

- What can design teach us about building a collaborative culture? 
- How do you structure a successful product design team? 
- How should that team work?
- How will that team measure success?

Jeff will offer practical, step-by-step, guidance on how to build and support successful product design innovation in your business. Using insights gained from leading and working with dozens of product and design teams, Jeff will step through team makeup, process steps, management structure and the corporate infrastructure needed for these teams to flourish.

About the Presenter: 


Jeff Gothelf is a designer & Agile practitioner. He is a leading voice on the topics of Agile UX & Lean UX and a highly sought-after international speaker. In addition, Jeff is the author of the O'Reilly book, Lean UX: Applying lean principles to improve user experience (www.leanuxbook.com). Jeff has led teams at TheLadders, Publicis Modem, WebTrends, Fidelity, & AOL.

Building successful in-house innovation teams - 3/11 Talk by Jeff Gothelf

RSVP to attend a presentation where Jeff Gothelf  will present Building Successful In-House Innovation Teams on Tuesday, March 11, 2014 at 6:30 PM.  The event is hosted by Agile / Lean Practitioner's Meetup at: Kaplan Test Prep. 395 Hudson Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY.

Event Description:
You’ve read The Innovator’s Dilemma. You’ve bought into The Lean Startup. You’re ready to kickstart your company’s product innovation efforts. There’s just one problem: you’re not sure where to begin:

- What can design teach us about building a collaborative culture?
- How do you structure a successful product design team? - How should that team work?

- How will that team measure success?

Jeff will offer practical, step-by-step, guidance on how to build and support successful product design innovation in your business. Using insights gained from leading and working with dozens of product and design teams, Jeff will step through team makeup, process steps, management structure and the corporate infrastructure needed for these teams to flourish.




About the Presenter: 

Jeff Gothelf is a designer & Agile practitioner. He is a leading voice on the topics of Agile UX & Lean UX and a highly sought-after international speaker. In addition, Jeff is the author of the O'Reilly book, Lean UX: Applying lean principles to improve user experience. Jeff has led teams at TheLadders, Publicis Modem, WebTrends, Fidelity, & AOL.

Injecting Agile into Outsourcing: Anecdotes and Horror Stories

On February 4, 2014, Peter Vaihansky, presented Injecting Agile into outsourcing: Anecdotes and horror stories at the Agile / Lean Practitioner Meetup group.

You can also read more of Peter Vaihansky's perspective in the ZDNet article: Outsourcing exec urges: 'Stop outsourcing your software development

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Event Description:A decade ago, what is commonplace today – the use of Agile in outsourced development – was controversial and rare. Peter Vaihansky will share anecdotes, horror stories and insights from the trenches – in other words, the good, the bad and the ugly of his company’s 12 years’ journey with offshore and distributed Agile development. Come learn about how one strategically placed book can change the course of your company’s entire history; whether Extreme Programming can cause x-ray vision; how when all else fails, demoting your CEO and EVP can save the day; why two Russian engineers went looking for Phillips screwdrivers in the middle of a customer’s office; and more.

About the presenter:

Peter Vaihansky is the general manager for First Line Software’s North American operations. In this capacity, he oversees strategic client relationships, plays a key role in the sales and pre-sales process, and directs the company’s global marketing activities. Peter has been working with distributed Agile development teams since 2003.

Managing Non-Colocated Teams in an Agile Framework

On January 28, 2014, Kareen Walsh, presented Managing Non-Collocated teams in an Agile Framework at the Agile / Lean Practitioners Group.

During the presentation, Kareen shared examples of a Team Member Pledge as a way to help non-collocated team members work together more effectively..

***Interested in learning more? Join our group***

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As a seasoned Agilist playing several different roles in technology organizations, Kareen Walsh has always had a common theme of remote team members or employees that demanded a different approach on how to maintain agile practices in a virtual space. Kareen shared her lessons learned and facilitated a great dialogue with about 50 members from our meetup group



Kareen is an Agile Coach with 14 plus years’ experience managing complex, multi-level technical and internal operational projects for leading companies in a variety of industries. Proven track record in Program Management, Project Management, Enterprise Platform Management, Resource Management, Business Process Management, Product Life Cycle Release Management and Strategic Planning.