Rachel Davies, Author of the first book on "Agile Coaching"

Rachel Davies is author of the first book on "Agile Coaching" and she coaches teams in agile software development techniques, such as test-driven development, heartbeat retrospectives and planning with user stories. She is passionate about agile software development because it increases the chance of success projects in the face of complex problems.

Rachel is internationally recognised as a frequent presenter at industry conferences and a director of the Agile Alliance. You may contact her at rachel@agilexp.com

Presentation: "Breaking your Agile Addiction"

Track: Agile Evolution

Time: Thursday 11:45 - 12:45

Location: Henry Moore Room

Abstract:

Organisations want to become Agile instantly. They pick an agile method then get trained up. When it doesn't solve all their problems, they want more agile prescriptions, as if more agile practices can remedy any problem. Bootcamps and shock-therapy that push people to follow agile practices without thinking are not the answer.

Teams live in the real-world not a text-book! Whatever approach they use has to be flexible, to cope with distributed team members, external partners plus a whole mess of legacy systems. It also has to be simple because companies can't afford to put all employees through expensive agile rollout programs.

It's time to break your agile addiction to ready-made Agile methods and learn how to evolve your own solutions. The new challenge is how to grow internal coaches that understand how to support their business and create "kaizen" communities around disciplines rather than attempting a one-size-fits-all approach.

Keywords: agile, communities of practice

Target audience: this talk would be of interest to technical leads, development managers, and software engineers who are interested in adapting their approach to agile software development.