Waves of technology innovations are sweeping through all industries now, and software development teams are finding themselves on the receiving end of exponential demands: cloud, big data, machine learning, voice- activated, IoT, yada yada! For many organisations, the fear of being left behind results in the formation of a ‘transformation project’ and before you know it the software development team is tasked with swathes of ‘new’ process techniques that 'Management Consultants' have decided define the ‘right’ culture: DevOps! Agile! Scrum! Lean! .. before you know where you are, no work is getting done at all (workshops/ meetings/ ‘hackathons’).

This session highlights the techniques software development teams can adopt for themselves to establish robust engineering culture to ‘leapfrog’ management interventions, and establish a ‘defence’ against misguided top down-driven ’transformations’: understanding the threats/ core engineering principles revived/ leading the change/ establishing a community/ crossing the tech- business divide/ leap-frogging ‘digital transformation .

This panel session will create a unique opportunity to hear from some of the foremost practitioners of Engineering leadership. The group will discuss topics relating to the challenges of engineering culture development, but also take questions from the floor to provide guidance to those who are starting out/ establishing teams for the first time, or who have particular ‘transformation’ challenges with existing teams. Our line up includes Sally Goble, (Senior Engineering Manager, Deliveroo) Andy Walker (Engineering Manager, Google), Tom Clark (Head of Common Platform, ITV), and Vlad Galu, VP Engineering, Globalsign. Finbarr Joy, track leader for Engineering Culture at Qcon London will moderate the panel.