Exploring the Roots of Agile, Career Superpowers, and Agile’s Future

Last month we were at the Agile Development/Better Software East Conference in Orlando, Florida, for a jam-packed week with more than a hundred learning and networking opportunities.

The Agile Development/Better Software conference is two conferences in one and included sessions on implementing agile, leading projects and teams, and going mobile.

Exploring the Roots of Agile

Rob Myers explored The Roots of Agility in his keynote of the same name and shared his observations about how agile has evolved. Myers discussed how there are many diverse ideologies and practices that are now included under the umbrella term of agile. What initially started as iterative and incremental practices now includes the intense engineering disciplines of XP.

According to Myers, agile fails when you focus more on agile than on creating value. Ultimately, the goal of agility is to heal the divide between creating innovative products and the need to live and work in wholesome environments.

Career Superpowers

James Whittaker—Microsoft engineer, former Google employee, and stage-presence coach—was a real crowd-pleaser. He led two half-day leadership sessions, one of which was Career Superpowers.

James walked the group through the superpowers that have propelled him through his career, including:

• Be ambitious. It is the root of success, and you will increase your chances of climbing high by aiming high.
• Specializing gives you an identity, allows you to focus your effort, and makes you known for something that matters.
• Creativity has no recipe, only ingredients. Develop your expertise, have creative rituals, and find distractions that feed your inspiration.
• Passion is powerful and makes you work harder and be more focused. Spread your passion to others, but make sure it is yours.
• Believe: Lack of belief in yourself is career kryptonite.

The Future of Agile

No Agile Development Conference would be complete without a look at where agile is headed, and who better than to hear from than renowned industry speaker Jeff “Cheezy” Morgan.

Jeff shared how agile has changed over the years, from its roots in software development and challenging the status quo to the present day, when many organizations are losing track of what it really means to be agile. He also talked about how best practices can be limiting because by following them blindly we no longer challenge ourselves to innovate. A possible solution is to revisit the agile mindset and why it was established: to help take the software community to the next level.

Where do we go from here? As Morgan put it, “The future of agile is in our hands.”

The next Agile Development/Better Software conference is June 7–12, 2015, in Las Vegas. For details, visit http://adc-bsc-west.techwell.com.