The Future Looks Awesome, and Moving Beyond Agile - The Future of Agile Software Development (IEEE Software) track.

“Agile approaches succeeded and changed the way we work. They brought the philosophy and tools previously used by only the high performing teams to the majority of organizations. Now it is time to move beyond them and embrace a new wave of emerging ideas and approaches.

It is short-sighted and self-absorbed to imagine agile approaches represent the best way to execute all work types. As new technology, products, and services emerge, we need new ways to deliver them. Likewise, as organizational structures evolve to use this technology and integrate the aspirations of next-generation workers - who grew up in a digital world, our approaches much evolve again.

Fortunately, patterns are emerging from new organizational structures and the lessons from failed agile transformations. Agile’s “Family” mindset of empowerment and values-driven culture is being overtaken by “Organism” and “Community” mindset organizations embracing Holacracy and Teal Organization ideas. People are also realizing not everyone wants to adopt an agile mindset and we need better ways of integrating with more traditional models that remain that way for their own advantages. The future involves further expansion and integration, not more fervent conceptual conversion.

Come and examine the future beyond agile and hybrid agile. Explore the trends in corporate structures, career aspirations, engagement models, and the technology that is making it all possible. The future is exciting, dynamic, and decidedly less agile – but in a good way.”

It will be a fast-moving presentation recapping the rise, role, and results of agile approaches before moving onto emerging trends. Through case studies of successful organizations, we will explore new patterns in work, the worker, and the workplace.

Agile approaches play an integral role and will continue to in the future. However, they are already being augmented and extended by additional models and techniques. Using a “Yes, and…” mindset of combining approaches we examine emerging trends and what they may mean for the future of collaborative work.

Speed-bumps and Potholes on the Road from Projects to Products - Experience Reports track.

“Transitioning from projects to products made perfect sense for my client. Much of the business was digital and their websites / online-services would not be “completing” or going away soon. Development was deliberately continuous, and executives embraced this as both inevitable and desirable. However, just because it was the logical thing to do, it did not mean it was easy.

Maybe if we did not have over 100 inflight projects executing simultaneously, we could have picked an easier starting time? Maybe if there were not so many dependencies between teams, work would have been easier to untangle? Maybe if they were not in the midst of transitioning to microservices and new hosting technology, the technology challenges would have been easier to resolve?

Most organizations considering the transition from projects to products have similar challenges. By definition, “transitioning” means doing things mid-process; otherwise, it would be “starting fresh with product development” – and where’s the fun in that?

This experience report recounts the story and transformation from slick PowerPoint slides to people problems and development difficulties. We did survive the journey and arrived in the land of continuous digital delivery, but we took some detours and lost some paint along the way. If you are considering the switch from projects to product development, maybe we can help you avoid some potholes and speedbumps along the road. Being forewarned is to be forearmed, but each journey is different, and as they say, your mileage will vary.”

It recounts my experience as a consultant working with the leadership team and development teams. There was general agreement that a shift to organizing around products made sense, but disagreement on the best way to get there. Rather than a big-bang changeover, we adopted a ripple-out, incremental approach. This allowed us to review and monitor for issues before spreading approaches to more teams. Naturally, the executives wanted everything done at once and the teams wanted to be left alone until after the next release.

Not being able to please everyone, we developed a workable plan and rolled out the changes to teams, technology, and supporting groups. We experienced many obstacles such as having to rewrite vendor contracts, get exceptions from accounting for budget processes and from HR for reporting changes.

More details about the Agile 2019 conference in Washington D.C. can be found on the official website.