Agile Conference

Agile2024

July 22 – 26, 2024 | Dallas, Texas

Agile2024 Conference Tracks

We continue the reduced number of tracks established last year to simplify the submission process, with a wonderful addition; Technology for All; once the content has been confirmed, we will create “playlists” to group content by themes.

We hope this information is useful to you and we can’t wait to see you in July!

Submitted Tracks

Accelerating Products Track

Track chairs: Kent McDonald, Holly Bielawa

Product has come to represent not only the things we sell to our customers but also an approach to solving problems for internal users that impact organizational performance. You could argue that Product represents a crucial step in the evolution of the Agile Manifesto. This step focuses on how organizations identify valuable problems to solve, prioritize what problems to solve, and collaborate to deliver solutions to those problems. The Accelerating Product track hosts sessions about the product model, product development, and the product teams that make it all possible. 

Sessions in the Accelerating Product track cover a variety of topics including, but not limited to:

  • Understanding and working with your customers and users
  • Discovering problems that provide the highest customer value
  • Delivering products while focusing on outcomes that create business impacts
  • Measuring what matters, when it matters most
  • Empowering cross-functional (product, design, and engineering) product teams to deliver outcomes
  • Leading the organizational change necessary to transition to a product operating model that values outcomes over outputs

We’re particularly interested in sessions built from practical experience, whether it’s from a stunning success or a learning opportunity. If you’re describing a technique or practice, share examples of where it worked, where it didn’t, and how people can determine if it will work in their context.  

Energizing People & Teams Track

Track chairs: Cp Richardson, Jennifer Dyni

People and teams vary from person to person, group to group, organization to organization, and the only consistent thing among every group is change. The question we face daily as practitioners is, how do we adjust to that change? How do we empower our colleagues to bring their ‘A’ game? However, even the most productive teams and/or individual team members can eventually burn out or lose some of their energy, which can result in missed deadlines or substandard work. It’s essential to know how to motivate and energize your team when needed. Doing so can help reignite productivity and enthusiasm, ultimately leading to organizational success.

In this track, we will explore the experiences of people in their journey and those who have successfully adapted along the way. By the end of these sessions, you will gain the knowledge needed to begin identifying and addressing dysfunctions, improving team dynamics, and achieving tangible results for your organization. 

This track may be for you if:

  • You are worried about what the next step in your journey will be and need inspiration
  • You want to upskill yourself for your next role
  • You are currently part of a team and questioning whether this is the best you can achieve
  • Your team is faced with uncertainty and tasked with doing more with less.

Enriching Organizations Track

Track chairs: Mariya Breyter, Kathi Paquet

How often do you attend sessions, gain a wealth of knowledge, and then struggle with how to operationalize it within your organization across hundreds to thousands of individuals? The Enriching Organizations track provides sessions on everyday problem-solving and specific, actionable advice you can bring back for experimentation.

For this track, show us how your topic relates to the needs of organizations. This track will explore topics including, but not limited to:

  • Systems thinking, AI/LLM applications to organizational agility
  • Agile value proposition for customer obsession and organizational level
  • Portfolios, roadmaps, and planning
  • Organizational structures, team formation, matrixed reporting
  • Professional growth and career development
  • Budgeting and forecasting in Agile and hybrid organizations
  • Strategic goal-setting, Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), and Agile metrics at an organizational level
  • Business agility and operations
  • Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEBI) initiatives
  • Organizational change governance, and modernization
  • …and, of course, anything and everything at scale

Technology For All Track

Track chairs: ‘Tine Zekis, Millie Ryba

We are more than just industry professionals; we are status quo breakers, disability advocates, and technical evangelists committed to creating space for innovation. Our mission is to explore how technology can break barriers and foster accessible solutions, hereby emulating the idea that technology is, in fact, for everyone.

Recognizing the dynamic and ever-evolving nature of technology, we acknowledge the need for continuous learning and sharing within our community. The “Technology for All” track is dedicated to enhancing the technical competency of the Agile community, while also bridging the gap between the diverse needs of business and IT leaders as well as for the practitioners that bring the solutions to life.

This track goes beyond today’s technology, focusing on shaping the inclusive and innovative future we envision. Key topics for discussion and exploration include:

  • Community Impact through Technology: Encouraging avenues where technological solutions drive significant community changes.
  • Inclusive Workspaces: Transforming work environments into universally accessible collaboration spaces, embracing extreme programming values of respect and courage.
  • Smart City Initiatives: Breaking technological barriers to create smarter, more inclusive urban environments.
  • Diverse Accessibility: Addressing and removing entry barriers for individuals across various roles, industries, and backgrounds, highlighting our commitment to DEIB.
  • Cutting-edge Discussions: Exploring technical topics at the forefront of innovation and agility.

We invite contributors from all practices—SWE, SRE, DevOps, QE, XP, etc.—to share ideas, topics, conversations, and learnings in these areas. Our goal is to make technology a transformational force for people, processes, cultures, and the world, truly reflecting our belief that Technology is for All.

Curated Tracks

Agile Executive Forum

Track Chair: Joanna Vahlsing

As Executives, we constantly seek strategies and operational practices that can help us stay ahead of the competition, adapt to change, and deliver value to our customers more efficiently.

This Track curates content for (and from) Executives and Sr. Leaders.

Join us to connect with your peers, and industry thought-leaders to share and explore the positive impacts of Agile that you’ve observed at your level as well as the challenges and concerns you’ve encountered related to it in your organization.

Balancing optimism with realism, we invite you to delve into the experiences and insights of Executives who are steering their organizations through the Agile transformation. Their stories, filled with both achievements and setbacks, provide a comprehensive understanding of Agile’s multifaceted impact on business.

We invite you to embrace this opportunity to gain a nuanced view of Agile, challenge your existing notions, and discover strategies to navigate its complexities so that we can lead our organizations with resilience, insight, and a balanced approach to innovation and growth.

This exclusive event requires a separate registration. Learn more here >

Agile Essentials

Track Chair: Cheryl Hammond

Each year the majority of our conference attendees are first-timers — welcome! Whether you’re new to Agile or just a newcomer to this particular conference community, Agile Essentials sessions are designed to help you get the most out of your week with us.

We’ll provide a brief, systematic overview of the roles, mindset, concepts, terminology, and key practices you need as a foundation for your agile journey. We’ll cover how these themes play out across a wide range of common frameworks, so whether your organization has committed to a particular approach (or several) or you’re just starting to evaluate all the options, you’ll find content that directly addresses the ways agile shows up for you.

These sessions should help you feel more grounded in core agile principles and practices, and better prepared to embark on one or more learning pathways through the rest of the conference. At the conclusion of each session, we’ll provide specific recommendations for related sessions throughout the week, as well as opportunities to get advice on your unique circumstances.

Audacious Salon

Track Chair: Melissa Boggs, Matt Barcomb

Ever wonder what’s beyond the edge of the map at an Agile conference? For over 20 years, Agile has been many things for many people. It can make people cringe and shudder while giving others hope, shining a light on a path forward.

But no matter where you fall on this spectrum, it’s certain there are many challenging and sometimes polarizing topics that come under the guise of agile. Ignoring them won’t make them go away. Staying in our own echo chamber probably isn’t a great solution either. If we are to move forward, we will need to have a dialogue with each other.

That is what the Audacious Salon track is all about.

In this safe and sacred space, we will focus on intriguing themes that agile or agilists currently face in the real world. Then, using facilitated, participatory formats, we will engage in respectful, inclusive conversation meant to challenge our closely held norms, beliefs, and assumptions. We will explore a topic using differing lenses, giving us new perspectives and new language for conversation back in our daily lives. 

While the formats and facilitators in each session will vary, two things will always be the same:

  1. You will be involved
  2. We will be bold and learn together

We invite you all to bring your wisdom, opinions, thoughts, observations, and insights to the Audacious Salon at Agile 2024 and help co-create a world of work that is inclusive, flexible, and innovative. Come join the discussion!

Extreme Open Space

Track chairs: Allison Pollard, Jake Calabrese

Whether you are new to open space or have experienced a great one, join us! We will explain the structure so that you (and everyone else) can add your own sessions to the emerging agenda, navigate parallel conversations, create and learn from amazing sessions, and experience meaningful interactions with other conference attendees and speakers.

When you join the day-long Extreme Open Space, you will be able to: 

  • Explore a topic that was not on the program, but the one you care deeply about, 
  • Fill in gaps from other sessions and integrate learnings from the week,
  • Dig deeper into topics you are interested in with others who have similar interests,
  • Meet and connect with attendees whom you would not have otherwise met.

Agile Advice

Track chair: Chris Li

Agile Advice is a dedicated area that enables Agile2024 attendees (Advice-Seekers) to have a one-on-one conversation with an experienced Agilist (Advisor) to help with questions or issues that the attendee may have. New in 2024, Agile Advice will have a dedicated time and space to help with your Job Search needs.

Lightning Talks

Track chairs: Emilia Breton-Lake, Eric Rapin

The purpose of the Lightning Talk Track is to provide a lightweight, flexible opportunity for speakers to share valuable information with participants. Presentations are short with one of the following formats:

  • 3-minute Lightning Talk (no slides)
  • 5-minute Lightning Talk (slides)
  • 6-minute 40-second Pecha Kucha style presentation

The themes of lightning talks will follow the themes of the conference. e.g. Organizations, People, Products, and Technology. Each session will contain approximately 10 presentations around one of these theme areas. This provides an opportunity for rapid and diverse learning on a variety of topics.

Discover the many benefits of membership

Your membership enables Agile Alliance to offer a wealth of first-rate resources, present renowned international events, support global community groups, and more — all geared toward helping Agile practitioners reach their full potential and deliver innovative, Agile solutions.

IMPORTANT: We have transitioned to a new membership platform. If you have not already done so, you will need to set up an account on the new platform to establish your user profile.

When you see the login screen, choose “Set up Account” and follow the prompts to create your new account. You can choose to log in using your social credentials for either Google or Linkedin (recommended), or you can set up your account using an email address.

Not yet a member? Sign up now