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Agile MiniCon: When Agile Fails

When Agile Fails:
Solutions for You and Your Team

Friday, December 13, 2024 at 11:00 AM EST

In Agile, success isn’t guaranteed. Transformations often encounter obstacles when core Agile principles and values are not fully implemented. These issues can stall progress and demoralize teams. But failure can also be a chance to grow. The leadership and technical sessions in this event will focus on common challenges Agile teams encounter, offering practical solutions to help you overcome obstacles and drive success.

FREE for members or just $49 for non-members

The Agile MiniCon is a twice-annual online event featuring deep Agile learning with speakers and discussions covering a range of Agile concepts, followed by an after-party for meeting up and networking with fellow Agilists. Registration is FREE for Agile Alliance members and just $49 for non-members. If you’re not already a member, you can join for just $59/year and take advantage of this and many other online events throughout the year.

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Sarah Davidsson

Sara Davidsson

Enterprise Agile Coach

LEADERSHIP TRACK

So You Think You’re a Scrum Master?

Problem Addressed: Many Scrum Masters misunderstand their role, focusing on rituals and “protecting” the team rather than fostering true empowerment, self-management, and accountability.

This session redefines the Scrum Master’s role, offering practical strategies to cultivate trust, accountability, and team-led creativity. Leaders and Agile coaches will also gain insights to better support Scrum Masters in becoming genuine enablers of team success. With real-world examples and actionable takeaways, this talk equips you to drive lasting impact and resilience within your organization.

Agile Principles Highlighted: building projects around motivated individuals, fostering team autonomy, cultivating trust, and embracing continuous improvement.

From Human Resource Management to singer to Scrum Master to Enterprise Agile Coach – that’s just the short version of the bumpy ride. With people at heart, Scrum mastery became a passion, and now she is trying to raise the entire profession with observable behaviors in action. Sara is a PST, ICE-EC, and is all in on using her voice for the heart of enterprises. Let’s Scrum our change for an agile world!

LinkedIn

Semen Arslan

Semen Arslan

Senior Product Manager

TECHNICAL TRACK

Where We Missed the Quality

Problem Addressed: Teams lack built-in advocacy for technical practices like refactoring, testing, or technical debt management.

In this session, you’ll learn how Agile teams can uphold high-quality standards even without a dedicated QA role. We’ll explore strategies to embed both functional and non-functional testing into Agile sprints, empowering teams to take collective ownership of quality. Key topics include cross-functional testing, automation, and building robust definitions of “done” that cover security, scalability, and data integrity. By the end, you’ll have practical approaches to integrate quality-first practices, ensuring sustainable agility without compromising on speed.

Agile Principles Highlighted: prioritizing technical excellence, fostering collaboration, supporting sustainable development, and embedding continuous improvement.

As a Sr. Product Manager, Semen has been passionately dedicated to advancing organizational effectiveness throughout her career journey. Acknowledged with the Agile and Digital Transformation Award in 2017, she views accolades as collaborative achievements. Since her career’s inception in 2009, Semen has immersed herself in Open Source, Agile, and Lean practices. Over the past decade, she has quietly evolved into a prolific speaker, sharing insights through more than 25 presentations at respected conferences such as Scrum@Scale, Agile Alliance XP, SPM, TopConf, and more.

YouTube

Christopher Salem

Christopher Salem

CEO, Business Executive Mentor, and Business Acceleration Strategist

LEADERSHIP TRACK

Prioritizing People: How Developer Empowerment Drives Product Excellence

Problem Addressed: Developers have limited or no say over product backlog priorities, leading to frustration and poor-quality releases.

In this session, you’ll learn how empowering developers to shape backlog priorities drives product quality, team morale, and engagement. We’ll cover inclusive decision-making strategies, such as feedback sessions and collaborative planning, that build ownership and collaboration. By the end, you’ll have tools to foster a culture where developers feel valued and motivated—boosting both product excellence and competitive advantage.

Agile Principles Highlighted: fostering motivation, empowering self-organizing teams, supporting sustainable development, and encouraging continuous improvement.

Chris Salem is an expert in emotional intelligence, specializing in fostering psychologically safe workplace environments that enhance team engagement, retention, and productivity. With extensive experience as a certified workplace strategist and professional speaker, he empowers organizations to cultivate cultures where employees feel valued and motivated. As the author of the bestseller Master Your Inner Critic / Resolve the Root Cause – Create Prosperity and co-author of Mastering the Art of Success, Chris combines emotional intelligence with business strategies to drive personal and professional transformations. His weekly radio shows, Sustainable Success and Business Influencers, further showcase his commitment to empowering leaders and promoting innovative, sustainable growth.

Website  |  LinkedIn

Robert M London

Robert London

Senior IT Project Manager

TECHNICAL TRACK

Struggles with Legacy Systems

Problem Addressed: Teams lack built-in advocacy for technical practices like refactoring, testing, or technical debt management.

In this session, you’ll learn how to enhance Agile processes to tackle the unique challenges of legacy application replacement. Discover practical solutions to integrate robust project management and implementation strategies into Agile workflows, ensuring that critical technical practices—such as managing technical debt, refactoring, and testing—are prioritized. By addressing these often-overlooked areas, you’ll enable your teams to deliver higher-quality code and maintain long-term agility, even during complex system replacements.

Agile Principles Highlighted: fostering technical excellence, supporting sustainable development, adapting processes to change, and enabling team success.

Rob London is a senior IT project manager with twenty-five years of experience in IT operations, ERP implementations, requirements, and application design, and project risk governance. He has worked in a variety of business verticals including large corporations, such as AT&T and Oracle, and is currently an independent consultant. Project work is split between starting up new client projects and restarting and restructuring stalled projects. Usual projects managed range from $5 to $250 million with virtual and on-premises teams of five (5) to 40 technical professionals in the commercial, state, and federal sectors.

LinkedIn  |  Website

Nicole Spence-Goon

Agile Xpert

LEADERSHIP TRACK

Build Innovative Teams: Develop a Generative Organizational Culture

Problem Addressed: Organizations adopt Agile processes but fail to change their culture, leading to the appearance of Agile without its principles.

In this session, you’ll learn how to build a generative culture (i.e., one of high trust and performance) that enables true Agile adaptability and innovation. Discover why psychological safety is essential across all levels and gain practical tools to measure and strengthen it within your teams. Through trust-building activities and progress evaluation techniques, you’ll foster a culture of transparency, trust, and high performance that drives lasting impact.

Agile Principles Highlighted: motivated individuals, transparency, sustainable collaboration, continuous improvement, adaptability.

Nicole Spence-Goon has been working in the IT industry for over 20 years in several roles, using that experience to enrich her abilities as a knowledgeable Agilist. Her mission to live a life of learning has led her to become a Certified Scrum Professional and gain other Scrum Alliance certifications, attain several Scaling certifications as well as become a Certified Professional in Agile Coaching.  Nicole has used her experience on projects that were transitioning to Agile methodologies to guide her approach to helping federal government agencies realize the benefits of Agile principles as opposed to just technical practices. She specializes in team coaching and facilitation and has empowered teams to increase their workflow and boost their team performance.  Nicole is also passionate about connecting communities as a core team member of Agile in Color and lifting women’s voices as an organizer of the DC Women in Agile group. 

LinkedIn

Kathick Sundararajan

Certified Scrum Master and Enterprise Archictect

TECHNICAL TRACK

Technical Debt Management: Building a Sustainable Future

Problem Addressed: Agile teams often prioritize speed over sustainability, leading to the accumulation of technical debt that eventually hampers progress.

In this session, you’ll discover how to manage technical debt proactively to sustain high-quality development and minimize long-term costs. We’ll cover practical strategies for integrating technical debt discussions into Agile ceremonies, establishing a dedicated backlog, and fostering a culture of transparency and accountability. By the end, you’ll have the tools to prioritize code quality and support a sustainable development process that keeps your team agile and efficient.

Agile Principles Highlighted: supporting sustainable development, maintaining technical excellence, fostering accountability, and encouraging continuous improvement.

Karthick Sundararajan is an accomplished IT leader with over 20 years of experience in Agile transformation and technology architecture. Karthick has driven Agile initiatives at major organizations like Amazon and PayPal, guiding teams to adopt Agile principles that boost efficiency and adaptability. Most recently, he led the transition to a microservices-based architecture and managed the integration of no-code solutions for seamless data handling. As a Certified Scrum Master and TOGAF 9.1 Certified Enterprise Architect, he’s committed to building agile, high-performing teams and aligning tech strategies with business goals.

LinkedIn

Your Agile MiniCon Hosts and Facilitators

Hendrik Esser

Hendrik Esser

Head of IMS Solutions at Ericsson

Growing up in the 1980s I was a passionate computer game developer during my school and study times. After getting my diploma in Electrical engineering I started at Ericsson in 1994 as a developer. From 1996 I worked in project management roles. Since 2000 I have been a manager, first heading a Project Office, later Systems and Technology Management, and since 2009 the Portfolio and Technology Management for Mobile Core. In 2008 I was a key contributor to the agile transition of our organization. I am supporting the enterprise transition to lean and agile by consulting and teaming up with other parts of Ericsson. I am an active speaker at conferences, both Ericsson internal as well as public (Agile 2012, 2013, XP2013, Agile Executive forum, XP2014, Bosnia Agile Day 2014). I am a member of the Agile Alliance and the Initiative Chair of Agile Alliance’s Supporting Agile Adoption initiative.

LinkedIn | Twitter

Andrea Pratt-Smith

Andrea Pratt-Smith

CEO and Project Management Consultant

Andrea Pratt-Smith, a Bahamian visionary, advocates for empowerment through learning, networking, and community building. As the CEO of Creative Minds Project Development & Consultation, she offers global project management consultancy services. Andrea is an experienced Agile Project Manager and advanced ScrumMaster, and holds the distinction of being the Caribbean’s first licensed Professional Kanban Trainer with ProKanban.org, the sole representative in The Bahamas. In 2021, Andrea founded the Bahamas Agile & Project Management Community (BAPMC), the country’s pioneering agile community, affiliated with the Scrum Alliance Network Pro User Group. Passionate about volunteerism, she actively engages in diverse local and international roles. Andrea extends her global perspective through impactful international speaking engagements, embodying her belief in transforming mindsets to nurture inherent creativity. Eager to share her expertise and passions, Andrea contributes to shaping a better professional landscape.

LinkedIn | Website

NETWORKING – 2:00 PM ET

Agile MiniCon After Party

Meet up with your fellow Agile MiniCon attendees at 3 PM ET in the Virtual Lounge for networking and socializing. Our speakers and panelists will also be available in the online space for follow-up questions and more in-depth conversations. Agile Alliance staff will be there as well to answer any membership questions you might have. We look forward to seeing you in our Virtual Lounge!

Agile Alliance Virtual Lounge

Register Now – It’s FREE for members
or just $49 for non-members

You must be an active Agile Alliance member to get free registration for the Agile MiniCon.

PLEASE READ: Important update for members

We have transitioned to a new membership management platform. If you are an active member and have not yet done so, you need to set up an account profile on the platform. Just click “Log in” in the menu (above right) and then click “Set Up an Account” in the pop-up if this is your first time on the membership platform.

Once you have set up your account and/or logged in, just reload this page. You will now have access to the FREE Member discount registration.

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Registering as a non-member

If you want to simply register at the non-member price of $49, just click the button below and start your registration. Or you can join Agile Alliance for $59/year and attend for free.

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Thank you to the Supporting Agile Adoption Initiative!

This Agile MiniCon is made possible with the help of the Supporting Agile Adoption Initiative. We’d especially like to thank the Initiative Chair, Hendrik Esser, and Jutta Eckstein for their time and energy in creating the program.

Proposed by our members, Agile Alliance Member Initiatives are the primary mechanism through which Agile Alliance accomplishes member objectives that advance the state of Agile practices worldwide. Initiatives are projects which are proposed, implemented, and administered by Agile Alliance members or staff.

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