ALEBathtub VI is a GO!

The upcoming ALEBathtub conference is on Tuesday November 27 2012, 21:00 – 23:00 CET (Berlin)

Again we have four awesome speakers who will share their ideas with us online. Details on how to register and access for online recordings will follow soon.

Mary Poppendieck – The Lean Mindset

The Little Engine that Could is a child’s book about a tiny engine trying to haul a trainload of toys over a very big mountain. Larger engines have been asked for help, but hauling toys is beneath their dignity. So the little engine agrees to try, and as it chugs up the mountain saying to itself “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…” readers wonder if it will get to the top. This little engine has the Lean Mindset. It welcomes challenge and is not afraid to fail. It’s the kind of mindset that keeps athletes training for years in order to compete in the Olympics; that encourages musicians to practice for hours each day. Athletes and musicians know that if you do not make mistakes when you practice, you aren’t improving. Yet in our companies, we expect perfection; we have no systems that encourage people to stretch beyond the limits of success and learn through failure. We do not look for leaders who are still learning – we look instead for leaders who are done learning – and we get what we deserve. The Lean Mindset brings a sense of adventure and experimentation and learning to our work. It encourages us to hire little engines that can rather than big engines that can’t. It values improvement – which means we aren’t yet perfect; it values exploration – rather than executing the wrong plan; it welcomes failure – because failure means we have raised our game to the next level.

Mary Poppendieck (http://www.poppendieck.com) started her career as a process control programmer, moved on to manage the IT department of a manufacturing plant, and then ended up in product development, where she was both product manager and department manager.  After Mary left the corporate world in 1998, she found herself managing a government software project where she first encountered the word “waterfall.” When Mary compared her experience in successful software and product development to the prevailing opinions about how to manage software projects, she decided the time had come for a new paradigm.  She wrote the award-winning book “Lean Software Development” to explain how the lean principles from manufacturing offer a better approach to software development.  Over the past several years, Mary has found retirement elusive as she lectures, teaches classes, and writes books with her husband Tom.  They are co-authors of three books and a fourth is on the way. A popular writer and speaker, Mary continues to bring fresh perspectives to the world of software development.

Corinna Baldauf – How to handle support in Scrum

In an ideal world a Scrum team can work undisturbed for the stretch of a
sprint. In the real world most Scrum teams have to support existing applications:
react to incidents, fix bugs and offer 3rd level support. Corinna is going to present several methods to handle these
requests. Each method aims to minimize interruptions while still satisfying
legitimate requests and keeping the peace

Corinna Baldauf (http://finding-marbles.com/) spent 2 years as a Scrum / Kanban master, delving into agile, lean, systems thinking and communication. She just became an (agile) project manager. She’s got a background in usability, UX and web development.

Ralf Kruse – How to develop an agile game, or the story of creating the Kanban Pizza Game

Games become more and more important to help people understand the underlying mindset. They help us try new things and experiment in a safe environment. The question is: what makes a good agile game and how to develop one? Before we developed the game I only knew some models about how to develop them, but it was still mostly an abstract concept for me. In this session I want to tell the story of how we developed the Kanban Pizza Game.

Ralf Kruse (http://www.tumblr.com/blog/ralfhh) is a guy from Hamburg with his sleeves up that does his job with unmatched energy and focus. You will not hear him bragging about successes, but his customers do this for him. With his energetic and playful attitude and downright honesty, he becomes a valuable companion. Besides his MSc in informatics, he is certified as CSM, CSPO, CSP. You can also hear him lecture about agile at the university. When he works for you, he illuminates the darkest corners of your room and although what comes up is typically not the nicest stuff, he is there for you to help you clean it up.

Torbjörn Gyllebring – Rationality, Reciprocity & Respect for people

Rationality, seemingly the hallmark of management
often urges us to act professionally, be logical and act with reason.
But is that respectful? And does it even make sense given what we
know about human behavior? Let’s take a whirlwind tour and explore
old wisdom, new research & human behavior as it relates to Lean & Agile.

Torbjörn (http://torbjorn-gyllebring.blogspot.com) is a developer turned development manager on a journey to figure out how to build productive, pleasant & respectful work places. He wanders between communities searching & spreading ideas on how to reduce the waste of human potential and thinks out loud as @drunkcod on Twitter. Where he’s more than happy to talk about Rightshifting, Kanban, Software Craftsmanship, Lean, Agile or the art of being human.