Registration + coffee (9:00 - 9:30; Next to Daugava 1+2)

Opening (9:30 - 10:00; Daugava 1+2)

Agility in the Face of Perplexity (10:00 - 10:45; Daugava 1+2)

Scrum was officially presented in 1995. In 2001, 17 software development leaders published the "Manifesto for Agile Software Development". Agile gradually started replacing the industrial way of thinking, with Scrum being the most adopted technique to achieve a higher state of agility. Today, 2018, the Agile paradigm is more needed than ever, to avoid complexity turning into perplexity. Gunther aspires disentangling the clew that ’Scrum’ and ‘Agile’ turned into and show the value and their originality. Gunther has considered what Agile means to him, what it is that makes Agile work, what it is that makes Scrum work, and will share his views on the future state of Scrum and Agile.

Coffee break (10:45 - 11:15; Next to Daugava 1+2)

Scrum master. The Dark Side of the Moon, or What Scrum Guide does not write about it. (11:15 - 12:00; Daugava 1)

The topic is about role of Scrum Masters and things which are not written in Scrum Guide but belongs to this role.

Handle With Care. Scaling Your Agile. (11:15 - 12:00; Daugava 2)

I’m going to share my experience in scaling work across different teams and even across countries. Insights on how to organise work of a distributed team, how to share codebase between different teams, how to onboard new developers efficiently, what are preconditions for scaling, what could make a scaling attempt to fail and etc. Can you have two agile teams instead of one in a short period of time? Can some company with two offices work as smoothly as a company, where all employees are sitting in the same building? Can you have the same values in different teams? My answer is "yes", but everything comes with a price. This session tells about what price you have to pay in order to scale your software development business. Also it is going to explore which aspects of corporate culture can prevent or can support scaling process, what kind scaling aspects require more attention than others, how to setup a distributed teams in distributed company. case study. real-life story. + will compare different approaches including SAFe + team/company onboarding to new process + lessons learned

Beyond Methodology (11:15 - 12:00; Casino)

Have you ever faced these questions, "Which methodology should I choose?", "I am doing the methodology right?", "Why isn't the rest of the organization doing agile?", maybe even "Why isn't agile sticking?" If so then this workshop is for you, and we'll discuss creating a common language and approach to work that successfully helps leaders, managers, and developers unlock their potential and the potential of an entire organization.

Learnings from nature (12:00 - 12:45; Daugava 1)

The delegates will be taken on a journey into animal kingdom to illustrate the power and effectiveness of teamwork. We can all learn from the ability of animals to thrive in effective teams and achieve high performance, often in challenging and demanding environments. Did you know that gees work as an effective team during migration when they come together in V-formation? Scientists estimate they reach their destination up to 70% faster when they work in formation rather than flying alone. Gees also honk encouragement to each other on their journey. In the same way we are motivated by regular, engaging communication. Creative tools – slideshow, film clips, facilitated discussions, etc.

3 reasons why your company is deadly far from agility (12:00 - 12:45; Daugava 2)

For the last 14 years I was observing enterprises from small to big striving to improve their business processes and improve results of the business. Once, consulting a 3-months old company of my friend, I got it clear. Although those problems of big and small enterprises are very different, the roots of that problems are quite the same. The same patterns keeps from org to org, and these patterns constitute the most hard impediments on the way to agility. In my speech I’m going to share the insights on the nature of this patterns, show how they work, and give ideas on what could be done to move away from the dead point.

Reframe your existing Agile change plans to be implemented everywhere in the company (12:00 - 12:45; Casino)

The Agile manifesto helps uncover better ways to develop software. How can you expand a change plan from the small I.T. teams to the rest of the company? Many of the new practices or techniques used inside I.T. teams don’t work well or need to be adapted when they are implemented somewhere else in the organization—outside the I.T. world. A real change plan transforms the whole company and not just the software teams. Otherwise, it would be improving the local groups but downgrading the rest of the organization. Which consistent patterns can you use to create powerful plans that can be implemented everywhere? The answer requires to use different strategies that go beyond Agile and Scrum. This session provides an insight into how to adapt any change initiative to be easily implemented in the rest of the organization. It also shows the ways to make sure that a business transformation doesn’t lose traction. Join this session from the author of the best-seller book "e;Leading Exponential Change"e;.

Lunch (12:45 - 13:45; Hotel's restaurant)

Tribalism in software development teams (13:45 - 14:30; Daugava 1)

We are social animals. We have evolved to depend on our tribes, literally, for our safety and survival. We identify ourselves as members of all sorts of tribes; our families, political parties, race, gender, social organizations. We even identify tribally just based on where we live. From my speech you will learn the traits of strong tribes and the journey any group has to make to become a real tribe. We will be looking at the tribes you belong to and how can you help them become stronger and healthier.

How to lead a DevOps team of 125 at a Fortune100 company (13:45 - 14:30; Daugava 2)

Rules how to do business in 400k people company are very different from what people are used to in small and mid-size companies. It's similar to running your own company but few things are very different. I'll tell more about environment I live in, what targets we have as team and why we are being so successful. Last year at world class conference "All Day DevOps" I told about my journey how we grew from 0 to 100. Guess what - it didn't solve all our issues. This year I'm happy to continue my story with new things we implemented to build foundation for further growth. This can be treated as "management talk" but DevOps is never just about tools. This talk covers cultural and business side which are very important to be the best in DevOps and IT world in general.

Top-7 Scrum Anti-Patterns and 5 Ways to Fix them (13:45 - 14:30; Casino)

Scrum is the most spread Agile-framework on the planet yet many times companies do not unlock its full potential and in the worst cases suffer and fail miserably. If your Scrum adoption does not work, if you’re stuck and can’t find a way out, if you feel that something is wrong with your Scrum, then this talk is for you! Mark will share the collective experience of his clients from the past 7 years and boil down the Top-7 Scrum Anti-Patterns he has been seeing in the wide range of companies - from small startups to huge international banks, telecom and insurance companies. Mark will also present 5 Ways to address these Anti-Patterns which will help prevent your Scrum adoption from failing.

Fragile Agile: Coaching a Tired Team (14:30 - 15:15; Daugava 1)

As an Agile Coach or Scrum Master do you want to add energy to your team that looks not enthusiastic or resists change? Is is possible to cause harm to your team even with proper Agile coaching? Yes, if you are working with tired, exhausted or even burned-out teams, they do need special treatment, usually counterintuitive to the coaches. Would you like to learn special set of actions, taken from the medical practice, tailored to work with exhausted people? Would you like to experience an upward spiral from tiredness to the true intristic motivation and creativity? Join me in the self test and practical steps discussion what needs to be modified in the coaching and facilitation techniques and in the Agile process that you as a coach or a scrum master can help your worn out team to transition into a better process and produce steady results.

Agile Reformation at Evolution Gaming (14:30 - 15:15; Daugava 2)

Evolution Gaming had a vision on how to scale Scrum, but failed to realise it due to practical obstacles and limited support. This talk is about how a reduced group of Scrum Masters faced the situation and reinvented itself and its role in the organisation. Stepwise, by acknowledging the urgency of the situation, by reconstituting its Scrum Master Community of Practice, by focusing on basic principles, by systematically pursuing feedback, by setting itself time-bound goals, and by re-engaging the organisation.

Native Agile Psychology of Teams and Individuals (14:30 - 15:15; Casino)

Have you ever wondered how teams and individuals form an agile mindset? Are there specific practices to follow or processes to impose that nurture a truly agile team? Do agile values and principles come naturally to people who possess a certain mindset? Does company culture affect the personal qualities and values ​​of its employees? I believe that it is possible to acquire an agile philosophy without following a standard set of rules. Based on our experience, I will try to prove that it’s not the practices and processes that make the team truly agile, but the mindset of people who work there. I will also describe the special qualities that our people, teams, and the company as a whole exemplify, and how these talents can be cultivated and nurtured.

Key factors and tips for building high-performing teams (15:15 - 16:15; Daugava 1)

Agile is all about teamwork and collaboration. What are the secrets for how to work better together? This session will explore the key factors and practice exercises that help increase collaboration among team members, resulting in high performance.

How does a technical guy become an Agile Leader? (15:15 - 16:15; Daugava 2)

Olaf Lewitz is going to share with you some insights about the journey from an introvert engineer to an Agile Leader! According to him, everyone who is involved in software development can become an Agile Leader. Olaf thinks that all engineers like structure, processes, predictability, and simple design. Most of today’s managers in software organisations have an engineering background. They have taken responsibility in organisations that were designed for stability and success in stable markets. Now, the conditions change. Organisations change. Business agility and leadership agility are called for. How do we make that change? In his speech he will share his personal learnings and insights, his successes and failures. He will share patterns and strategies that worked for him, and tools that may help all of us deliver leadership as an Agile service.

What I learned about Kanban on a 400km hike on the Santiago de Camino (15:15 - 16:15; Casino)

Every journey begins with a single step. Walking the Camino de Santiago for two weeks took me 586444. In this very personal talk I will share what I've learned about the practices of Kanban after applying them to learn about myself and make changes along the way. Learning Outcomes: Learn about Kanban's core practices in a gripping story about suffering and achievement. Get ideas about how you can apply these practices to your personal endeavors, too.

Coffee break (16:15 - 16:45; Next to Daugava 1+2)

Avoid Agile transformations (16:45 - 17:30; Daugava 1+2)

Agile is no longer a set of software development methods used by a bunch of innovators. Nowadays Agile is arguably the most popular and successful product development strategy. Therefore many organisations decided to start their "Agile transformation" to become a different organisation that is able to operate in a new business paradigm….. Or not? Is it possible to transform an organisation? Is it viable to influence the culture, structure and processes in an organization to successfully operate as an entirely different entity? Is a transformation needed to succed in business? I will use Complexity thinking and Cynefin in practice to answer this questions from a experimental perspective. By making sense of the different business contexts, and understanding what are the more suitable practices for each context you will be able to understand when Agility makes sense and how to make business Agility happen. In this talk I’ll share my thoughts about Agile transformations: why this is becoming important in this moment of history, why Agile emerges in the software industry, how is agile connected to the 21st century customer, how Agile addresses the need of continuous innovation and why the concept of "Agile Transformation" can be an stopper for organisations to achieve a real growth. Learning Outcomes: Understand Business Agility, Describe why Agile is not always the answer, Understand why "Agile transformations" are often failing, Explain why the concept "Agile transformation" should be substituted by "Incorporating experimentation capabilities", Define an Strategy for business Agility based on complexity thinking, Understanding of the core of agile, contextualize Agile in the current world of business. Powerful and proven arguments to encourage business people to get involved in Agile initiatives.

Day one wrap-up (17:30 - 17:45; Daugava 1+2)

Morning coffee (9:00 - 9:30; Abava / Amata - 2nd floor)

Attentioneering: Guiding Richer Conversations. (09:30 - 10:15; Abava / Amata - 2nd floor)

In this highly-interactive session, participants will: Learn about "the nearest thing FBI negotiators have to a Jedi mind trick" for building trust quickly and easily Find out how to use this approach to develop psychological safety in working relationships, especially those which cross organisational and cultural boundaries Hear how it has been used to reduce conflict and misunderstandings while maintaining the creative tension that’s essential to innovation Experiment with the technique in a series of lightning - and enlightening - conversations Plan to apply all of this straight away, so that they get even better value from the rest of the conference.

Open Space sessions (10:45 - 12:15; Abava / Amata - 2nd floor)

It is an agenda-less event where people come together, create agenda under specific theme, and then learn from each other in small groups. Items in agenda can be anything: problems, situations, experiences, approaches, lectures, etc. related to the specific theme. Please take a read and watch video below to get you into the mood and ‘be prepared to be surprised’ on July 20!

Stand-up Lunch (12:15 - 13:15; Abava / Amata - 2nd floor)

Open Space sessions - continue (13:15 - 14:00; Abava / Amata - 2nd floor)

It is an agenda-less event where people come together, create agenda under specific theme, and then learn from each other in small groups. Items in agenda can be anything: problems, situations, experiences, approaches, lectures, etc. related to the specific theme. Please take a read and watch video below to get you into the mood and ‘be prepared to be surprised’ on July 20!

Coffee break (14:45 - 15:15; Abava / Amata - 2nd floor)

Open Space sessions - continue (15:15 - 16:45; Abava / Amata - 2nd floor)

It is an agenda-less event where people come together, create agenda under specific theme, and then learn from each other in small groups. Items in agenda can be anything: problems, situations, experiences, approaches, lectures, etc. related to the specific theme. Please take a read and watch video below to get you into the mood and ‘be prepared to be surprised’ on July 20!

Have We Lost the Real Meaning of Agile? (16:45 - 17:30; Abava / Amata - 2nd floor)

In this talk I will try to shed some light on the history of Agile. I was talking to Manifesto signatories reconstructing the talks they had about the deeper meaning of Agile and looking around 17 years later, I can say that we have lost the real meaning of this word. I want to share with you my findings about the What and about the How of Agile. We will be discussing three goals of Agility and talking about the reasons why different companies are starting on this path. I will tell you about a few wrong reasons and a couple of good ones. I will also answer the question many people are asking now: is Agile dead?, should we switch to building Real organisations instead?

Conference closing (17:30 - 18:00; Abava / Amata - 2nd floor)