Lean and Agile ME Summit 2017

Manufacturing practices abound at Agile conferences but is software something that comes of a production line (albeit in small batch sizes)? Should we instead think of software development as a service? Can we combine unarticulated customer needs with novel technology to shift the business forward rather than simply respond to demand? Should we see applications as emergent properties of complex interactions between people and software objects over time? What sort of ecosystem (rather than architecture) is needed for such an approach? Using the popular Cynefin framework as a starting point, its creator will explore these questions.

Leading a several thousand people organization towards Agile is not an easy task. It is a complex challenge where there is a very low predictability of success of your change initiatives. In this talk I will give you some theoretical background on how to successfully approach change in your company. I will exemplify this with the story of our agile change at Ericsson, one of the world’s largest SW companies. I will talk about our change initiatives, the desired and undesired things that emerged from them and how we acted upon them. This will help you understand the nature of an organizational change towards Agile and how to successfully approach it yourself.

The presentation explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be used in the Project Management field. The origins and history of AI are discussed followed by a brief simplified explanation of the theories behind its application. The actual utilization of AI tools in the Project Management domain is discussed covering diverse areas such as Engineering Design, Cost Estimating and Bidding, Planning and Scheduling, Risk Management, Performance Prediction as well as Project Monitoring and Control. The presentation concludes by a brief discussion about Data Management and Knowledge Engineering and how they are used today to simplify (or complicate) our lives.

'Product Ownership' is a multi-faceted complex function that gets more and more challenging with additional variables; product industry/project nature, market drivers, technology and functionality being examples of external variables; while distributed teams, team structure and team size being internal variables- to name a few. 'Product Ownership' function is expected to be carried out by Product Owner. In reality it becomes a shared sport of disparate stakeholders. While PO controls and drives priorities and scope, he/she highly depends on team members for effective/efficient decision making across the product/project. In this interactive talk, we will elicit audience's understanding of this function and will try to explore what skillset(s) is/are critical to ensure the success for this function.

Times are a-changing. The gap between strategic planning and aligning strategic objectives to employee objectives continues to grow. CEOs biggest headache is adapting their organisations to the digital age, the tools and frameworks at their disposal worked perfectly in the industrial age are totally unsuited to the new digital economy. the result? Company & CEO lifecycles have halved We will talk about how Agile is being used to help CEOs and companies win in the digital age. How Scrumming the CEO's office is accelerating business performance. Typical results: Faster Smarter Decision Taking and 2X Cash Flow; 3X Profitability; Higher retention of profitable clients and star employees.

Large scale healthcare projects are among the most complex buildings in construction, with many stakeholders and a high level of uncertainty. In the healthcare industry, state of the art technology and practices are rapidly evolving which requires high flexibility in design and construction in order to accommodate these technology changes. Moreover, healthcare facilities have unique requirements such as around the clock operations, intense energy and water use, chemical use, special ventilation system, hygienic and infection control requirements, indoor air quality requirements, medical gas network, advanced medical equipment and stringent regulatory requirements; all of which pose significant challenges during design and construction. The traditional project delivery method has proved its inefficiency in providing the required degree of flexibility and in dealing with the high uncertainty inherited in these complex projects. In line with Lean Construction (LC) movement, the Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) model was introduced as a new efficient project delivery method that embraces lean principles. IPD aims to improve productivity by promoting customer value, reducing waste, and maximizing efficiency throughout all project phases including planning, design and construction. By leveraging early involvement and collaboration between project stakeholders, optimal project success can be achieved. The aim of this study is to investigate the level of implementation of IPD in the healthcare construction projects and identify the barriers towards its effective application. Through selected interviews and case studies, the study revealed that the traditional delivery method remains the most prevailing method used in the UAE healthcare projects leading to many project failures. It was also found that the main barriers to IPD implementation are lack of mutual trust and collaboration culture among project participants, contractual issues, and lack of knowledge about IPD.

Current literature suggests that project management has evolved over two streams of research. The first focuses on systems thinking and the quantitative approach to planning and control techniques developed during the 1950’s and 60’s. The second stream, developed during the 1970’s, focuses on the human resource aspects of project management, in particular, organisational theory and project leadership. It is these two streams of project management research that has shaped project management practice for almost half a century. However, since the late 1990’s there has been a gradual shift towards a strategic stream of project management research. No longer are projects perceived as endeavours to provide tangible products or results. Rather projects are now viewed as vehicles for business transformation, continuous improvement, organisational change, and implementation of organisational strategy. This presentation considers the evolution of project management and the implication for current and future practice. The presentation demonstrates how changes in the global competitive environment, where the project is now viewed as component of the organisations long-term strategic objectives, has led to a change in the way projects are managed. With this, comes the demand for a new breed of project manager that not only has the necessary analytical skills and knowledge of new project developments, but is also able to provide transformational leadership, collaborations and strategic thinking, in the current and future world of project management.

A blended prototyping conceptual framework has been developed to enhance the speed to market using three dimensional virtual prototyping together & physical prototyping techniques. The solution and the resulting implications for the adjustment of the regarded prototyping procedures will be explained. A positive effect of adopting 3D virtual technology in sampling process such as reducing the number of samples produced, minimizing the prototypes’ development time and optimizing the prototypes ‘development process, will benefit the Apparel companies through the resource efficiency followed. The suggested framework would act as a guideline for future implementation and would evoke the interest of fashion retailing / import companies and Suppliers/ export companies to achieve a sustainable lean supply chain and to best use of digital prototyping for circular economy.

Historically, the application of Lean and Agile concepts in the context of managing projects has been associated with the software development projects at large. However, it has been realised, in recent years, that there is a growing interest in extending the proven to be an effective set of tools and techniques to other sectors beyond the software development sector. In this presentation, the aim is discuss the emerging trends within the Lean and Agile practice in the context of project management in a number of disciplines that includes but not limited to; event management; renovation and refurbishment projects; new product development and new service development projects, infra-structure projects, construction, etc... The presentation will reflect on the findings of recent research conducted by the strategic project management research group at Heriot Watt University- Dubai Campus, led by the speaker. In addition, the presentation will tap on the application of the Lean and Agile concepts in change management within various sectors. Finally, this presentation aims to set up the scene for further discussion through the scheduled discussion panel that will follow; with the prime objective to identify means and methods to narrow the perceived gap between academia and practice within the Lean and Agile methodology as applied to projects in carious sectors.

Typically, the academic world’s main aim is to provide students with the applied and desirable set of competencies based on well established underpinning theories. Such knowledge stems from contemporary, active and interactive research activities that should be based on a well defined agenda where the needs of the economy are the main drivers. Hence, the alignment and furthermore the synergy between the practice and academia let be taught programmes or research output should be imperative. There inactions from the Project Management practice amongst other disciplines that this is not the case. This panel aims to pose this question and seek views from the panelist as well as the floor on whether this gap exists or not, magnitude of difference and causes of the any disparities. The session should conclude by presenting some suggestions and recommendations towards getting both academic and practitioners closer for the benefit of both the practice and project managers as well as the economy at large.

This is a workshop to build product while practicing impact mapping, feature writing, specification by examples and applying test first approach. Workshop will cover all practices that will help in translating product vision to product increment. Facilitator will demonstrate how to convert specifications in code by using BDD tools.​​ Facilitator will help in crafting product vision, coming up with product features and introducing how to write examples for features. Session will demonstrate how to convert specification into product increment, living documents and build test automation. Learning objectives: • What is Impact Mapping and how to use it for product discovery? • How to create product features using Impact Mapping? • How to write examples for features while practicing specification by examples? • How to translate examples into test using BDD before writing code? • Importance of living code • Best practices for BDD

Careem is the most promising start-up in the UAE (according to Forbes at http://www.forbesmiddleeast.com/en/lists/people/pname/careem/pid/90822/) and is battling Uber for supremacy in the car hailing industry in the middle east. Andreas Hagglund is chief post-it writer and works with the business, product and engineering teams to build a truly agile organization. In this session he will tell you more about Careems journey and share some of the learnings from building a world class agile organization with in a boot-strapped company in the region. The session is intended to be more of a discussion and a Q&A; so please, come prepared to ask questions and participate.

Ever wondered why some teams and organisations don’t feel they can make Agile work for them? – Why do we often see teams implementing Agile, but without really getting the results they had hoped for? Should we change our expectations of the process, or is there something else we can do? Will fine-tuning the process and highlighting internal ownership even work, and how can we do that? These are just some of the questions that we will answer together in this session, targeted at new practitioners – we will cover a lot of real life scenarios and cases from the teams I’ve been working with and experiments I have been a part of.

Everyone seems to be thinking about Something Agile these days !. From organization big to small , from co-located ones to the large distributed ones, from the service companies to the product ones .But do we know what it takes to reap the benefits of adopting Agile Philosophy? In this session, we bring to you the secret sauce quintessential to reaping the benefits of Agile practices adoption for an organization. The 10 PEAS is the outcome of a decade of the authors’ work with small and large organization as an Agile Philosophy helper and describes the key drivers required to success with an Enterprise Agile Transformation initiative.

Agile means being responsive and adaptive to changes in market, business, and environment. With too much waste in your work, responding and adapting will not be fast enough, or may not be possible at all! In this interactive workshop, we will explain the famous 'Seven Wastes of Software Development' [1] using simulation games. You will feel the waste in the process and experience it, not only visualize or hear about it. You will also be able to quantify the effect of each type of waste and measure the improvement if you manage to reduce or eliminate it. Finally, we will do an exercise to identify which agile practices reduces which types of wastes. By attending this workshop, you will get insight about how to pinpoint wastes in your work; and accordingly, select correct agile practices which most reduce wastes you have. --- [1] Poppendieck, Mary and Tom. Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash. Addison-Wesley, 2006.

One of the biggest challenges of making things together is actually to communicate to other people what is our idea. Considering that humans are not so good at telepathy, the only tool we have is language. For years, people struggled on collect requirements in big books that no-one wants to read, until we tried in another way: telling stories. But even if the User Story format is something that may sound familiar to many, using it effectively isn’t that easy. This is not about the mantra-formula “as User…”. It’s a common-sense - sometimes opinionated - exploration on how we use user stories during the process of creating digital products. We’re going to see how to use it, how to avoid common pitfalls and how to get the real sense of “user stories”.

Economic climate demands a faster return on investment, often within the same year of the implementation. Implementing ERP solutions in the traditional waterfall way that takes up to 18 months before a customer can see the value of it is no longer acceptable. This presentation will discuss how we reduced ERP implementation time from 18 months to 6 months using a combination of DevOps and agile practices.