GOTO is a vendor independent international software development conference with more that 90 top speaker and 1300 attendees. The conference cover topics such as .Net, Java, Open Source, Agile, Architecture and Design, Web, Cloud, New Languages and Processes

Presentation: "Navigating Politics in Agile/Lean Initiatives"

Track: People & Process - Day 1 / Time: Thursday 10:20 - 11:10 / Location: Grandball

Have you ever wondered why, when you’ve finally got Agile/Lean working nicely in your software engineering team, managers or ‘outsiders’ can come in and create politics ‘un-necessarily’, despite your best efforts?  Have you ever sat there in meetings frustrated and exasperated at the seemingly unnecessary dramatics some participants go through?
 
Or, when you start an Agile/Lean initiative, the surrounding politics in the company sometimes escalate rather than decrease?  Or perhaps you are struggling with some internal team members who just can’t seem to drop the politics and adapt to ‘this different way of working’….
 
What’s going on?  Why doesn't pure data, logic, transparency and collaboration always work?
 
In order to provide new insights as to why this happens and what we can do about it, in this talk, Katherine draws on eastern and tribal philosophy to ‘kick off’ different thinking and find practical and realistic ways that deal positively with destructive politics and/or prevent scenarios like these from even happening in the first place.

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Katherine Kirk, Independent Consultant & Researcher

Katherine Kirk

Biography: Katherine Kirk

Now an independent consultant and researcher, Katherine has solid experience contracting and freelancing in a variety of roles within the IT and Media industries: from blue chip investment banking to media conglomerates. Most recently she spent time as an Agile Coach at Rally after a period consulting as Delivery Improvement Specialist, Project Manager and Agile Coach at the BBC in the Future Media division in London. Katherine often finds herself specifically tasked with working with really "troubled" projects, where simplistic solutions don't quite cut it.

She is an active participant of a community of Lean and Agile practitioners in Europe who explore and challenge the status quo through experimenting and collaborating and is particularly interested in contextually driven edge-cases and the cultural interaction between hierarchical management and Agile teams. She supports this interest by studying an MSc in Software Engineering at University of Oxford, specializing in Process Improvement, Managing Quality and Risk, and Software Systems Security. Katherine also holds a first class BSc (Hons) Multimedia Computing.