Session Title

Dependency Myth Busting – Avoiding the Widely Held Beliefs That Can Kill Your Agility at Scale

Abstract

Dependencies are killing your agility and you want to fight back. A common belief is that if we just re-organize ourselves “correctly” (for example, organize 100% into feature teams) we can eliminate dependencies. This is a myth. Certainly re-organizing can help, but eliminating all dependencies when trying to do agile at scale is not practical. There are many other beliefs that cloud our minds when dealing with dependencies. For example, if we could just identify all of the dependencies upfront, we could manage them. Or if we just had a more detailed dependency-management process with awesome tool support, we could tame our dependencies. Yeah, no.

In this session Ken will bust many of the common myths surrounding how to best deal with dependencies. He will provide critical insight drawn from his years of experience working with many different clients and their dependency issues. At the end of the session, you will be in a better position to evaluate your organization’s approach to dependency management and begin utilizing reality-based rather than myth-based approaches that will actually help lessen the impact of dependencies.

Bio

Ken Rubin is an agile thought leader and the author of Amazon’s #1 worldwide best-selling book Essential Scrum: A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile Process. Ken founded Innolution where he helps organizations achieve outstanding returns through the application of agile principles. Trained as a computer scientist and forged into a business executive at IBM and ten early-stage technology companies, Ken’s distinctive strength is his ability to successfully apply an agile mindset from the boardroom to the individual team. As a Certified Scrum Trainer, Ken has trained over 30,000 people on six continents in agile as well as object-oriented technology. He has also coached over 200 companies ranging from startups to Fortune 10, and is an angel investor and mentor to numerous exciting startups. Ken was also the first managing director of the worldwide Scrum Alliance, a non-profit organization that has certified over one million agile practitioners.