Agile Worlds 2012

Come with us on a tour of each venue we will use for the conference.   This will allow prepeartion and reheral so you will be ready to learn when the speakers hold their sessions.  Come and debug any audio or tech problems you may have with our experienced staff.  We will visit each platform in turn.

Integrated Reality is an enhancement of knowledge sharing through the complementary use of different technological tools.  Examples of such tools include virtual worlds, augmented reality, the web and mobile devices.  Next Generation virtual worlds will be tightly coupled to many other emerging technologies, leveraging modern knowledge management processes and providing platforms for broad use among teachers and learners.  This presentation provides an overview of the basic concepts of Integrated Reality, including an in-depth look at the role of 3d simulations and virtual world platforms.  It will include a live tour of Jibe.

Enter at http://pathfinder.jibemix.com/jibe/agileworlds.html  or view the live web broadcast in your browser.

Bob Moir, CPF, teaches the art of facilitation and will share some of his insights with us.

Arguably the most important role in a Scrum team is that of Product Owner. It’s also one of the most challenging. Part of that challenge comes from the agile community itself because the role has been so ill defined to-date. Most Product Owners are sort of thrown into a Scrum team with little guidance regarding the role and responsibilities.

Another part of the challenge is skill and time based. The role is nuanced and requires a broad set of skills and often more time than is available. However, the Product Owner must find a way to serve their team in driving product development.

In this session, Bob Galen will explore the practices and techniques, focus points, and patterns of a great Product Owner. One that serves their team well and effectively balances the demands of external stakeholders against the demands of their team. We’ll explore the dynamics of correctly defined Product Backlogs, establishing powerful Sprint Reviews, and explore approaches for creating a team-view towards filling all aspects of the Product Owner role. Finally we’ll examine how the Product Owner drives quality and value in meeting the teams’ commitments to the business.

Global teams are today's reality. Follow-the-sun distributed teams bring a complex web of time zone tracking, communications complexity and coordination challenges. A blend of approaches and tools can unleash high performance teamwork across time and space. This session explores best practices that develop consistent, effective communication and dramatically improved results, in local, regional and globally distributed settings. 

Open Space discussion at a Europe friendly time.  Folks can come and discuss topics selected from Agile, communication tools, or soft skills.  For accsss click on http://join.me/agiledimensions and Bill will guide you into the venue!

Educators, Counselors, and other professionals are discovering virtual world environments as a platform to deliver services and content. The challenge for those who help organizations and individuals initiate these valuable activities is to show intelligent people how to use tools that can be very foreign to them (we aren't ALL gamers).

This presentation will be based on actual experiences of training staff members at various human services agencies to adopt and adapt to virtual world usage and will explore the challenges and victories that have occurred in several projects over the last few years.

Examine the importance of your professional image and personal brand
and learn strategies for using this authentic and transparent virtual
entity in new media formats to communicate, collaborate, create, and
share high quality content. Understand the impact of the digital
revolution on all aspects of our lives, as the presenters share
examples of unique individual online identities and a variety of
perspectives on learning, working, and developing both an identity,
meaningful relationships, and building effective teams in virtual
communities.

Does distance mater?   Ideally, teams are co-located.  But in reality few are.  How do new tools help bridge the gap in distance?  Can they do more than just connect far away people?

How do you collaborate when you can’t see someone? When you’ve never met the other person? When you can’t tell if the other person is being sarcastic or nasty or has a strange sense of humor?

If you’ve ever worked on a geographically distributed team, you’ve wondered why the other person doesn’t appear to respond, or doesn’t appear to be listening to you, or doesn’t appear to understand you. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to matter what you say or how you say it, you say the wrong thing. Or, the other person does.

Can we solve this problem? We may not be able to solve this problem, but we have approaches for this problem, some of which might fit your situation. Johanna will provide several suggestions for overcoming the effects of distance on your collaboration skills.

This seminar discusses the ways and means in which projects facing high levels of auditing oversight can do everything right and still get the project wrong. The objective of this session is to have senior executive sponsors of projects consider the ways and means by which project managers and staff may be blocked from accomplishing their roles and responsibilities. This seminar will further discuss alternative approaches to removing these roadblocks while continuing to maintain appropriate levels of auditability, monitoring, and control over the project. This session is for anyone responsible for sponsoring projects and is subject to a high degree of auditing as part of their operational practices such as Federal Government Departments.