The Agile 2011 conference organisers have anounced the three keynote speakers for the conference to be held in August at Salt Lake City.
There are three keynote speakers, each with a different focus to their presentations:
- Dr. Barbara Fredrickson: "Why Care about Positive Emotions?" (Tuesday, August 9 at 9 a.m. MDT)
- Kevlin Henney: "Code" (Friday, August 12 at 9 a.m. MDT)
- Linda Rising: "The Power of an Agile Mindset" (Friday, August 12 at 11 a.m. MDT)
Todd Little, the conference chair says
The Agile Alliance is committed to delivering meaningful content to the community which causes them to stop, pause and reflect on the current software development techniques and approaches they are deploying within their organizations. The combination of technical expertise, academic knowledge and industry experience from this year's keynote speakers will provide attendees with proven best practices to implement and share.
About the talks
Dr. Barbara Frdricksoen has spent two decades researching emotions, to help understanding how humans thrive and grow. She and her colleagues have found that experiencing positive emotions in a 3-to-1 ratio with negative ones leads people to a tipping point beyond which they naturally become more resilient to adversity and lead more Agile, vibrant, flourishing lives. Positive emotions literally change the way the human brain works, widening people's perspectives, and their outlooks on life. According to Fredrickson's broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, this shift in mindset drives people to discover and build new traits, skills, and resources, and over time become better versions of themselves. Her talk is titled "Why Care about Positive Emotions" and describes the science that backs up these claims and describe the nonconscious upward spiral processes that enable people to thrive with agility.
Kevin Henny examines "Code": Code is the stuff of software. It is the definition of the software. It is the enabler of functionality, the realizer of business value, the expression of understanding. It is also an expression of misunderstanding, a resister of change, a source of sunk costs. But the word code has meanings beyond source and binary. In a broader sense, code and codes are also the stuff of software development. There are cultures of programming, principles of practice, and manifestos of desire. Code refers to a set of conventions by which a group of people will govern themselves. As with source code, other codes need to be open to change and to question. In all senses, code is a means and model of communication. This talk will explore technical and non-technical sides of code, from questions of craft and agility to questions of culture and doctrine.
Linda Rising will elaborate upon whether much of Agile's success was the result of the placebo effect, that is, good things happened because we believed they would. Research has identified "an Agile mindset," an attitude that equates failure and problems with opportunities for learning, a belief that we can all improve over time, that our abilities are not fixed but evolve with effort. Rising will share information about the impact of an Agile mindset on creativity and innovation, estimation, and collaboration in and out of the workplace. She'll relate what's known about this mindset and share some practical suggestions that can help all attendees become even more Agile.
More InfoQ news about the Agile 2011 conference can be found here.
