The Agile 2015 conference ran in Washington, DC earlier this month with over 2300 attendees from around the globe.
This is a second article in a series looking at the sponsors who supported the conference. They were each asked to answer three questions – Who, What and Why. Who are they, What were they offering at the conference and Why did they choose to sponsor this event?
All the sponsors in the exhibitor hall were contacted and asked for the same information, not all responded. The responses below are the remainder of what were received by the end of the conference.
A full list of the sponsors can be found on the conference website.
Continuing reporting of the event is being covered on InfoQ.
Scott Ambler + Associates (SA+A) help IT teams become awesome through adopting disciplined agile ways of working. There are several reasons why SA+A chose to be a sponsor at Agile 2015 this year. First and foremost, it’s always a great conference and we would have sent several people to it anyway. Second, several of our enterprise customers were there and we wanted to spend time with them. Third, we felt it was a great opportunity to get word out about our new book, Introduction to Disciplined Agile Delivery, which we gave out in the attendee bags. Fourth, we knew we would have some great conversations with some really smart people. In fact, we spent a lot of time taking with people about Disciplined Agile 2.0, which you can read about at http://DisciplinedAgileDelivery.com, and how teams are adopting disciplined agile strategies to up their agile game.
We are Zephyr, the provider of the best real-time test management solutions on the planet. Our mission is to support the software quality initiatives of our global customers, allowing them to be more responsive and make better decisions, faster. With software testing and quality assurance engrained in our DNA, we are wholly committed to transforming how test management is implemented and we are devoted to raising the bar on software quality around the world.
We are excited to be at Agile2015 because it is the premier event regarding agile methodologies in the software industry, and we are the premier tool for helping project teams successfully make that transition. We know that making the move to agile is a journey and we would like to establish ourselves as a thought leader and innovator in this space. Agile2015 offers the perfect platform for us to network with like-minded professionals, add to our breadth of knowledge, and share how we can support with the agile revolution.
Founded in 2001, SCRUM ALLIANCE® is the largest, most established and influential professional membership organization in the Agile community. SCRUM ALLIANCE® is a nonprofit association with more than 400,000 members worldwide. Its mission is to "Transform the World of Work" by guiding organizations to become prosperous and sustainable, to inspire people, and to create value for society. Scrum is at the foundation of all its products, services, and solutions. For more information, please visit www.scrumalliance.org.
New CEO Manny Gonzalez said, "I want to personally thank everyone I met at the Agile Alliance conference in Washington DC earlier this month. It was great to be able to shake hands and spend some time with so many dedicated and passionate Scrum professionals.”
This is an exciting time for our organization! We believe Scrum Alliance® is at the perfect stage to truly make a difference in the world, especially because the organization has achieved three very important milestones:
Critical mass -- With more than 400,000 members globally, we have the size many of our members, trainers, corporations, and other partners can benefit from.
Brand equity -- Scrum Alliance is known for providing premier services to the community. This is critical to any company’s future, and we have it.
Momentum -- The organization has picked up a momentum over the past few years that allows us to be a platform to truly Transform the World of Work.® Our membership has grown exponentially over the years, the number of people seeking certification in Scrum has also grown significantly, and these are positive signs for our future.
Stay tuned, Scrum Alliance has several exciting new services coming for our members in 2016!
Mindtree delivers digital transformation and technology services from ideation to execution enabling Global 2000 clients to outperform competitors. Mindtree was ‘Born Digital’ and continues to bring extraordinary depth across the entire digital value-chain. With a strong blend of expertise and execution, Mindtree delivers remarkable customer experiences while driving greater efficiency and modernizing business operations. Mindtree’s expertise in infrastructure and applications management, combined with the unique Agile Center-of-Excellence, ensures that our clients release products and services to market faster and more cost-efficiently.
Mindtree’s Agile Center of Excellence (ACoE), located in Gainesville, FL, is within three hours of all North American clients enabling exceptional collaboration through always on real-time video feeds. Built from the ground up to support Agile, the ACoE has a large number of Agile experts along with Automated Test Engineers, Dynamic Architecture Engineers, CD Engineers, Agile Analytics Experts, and UX designers. As SAFe Gold Partners, Mindtree’s ACoE also houses Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) certified experts—meaning that we can help customers execute Lean-Agile practices across their enterprise. This concentration of talent and skills is unique, even on a global scale. The heart of the ACoE and Agile projects across Mindtree is the Agile Nerve Center. This high-tech ideation lab and communications hub enables innovation and ensures high project transparency for our clients.
AgileTrailblazers® is a consultancy firm specializing in helping medium-to-large scale organizations to achieve Continuous Business Value Delivery® through our Business Transformation, DevOps, and Solutions Delivery services. AgileTrailblazers® have been at the forefront of influencing and leading large scale agile transformations in traditionally change-resistant industries, such as financial services and health care. These transformations were always focused on the end results which were achieved – higher quality product delivery, increased throughput of product feature/function, shortened time-to-market, and highly engaged associates.
As Gold Sponsors at Agile 2015, we really wanted to connect with the Agile community, understand the Agile transformation challenges, and engage in some great conversations about what is possible and how AgileTrailblazers can help companies blaze the trail to their next Agile destination. To get to know each other more, we are offering our complimentary Introductory Sessions to those blazing the trails at these companies.
Axosoft was founded in 2002 and has since established a powerful, agile project management tool used by over 11,000 software development teams across the globe. At the foundation of Axosoft’s tool is the agile methodology, which focuses on people over process, champions collaboration, and lends itself to moving quickly, innovatively and consciously. Axosoft CEO Lawdan Shojaee has created a culture that embodies this creative software development process and puts people – customers and employees – at the forefront. Axosoft’s fun, innovative culture is reflected in their passion to grow the tech ecosystem and create positive change across the tech industry. This is no more apparent than in the #ItWasNeverADress campaign they created to shift perceptions and empower women in the tech industry and beyond.
The Axosoft team was excited to see an increase in the number of women in attendance at Agile2015, in comparison to previous years and similar events. Being present at these events helps Axosoft to connect with agile practitioners and ensure they're constantly innovating to meet the needs of customers. This year, conference attendees were especially impressed by Axosoft's new release planning capabilities, powerful process automation, collaboration tools, and integrated customer service.
We are a group of Agile coaches and trainers who believe people’s lives can be improved by transforming the way they work. Our team helps instill Lean and Agile practices in a pragmatic approach to improve skills and knowledge, define processes to promote collaboration, and improve product quality and spark innovation both at the enterprise and team levels.
As we evolve with the global Agile community, we enjoy sharing ideas and supporting the people behind the theories. We decided to send our entire LitheSpeed team to Agile2015 because we recognize the importance of learning and connecting as a vital part of the Agile journey. We were ecstatic to sponsor this event for the first time ever, and look forward to Agile2016 in Atlanta.
At our booth, our fun and collaborative spirit was represented with a snack bar and interactive button making station. We also introduced our new game "Cards for Agility,” developed by our own Bob (@agiletoolkit) and Beth (@BethMiller1024)- downloadable for free on our website.
This year in particular is huge for us because we are launching the Agile Executive Series- short books for transforming organizations, from teams up to the enterprise. Our first installment is Scaling Agile: A Lean JumpStart by our President, Sanjiv Augustine.
Temenos+Agility is a global consulting firm specializing in Lean-Agile Leadership, Enterprise Agility, and Enterprise Change. We are one of the few worldwide SAFe SPCT Gold Partners with 100+ years of combined experience in Enterprise Agility, Organization and Leadership transformation.
We had a number of rich conversations at Agile 2015 centered around Enterprise Transformation. It was inspiring to listen to your stories and share practical experiences.
We have seen that the high speed world of business today evokes and provokes desperation in the leaders and their teams towards the unaligned actions that contradict the shared vision of their organizations. Our approach helps to produce great leaders, who always embrace organizational changes with warm hearts and lead others to the way of lean transformation.
We offer a variety of Temenos Experiential Labs and programs for internal, external, and executive change agents, thus enabling your change agents to lead your enterprise transformation. Our SPCTs deliver Enterprise Agility Advisory services through SAFe Training and Consulting to help you get your change agents trained and your organization prepared to deliver value at scale.
We were Platinum Sponsors of Agile 2015 for two very simple reasons. The first was to give back to the community. The second was to share the knowledge of Temenos.
The true power resides in the "+". Temenos+Agility is a bonding experience of two parallels, Agility aligned with the Temenos theory frames a healthy organizational culture. We have successfully enabled several large-scale enterprises in their digital transformations by applying this powerful combination.
We look forward to continuing the conversation. Please visit our website to find out more about our offerings and services.
Tempo is a recognized leader in project and portfolio management solutions for Atlassian’s popular JIRA platform, with customers ranging from small startups to large-scale distributed Fortune 50 enterprises with over 10,000 users at more than 6,000 organisations, located in over 100 countries. Businesses can tailor Tempo Planner, Tempo Folio, Tempo Timesheets, and Tempo Books add-ons on top of JIRA and JIRA Agile for enhanced planning, budgeting, and tracking on scope, schedule, and costs across their organisations in real-time.
Tempo provides comprehensive and scalable solutions for all business needs and JIRA Data Center support for larger JIRA customers. As of now, Tempo Timesheets and Tempo Planner are already available as cloud solutions and to fully respond to evolving customer needs and the changing landscape of project management software, Tempo aims to have all of its products accessible as SaaS solutions by the end of this year.
Tempo has come to realise — and especially after Agile2015 — that agile has evolved to mean a lot of different things over the years, growing to influence a variety of industries that span beyond software development teams. The government track at this year’s conference intrigued us, especially the use of agile earned value management (EVM) for budgeting, financial reporting, and agile project management at U.S. government agencies and contractors. Our Tempo Folio add-on offers EVM fully integrated into JIRA for real-time budgeting and cost control on all projects throughout an organization.
Tempo was a Gold sponsor at Agile2015 for the second consecutive year in a row where we aimed at introducing our solutions to attendees and fellow Agilists, highlighting our cloud solutions and how Tempo products work even better together. We hope that everybody had a good and educated time at Agile2015 and can’t wait to attend Agile2016.
With additional reporting by Shane Hastie.