This my keynote speech for YAPC::Europe, 2012. It went over very well, but it is effectively a rough draft of this concept and needs work. However, it was popular enough that people kept asking to see it, even in its incomplete form.

1. Agile Companies Go P.O.P.
T O WA R D S A N E W A G I L E M A N I F E S T O
CURTIS “OVID” POE
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

2. Keynotes
Why are you here?
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

3. Are Great Companies Lucky?
 Published in Harvard Business Review
 Over 20,000 Companies
 From 1966 to 2006
 http://hbr.org/2009/04/are-great-companies-just-
lucky/ar/1
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

4. Most studies
Most studies
are crap
are crap
http://www.flickr.com/photos/redwoodphotography/4356518997/
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe http://www.flickr.com/photos/redwoodphotography/4356518997/§

5. Sharpshooter Problem
Shoot first. Announce your target.
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

6. Reality trumps opinion
Book Apparent Superstars Real Superstars
Alchemy of Growth 29 0%
Big Winners/Big Losers 9 13%
Blueprint to a Billion 26 8%
Breakthrough Company 9 17%
Built to Last 18 7%
Creative Destruction 11 0%
Good to Great 11 0%
Granularity of Growth 42 0%
In Search of Excellence 14 0%
Peak Performance 21 0%
Profit from the Core 32 17%
Stall Points 67 0%
What Really Works 14 0%
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

7. ?
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

8. Between
Between
players of
equal skill, a
bad strategy
beats no
strategy.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chess-king.JPG
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

9. So let’s pick a good plan
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

10. A Bad Plan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Waterfall_model_(1).svg
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

11. Worst Case Scenario
 Lots of meetings
 Big projects
 AgileisAmateur
 Process is everything
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

12. Conform
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

13. P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

14. Agile Manifesto
1. Individuals over process
2. Software over documentation
3. Customer collaboration over negotiation
4. Change over plans
http://agilemanifesto.org/
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

15. Chess
Goal Checkmate
Strategy Plan to achieve your goal
Tactics Moves to support your strategy
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

16. Business
Goal Mission statement
Strategy An agile company
Tactics P.O.P.
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

17. What is P.O.P.?
P eople
O rganization
P rocess
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

18. People
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

19. People Are Everything
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

20. Unstructured Interviews
 Interviewers aren’t trained in interviews
 Different candidates/different questions
 Personality valued over performance
 Very little predictive power
https://apps.opm.gov/ADT/ContentFiles/SIGuide09.08.08.pdf
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

21. Structured Interviews
 Same questions in same order
 Focused on specific skills needed
 Excellent predictive power
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

22. Structured Interviews
1. Job analysis
2. Determine desired skills
3. Develop questions
4. Goal, role, action, score, speculation (GRASS)
5. Immediately assess answers
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

23. Organization
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

24. Eyjafjallajökull Eruption 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eyjafjallajokull_volcano_plume_2010_04_18.JPG
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

25. Agile Organizations
 Everyone is an owner
 Ownership means responsibility
 Responsibility requires authority
 Authority requires information
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

26. Agile Organizations
 Small projects over large projects
 Information over opinion
 Employees are as important as customers
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

27. Ownership Implies Trust
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

28. Trust
 Did you hire the right people?
 Trust them to make decisions
 Decisions require information
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

29. Information
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

30. Log Everything
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ex_magician/4931775369/
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

31. Monitor Everything
Monitor Everything
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eyes_at_the_Prague_Police_Museum.jpg
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

32. Challenge Assumptions
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leaning_Tower-Pisa.jpg
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

33. Large projects fail
http://www.ralentz.com/old/space/feynman-report.html
http://www.idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Space_Shuttle_Columbia_launching.jpg

34. Break Down Large Projects
 Don’t do large projects (major caveats!)
 Do a series of small projects
 Each should add value
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

35. VA LV E
http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

36. Process
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

37. This Subroutine
sub perambulate {
my @thingies = @_;
foreach my $thing (@thingies) {
# validate the thingy
}
return @thingies;
}
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

38. 5 lines of code …
5 page “code review”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/titouanrusso/6153880964/
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

39. Workflow: Management Perspective
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

40. Workflow: Developer Perspective
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

41. Workflow: Agile Perspective
 Compromise
 Tasks, not processes
 Testing, logging, and monitoring
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

42. Continuous … What?
 Continuous integration is old-skool!
 Try continuous deployment
 Courage instead of fear
 Minimize risk/maximize reward
Continuous Deployment at IMVU: Doing the impossible fifty times a day
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

43. Testing
 TDD is not QA Testing
 Tradeoffs between unit/integration testing
 A/B test your bug fixes!
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:94-707-6_hybrid_rocket_test.jpg
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

44. Agile Project Management
 XP?
 Scrum?
 Kanban?
 Crystal?
 Something else?
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

45. Implementing P.O.P.
 Becoming agile is a hard project
 An agile project
 One step at a time
 High value steps first
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

46. Implementing P.O.P.
 Hiring: easy and hard
 Talk to your employees
 Assess risk/reward
 Pareto!
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

47. Once You’re Agile
 Never forget your goal
 Always question your processes
 Agile is a mindset, not a process
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

48. Agile Manifesto
1. People over process
2. Software over documentation
3. Customer collaboration over negotiation
4. Change over plans
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe

49. A New Agile Manifesto?
1. People over process
2. Information over opinion
3. Courage over fear
4. Change over plans
P.O.P. Copyright 2012, Curtis "Ovid" Poe