Dennis Stevens – Feeding the Agile Beast

Dennis Stevens is talking on “Feeding the Agile Beast“.

Kanban is being used by agile development teams to produce software faster and with higher quality than ever before. While agile works for small teams achieving these same benefits at the enterprise level has failed. Agile’s delivery cadence drives transparency which compels learning and adaptation. Within small teams, this learning and adaptation happens in real time. At scale, the adaptation and learning happens at different times resulting in a kind of intellectual version control problem that corrupts progress across teams.

Business capability analysis supports the cadence of agile development and has proven an effective control mechanism for these larger teams. This helps larger teams realize similar speed and quality results of smaller teams while remaining aligned with what is most valuable to the business.

Dennis Stevens has been helping organizations improve economic outcomes through improved technology alignment and software development since the mid-1980’s. Starting in 2000 he has been focused on developing business analysis and project management methods that leverage the incremental and iterative cadence of Lean and Agile delivery. His approach to capability analysis was the basis for Microsoft’s Business Architecture methodology, was published in Harvard Business Review in June 2008, and has contributed to improved performance in dozens of projects delivering over $200 million in value. Dennis has been certified as a Project Management Professional, in Lean Value Stream mapping, as an OPM3 Certified Consultant and a Certified Scrum Master. Dennis originally attended Florida State University on a violin scholarship and eventually earned his degree in Organizational Psychology and Development. He served as a US Marine during Desert Storm and earned a Naval Commendation Medal during Operation Fiery Vigil in the Philippines.