software development – Erika for President

We had a great day here in Atlanta for the DevNexus Conference. Venkat Subramaniam kicked off the morning with a funny and thoughtful keynote and I have learned so much in all of the presentations I’ve attended.

The organizers outdid themselves on speaker gifts this year – my favorite being the awesome personalized jersey.

The turnout for my 4:00 PM slot impressed me – by 4:00 at a conference like this, my brain is usually beyond full. I appreciated their interest and attentiveness! If the free building block toy giveaways helped at all, W00t!

Several people asked me if I would make the slide deck available. You can view the entire presentation below. If you want a downloadable version, just send me a private message and I’ll make sure you get it.

As I sit here putting the finishing touches on my presentation for DevNexus 2019, I realize just how excited I am about this year’s conference. I used to say DevNexus was a great “smaller, regional conference,” but it has grown and improved so much over the years that it has become one of my favorite conferences to attend. Every time I go I come back energized — full of new ideas and gained knowledge.

I went a new direction with my presentation this year. I’ve have been introducing people to Agile Development for sooooo looooong… This time, I assume everyone already has the basics down, allowing myself to dig a lot deeper, and to get more technical. One of the things I love most is helping people solve real word problems!

Navigating the Slippery Slope of Emergent Design confronts a common problem I see on a number of maturing Agile teams. With many companies lacking a Software Architect role, teams find themselves forced to make important decisions mid-sprint, often from a naturally-occurring miopic viewpoint, with sometimes disastrous consequences later on in the project.

How can this be avoided? I would LOVE to talk to you all about it! If you’re attending the conference, I invite you to come chat with me at 4:00 PM on Thursday, March 6 in room 105.