Impact London - first edition with James Lewis, Luca Grulla and David Santoro

We are very excited to be hosting our first Impact London meetup with talks from James Lewis (Director at Thoughtworks) and Luca Grulla (VP of Engineering at Signal AI). They will be joined by David Santoro (CTO at CarWow) for a panel discussion.

What we’re about
————————————————

Aligning engineering and the business; using non-dogmatic light-touch solutions to maximise impact on the business goals.

How can we have high-performing teams that deliver true business impact? How can we understand the problem, build the right thing, and build it right? Our starting position is that it shouldn't require high-ceremony processes, frameworks or certifications. Let's meet to answer these questions. Topics will range broadly over people, processes and technologies. Our philosophy is non-dogmatic, but runs with ideas that were the seeds of the agile, lean, continuous improvement movements including: cross-functional teams, focussing on the value, fast feedback enabling learning, short iterations, individual empowerment.

Who is this for?
————————————————

Engineers, engineering managers, product managers, UX researchers, UI designers, data scientists; Anyone interested in delivering true business impact.

Agenda
————————————————

For our first event we have a very strong lineup, with two great talks followed by a panel discussion.

18:30 - Snacks, Drinks and Networking
19:00 - Talks + Q & A
20:00 - Panel Discussion
20:30 - More Networking
21:00 - Finish

Talks and Panel
————————————————

Intro to Impact - Luca Grulla

In the fast moving world of digital innovation tech teams are the ones that should transform visions into reality. Unfortunately, way too often I see teams end up acting as a mere service provider, putting their attention on the wrong aspects and metrics. With “Impact” meetup we want to shift that mindset. Simplicity and focus on outcomes is the key to drive from the front seat of our businesses. Let’s make that happen.

About the Author:

Luca Grulla is the VP of Engineering at Signal AI.
Luca is a transformative technology leader, with a career spans across software development, technology consultancy and technology leadership. He has worked successfully with a range of organisations, from startups to enterprises, creating and leading high-performing teams.

Simple or Complex? - James Lewis

When building software we strive for simplicity in process and technology but often end up with complexity, In his talk James explores why this might be. Using examples from Biology, the Urban environment and the origins of life he will look to shed some light on why complexity maybe in fact the inevitable end result of systems built on simplicity

About the Author:

James Lewis is a Director at ThoughtWorks. As a member of the ThoughtWorks Technical Advisory Board, the group that creates the Technology Radar, he contributes to industry adoption of open source and other tools, techniques, platforms and languages. For the last few years he has been working as a coding architect on projects built using microservices; exploring new patterns and ways of working as he goes. James has spoken at a number of UK and international conferences. Topics range from domain driven design, SOA and the future of the web to agile adoption patterns and lean thinking. He’s also involved in the microservice community, having defined the term along with Martin Fowler in 2014.)

Panel Discussion

James Lewis (Director - ThoughtWorks)
Luca Grulla (VP Engineering - Signal AI)
David Santoro (Co-Founder and CTO - CarWow)

About David Santoro:
CTO and Co-Founder of carwow.com, a programmer at heart but more interested in creating successful businesses / products using technology rather than playing with cool tech.