Uncertainty and Your Brain, Handling Risk in an Agile Environment

Everything we do carries some amount of risk, from getting out of bed in the morning to skydiving. Even writing software is risky! How do we handle those risks? Are common approaches to risk management still applicable in the Agile world?

If you've ever struggled with how to handle risk on an Agile program then come join us to see why our brains make us react in a mostly risk averse way, what we can do about it, and how Agile specifically addresses many aspects of software risk. Also, we will look at how an Agile program can live in harmony with enterprise risk departments.

We’ll have fun along the way. We’ll play some games, we’ll see how cognitive biases often mess us up, we’ll find out why people play the lottery, and how you can avoid gambling with your software projects.

Bios of the presenters:

Wayne is a seasoned Agile professional who believes that work should be fun as well as productive. Drawing on a wide variety of experience, he is able to help individuals, teams, and entire organizations to see measurable improvements in their efforts. He has a background in software development and has worked with startups to enterprise organizations, in healthcare, media, retail, government, transportation, and financial sectors and has noticed that common patterns emerge which can be leveraged to our advantage. He will use coaching and mentoring techniques to help you explore options and choose paths to make your work great!

Vivian Xu is an experienced agile lead in financial service and non-profit environments. Vivian has managed multi-million dollar integration and operational automation projects in complex high-pressure environments. A passionate Agile evangelist, Vivian recently completed her advanced scrum master and product owner (A-CSM and A-CSPO) certifications. Following Vivian's completion of the Certified Agile Leadership (CAL), she is intent on growing her agile leadership skills and experience. Vivian has recently presented at the Toronto Agile Conference and PMI Toronto and is an engaged community member and frequent speaker. Vivian is recognized for bringing customer experience and business agility to distributed teams.