Agile Caravanserai

David Anderson is an internationally recognized thought leader and pioneer of the Kanban Methodology. He's the founder of the David J Anderson School of Management as well as the CEO of Mauvius Group Inc.

David is the author of seven books on Kanban. David co-created the Kanban Maturity Model, the Fit for Purpose Framework, and Enterprise Services Planning. His degree in electronics and computer science started him out in the gaming industry, where he then pivoted to the software industry as an acclaimed author, coach, speaker, and consultant. Over the last 25 years, David has worked at IBM, Sprint, Motorola, and Microsoft.

In the early 2000s, a group of agilists including LitheSpeed founder Sanjiv Augustine and David Anderson co-authored the Declaration of Interdependence and also co-founded the Agile Project Leadership Network. One of the key things on which David and Sanjiv connected is the passionate belief that organizations should always be networked, with a "thin center." That is, a very small central unit in a completely distributed network. That federated mindset imbues all of David's work.

Naresh Jain is an award-winning, internationally recognized Technology & Product Development Expert. Naresh is the Founder of the tech startup Xnsio, as well as a veteran conference producer and agile/lean expert.

Over the last 15 years, Naresh has helped many Unicorns and fortune 500 companies like Jio, Google, Amazon, JP Morgan, Hike, Directi, HP, Siemens Medical, GE Energy, Schlumberger, EMC, CATechnologies, etc. to streamline their product development. His hands-on approach of coaching teams by focusing on product discovery and engineering excellence is really a key differentiator. Naresh is also responsible for creating and organizing over 100 international conferences including Agile India, Agile Coach Camp, Functional Conf, Open Data Science Conference, Simple Design And Testing Conference (SDTConf), Selenium Conf, Appium Conf, jQuery & Open Web Conference, and Eclipse Summit India.

Evan Leybourn is the Co-Founder and CEO of the Business Agility Institute.

As well as leading the Business Agility Institute, Evan is also the author of Directing the Agile Organisation (2012) and #noprojects; a culture of continuous value (2018).

AGILE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT IS ABOUT CHANGE; CHANGING HOW YOU THINK, CHANGING HOW YOU WORK, AND CHANGING THE WAY YOU INTERACT. BY ACCEPTING, EMBRACING, AND SHAPING CHANGE ACROSS YOUR ORGANISATION, YOU CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF NEW OPPORTUNITIES TO OUTPERFORM, AND OUT-COMPETE, IN THE MARKET.

Today, Evan continues to help evolve SAFe®'s knowledge base of proven best practices, and bring the benefits of software agility and lean thinking to the largest software enterprises.

This episode is proudly sponsored by Emergence, the journal of business agility. This quarterly publication brings you inspiring stories from the most innovative companies and explores themes of new ways of working, reclaiming management, and humanizing business.

Each issue is hand illustrated and 100% content. Use the promo code lithespeed to get a 10% discount on your annual subscription. Visit businessagility.institute/emergence to find out more.

Dean Leffingwell is the Cofounder and Chief Methodologist at Scaled Agile. Dean is an entrepreneur who is best known for creating the Scaled Agile Framework for the enterprise, or SAFe®.

He has long history of entrepreneurship, having founded several successful startups, including Requisite, Inc. (acquired by Rational). Dean is also the author of several foundational books, including Agile Software Requirements, Scaling Software Agility, and SAFe® Distilled.

Today, Dean continues to help evolve SAFe's knowledge base of proven best practices, and bring the benefits of software agility and lean thinking to the largest software enterprises.

Howard Sublett is the Chief Product Owner and CEO of the Scrum Alliance. Howard has been a force to reckon with in the Scrum and Agile communities for a while.

He has a talent for bringing people together in his inimitable style. Howard is focused on people – who they are and what they need, and lives according to the mantra that strangers are only friends he hasn't met.

He is passionate about making workplaces joyful, sustainable, and prosperous with agile principles, practices, and values—and about sharing this message with the world.

Today, Howard is leading the Scrum Alliance in our turbulent world. Without doubt, he has a deep commitment to the mission of the Scrum Alliance, and to the agile movement at large.

Professor Rashina Hoda is the Associate Dean in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University, Melbourne. Rashina is an award-winning researcher and an international expert in human-centered software engineering specializing in agile software development.

Her research covers agile transformations, self-organizing agile teams, agile project management, large-scale agile, and serious game design for 21st century skills. Today, Rashina continues to play a hugely valuable role in academia by providing the theoretical bases for agile methods and for the success that the rest of us take for granted.

Deepti Jain is the founder of the India-based agile consulting firm Agile Virgin, and an agile coach, trainer and mentor. She is also the Agile Alliance's India Community Development Chief.

Personally, Deepti loves to connect and interact with people and prefers to call herself a social scientist.

A tireless entrepreneur, she is the driving force behind several conferences including AgilityToday, Agile-A-Thon, FUnconf, Change Agents Summit, and Women-in-Agile-and-Tech.

In 2021, the agile community is truly global. Since the agile movement was founded in the U.S.A, those of us based here have long been blessed with an embarrassment of agile riches.

Deepti is doing her part to ensure that agilists in India and South Asia get to engage more fully in the global agile movement.

Ellen Grove is the Interim Managing Director of the Agile Alliance, and an agile coach, trainer and organizational change agent with Agile Partnership.

In 2013, Ellen partnered with LitheSpeed on an agile transformation.

As an Agile coach, Ellen has worked with organizations of all sizes – from software startups to public sector agencies and global data networking enterprises. She helps them transition to Agile work at the team and leadership levels using Scrum, Lean, Kanban, SAFe and other Agile frameworks.

If you've had the pleasure of meeting Ellen in person, you'll know that she has a calm, no-nonsense leadership presence. Ellen has given selflessly to the agile community, and volunteered her time at tons of agile events worldwide over the years.

Today, Ellen is leading the Agile Alliance in our turbulent pandemic world.

As the Agile Alliance prepares for its very first completely virtual conference, Ellen certainly has her hands full.

After a series of Agile Caravanserai conversations with the authors of the Agile Manifesto, let's pivot to conversations with senior leaders in industry and also in the agile community.

Michael Carrel is the Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Marketing & Enterprise Growth Solutions at Nationwide Insurance.

I've been privileged to know Michael for 14 years. We first met in 2007 when we partnered with Michael and his amazing team of agile leaders.

Today, as Nationwide moves decisively into a new era with many pandemic challenges, Michael is right there – this time at the helm of Marketing and Enterprise Growth IT.

Andy Hunt is one of the 17 Agile Manifesto authors, and a well-known author, publisher and musician.

Andy has long impressed me with his commitment to the discipline of software development. Unlike those who get lost in arcane techniques and tools, Andy has long championed a straightforward pragmatic approach.

Along with fellow manifesto author Dave Hunt, Andy authored the seminal book, The Pragmatic Programmer as far back as October 1999. Andy and Dave also founded the Pragmatic Bookshelf series of books with a simple goal: to improve the lives of professional developers.

Andy and Dave create timely, practical books and videos to help developers learn and practice their craft, and accelerate their careers. They incorporate stories and analogies like the broken windows theory and the boiling frog to convey concepts in simple, memorable ways.

Andy has written over a dozen books, including science fiction novels, and tweets about code, life, and zen at @PragmaticAndy.