October 2020 Meeting at SQGNE (online)

      View the slides       •       View recorded [Zoom] presentation

Critical Delivery Metrics in the “New Normal” World


Speakers: Charlie Ponsonby and Will Lytle, Plandek

Wednesday October 21, 2020   —   breakouts/networking 6-6:30, meeting 6:30-8

The world has changed dramatically and a “new normal” has appeared almost overnight — a time of remote working, great uncertainty, changing priorities and dramatic cost pressures.

Software delivery teams sit at the heart of this challenging new environment as organizations look to them to deliver more, for less in strategically critical areas.

Metrics, visibility across teams and risk management were already an increasing priority in Agile software delivery — particularly in large scale organizations. But recent events have seen these catapulted from important to essential, as the “new normal” world presents a whole new set of challenges.

This presentation uses case studies to show how those organisations which adopt a framework of continuous improvement built around a meaningful set of metrics deliver software better.

Takeaways attendees should look to gain:

  • Organizations that track and drive continuous improvement around meaningful software delivery metrics perform better in the “new normal” world.
  • This requires the ability to define and track a set of inter-related delivery metrics — from core “North Star” metrics at a collective (technology leadership) level, to determinant metrics owned by teams and managers across the end-to-end delivery process
  • Organizations will define their own set of metrics related to their own particular delivery environment and objectives. However, popular “North Star” metrics include: Time to Value, Deployment Frequency, and Team Engagement. Popular cascaded delivery metrics for managers and teams include: Flow Efficiency, Cycle Time, Completion Rate, and Engineer Morale Score.

About the Speakers:

Charlie Ponsonby is Co-founder and Co-CEO of Plandek. He started his career as an economist in the developing world, before moving to Andersen Consulting. He was founder and CEO of the UK e-commerce company Simplifydigital. Simplifydigital was founded in 2007 and was three times in the UK Tech Track 100 (fastest growing technology companies) and grew to become the UK's largest broadband comparison service. It was acquired by Dixons Carphone plc in April 2016. Charlie co-founded Plandek with Dan Lee in October 2017. Plandek is an end-to-end delivery metrics analytics and BI platform, to help technology teams better manage delivery risk and improve their delivery effectiveness. Plandek is used by clients globally including Reed Elsevier, Jato Dynamics, Autotrader.ca and Secret Escapes.

Will Lytle is a senior technology leader, specializing in digital transformation and leading cross-functional delivery teams. He has over 16 years of global experience built on digital delivery expertise, operating models, developing talent, and helping businesses shape and deliver technology-enabled business transformations. Will joined the Plandek leadership team from Deloitte as Customer Success Director. He is passionate about helping our clients build high performing, motivated delivery teams, and works closely with them to identify their biggest delivery challenges, form meaningful objectives, and find the right metrics to drive success.

Meetings are held on the *THIRD* Wednesday of each month from September through June, until the pandemic at the offices of RSA, 174 Middlesex Turnpike, Bedford, MA 01730. We want to serve our members as best we can and intend to resume in-person meetings when the CoVid-19 danger subsides. Sorry, we haven't figured out how to distribute free Flatbread pizza through an Internet connection.

Early participants can join a Zoom breakout room for networking 6:00-6:30.
(Please also provide ideas on ways to improve the online networking.)
Thanks to SQGNE Director Mike Arnold for getting us onto Zoom and running our online meetings.

Quality is everyone's job but not everyone's specialty. Whatever your role, SQGNE helps you better understand and apply software quality to improve your job and career performance. Attending monthly meetings, reading and posting on the SQGNE LinkedIn Group, and volunteering in various SQGNE capacities all contribute to your benefit. Thanks for volunteering go to new President Darin Kalashian and Clerk Pratik Shah.

Because of uncertainty regarding in-person meetings, we'll be conducting online Zoom meetings at least through December, which gives us the opportunity to have outstanding non-local speakers like Charlie Ponsonby and Will Lytle. In order to present programs that help you, we need you to recommend monthly presentation topics and hopefully also speakers, including yourself.

SQGNE is initiating economical, convenient online professional training, including “A Practitioner’s Guide To Agile/Scrum Software Development” and “CSQE Exam Prep”. Contact Darin Kalashian at seminars@SQGNE.org or darin@dskquality.com for more information and to discuss additional topics.

SQGNE relies on sponsors like Checkpoint Technologies and Flatbread Pizza of Bedford to enable us to continue our 27th season as an educational and networking forum for promoting software quality and professionals. RSA again may host in-person meetings, but we're not sure when they'll resume. Please help us identify topics, speakers, and additional sponsors. Contact Robin Goldsmith at robin@gopromanagement.com.


Please donate software/quality/testing books for upcoming raffles when live meetings resume. Thanks to member Manny Jasus for donating a bunch and to Director Bill Basinski for arranging to receive some MIT library deaccessions. We can use more, since we're essentially out of what once seemed a never-ending supply.



Link to SQGNE Community Links Page

Home

Mission

Contacts

Join

Education

Calendar

Directions

Past Presentations

Other Events




Aug 2020