BETTER WAYS

Registration

Welcome participants and speakers

Melissa Perri

Over the past decade, many companies have made great strides in delivering software, and convincing their companies to turn to Product Management to get out of the Build Trap. But, so many of these companies get stuck putting these practices into place so that the entire business is working together to become product led. In this talk, Melissa will address the most common issues companies face once they convince them Product Management is important, and how you can tackle them.

Emily F. Gorcenski

Too often, software services are disconnected from the data they generate, and product teams often have difficulty in accessing and using their own data to improve product design. Moreover, while techniques like A/B testing are becoming more widespread in the industry, these techniques still leave a lot to be desired in terms of helping understand why users behave like they do. This talk will explore how data mesh architectures also provide benefits to data producers, and look at ways we can safely leverage our own data to design better products

Coffee Break

David Anderson

Many organizations have migrated to the cloud, but the modernization journey is the next challenge. Companies must combine business goals with technology goals to maximize time to value and accelerate with the cloud. The value flywheel effect has just been published by IT Revolution, which is a playbook on how to make that journey.

Using experience from case studies in the book such as Liberty Mutual, BBC, A Cloud Guru and more, Dave will discuss the four phases of the Value Flywheel (finding Clarity of Purpose, creating a safe environment for challenge, Serverless First & Next Best Action and Long Term Value with the Well-Architected Framework) and how customers can use the Wardley Mapping technique to create an effective modern cloud strategy.

There will also be some real-life stories around serverless myths and pragmatic ways to ease the modernization journey.

Francesco Corti

The literature describes very well that a good Product Manager is responsible (or should be responsible) for the "why" and "what" of any feature, while the Delivery Team has the responsibility for the "how" and "when". But is it really the case in practice?

Talking to many Product Managers in different sectors and industries related to software development, the 'what' area of responsibility is not always clearly defined and there is a lot of overlap between the 'what' and the 'how'. What happens in practice is that this lack of clarity generates tensions about what needs to be developed, threatening the balance of work in the team and peaceful collaboration.

In this talk, Francesco is going to explore this "middle ground" space and is going to share some lessons learned in various teams of different leading companies in software development, with practical examples and useful suggestions.

Lunch Break

Romeu Moura

Every workplace, every community, and in fact every social interaction, is governed by various forces, hidden power structures, implicit oppression and submission. We oppress people by accident, and we are oppressed by others by accident.

Bourdieu's social theory (with concepts like “symbolic violence", “cultural capital” and “hexis”) explain what is happening. By understanding what he meant, we learn how each of us influences and is influenced by the people around us, in ways that we wouldn't expect.

This talk tries to make Bourdieu's ideas accessible. Learn how to improve your environment immediately; see why meritocracy is a dangerous lie; recognise oppression and submission when it happens; and gain the tools to fight it day to day.

AI in Software Engineering: The end of a world as we know it? Or not?

Yiannis Kanelopoulos

A voyage to continuous evolution: Code to Product in 20 minutes

Sotiris Kakavoulis

ai-cli-lib: A command-line copilot

Diomidis Spinellis

Growing the engineering team in an era of hiring disruption

Periklis Venakis

Coffee Break

Diana Montalion

Early in my career, I worked on highly-productive Agile teams building software for big internet properties. Ten years (or so) later, I worked as principal systems architect for some of the same organizations. Everyone needed "digital transformation" to move away from legacy software (some I helped build). Which meant moving away from working as one feature-driven team to architecting across multiple product and platform teams.

On social media, I regularly see "agile is dead". "Agile didn't keep up with the times." Or other disparagements of agility. My experience has been the opposite. Teams without fundamental mental and social agility can't scale (effectively) as the architecture becomes more inter-relational.

In this talk, we'll explore the key patterns and principles that maintain cohesion, communication and conceptual integrity as software scales to systems of software. And how the skills Agile taught me have scaled to integral skills for architects.

Louis Hanzlik

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has recorded 71 albums, won three Grammy awards, toured 46 countries and performed for 50 years – and it’s done it all without a conductor. Does it hold the secret to a leaderless future? And does that mean the music is about to stop for the CEO?

Louis Hanzlik, trumpeter of Orpheus and professor at the University of Connecticut, will talk about how Orpheus, a democratically-mindful community of musicians, offers a sustained and thriving example of what is possible for all of us—individually and collectively—when leadership is inclusive rather than exclusive, when team roles are purpose-driven rather than status-driven and rotating rather than fixed, and where everyone is responsible to each other and for the outcome of their collective efforts.

The Orpheus model is a way of being. The potential application for all of us is worthy of our attention as it shows an approach to creating and leadership that prioritizes empowerment, mutual respect, trust, and the expertise of all.

Olivia Gambelin

Even before the first generated articles and images were released onto our newsfeeds, the question of how to build trust in the age of AI was already a significant challenge.

Flash forward to today with our large language models (LLMs) and image generators, and the challenge of building trust is quickly becoming a crisis of widespread mistrust. AI has opened up numerous opportunities for growth and efficiency, but if not implemented responsibly, it can be catastrophic for a company. Thankfully, there is a way to not only responsibly use AI, but also to use AI to develop long-term customer trust and loyalty.

Join Olivia Gambelin, a renowned expert in AI Ethics, in conversation on how to pursue ethical and profitable AI use cases through a new form of AI innovation that focuses on human well-being and values.

Closing Ceremony