Managing Dependencies Across Large Teams

Luke Hohmann is the founder and CEO of Conteneo Inc. (formerly the Innovation Games® Company). Conteneo’s enterprise software platforms and professional services merge collaboration frameworks, data analytics, and domain expertise to help organizations optimize decision making in the areas of strategy, innovation, sales, product development, and market research. Luke is also cofounder of Every Voice Engaged Foundation (EVEF), a 501(c)3 nonprofit that that helps citizens, governments, and other nonprofit organizations collaborate at scale to solve technical and wicked problems. EVEF has been a leader in the Participatory Budgeting movement, helping citizens prioritize hundreds of millions of dollars through budget games. EVEF has also partnered with the Kettering Foundation to create Common Ground for Action, the first platform for scalable deliberative decision making. Supported by both Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance, Luke is thankful for the thousands of colleagues from the Agile community who have donated their time to EVEF.

Venkatesh Krishnamurthy is a computer scientist, Agile coach, LeSS practitioner, and Conteneo certified collaboration instructor with more than 20 years of experience working with several start-ups and IT companies across the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Venkatesh (aka Venky), has rich experience applying various scaling techniques while working on large product developments with geographically distributed teams. He believes that ideas from systems thinking, Lean, and Agile methods need to be applied with patience and sense of humor in order to thrive in challenging environments. He currently lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. Venky is an avid blogger and a frequent speaker at international conferences.

Brent Barton’s executive management background and nearly two decades of experience in software technology give him the ability to provide valuable guidance concerning engineering capability and organizational proficiency. Brent has used Agile practices for a decade to help small, medium, and Fortune 100 organizations overcome seemingly intractable problems and successfully deliver mission-critical solutions. Brent has written several important papers on Agile and organizational change: “Implementing a Professional Services Organization Using Type C Scrum “ (IEEE), “Establishing and Maintaining Top to Bottom Transparency Using the Meta-Scrum” (Agile Journal), and “All-Out Organizational Scrum as an Innovation Value Chain” (IEEE). Brent also helped develop AgileEVM, a mathematically proven method that connects Scrum and traditional earned value management techniques.