With the popularity of Scrum, ScrumMaster has become a de facto role on many agile projects.

In this thought-provoking session, we’ll explore the ScrumMaster role and its key challenges. We’ll discuss why teams end up with dysfunctional ScrumMasters, and how that hurts agile projects. We’ll explore common ScrumMaster anti-patterns, and why they occur. We’ll challenge the ScrumMaster role, compare it to other models, and address if agile teams really need a ScrumMaster.

This promises to be a lively and interactive session that may change your views on how to structure a Scrum team.

Project Managers comprise the single largest category of agile practitioners that are actively engaged in the industry (18%). However, there is no clear consensus on the role of project manager within the Agile community. Viewpoints range from: • The PM is complete waste. • The PM is a necessary part-time helper. • The PM is a crucial communicator and facilitator.

So who’s right? This interactive session will seek to address these questions about who is good, who is bad, why they are, and who says so.

An Exercise in Agile Facilitation - http://agilejournal.com/articles/columns/articles/1233-the-invisible-pro...

This session focuses on an approach taken by Agile Project Managers to develop empowered and effective teams using a series of techniques focused on trust, transparency, team dynamics, and agile facilitation. More so, ensuring that the Project Manager does not end up as the central figure dominating the project is equally critical, highlighting that it takes an unselfish personality to create a truly self-organizing team.

Agile methods put a great deal of emphasis on trust, empowerment, and collaboration. Agile moves us away from command and control project management toward an approach designed to harness the passion, creativity, and enthusiasm of the team. Mike will tackle the assumptions behind traditional project management and explore a more agile approach to managing time, cost, and scope. He will address the PMI Processes and Knowledge areas and explore how to adapt them to agile projects. Participants will leave with practical tips they can implement today to begin building a culture of agility.