Jeff Patton, Agile and Product Design Coach, Co-founder of Comakers LLC

“Mediocrity guaranteed.” This sad tagline describes most of the processes we use today including typical agile process.  It’s easy to see why. Software development’s an expensive risky business.  To deal with the risk, the players involved adopt a client-vendor model where those in the client role give requirements and those in the vendor role estimate time and effort and agree to build what’s asked for.  In this model we clearly separate responsibilities so that we know who’s accountable when things go wrong. Although we know things rarely go as planned, and innovative ideas rarely spring from such a relationship, we continue to work in processes where treating our coworkers as outsourced vendors is considered “best practice” and risking everything on the ideas of a select few isn’t regarded as risky.

 

This talk is about an alternative way of working.

 

In  this talk Jeff explores companies beginning to adopt a style of working where everyone in the organization gets involved with identifying and solving problems.  You’ll hear examples from real companies describing their practices for learning first-hand about customers and users, practices for collaboratively designing solutions for the problems found  in the real world, and approaches to learning if what we created really benefited anyone.  

 

This new style of work is a process cocktail combining the best of agile development, lean software development and lean startup, user-centered design, and collaborative design thinking.This style of work isn’t the traditional client-vendor model where knowing who’s to blame is the primary concern.  It’s a co-making style of work where everyone brings their skills and experience to the table and together takes ownership for making great things.