Mark Windholtz first encountered ExtremeProgramming in 1999 and immediately added Agile practices to his development process to get software projects done better and faster. Through his company, AgileDNA LLC, he has advised Agile teams for Commercial, Non-Profit, Start-up, and Defense projects. Major clients include the AgileAlliance, and the ScrumAlliance. As the founder of the Cincinnati Agile Roundtable, Mark has be instrumental in promoting the Agile philosopy for many years.

"Intro to Scrum/Agile"

The term "Agile" includes a number of software processes and frameworks. This talk will introduce at a high-level, what Agile is and the major varieties of Agile. While the technical team is keeping things moving smoothly along, the business part of the team also has work to do. This talk will cover those practices.

Jim Weirich is the Chief Scientist for EdgeCase LLC, a Rails development firm located in Columbus Ohio. Jim has over twenty-five years of experience in software development. He has worked with real-time data systems for testing jet engines, networking software for information systems, and image processing software for the financial industry. Jim is active in the Ruby community and has contributed to several Ruby projects, including the Rake build system and the RubyGems package software.

"Engineering Practices"

The three most important things for an agile development team are: feedback, feedback and feedback. This feedback allows an agile team to respond quickly to changes while maintaining a high level of quality. In order to achieve this level of feedback, the team follows a disciplined set of agile practices. This talk will focus on the engineering practices and demonstrate how they work together.

Brian H. Prince is an Architect Evangelist for Microsoft. He gets super excited whenever he talks about technology, especially cloud computing, patterns, and practices. His job is to help customers strategically leverage MS technology, and help them bring their architecture to a super level. In a past life Brian was a part of super startups, super eting firms, and super consulting firms. Much of his super architecture background includes building super scalable applications, application integration, and award winning web applications. All of them were super. Further, he is a co-founder of the non-profit organization CodeMash (www.codemash.org). He speaks at various regional and national technology events including TechEd. He only wishes his job didn't require him to say "super" so much. Brian holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science and Physics from Capital University, Columbus, Ohio. He is also a zealous gamer. For example, he is a huge fan of Fallout 3.

"Five Things to Be More Agile"

Becoming more agile is a journey, not a destination. The first few steps on that journey can be challenging. You have to start changing your culture, but where? We will look at two simple things you can start doing the next day to start to turn the battleship.

Chris Nelson is developer and co-founder of Gaslight Software. He has been doing software development for 15 years at companies ranging in size from Fortune 500 to startup using J2EE and more recently, ruby. He has published several articles and spoken at numerous software development conferences including eRubycon, JavaOne, OSCON, Railsconf and Rubyconf, as well as local Java and Ruby user groups. He lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, with his wife, 4 children, and 2 cats.

"Why Agile Fails"

So you are ready to try something new, ready to take on what appears to be an improvement in the processes you use today. How many projects fail to change their organizations the first time? What can you do to prepare for the change and what signs should you be looking for along the way. Let's explore failure before it happens.

Sean Heuer (CSM, CSP) began his technical career as a Java developer, but after discovering Scrum, he became a Certified ScrumMaster and has never looked back. Now, Sean is an Agile Coach/Evangelist on multiple projects for the Kroger Co., at its technical center in Blue Ash, Ohio. Sean leads the Agile Community within Kroger Co. Currently, he is involved in an agile rollout across his organization. Sean has coached several project teams through their transition to Scrum and constantly challenges all stakeholders to continuously improve through Agile.

"A Business Success Story"

How do you bring a project back from disaster? Go Agile! If your failing project suffers from constant requirements changes, high defect rates, and never-ending regression cycles, agile is your savior (if done correctly). This talk will outline a real life example, from a Fortune 25 company, of how transitioning to agile turned a failing project into a celebration at the weekly board of directors meeting.

Joe is a father, speaker, author and developer. Before helping found EdgeCase, LLC, Joe was a developer with ThoughtWorks and spent much of his time working with large J2EE and .NET systems for Fortune 500 companies. He has spent his career as a developer, project manager, and everything in between. Joe is a passionate member of the open source community. He co-founded the Columbus Ruby Brigade and helped organize the Chicago Area Ruby Users Group. His passions are Agile Development in the Enterprise, Ruby, and demonstrating to the Fortune 500 the elegance and power of this incredible language.

"Retrospectives"

Phil Japikse has been working with .Net since the first betas, and developing software for over 20 years. Phil is a Microsoft MVP and also holds MCSD, MCDBA, CSM, and CSP certifications. Phil's experience includes Smart Client/WPF, ASP.NET/MVC, and eCommerce as well as mentoring teams in .Net, SQL Server, and Agile. Phil is a contributing author to www.nPlus1.org, founder and president of Agile Conferences, Inc, teaches custom classes, speaks at national and regional events, and is a passionate member of the developer community (serving as Lead Director for the Cincinnati .Net User's Group). Phil works as a Principal Consultant with Pinnacle Solutions Group, Inc. (www.pinnsg.com), is a Firefighter/Paramedic, and a volunteer for the Ski Patrol. You can follow Phil on twitter via www.twitter.com/skimedic and read his blog at www.skimedic.com/blog.

"Enterprise Agility"

Scrum and XP have found a strong following in the development community. But most non-development groups (such as Web Administrators, Production Support, Security, Testing, and Users/Stake Holders) inside the enterprise are far from agile, nor are they trying to move to be more agile. This session uses real experiences from large enterprise development projects to show how to effectively work with those teams. Instead of trying to "convert" them, we discuss strategies to adapt to their needs while remaining agile in the development realm.