SPA2008 bring together experts and practitioners across a variety of industries, from around the world, to share the latest thinking in software development. At SPA they don’t simply follow the latest fads we help you identify the real advances that will enable you to build better software.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall… Why Me? – A mini-adventure of self-discovery with help from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

Abstract: Are you baffled yet fascinated by the behaviour of those around you? Have you ever wondered why they do what they do? Join us on a mini-adventure of self-discovery with help from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. This is your chance to learn more about yourself to give you a better chance of understanding others. Think Kaizen Meets Agile Fairytales.

This session begins with a game of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves Kanban to help you identify the characters who interest, trouble, confound and/or confuse you most at work.

You will get to choose a couple of tools from the list below to help you become more effective based on the insights and learnings from the game.

The Tools

Tool #1: Clearing your mental backlog and turn things that stress you out into A-C-T-I-O-N-S! – based on David Allen’s ‘Getting Things Done’

Tool #2: Outcome Thinking for Technical Leaders

Tool #3: Brainstorming with mind maps

Tool #4: Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats

Tool #5: Identifying Your Belbin type

We will review the appropriateness of the tools in terms of a project lifecycle.

Real Options in a Nutshell – Real Options will change your decision making process for ever.

Abstract: This session introduces the subject of Real Options and how they can be applied to virtually any decision that needs to be made.

This session is about changing peoples mindset and behavior. Started out as a quest to price real options, we found a rational decision making process based on maths and logic rather than emotion, feelings and intuition.

Leaving this session people discover options where they have not seen them before. Decision making after this session will never be the same again.