After years of following a scrum process at Tendril, we decided to throw out all of the rules.

We chose to optimize for speed and flexibility, and infuse our day-to-day work with the creative energy and autonomy of hackathons. There are no more story points, subtasks, or backlog groomings. Instead, product managers guide the team towards tangible business outcomes, and software developers, data scientists, and designers choose what to work on every week.

We’ll share our learnings, struggles, and successes to help you to roll out product development process changes at your own company.

Panelists:

Jeremy Goldsmith is the Director of Engineering at Tendril, and has almost 20 years of professional software development experience. Jeremy has spent the last 10 years at as a technical leader and manager, leading technical teams, shipping working software and building products that drive meaningful business results. Jeremy is a certified Agile Scrum Master, and believes strongly that building effective teams are the best way to solve a problem, and that results are more important than blind faith in any process.

Devren Hobbs is Director of Product at Tendril, where she has spent the past 5 years managing next-generation innovation of Tendril’s behavioral energy efficiency SaaS products, which reach over 5M consumers annually. Previous to Tendril, she managed kids’ creativity apps and user-generated content for Disney Interactive. She brings a unique background to the space (she has a BA in english, an MBA focused on entrepreneurship, and has worked for several non-profits), and has the claim-to-fame of winning a prize at the Tendril hackathon 5 times.

Monty Prekeris is Manager of Decision Science and Data Engineering at Tendril and has background across a diverse set of development environments including large-scale corporate, academia, and now at a fast-moving startup. From firmware to deep learning, Monty has had on-the-ground experience with a wide array of development systems and maintains that efficacy of process is not absolute and is measurable only in the context of well-defined business objectives.

About WeWork LoHi:

• Parking options: We have a parking garage under the building that is $12/hour. Another option is the Commons Park West garage right across the street where we can validate for an hour. It's also $12/hour. There is also street parking along Platt Street, and free parking across the bridge in the Highlands.
• Enter through the front entrance and take the elevator to the 3rd floor.