Agile in R: Appsilon Speakers at Agile By Example 2021

The Agile By Example conference is coming soon! Next week in October (11-13) will be the biggest Agile conference in Poland. To be agile in R is to be effective at software development. But there’s no one-size-fits-all recipe here because being Agile means focusing on the people in your team and how they function as a unit. Ultimately, to maximize your team’s potential you’ll need to evolve your methods over time. The Agile methodology promotes adaptive planning, self-organization, and rapid product delivery. It’s a performance management system that is flexible, fast, and leads to quality output by adopting the most efficient tools for your high-level team. The path to Agile transformation can be challenging, but the resulting performance and productivity improvements are well worth it.

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As a sponsor of the event, Appsilon is excited to connect with the Agile community. We’re also proud to announce that two of Appsilon’s Engineering Managers are co-presenting a non-sponsored talk. Join us as they share their experience in designing and implementing Talent Forge, an internal professional development program, using Agile methodology.

• ABE and being Agile in R
• An Agile approach to forging talent
• Register for ABE 2021
• ABE + Dojo
• Staying competitive by being Agile in R

ABE and being Agile in R

The ABE conference covers all things agile. For over a decade ABE has served Poland and the global Agile community by congregating organizations, enterprises, and leaders in the Lean & Agile community. ABE offers lightning talks, panels, and an immersive learning experience through the Dojo, covering several trending themes in the software industry. Your organization’s competitive advantage depends on your team’s ability to quickly develop high-quality products. By attending the Agile By Example (ABE) conference you’ll be able to connect with speakers from around the globe and improve your knowledge base with real-life cases, Scrum, and communication.

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Roughly 50% of data science teams use R. From Facebook to Pfizer, R is well known for its utility and in combination with Shiny can become a powerful tool for interactive web applications. As data scientists and experts in Shiny, we understand the challenges and limitations of working with R/Shiny. That's why we use an Agile approach to ensure our tech team members have everything they need to maximize their potential.

An Agile approach to forging talent

Appsilon Engineering Managers Michał Parkoła and Paweł Rzymkiewicz will be co-presenting a case study from Appsilon. They’ll share their experience designing and implementing Appsilon’s internal professional development program - Talent Forge. The purpose of the Talent Forge program is to provide tech team members with opportunities to learn useful skills and align the team with Appsilon’s core purpose. At Appsilon, this was done by:

• Maintaining high professional standards while expanding teams
• Encouraging growth opportunities for R/Shiny professionals
• Advancing the state-of-the-art of R/Shiny
• Promoting projects and initiatives that have positive impacts on the world

Appsilon is a global leader in R/Shiny development. We’ve helped develop enterprise dashboards and data science solutions for Fortune 500 companies, NGOs, non-profits, and academic institutions. And we are growing quickly. In the past few years, we’ve doubled our team and expect to continue at a sustainable pace.

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Appsilon is looking to the future and like many fast-growing companies, we aim to maintain our standard of excellence set in previous successes. But as we grow, we need to be able to adapt to the challenges of progress. We do this in part, by building an environment that’s conducive for all team members, from newly onboarded to seniors, to reach their full potential.

About Michał Parkoła

Engineering manager at Appsilon and founder of Grow Together Academy. Michał is passionate about Agile leadership and building amazing teams. This is exemplified in his teachings at FluidCircle - where he shares his knowledge of remote leadership to help leaders of distributed teams be happier and more effective.

About Paweł Rzymkiewicz

Engineering manager at Appsilon and former Vice President of Engineering at Codility. Paweł’s experience as Vice President of Engineering at Codility and Head of Technology at Sotrender has led him down a path of leadership by example. With over 15 years of experience ranging from developer and QA engineer to Agile coach and Manager, Paweł understands the nuances of tech teams, leadership, and how to create environments that marry skillsets and encourage professional growth.

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Register for ABE 2021

Registration for ABE is still open: it’s an opportunity to hear from leaders in the Agile community and expand your network. Join the three-day event filled with keynote speakers including - Janet Gregory, Jeff Liker, Roman Pichler, and Geoff Watts. You can reserve your spot at the virtual Agile By Example conference and sign-up for the additional Dojo workshops. For this year’s ABE event, there will be 4 themes.

1. Developer perspectives: craftsmanship, ceremonies hell, and coping with agile.
2. Agile globally vs locally: culture differences, remote & distributed teams, time zones
3. Agile vs black swans: covid-19, climate change, uncertain environment, system resilience
4. Product vs process: pm vs po, agile products vs agile projects

ABE + Dojo

Aside from keynotes, talks, and networking, ABE hosts a unique training day dubbed - Dojo. The Dojo takes place the day before the conference begins so you can make the most of your time at the event. In short, the Dojo is a multitrack workshop with two, 3 hour-long sessions. There are 12 sessions of various topics to choose from and each participant can select the two that interest them the most. So whether you’re new to Agile and Scrum, or looking to hone your product strategy and management skills, check out the Dojo and practice your newfound skills.

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Staying competitive by being Agile in R

No matter the size of your team or the projects you work on, staying competitive and keeping up with the demands of the modern workplace should be at the forefront of your enterprise. Being agile in R means improving through appropriate planning, development, and delivery. By finding what works best for your team, you can build superior products with greater control and predictability. Reduce risks by working in sprints focusing on continuous production. By incorporating a Scrum work-frame, teams can identify larger problems early on and prevent issues from snowballing. If part of the plan doesn't work well, stay flexible and adapt the approach. Agile methodologies are meant to give your team purpose and shared ownership of a project. Over time you'll be able to more accurately estimate your team's abilities. This allows you to set realistic business targets and ultimately lead to more successes. And remember, your team and your approaches are unique. Adaptiveness and response to change are essential. Look for feedback from both the product owner and the team while keeping the core principles in mind. With appropriate management support, proper training, and communication you'll find the right application of Agile methodology to achieve agility in your organization.