Resilience and Technical Agility
Closing Keynote @ Code Freeze 2023

In a world characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, processes that rely on predicting the future fall short. Resilience is the ability to recover from mismatches between what you expect and what actually happens. This ability relies on efficient, cybernetic feedback loops. Cybernetics optimizes the ability to detect and respond to external signals rather than the ability to impose your will on the outside world. 

Agile, DevOps, and cloud computing are mechanisms for cybernetic software delivery. Too often, though, we approach development as a linear assembly line. In addition, agile process and even product management are necessary but not sufficient. Cybernetic feedback loops don’t just efficiently detect change, but also respond to it. 

This talk will introduce the concept of technical agility, and explain how it completes the agility equation by allowing you to deliver change as frequently as you can plan it. It will explain the role of Agile and DevOps as cybernetic delivery mechanisms. Finally, it will explore the impact of variables as diverse as code architecture, technical debt, and even team architecture on an organization's ability to resiliently sense and respond to an ever-evolving environment.

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Jeff Sussna

Jeff Sussna has extensive expertise, working with Agile principles and practices since before the Agile Manifesto was written. Since then, he has held senior positions at leading technology, enterprise, and IT services companies, managing Agile development, QA, and operations teams and consulting practices. Jeff has also led workshops and given keynote talks at conferences throughout the US and Europe. He is also the author of “Designing Delivery: Rethinking IT In the Digital Service Economy.”