Jon Kern
Jon is fortunate to be at Adaptavist where he and some colleagues have been creating, experimenting, and refining new ways to help teams and organizations become more capable in facing the complex challenges that seem to be everywhere you turn. With Adaptavist’s backing, we are creating a community collaboration space at ReimaginingAgile.com that will unfold over the course of 2024. “We” being the RA Launch Group: Heidi Musser, Jim Highsmith, Jon Kern, Sanjiv Augustine.
Jon began his career as an aerospace engineer doing testing and R&D on jet engines in the early 80s. He soon discovered the power of software and worked on flight simulation models of the F-14, agile fighter maneuverability research with the X-31, numerous real-time flight control systems, and man-machine integration research through the early 90s.
He began to dive more deeply into software engineering, design, and architecture, publishing a lightweight software methodology in 1995, and co-founding a boutique software engineering company. Along the way, he was mentored by Peter Coad, and in 2000 they co-founded TogetherSoft – creators of a market-leading UML modeling tool (bought by Borland in 2003). Jon also created and led the group of mentors/consultants, in addition to being the Product Owner of the core product and of an innovative new application. Jon has consulted with dozens of companies over the years and has been involved with various start-ups. To this day, you will find Jon practicing what he preaches (domain modeling, BDD, TDD, CI/CD, blue-green deploy, etc.) on a production app for pre-incident planning used by firefighters, schools, industry, etc. – saving lives and property.
In short, Jon is passionate about helping teams succeed in delivering value through software. He seeks better ways for teams to accomplish their goals from the perspectives of people (mindset and culture), process, and technology (tools). Jon likes to help teams build a vertically developmental environment that enables growth of individuals and teams, application of effective practices, learning, solid architecture, agile development, quality-by-design (not accident), and laser-like focus on delivering value through radical empathy for the customer/end user.
#RSGBelgrade2024
Speaking session on MAIN stage
Topic: Reimagining Agile
Description: We need to return to first principles and the basics of what it means to be agile. Understanding frameworks like Scrum might be necessary, but it is definitely not sufficient. Together we can take back agile, push back on the agile detractors, and learn and promote what it really takes for agility to flourish.
Jon will explain his hypothesis around Exemplars and Reimagining Agile, and he is looking for workshop attendees who may have a story to share about agility flourishing.
#AGILE
Workshop on BLUE stage
Topic: Finding Exemplars where Agility is Flourishing
Description: If you have recently experienced working in a very agile manner at your company, please attend our workshop (or at least contact Jon Kern). By definition, when agility is flourishing, it generally means you are living most, if not all, of the Agile Manifesto Values and Principles. Together we will quickly describe and discuss some of the Exemplars. As part of the discussion, we will seek to learn what practices or techniques may have been present to create the conditions for agility to flourish. You may end up having follow-up Zoom calls with Jon to dig deeper, or for Exemplars we were not able to get to in the workshop
#AGILE
MAKE SURE TO BE THERE