Brad Nelson
Host @ The Agile For Agilists Podcast
Columbus, Ohio, United States
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Brad Nelson is the owner and host of "The Agile For Agilists Podcast," where he engages with top industry experts to discuss trends, best practices, and more. Recognized as a thought leader, Brad is celebrated for his people-first leadership and admired for his cross-functional expertise in product development. He employs a practical, people-centric approach to achieve operational effectiveness, grounded in the scientific method and the study of the mind and behavior. With years of experience at Fortune 500 companies such as Meijer, Insight, and Ford Motor Company, Brad holds 25 professional certifications, including a recent professional certificate in Happiness Leadership from Harvard University.
Area of Expertise
Topics
Human Intelligence: Reshaping the Narrative of Motivation and Performance
Many traditional approaches and beliefs in management, work ethic, and individual development go against human nature. In this talk we will decode the building blocks of human motivation leveraging evidence from biology, neuroscience, and psychology. Together we'll examine the limits of executive function, intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, and the power of the happiness advantage. Attendees will gain actionable strategies for nurturing environments that ignite passion and propel individuals towards exceptional performance.
60 minutes
Platform as a Product: the future of Agile and DevOps
Cross-functional teams and full-stack developers have become the expectation in today's highest-performing teams. However, as technology needs become more complex and solutions begin to scale, it becomes increasingly difficult for software engineers to balance expertise across all layers of the stack, operations, security, development tools, etc. This leads to an increased cognitive load for your engineers, resulting in lower performance, longer development times, decreased quality, and, ultimately, developer burnout. In this talk, we'll explore how applying Product Thinking to Platform Engineering can reduce this burden on your development teams while preventing organizational bottlenecks. Join this talk to learn what a platform is, what the product mindset is, and how to architect for enterprise flow.
60 minutes
A Brief History of Agile
In this MINI-TALK we will cover a high-level overview of the history of Agile Software Development, not just the Snowbird Lodge in 2001, but its nearly 100-year-old roots in Lean, Empiricism, and Iterative and Incremental Development (IID). For those who do not know history, are destined to repeat it.
10-15 minutes
The Velocity Trap
Companies all over the world have fallen into the Velocity Trap. This is when companies only measure how fast teams are completing tasks. They forget that those tasks need to be of value to their users, customers, and their business. In fact, research has shown that 80% of software products are rarely or never used. This talk looks at what makes organizations profitable. It uses concepts from Product Thinking and User Experience to explain how you can identify what efforts are worth investing in. It also shares which productivity metrics (also known as outputs) are proven through research to promote high performance and a few common metrics that have no such correlation. Join this talk to learn how to escape the Velocity Trap!
60 minutes
The Alchemy Of Agile
Alchemy is a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination. Alchemy tried to achieve something supernatural by utilizing processes that are known today as science. However, a truly talented Alchemist was not only a scientist, but also possessed a certain je ne sais quoi, that is, a magic touch.
Similar to Alchemy, Agile utilizes the scientific method to transmute requirements into business value. It is a seemingly magical process, that is not reproducible by all. What many people are missing is that one magical ingredient… culture.
In order to understand the culture behind Agile, we will explore the origins of Software Development, the contents of the Agile Manifesto, and the collection of beliefs, perceptions and values that truly empower agility. By the end of this discussion you will not only understand what this Agile (with a capital “A”) thing is, but where it came from, why we do it, and how to successfully implement it with your teams.
60 minutes
Technical Agility 101: Deliver Like the Tech Giants
Have you introduced your teams to the Agile Manifesto, Scrum Framework, and other commonly accepted Agile practices, but they still struggle to release software at the scale of Big Tech companies like Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google? There's more to Agile than timeboxes, events, and roles.
In this talk, Brad will explain how the principles of Agile Software Development are meant to be brought to life through advanced development practices. He will introduce the audience to key practices, tools, and philosophies from the DevOps movement—a movement that empowers agile teams to iterate faster and integrate feedback more effectively across the entire development process.
This no-code presentation is accessible to all audiences, particularly benefiting leaders, managers, and agilists who want to better understand how to support the most essential role on any software development team: the developer.
60 min
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