Momentum > Urgency and other Counter-intuitive Principles for Increasing Velocity

“How do we go faster?” It’s probably the most common question leaders ask of their teams. Common wisdom usually involves improving focus, working “smarter,” and instilling a sense of urgency. This sounds great in principle, until you realize that teams under pressure tend to cut corners. This talk is for anyone asking or answering the age-old question of how to speed things up.

The answers center on pragmatic, proven, and sometimes counter-intuitive approaches. Along the way, you’ll learn how to ignore the misinformation that your intuition feeds you, how to spot surprising sources of friction, and yes, how momentum can carry the team forward in a way that urgency cannot.

SPEAKER

Elisabeth Hendrickson

Technology Executive & Formerly VP R&D @ Pivotal, leading enterprise cloud and data products

Elisabeth Hendrickson is an experienced software developer, tester, leader, and executive. She has a track record of creating high functioning organizations and growing strong leadership teams. As a member of the executive team for Pivotal (acquired by VMware), she headed up the R&D group responsible for Pivotal’s Big Data Suite. Prior to joining Pivotal, Elisabeth ran her own small consulting company, Quality Tree Software, Inc. where she helped organizations build better software sustainably by adopting agile practices and values. Elisabeth is the author of Explore It! from Pragmatic Books. You can find her on Twitter as @testobsessed

SPEAKER Elisabeth Hendrickson Technology Executive & Formerly VP R&D @ Pivotal, leading enterprise cloud and data products