Keynote speaker at the RTE Summit  Eelco Rustenburg looks ahead to his contribution on November 12th. 

 “By the time of the RTE Summit in November, we will have released a new version of the Scaled Agile Framework. So, while I’m not allowed to say what the version number of the new framework will be, I can go into particulars at the RTE Summit. I’ll also discuss how the role of the RTE evolves in the new version. That might be something to look forward to.”

Sweden’s only SAFe Program Consultant Trainer (SPCT), enterprise Lean/Agile trainer and coach Carl Starendal gives insight into his upcoming presentation at the RTE Summit.

Starting with his work for Schiphol Group and now continued in his work with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, freelance ‘Agile controller’ Martin Hofman has slowly been building his authority in the Agile Control discipline. “Conventional Controllers have difficulty building the business case for working Agile. Agility has become too important for Controllers to ignore though… and vice versa!”

In a role as newly-minted as that of SAFe Release Train Engineer there are still few practicing, certified RTEs, and no prescribed or clearly-defined career paths to becoming RTE. But there are trends in the pathways to this very significant senior role according to Andres Jansen, Senior Trainer, interim RTE at ASML and Founder of the RTE Summit. And right now, the two main career routes to becoming RTE are via the program side (PM, PL and the like); or from the (Advanced) Scrum Master (ASM/SM) side, with the vast majority coming along the program route.

Andres Jansen updates the agenda for November 12^th, the RTE Summit 2019. As chairman of the RTE Summit 2019, Andres Jansen is certain that this year’s edition on 12 November of 2019 will be even better than the last one. “We’re circling the speakers list, admiring the venue and building the social program. Not wanting to be pinned down by a theme, we’ve nonetheless listed several clear topics for the event. It’s exciting!” 

Gladwell Academy supports South African education through the Kwasa Foundation.

It’s a wrap – the 2018 edition of the RTE Summit 3.0 of November 13^th was a resounding success. Here is an overview of the highlights as we saw them at Gladwell Academy; if you attended, you will doubtlessly have your own memorable moments to add.

Join the RTE Boost by dr. Yannick Balk

Global fintech software publisher SimCorp started working with SAFe more than two years ago, and their creative interpretation of the framework soon became evident. At the RTE Summit, Agile coaches Piet Syhler and Frank Olsen will co-present how their company has come to adapt the Framework to their organization’s needs: “The PI planning event requires such tremendous effort to prepare. How do we prepare to a proper degree?”

Amadeus creates solutions that help airlines and airports, hotels and railways, travel agencies, tour operators and other travel players to run their operations and improve travel experience – billions of times a year, all over the world. RTE Eduardo Avila Alvim has plans for a fascinating show-and-tell on building inter-company or cross-company ARTs: “We’re a pioneer, but we inevitably won’t be forever.”

The global consultant ALTEN isn’t just gold partner for the 2018 RTE Summit: Agile chapter lead Wikash Madarie will be sharing the stage with Arno Hanssen of T-Mobile, an accomplished RTE who drives the telecoms giant’s B2C Value Stream. Together, they look forward to presenting a story of a widely shared success, and several of the learnings they picked up along the way.

At a gathering of RTEs, Dennis Struis is something of a foreign agent. Presenting at the RTE Summit as a Product Owner for Agile Tooling at ABN AMRO, his organisation has so far made the deliberate choice not to deploy RTEs or to adopt the ART nomenclature – despite using many other concepts and approaches from SAFe.

Gianfranco Franceschi visits the RTE Summit to share his experiences on automating a distributed Planning Event, with several different tools like Rentouch PI planning or Retrium Retrospectives, at international publishing house WoltersKluwer. But he also looks forward to sharing his work as a Scrum Master – one whose job is starting to look a lot like that of an RTE. “It’s a slippery slope and I still have a lot to learn, but I also have learnings to share.”

We’re happy to announce that CollabNet VersionOne has decided to become platinum partner for the RTE Summit. Executive Account Director Olav Maassen explains why he looks forward to the event. “I was an Agile consultant for many years. My heart is still very much in the game.”

We’re thrilled to welcome the international consultancy firm ALTEN as Gold Partner for the RTE Summit on November 13^th. ALTEN technical manager Edo van der Post joins business manager Gerd Buter and managing consultant Wikash Madarie to share some of ALTEN´s vision on bringing Agile professionals to help with client transformations.

RTEs Erik Bootsma and Jeroen Manten both drive a substantial ART at PostNL, the Netherlands’ leading player in parcel logistics and mail. Erik joins us to shed some light on what he has planned for his part of their joint contribution to the RTE Summit: “Even in a single organization, approaches diverge. Let´s dive in and see how our profession can mature.”

AgilityMasters.com has decided to be Gold Partner for the RTE Summit. Wessel van Herwijnen, founder of the company, explains why. “I’m in the people business. And RTEs are the people that are going to be in high demand in the corporate Agile landscape. I´m certain of it.”

ASML veteran Arjan Martens aims for his contribution to the RTE Summit to be a personal narrative of regained focus, as well as a rallying cry to RTEs: “Stick to your principles. We need you. Don’t be swayed by corporate culture.”

Adding three new SPCT certified trainers to the roster, Gladwell Academy
consolidates its leading position as SAFe training agency. In our last blog we asked SPCT candidate Niels Groen to give us his views on becoming certified. For this article, fellow candidate Andres Jansen (SPCT) tells us how he experiences his candidacy so far. “I was asked to present my theory before an audience of fellows right the next day.”