What happens when you combine RTE-training with the RTE-Summit? You get the completely immersive “RTE in a Week”-course: combining theory and practice, learning and networking.

Jenny van Rinsum and Larry Anderson are both witty personalities who like to share a joke. They also share the responsibility for a monumental undertaking at Nike: the replacement of its huge legacy ERP platform Island Pacific with SAP CAR and S/4HANA. And that’s no joke, especially because it involves a cross-continental ART that has several complex dependencies with other ARTs.

Each RTE Summit features the election of an ‘RTE of the Year’ in recognition of someone’s contribution to building the Release Train Engineer practice. In preparation for the RTE Summit Global, learn about what this year’s winner Weronika Śreniawa-Pisarska has been up to since receiving the award.

Ali Hajou, co-chairman of the RTE Summit discusses his ambitions for the first ever virtual RTE Summit, set to be online from Gladwell Academy’s professional. Aimed entirely at strengthening the community of practice of Release Train Engineers everywhere, he invites both experienced hands and newcomers to contribute: “If you have a real-life story to share, or a question you need answers to, The RTE Summit Global is the place for you.”

Join up with Gladwell’s ‘RTE Bootcamp’ for a full week and learn all the needs and requirements of an RTE through the mentorship, knowledge, and experience of some of the industry’s best and brightest RTEs and SPCTs. Begin your RTE by attending the first ever virtual RTE Summit Global on November 9 – 10, followed by our three-day course. 

Certified SPCT Saahil Panikar of Icon Agility Services is planning a workshop at the virtual RTE Summit Global. The pitch: a deep-dive into the conflicts of communication and visualization that take place between teams during PI planning events. Saahil being an expert in every facet of working within an Agile framework, we expect an exciting, informative moment.

With the World Health Organization’s current guidelines Gladwell Academy finds itself moving its trainings into an online remote only setting. Gladwell Trainer Eduardo Alvim discusses how he has adapted the highly advanced, SAFe RTE course to be effectively taught in a remote classroom.

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.

The role of Release Train Engineer (RTE, the Chief Scrum Master) has only come into existence over the past decade or so. This group of courageous, pioneering professionals is still rare. “Now, however, there’s enough critical mass to begin to see and understand the key traits that characterize the effective RTE,” says Andres Jansen, Agile Transformation Coach and Senior Trainer at Gladwell Academy.

With awareness about Agility on the rise in Germany, at Gladwell Academy we’d love to share our experience and hands-on training approach with ambitious organizations from northernmost Rügen island to the southern city of Konstanz. Joining us on that journey is German consultancy firm Dr. Kraus & Partner, whose senior Agile consultant Guido Wiggerink recently visited Agile Munich in May.

“He’s a free spirit, and I tell it like it is.”  

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!” 

What are the tasks of the Release Train Engineer? The RTE is a new breed of super scrum masters, arisen since the advent of SAFe. Upon passing the SAFe Release Train Engineer (RTE) exam and achieving RTE certification, the RTE becomes a far more effective scrum master of the Team of Teams and coach for the organization around it– a complex, challenging, and intense role with a lot of responsibility for the whole enterprise. “It’s like Scrum on steroids,” says Andres Jansen, Senior Trainer at Gladwell Academy – and not incidentally the Chairman and Founder of the yearly RTE Summit.

Forget the express train, the Intercity or the Thalys. The Agile Release Train is where it’s at! This train runs quickly and efficiently to its ultimate goal. It always keeps to the timetable. The passengers mostly set this timetable themselves! The Agile Release Train (ART) was invented by SAFe, the Scaled Agile Framework. The ART is a virtual train consisting of 5 to 10 self-organising, multidisciplinary teams who plan, organise and perform their work together. Together they work on Programme Increments, components that fit together perfectly and provide added value to the entire organisation.