Hutton Seminar Series: Agile and the rise of cross-functional work

In less than twenty years, agile has moved from a fringe development practice, largely dismissed by industry, to the dominant approach for building software products and services.

This talk reviewed how and why that happened — examining the ways traditional roles, relationships and practices were broken down and redefined. It discussed why the cross-disciplinary team has become a key part of the agile community of practice, and reviewed how agile approaches have been adopted in other business areas.

Adrian Howard is a consultant helping companies build effective teams and digital products. He works with organisations of all sizes - combining team coaching & teaching with hands on User Experience & development work.

With more than twenty five years experience working with established businesses, agencies & startups, Adrian is an active member of the Agile, Balanced Team & Lean UX communities. He regularly teaches and speaks on integrating Lean, User Experience and Agile methods.

Before he moved into industry Adrian was a member of the Socio-Cognitive Technology Research Group at Sussex University, taught on their Human Centred Computing Systems MSc, and gained a degree in Computing and Artificial Intelligence.