Many companies are adopting Agile practices (or thinking about it). Whether you’re part of a small or pilot team taking your first steps towards Agile adoption or if you’re part of a larger team that is looking to scale their Agile success, the road to Agile transformation can be a rocky one. Questions inevitably emerge such as: Which Agile methodology should we embrace? How will Agile practices affect our existing team culture? What criteria should we use to measure our Agile projects? What tooling do we need to effectively implement an Agile process? How do traditional Agile practices need to be modified to address the complexities of our environment? This track will cover the spectrum of the Agile journey, including tips for successful Agile adoption, “tales from the trenches” of teams who have learned from their early failures and have found their way to greater agility, and practical guidance on how to effectively scale Agile in complex environments.

The world is changing. A new reality is emerging for organizations of every size from every part of the planet. It’s called the cloud—a profound evolution of IT with revolutionary implications for business and society, creating new possibilities and enabling more efficient, flexible and collaborative computing models. In this track we will focus on leveraging the cloud to deliver development and test environments; DevOps: Development and Operations teams collaborating to accelerate delivery and deployment of software services for traditional and cloud infrastructures; and using cloud to drive new business value through innovative offerings and services. This track is for Chief Information Officers, Chief Technical Officers, Application Development Vice-Presidents and IT development and test managers who are interested in cloud computing as a way to reduce operational and capital expenses, reduce development and test cycle times and improve overall quality and time to market of their respective products/offerings.

Now is the time for Collaborative Dev/Ops! To realize the full competitive and economic benefits from IT investments, technology leaders are implementing bold strategies like collaborative Dev/Ops to both improve the quality, and accelerate the delivery of innovative applications and services. This track details best practices for aligning development and operations, including: collaboration and communication strategy, process integration and automation, ‘pre-release to production’ application performance optimization, and cooperative problem lifecycle management. Hear how IBM is using Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) to deliver a standardized platform and open interfaces that enable our clients and partners to easily integrate IBM, as well as their own tools, processes, and functions across enterprise architecture, development, testing and IT operations. Attendees leave with critical insights for transforming their business performance by unlocking the hidden value and agility in their existing organizational and technology investments.

IBM Rational ALM services and solutions can help organizations reduce the high costs and risks of inefficient, multiplatform software development and are unique in the market as they allow them to unify their infrastructure with a single open, extensible, integrated Jazz platform. Having a single platform across the software delivery lifecycle allows forward-thinking organizations to extend their software infrastructure investments. This enables all stakeholders real-time collaboration and transparency in the context of the work at hand, automation and better process control from the initial requirements definition to software change and release management and beyond. This track features the latest agile and formal solutions, services and best practices for enabling a real-time flow of information spanning teams, tools, and geographies. All stakeholders, from developer to high-level CIO to software engineer, will find the necessary insight to drive fundamental improvement in delivering software and business results.

Mobile computing is and will continue to grow at exponential rates. The explosion in mobile data and applications growth is a phenomenon that touches many industries. Although some aspects of mobile applications development are the same as that of traditional software, mobile development has many unique aspects. Development organizations need to deal with the large diversity of platforms, different models of programming models and the scarcity of skills associated with mobile development. Furthermore, security and compliance requirements present important new challenges in developing mobile applications. This track will focus on software engineering issues that are associated with mobile applications, and how to adapt existing tools and skills to mobile application development. This track is targeted for mobile application developers, business analysts, development managers, executives, product managers, QA managers, requirements managers, team leads, testers, architects, and strategists.

It’s time for a change! Change is critical to business success and innovation. Discover how you can reduce costs, manage change and improve quality across the enterprise applications lifecycle within your SAP, Oracle and custom development or legacy implementations ... and at the speed your organization demands. In particular, IBM Rational solutions for SAP brings together the very best of SAP and IBM Rational’s combined application lifecycle management market leadership. This track will cover key insights into how IBM Rational and SAP are collaborating to help ensure the integrity and quality of SAP solutions with comprehensive end-to-end Application Lifecycle Management. Discover the approach and technology available to achieve collaboration between business stakeholders and IT teams and the ability to manage the lifecycle of packaged & in-house application projects. Ensure your business processes are deployed & tested with increased quality and speed within ever decreasing budgets and resources. Attendees will leave this track with practical insight into strategies and technology that will help them achieve an enterprise applications lifecycle that drives higher quality changes faster and at a lower cost.

In order to optimize software delivery, organizations must focus on streamlining the flow of information and removing critical bottlenecks. One way to achieve this is through automation and the use of a trusted asset library. As virtualization and the cloud make IT environments increasingly complex, and the pressure to be agile accelerates the pace of software delivery, the key to enhanced productivity, repeatability, and reliability lies in solutions and best practices covered in this track. IT managers, practitioners, and operations teams will learn how the IBM® Rational® Automation Framework, IBM® Rational® Build Forge®, and IBM® Rational® Asset Manager, as well as integrations with IBM WebSphere and IBM Tivoli, can help to provide “a single source of the truth”, automate processes, and dramatically improve efficiency and costs.

Change and Configuration Management (CCM) is a core foundation in every development and delivery organization. Rational CCM capabilities include Agile, formal and hybrid planning, reporting, source code management, change management and workflow automation, all integrated on the Jazz platform. This track is for practitioners, managers, administrators, and advanced users who want to learn from the experiences of their colleagues and how to apply what they learn in their own organizations. Additionally Rational product managers and developers will discuss new features, roadmaps and technical best practices. The CCM portfolio of products include: IBM Rational ClearCase, ClearQuest, Team Concert, Synergy and Change.

This is where the people who design the products and write the code will be hanging out.! You told us what you wanted and we listened. This track is for anybody interested in hearing from our Jazz subject matter experts directly. No fluff, no marketing, no hype, just the expertise of a world class, globally distributed, agile, scaled up, self-hosted, clustered, development team. Learn what the experts already know. Get great tips, tricks, and techniques, master cool features quickly, breeze through startup, wrestle your unwieldy source code to the ground with ease, and create reports that will get you promoted! We don't let these guys/gals out of our sight too often, so don't miss the chance to get up close and personal with the people who wrote the book on developing great software.

Turning vision into reality! IBM’s Modeling, Architecture and Construction solutions and technologies help best-in-class companies to architect and build applications that drive market advantage and deliver solid returns on their software investment with lower cost and improved quality. Sessions uncover numerous methods and practices, customer successes, and the latest solution demos used to design reliable, reusable, and maintainable architectures and software for business applications. The latest development technologies for Web2.0, JEE, SOA, BPMN, Cloud and mobile are discussed in the context of real-world, business-critical situations. In addition to exploring cutting-edge visual and code-centric solution delivery, the track covers innovative software development processes and tools that assist agility and collaboration across diverse teams made up of internal and external stakeholders, architects, developers, and operations. This track, featuring Rational Software Architect and Rational Application Developer is for development managers, solution and software architects and software developers interested in the latest innovations and best practices from IBM supporting solution architectural design, discovery, control, construction, assembly, and governance.

A collaborative, integrated and optimized quality management process is essential to a team’s ability to deliver quality systems and software. This track focuses on quality management and testing solutions that support such a process - enabling quality professionals to deliver strategic value to their business. Attendees will gain in-depth guidance while collaborating with IBM experts as well as IBM customers on a wide range of quality related topics. Learn about innovative techniques and benefit from others’ experiences in improving the quality management process - manage your existing resources, overcome schedule constraints, and increase your team productivity. This track is for quality professionals and others on the project team – analysts, architects, developers, and project managers – looking for valuable, actionable information that can aid in creating and delivering high quality systems and software.

Requirements Definition and Management (RDM) for IT application development encompasses all of the activities in software delivery that revolve around eliciting, defining, elaborating, understanding, organizing, reviewing, communicating and tracking business, user, and software requirements. These activities help to ensure that the applications developed truly solve the real business and customer problems. This track explores the experiences of organizations with tools, techniques, and processes used to effectively define and manage requirements. This track is for analysts, architects, developers, project managers, and others interested in methodology and tools for defining and managing requirements for IT application development. From a tools perspective this track will focus on Rational RequisitePro and Rational Requirements Composer (and its role as a key element of an ALM solution).

Your position in the market depends on your ability to deliver innovative systems and products on time, with the right features and quality. A unified approach to development across the key domains of mechanical, electronic and software disciplines will help ensure you hit your timelines and deliver with confidence. Model Driven Systems Development (MDSD) is this approach and delivers the critical capabilities systems engineers and software developers need to create products, systems and software. The latest industry standards and technologies for safety critical systems (ISO26262, DO-178B/C), automotive (AUTOSAR), model-based systems engineering (SysML), mobile platform design, and many others are among the topics to be discussed in the context of real-world, mission-critical situations. In addition to exploring cutting-edge visual and code-centric solution delivery, the track covers innovative software development processes and tools that assist agility and collaboration across diverse teams made up of internal and external stakeholders, architects, developers, and operations. This track is for systems engineers, product development managers, embedded software developers, program managers, and other stakeholders interested in the latest innovations and best practices from IBM supporting the design and development of software-intensive systems and products.

Requirements management for systems engineering encompasses all of the activities in systems engineering that revolve around eliciting, defining, elaborating, understanding, organizing, reviewing, communicating and tracking market/customer, product, and system requirements. These activities help to ensure that the products/systems developed truly solve the customer / market need. This track explores the experiences of product development and systems engineering organizations with tools, techniques, and processes used to effectively define and manage requirements. This track is for systems engineers, requirements engineers, engineering managers and others interested in methodology and tools for requirements engineering. From a tools perspective this track will focus on Rational DOORS (and its role as a key element of a systems and software engineering solution).

Software increasingly drives innovation and differentiation in smart products and embedded systems. Software for Systems Development encompasses all of the activities within the software design and delivery lifecycle for complex and embedded systems. Attendees will gain in-depth guidance from IBM experts and customers on applying best practices and collaborative tooling to bring software intensive products and systems to market faster and with reduced cost and risk and improved quality, whilst meeting industry compliance objectives. This track is for engineering managers, software architects, software developers, project managers and others concerned with delivering high quality, innovative software for smart products and systems.

Systems engineering is the key to driving innovation in the product development process, helping organizations deliver smarter products by enabling collaboration and integration across the product lifecycle. This track is focused on leveraging the discipline of systems engineering to successfully manage innovation of software intensive products, product lines, and systems. Attendees gain in-depth knowledge from experienced IBM experts and customers on the tools, methods, and best practices that can be leveraged to deliver smarter products in less time and with higher quality. The track focuses on integration of engineering disciplines, alignment of business and engineering objectives, innovation management, and “systems of systems.” This track is for systems engineers, product development executives, engineering executives, embedded systems developers, program managers, and other stakeholders concerned with developing market leading products and systems.

An enterprise architecture approach to large scale systems, particularly those using defense-related architecture frameworks, can help you manage operating costs, increase efficiency, and assure that your complex connected systems will work well together. Further, it can support improved governance, compliance, auditing and risk management. This track focuses on defense-related as well as large commercial and government enterprises that can be viewed as large systems-of-systems. Sessions highlight best practices, real-life experiences, and guidance to help you throughout your enterprise architecture journey.

The IT portfolio strategy & management track will address disciplines that both inform IT strategy, and enable the translation of IT strategy to actionable delivery by enabling executive and cross-functional business-IT teams to make better-informed strategic and tactical decisions. In addition to treating enterprise architecture, portfolio management and delivery management as discreet topics, the track will also bring together these topics to showcase the latest techniques for managing IT from strategy to delivery in order to resolve more complex IT challenges, including, for example, application portfolio management.

Today's product portfolios must be driven by market analysis, complete stakeholder collaboration, and ultimately, customer and business value. This track will highlight best practices in product management and product portfolio management that can result in a portfolio that balances the needs of the market with strategic goals. The track also will help organizations identify key factors that can impact product and portfolio management performance and client relationships.

Let us introduce you to a variety of IBM Rational solutions that enable businesses to deliver products and services in a more productive, effective, predictable and prioritized way. Come learn something new, to help improve the way you develop and deliver software and systems and ultimately unleash innovation.

Today’s rapidly changing business challenges have caused technology to become an even more critical piece in how a business operates. Software and systems delivery is the way to new efficiencies, differentiated products and services, and opportunities that come with change. This track showcases how IBM and IBM Business Partner solutions and technologies help organizations manage their software investments and enable them to do more with less. Sessions include real life case studies, details on integrations with IBM Rational products, tips and tricks, and technical solutions that are changing the way companies do business.

Science fiction author William Gibson is quoted as saying, “The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed.” Together, Rational and IBM Research are investigating, envisioning, and inventing the future of software and systems engineering. This track gives you insights into how the world is changing, what it means for your development organization and your business, and what we can do to take advantage of these changes. Presentations range from general technology outlooks to specific investigations and prototypes to address the problems you will be confronting — sooner than you think. Top researchers and development experts are on hand to answer your questions.

Are you a Rational guru? Then this track is for you! It contains all advanced sessions spanning the entire Rational portfolio of tools and services covering software and systems development and deployment.

Industry research, combined with high profile breaches, have illustrated that vulnerable applications remain a dominant threat to today's organizations. As online business grows, new challenges for meeting application security and compliance emerge, resulting in the need for greater security measures. Traditional reactive or manual security assessment approaches are cost prohibitive, fall short of effectively protecting an organization, and cannot facilitate ongoing compliance requirements. Security needs to be built in from the beginning; not bolted on as an afterthought and must be considered from the early stages of development throughout the final phases of implementation. This track focuses on the fundamentals of application security — analysis techniques, innovations, and best practice approaches for integrating security testing across the development lifecycle. Emerging threats and common attack types are also explored. This track is for security auditors, managers, penetration testers, application developers, and others interested in the latest trends, best practices, and current threat landscape in application security and compliance.

Today’s businesses are faced with the challenge to do more with less, reduce costs, increase productivity, while providing business innovation. The IBM Power platform, supporting IBM® AIX®, IBM® i® and Linux applications, is a flexible, highly available environment for extending existing core business applications to the Web, consolidating workloads from other platforms, and hosting modern composite applications. Attendees gain in-depth guidance from IBM experts, augmented by real-life customer and partner experiences, on raising the productivity and efficiency of their organizations with IBM Rational application development solutions for IBM® Power Systems™, and exploiting the capabilities of the Power Systems hardware with advanced compilation technology. This track is for IT managers, project managers, architects, strategists, developers, and stakeholders concerned with developing, maintaining and deploying high performance business applications for IBM Power Systems.

Come explore how Enterprise Modernization solutions from IBM can help you identify and modernize key System z applications, attract new talent with modern tools, speed up development and deployment time, unify disparate teams across all platforms, and exploit multiplatform architectures through application modernization and the latest compiler technologies. Attendees will be provided with in-depth guidance from IBM experts, customers and Business Partners on topics ranging from IBM System z application maintenance to cross-platform collaborative application lifecycle management. This track is for IT executives, analysts, architects, strategists, developers and testers who are seeking practical examples and best practices for multiplatform application development, maintenance, modernization, and delivery.

Learn more about System z events at Innovate

The application development landscape is changing. Developers are being asked to develop and deliver new, innovative applications faster than ever before— applications that can be accessed anywhere over a myriad of connected devices. Developers must also efficiently consume new technologies, open standards, and programming models to deliver modern applications that are relevant in today’s marketplace. This track will let you get your hands on the easy to use tools that can help you maximize productivity and quickly bring new applications to market.