The video of my talk from QCon Shanghai is live

Had a great time at QCon, met a ton of interesting folks, and the organizers were awesome. The video and slides are now live on their site: http://www.infoq.com/cn/presentations/building-strong-engineer-culture

There are a couple issues to be aware of. They did the slides separately, so they don’t always line up with what I’m saying. Also, since I was being simultaneously translated, I talk more slowly and pause more often than I would normally to let the translator catch up.

I think that this will be the last time I give this talk publicly, now that it is recorded fairly well, and available world-wide.

My slides from ProductTank Sthlm

I was asked to speak about how we align around the product while we maintain autonomous teams. Given that this was a talk to product people rather than engineers or coaches, I tried to keep it focused around product definition and prioritization. As usual, I don’t like to put many words in the slides, so hopefully you get the gist. There is a recording being made, so hopefully that will get posted and then I will link to it here.

Upcoming talks, Fall 2014

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I’ve got some talks lined up for this fall, including my first talk in Asia!

ProductTank STHLM - Stockholm, Sweden - August 27, 2014
Nice to talk again in my home city, and super excited to be speaking to a group primarily made up of product professionals. I’m going to give a talk about how engineering and product teams can work together effectively and how we work at Spotify.

Empowering your engineering talent - London, UK - September 22, 2014
Coming back to London for a breakfast symposium on hiring and empowering engineering talent. 

QCon Shanghai - Shanghai, China - October 16-18, 2014
I’ll be one of the keynotes at the Shanghai edition of this international software development conference.

Hope to see you at one of these!

A recording of my talk from SudWeb 2014

Forgot that I had a head cold when I gave this talk, so my voice sounds a bit rough, and I start a bit slow. So sorry about that, but I’m so grateful for the high quality recording that the SudWeb team did.

Culture leads, everything else follows – Kevin Goldsmith from Sud Web on Vimeo.

Spotify Lead Engineer explains why there are no strong teams without the manifestation of shared values.
From the culture comes anything else.

BBC Academy Video on Engineering Culture

This video only works with UK IP Addresses. Sorry about that…

This includes some short clips from my talk at the BBC in November and has several engineering leaders from the BBC talking about their culture. A good, quick intro.

This page has some more information about the speakers: BBC Academy – Engineering Culture

Some Upcoming Talks in Europe

Happy new year! I’ve got some talks coming up this winter and spring that you may be interested in. In both of them I’ll be talking more about building strong engineering teams and how we build with Agile and Lean at Spotify.

Software 2014
Oslo, Norway - February 26-27, 2014

This is the yearly conference of the Norwegian Computer Society. I’ll be talking as part of the Lean development track. My talk is on Wednesday at 9:45.

Sud Web 2014
Toulouse, France - May 16-17, 2014

The format of this conference looks really great. I’m excited that they asked me to speak. I’ll have more details as the date approaches.

If you are attending either of the conferences above, let me know in the comments or over twitter. Really looking forward to meeting up with people.

My Slides From My BBC Develop Keynote

I had a great time at the BBC Develop conference in London this week. The BBC were gracious hosts, the audience had some good (and not too easy questions) and the program had some really good talks; so I learned quite a bit and met some excellent folks. Special thanks to Tanya Rai, Colin Savage, and Simon Stevenson at the BBC for inviting me and putting on a great day.