Talk Portfolio

A list of talks, that I can give. They can all be customised to your conference/audience/setting:

How to Facilitate Distributed Retrospectives


Aino will share her experiences with distributed retrospectives; those that went well as well as those which did not go well. She will describe what worked in those that worked and what did not work in those that did not. You will come away with things to be aware of when preparing a distributed retrospective, how to organise it, how to prepare it and how to facilitate it during the retrospective in a virtual setting. There will be links to different technologies also, but also an opportunity to ask questions and share your own experiences.

The Importance of Laughter


In software development, we strive for inspection and adaptation. In order to make the best of this, we have to feel good about ourselves and with each other. Fun and laughter is something I have always tried to enhance in the places where I work, but only recently have I started looking into why it is helpful.
Diving into this subject, I was amazed by how big an impact fun and laughter can have on your social life, your wellbeing, and your energy levels. Join me for a session with brain research, examples of fun, and case studies from real life. Bring an open mind and leave with knowledge about why you should have fun every day.

(This is a live-only talk that would not work online.)

A Comment on How we Learn

As an expert you will be asked to facilitate the learning of others, not to mention your personal eternal learning in your field. Join an interactive session about how our brains accept new knowledge and store it for later use. Your take-away will be three-fold; how to chunk information you give to others, how to improve your own learning AND something to entertain with at dull parties.

What an Architect can Learn from Retrospective Failures

Based on 15 years of experience with facilitating retrospectives for software developers, I have described the most common challenges in antipatterns. Antipatterns are like patterns, just more informative in that you first learn what the immediate bad solution is before you get a better solution. Alongside the retrospectives I have facilitated architecture reviews and there are a lot of similarities between these two activities. Both include a shared experience that needs to be reflected on, both include people with pride and shame in what has been created, and both are under the usual time and resource constraints. Join me for a sad and entertaining talk about how your architecture review sessions can improve based on all my mistakes.

Retrospectives Antipatterns

Anti-Patterns are like patterns, only more informative. With anti-patterns you will first see what patterns reoccur in “bad” retrospectives and then you will see how to avoid, or remedy, the situation.

Based on her book “Retrospectives Antipatterns” which itself is based on her experience with facilitating retrospectives for more than a decade, join Aino for an entertaining and informative presentation on the antipatterns she has seen and how to overcome the problems. We also encourage the audience to chip in with their experiences or questions along the way.

Lessons Learned in Agile Transformations

How do Danish companies do agile transformations? Why should people in your country care what takes place in another country? This presentation will show examples of the challenges some companies face and how they overcome them, as well as cases where they did not. It can be argued that a complete agile transformation is utopian, but some companies have come a long way in thinking, acting, and making decisions in a more agile way. If you are going through an agile transformation, or considering doing so, this talk is for you.

Software Development Culture and Practice of the Future

I have been in software development for 22 years, and I have seen trends come and go like the fascinations of a teenager. I have taught RUP and years later, I have laughed at RUP. On the other hand, I have laughed at Artificial Intelligence, but some years later, AI laughed at me.

This talk will describe how I think the future of software development will look if we reflect now and learn from the past. Learn to bring your whole self to work, and accept that others do the same. Learn that even if software processes can be described in great detail you should not stop questioning whether you are still doing the right thing in the right way. Learn that we are responsible for so many big and small impacts to society and that we have to take that seriously. But most of all learn that continuous integration is something you must have, continuous delivery is very nice to have, and continuous deployment is a lovely dream for most people.