Ethar Alali - MonsterLith Inc, A Tale of two Ditties

2016 Agile Yorkshire Xmas Lightning Talks: Speaker Video The Agile Yorkshire Xmas Lightning Talks Competition in 2016 featured eight talented speakers, each presenting a 10-minute lightning talk on their passion for tech and innovation. With the clock ticking down and audience voting, the event was fast-paced and engaging. This video, filmed at the 2016 event, captures one of the exciting talks from the night. Enjoy! In his talk, Ethar Alali presents a poetic and humorous story about the challenges faced during a large-scale IT project, drawing parallels with a traditional fairy tale. The project, originally intended to bring innovation to a struggling company, faced issues from the start due to a lack of agility, ineffective management, and poor communication. Despite promises of success, the project became a disaster, with key personnel leaving, morale declining, and the client’s expectations unmet. Through clever rhymes and witty commentary, Ethar highlights the common pitfalls of poorly managed projects, the failure to adapt to agile methodologies, and the importance of starting small, testing hypotheses, and maintaining a strong team dynamic. The talk concludes with a hopeful message for those who navigated the mess, finding new opportunities and ultimately ending up in better situations.