Maarit Laanti

Maarit is an agile coach who has transformed organizations to lean and agile since 2006. Her current interest is in Agile Hardware. Last year, Maarit co-founded a consultancy company called WikiAgile, which is located in Finland, Germany, and Poland.

Maarit has been nominated with LIA100 amongst the 100 women worldwide who have contributed most to Lean and Agile methods and several times to the list of 100 ICT influencers in Finland (by Tivi).
She also serves as Track and/or Program Chair for Agile Alliance’s XP conference from 2000 to 2024.

Before her career as a consultant, Maarit led the biggest agile transformation at the time, at Nokia Mobile Phones.
She has contributed to SAFe in many ways, including the Lean-Agile budgeting to SAFe 3.0.
Her background is hands-on work at Nokia. She worked hands-on for over 20 years in multiple positions, from software developer to program, line manager, and transformation leader.

In 2013, she published the first PhD on scaling agile methods, titled “Agile Methods in Large-Scale Software Development Organizations – Applicability and Model for Adoption”.

Outside of her professional life, Maarit finds joy in classical singing (soprano), a testament to her artistic side. She cherishes spending quality time with her family, especially on the sea, which she considers the perfect way to unwind and recharge.

Workshop—Agile Hardware Workshop

What is agile hardware? How could we apply agile methods in hardware development? We start by understanding lean thinking and agile and then discuss how those methods could be used in hardware development.

The workshop is based on Maarit's experience in agile hardware development and her published whitepaper on Steps to Apply Agile Methods in Hardware Development.