South African Scrum Users Group has announced it’s first meetings

Peter Hundermark (a Scrum Coach based out of South Africa) has announce the first meeting of the South African Scrum Users Group. He announced it on the Agile Announcement mailing list (here) and has arranged a time and venue for their very first meetings. If you’re in the area, I would encourage you to attend. Here are the details:

Cape Town: Wednesday 27 August from 18h00 (The Pavilion Conference Centre, Waterfront).

Pretoria/Johannesburg/Gauteng: Thursday 28 August from 18h00 (Momentum Auditorium 1, 268 West Avenue, Centurion).

SeattleScrum July 31st: Swarming – The Birds and the Bees and Agile

Presentation Found Here: Swarming – The Birds and the Bees and Agile (PDF)

Topic: Swarming – The Birds and the Bees and Agile

More and more teams find themselves working in an incredibly chaotic environment. How the team reacts to the stimuli in that environment can mean the difference between success and failure. Discovering and applying the rules that will best guide us to success in this complex ecosystem is a daunting task. Where else can we look for examples of this kind of complex group behavior?

In the animal world there is a fascinating set of behaviors that are self organizing, emergent, have simple rules, no central control, etc. These ideas resonate strongly with some of the central tenets of Agile development. These patterns of behavior exhibited by animals are very reminiscent of the team behavior we are seeking in Agile development teams. What can the behavior of groups of animals teach us about working on Agile teams?

In this presentation we will discuss the definition and characteristics of swarming behavior and how it applies to the work of Agile teams. Through a combination of hands on exercises and discussion, we will explore the rules that seem to work well in the natural world and the Agile development world.

About the Speakers

Tom Perry – Sr. Program Manager/Agile Coach at Authorize.net. 15 years development experience including applications for desktop publishing and the web. 10 years experience mentoring, coaching, and consulting with Agile teams (XP, Scrum). Tom is a Certified Scrum Practitioner and Project Management Professional (PMP).

Dhaval Panchal – Agile Coach, Analyst, and Certified Scrum Practitioner with SolutionsIQ. Trained and coached 30+ Scrum project teams during enterprise rollouts, including midsized to Fortune 10 companies. Background in development, business and functional analysis, organizational change, project management, and business intelligence

Meeting Date and Agenda
Thursday, July 31st, 2008
6:00pm Food & Drink
6:30pm Some words of Thanks
6:45pm Topic: Swarming – The Birds and the Bees and Agile
7:30-ish End of talk, general questions etc.

Location
Qpass Corporate Headquarters
2211 Elliott Avenue
Suite 400
Seattle, Washington 98121
Phone: +1.206.447.6000

Further inquiries can also be emailed to SeattleScrum at Gmail dot com. This announcement may also be found at Seattle Scrums home page: http://www.SeattleScrum.org.

Atlanta Scrum Users group has announced it’s first meeting!

Michael Fortunato has started an Atlanta Scrum Users group. He announced it on the Agile Announcement mailing list (here) and they have just announced a time and venue for their very first meeting. If you’re in the Atlanta area, I would encourage you to attend. Here are the details:

Where: Think Interactive, Inc.
1350 Spring St. NW
Suite 300
Atlanta, GA 30309

When: June 17, 2008
7:00 – 8:30 PM

Contact: Michael Fortunato
404-579-3903
Meetup: http://agile.meetup.com/38/t/if_7199107/?gj=ej4

We wish them every success!

SeattleScrum Thursday June 26th: Build a Better Product Owner

Presentation Found Here: Build a Better Product Owner (PDF)

Topic: Build a Better Product Owner
Are great Product Owners born or made? Though the idea is a tantalizing one, your chances of finding a “naturally gifted” Product Owner are slim. The role is often thrust upon unwitting individuals who may have only the most general idea of what will be expected of them. But ScrumMasters and their teams can help fledgling Product Owners develop the skills and abilities they need to be successful. In this session we’ll discuss specific actions and techniques teams can use to help their Product Owners succeed in this important role

About the Speaker: Angela Druckman is a Certified Scrum Practitioner and has been working with Scrum and other forms of iterative software development since 2002. Currently a Senior Project Manager and ScrumMaster, Angela works at Alliance Data in their Seattle office, expanding the use of Scrum and other Agile practices both internally and in client organizations.

Meeting Date and Agenda
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
6:00pm Food & Drink
6:30pm Some words of Thanks
6:45pm Topic: Build a Better Product Owner
7:30-ish End of talk, general questions etc.

Location
Qpass Corporate Headquarters
2211 Elliott Avenue
Suite 400
Seattle, Washington 98121
Phone: +1.206.447.6000

Further inquiries can also be emailed to SeattleScrum at Gmail dot com. This announcement may also be found at Seattle Scrums home page: http://www.SeattleScrum.org.

SeattleScrum Thursday May 29th: Introduction to Agile Engineering Practices

Presentation Found Here: Intro To Agile Engineering Practices (PDF)

Topic: Introduction to Agile Engineering Practices
Extreme Programming (XP) advocates a number of different technical practices including Continuous Integration, Test Driven Development, and Pair Programming. Scrum, however, is a process of simple inspection and adaption which doesn’t prescribe engineering activities. So why would Scrum teams want to know about XP technical practices? How can they help us deliver high quality software? In this brief introduction to Agile Engineering practices I explain what they are, and why they are important for Scrum teams to adopt.

About the Speaker: Kane Mar is a certified Scrum Trainer and Coach, specializing in Scrum and Extreme Programming. He has been working with Scrum since being introduced to it by Ken Schwaber in 2001. Prior to his work in Agile software development, Kane spent 15 years as a developer and project manager for waterfall and RUP projects working with Java, Smalltalk, C, SQL, and PL/SQL. More of Kane’s thoughts can be found at his blog: http://KaneMar.com/

BONUS: Chris Sterling and Solutions IQ have also generously offered 1 free seat to a Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) course in June.

Meeting Date and Agenda
Thursday, May 29th, 2008
6:00pm Food & Drink
6:30pm Some words of Thanks
6:45pm Topic: Introduction to Agile Engineering Practices
7:30-ish End of talk, general questions etc.

Location
Qpass Corporate Headquarters
2211 Elliott Avenue
Suite 400
Seattle, Washington 98121
Phone: +1.206.447.6000

Further inquiries can also be emailed to SeattleScrum at Gmail dot com. This announcement may also be found at Seattle Scrums home page: http://www.SeattleScrum.org.

Orlando Scrum Users group has announced it’s first meeting!

Chad Eaves has started an Orlando Scrum Users group. He announced it on the ScrumDevelopment mailing list (here) and they have just announced a time and venue for their very first meeting. If you’re in the Orlando area, I would encourage you to attend.

The Orlando Scrum users group has a home page at http://orlandoscrum.org/blog/, and their first announcement can be found here.

We wish them every success!

SeattleScrum Thursday April 24th: Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Distributed Environment

Presentation Found Here: Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Distributed Environment (PDF)

Topic: Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Distributed Environment
The benefits of agile development are clear and evident when everyone is in the same location but do these benefits still hold in a distributed environment? This presentation will explore the challenges of a distributed environment and how one can use agile practices to overcome some if not all. The challenges of distance on these agile practices themselves are also explored. Finally, we will look at three case studies of projects using distributed Scrum.

About the Speaker: Stephen Michaud is the General Manager for Luxoft Canada, and kindly provided the following: “I have had five years of telecom software and hardware development experience at Nortel Network as a verification engineer, team leader, and project manager. I then suffered severe SQA culture shock when I moved into software tools development at IBM Canada (formerly Rational Software) as a development and QA manager. Moving from a market reality that demanded five nines of quality to the development tools industry where rebooting a desktop daily is acceptable release criteria opened my eyes and gave me a flexible perspective on SQA. My next stop was with Blackboard Inc (formerly WebCT) producing enterprise level e-learning software tools as a senior development manager in charge of SQA. Balancing the needs of an enterprise, mission critical software product being sold into a market where budgets are almost universally tight led to a very fast evolution in development practices which when combined with the development organizations move into agile gave rise to many novel approaches and solutions. Currently, I am the General Manager for Luxoft Canada where we consult on agile development and SQA practices.”

Meeting Date and Agenda
Thursday, April 24th, 2008
6:00pm Food & Drink
6:30pm Some words of Thanks
6:45pm Topic: Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Distributed Environment
7:30-ish End of talk, general questions etc.

Location
Qpass Corporate Headquarters
2211 Elliott Avenue
Suite 400
Seattle, Washington 98121
Phone: +1.206.447.6000

Further inquiries can also be emailed to SeattleScrum at Gmail dot com. This announcement may also be found at Seattle Scrums home page: http://www.SeattleScrum.org.

SeattleScrum meeting on Thursday March 27th: Managing Software Debt

Presentation Found Here: Managing Software Debt (PDF)

Topic: Managing Software Debt
The Product Backlog in Scrum is used to prioritize implementation of features into software based on value. A Product Owner is charged with managing the Product Backlog to direct software implementation for the greatest possible Return on Investment (ROI). Entirely feature-based Product Backlogs do not consider the decay of software over time, and the resulting software debt can sink a project or company. Chris Sterling will highlight ways Scrum Teams and Product Owners can work with stakeholders to manage software debt over the life cycle of the product.

About the Speaker: Chris Sterling is a Certified Scrum Trainer and Agile Coach for SolutionsIQ. With over 14 years of experience in software development and consulting, Chris works on enterprise integration projects for technology startups, large corporations, and government agencies with a clear focus on enabling architecture. As an Agile Coach, Chris is an innovator and facilitator to increase product delivery consistency and quality in project management, architecture, and software development. Along with his daily responsibilities, Chris has released multiple free and open source projects and provides thought leadership on the use of open source in the enterprise. He was founder of the International Association of Software Architects (IASA) Puget Sound Chapter and currently supports the Seattle Scrum Users Group.

Meeting Date and Agenda
Thursday, March 27th, 2008
6:00pm Food & Drink
6:30pm Some words of Thanks
6:45pm Topic: Managing Software Debt
7:30-ish End of talk, general questions etc.

Location
Qpass Corporate Headquarters
2211 Elliott Avenue
Suite 400
Seattle, Washington 98121
Phone: +1.206.447.6000

Further inquiries can also be emailed to SeattleScrum at Gmail dot com. This announcement may also be found at Seattle Scrums home page: http://www.SeattleScrum.org.

Materials from Mike Cohn’s “Agile Estimating and Planning” talk.

Last months meeting with Mike Cohn was our most popular ever! Mike did a roller-coaster introduction to “Agile estimating and Planning” all the way from estimating using Story Points right through to Planning releases … all in just over an hour! 

 

If you missed the presentation itself, the slides are now online at Mountain Goat Software (here). Thanks to everyone who attended for making it a great night. 

SeattleScrum meeting on Thursday February 28th: Agile Estimating and Planning

Topic: Agile Estimating and Planning.

We’re excited to be hosting Mike Cohn from Mountain Goat Software. Mike Cohn has agreed to take a few hours out of his busy schedule to share some of the secrets of successful Agile Estimating and Planning. He will be talking about a range of estimating and planning topics that are sure to appeal to a large variety of people, from developers to senior management.

About the Speaker: Mike Cohn is the founder of Mountain Goat Software, a process and project management consultancy and training firm. He is the author of User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development and Agile Estimating and Planning, as well as books on Java and C++ programming. With more than 20 years of experience, Mike has previously been a technology executive in companies of various sizes, from startup to Fortune 40. A frequent magazine contributor and conference speaker, Mike is a founding member of the ScrumAlliance, and serves on its board of directors. He can be reached at mike@mountaingoatsoftware.com

Meeting Date and Agenda
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
6:00pm Food & Drink
6:30pm Some words of Thanks
6:45pm Topic: Agile Estimating and Planning
7:30-ish End of talk, general questions etc.

Location
Qpass Corporate Headquarters
2211 Elliott Avenue
Suite 400
Seattle, Washington 98121
Phone: +1.206.447.6000

Further inquiries can also be emailed to SeattleScrum at Gmail dot com. This announcement may also be found at Seattle Scrums home page: http://www.SeattleScrum.org