Past Agile-Carolinas Meetings and Events
Past Meetings
Past Meeting: February 12th, 2009 with Bob Galen.
Practices of a Great Product Owner.
Here is the deck Bob Galen used: Scrum Product Ownership - From the Inside Out.pdf
Feb 12th; 6:00 PM - 8 ish.
Location: CPCC - 3210 CPCC West Campus Dr. (off Billy Graham Pkwy.), Charlotte, NC 28208 -- Building H2 room 2132
Brief: The Scrum Product Owner or XP Customer role is one of the least understood on agile teams. Teams complain that they don't get enough time from them,that they're preoccupied and disconnected from the team.
On the other hand, the depth and the breadth of their roles require them to be more than Backlog writers, feeding their teams User Stories and answering questions. The Product Owner needs to contend with the demands of the business. So the role has a lot of breadth, responsibility and tension. There is insufficient focus and definition for great Product Owners. In response to this gap, I've developed a related e-book. This talk will focus on some of the lessons from the book.
This will be an interactive session. I will ask the audience to share both good and bad experiences, which I plan to share with the wider community.
Speaker bio: Bob Galen is an Agile Methodologist, Practitioner & Coach based in Cary, NC. In this role he helps guide companies and teams in their pragmatic adoption and organizational shift towards Scrum and other Agile methods and practices. He is President and Principal Consultant for RGCG, LLC. Bob has held director, manager and contributor level positions in both software development and quality assurance organizations. He has over 25 years of experience working in a wide variety of domains at companies including Bayer, Bowe, Bell & Howell Mail Processing, ChannelAdvisor, EMC, Lucent, Unisys and Thomson. Bob regularly speaks at international conferences and professional groups on topics related to software development, project management, software testing and team leadership. He is a Certified Scrum Master Practicing (CSP) since 2004, Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), and an active member of the Agile Alliance & Scrum Alliance. In 2005 he published the book Software Endgames, Eliminating Defects, Controlling Change and the Countdown to On-Time Delivery with Dorset House. The book's focus is how to successfully finish your software projects. He regularly writes for industry leading sources. Bob may be reached directly at bob@rgalen.com and for more information: www.rgalen.com
We will have networking and food starting at 6:00pm. The talk will start at 6:30pm. And we will stop at 8:00pm.
Past Meeting: January 14th, 2009 with Linda Cook. Kanban Process - an Emerging Agile Process.
Jan 14th; 6:00 PM - 8 ish.
Topic: "Kanban Process - an Emerging Agile Process"
Location: CPCC - 3210 CPCC West Campus Dr. (off Billy Graham Pkwy.), Charlotte, NC 28208 -- Building H2 room 2132
Brief: Do you like speed? Expect nano-second response time in all electronic transactions? Tired of explaining why it takes as long as it does to get your project completed? Why not try Kanban?
Somewhere between the structure afforded by Scrum and the fluidity of Extreme Programming, Kanban can be seen as a very lean extension to Scrum and is gaining popularity due to it’s ability to rapidly change direction. Kanban is much more than a series of work cards, it uses advanced lean techniques such as queue management, flow control and theory of constraints to optimize the workflow of a team by limiting work in progress. Attendees will gain an insight in to what it means to use a Kanban system for software development and how to apply a pull based system. Similarities and distinctions between Kanban and Scrum will be reviewed. The presenters will share their experiences using Kanban, particularly how it helped teams improve responsiveness, collaboration, and productivity.
Although Kanban can be productive, it is a controversial way of extending Scrum, so the presentation will include plenty time for Q & A and opposing viewpoints.
Speakers' BIO:
Linda M. Cook has over twenty years’ experience in the IT industry, she has held positions from developer, forms designer, data modeler, analyst, tester, to methodology lead. She is a certified 'Scrum Master' with the designation of ‘Practicing’, and is co-chair of the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN) Maryland Chapter. Ms. Cook has helped many companies implement SCRUM, Agile Project Management, Kanban, and several Lean-Agile techniques.
Past Meeting: December 10th, 2008 with Joe Little. The Secret Sauce: Year-end reflections on having fun and getting real productivity from an agile team
Dec 10th; 6:00 PM - 8 ish. At CPCC Harris campus, off Billy Graham Pkwy. Building H2, Room 2132.
Topic: "Year-end reflections on having fun and getting real productivity from an agile team"
LOCATION CHANGE: Hilton at Tyvola & I-77
***Location: CPCC - 3210 CPCC West Campus Dr., Charlotte, NC 28208 -- Building H2 room 2132***
Above is old location!!!!
Brief: This was a fun-serious session with some holiday cheer. We will survey the group on what they learned this year. And we will offer some reflections, what we learned. On the Nokia Test, on Business Value Engineering, on Scrum-Butt, fixing all the impediments, and on better engineering practices. And the secret sauce. Or at least what Jeff Sutherland thinks it is and what I think it is. (A little bit different.) And some ideas on how we all survive the current economic situation.
Speaker bio: Joe Little is an Agile Coach and Trainer. He has a CST, CSP, and CSM and an MBA.
Past Meeting: November 12th, 2008 Labro Dimitriou: Our Lean-Agile transformation . . . so far
Nov 12 6:00 PM - 8 ish
Topic: "Our Lean-Agile transformation ...so far".
Location: CPCC - 3210 CPCC West Camput Dr. Charlotte, NC 28208 Building H2 room 2132
Brief: More so than ever organizations are under tremendous pressure to compete in an ever-changing marketplace while optimizing operational efficiencies. Arguably organizational Agility has emerged as the de-facto pattern for the adaptive enterprise. And while the real-time service based enterprise is gaining momentum the organizational silos seem to present the biggest impediment for adoption. In this presentation will share how Wachovia Retirement Services is leveraging emergent and agile techniques to deliver business value better, faster, more efficiently.
Speaker bio: Labro Dimitriou is a senior technical executive with Wachovia Retirements Services. He has been in the field of distributed computing for over 24 years. Time equally devoted in Banking operations and development, top-tier consulting groups, and commercial software development organizations. He is a regular presenter and contributor to industry events and publications.
Past Meeting: September 22nd, 2008 with Bud Phillips Of Valtech and Capital One
Bud spoke on Implementing Development Value Chain Agility,
An Assessment Framework with Real World Examples
Speaker bio: Bud Phillips leads the Transformation Services Group, where he is responsible forconsulting and training services that help Valtech customers introduce and build agility into their development value chains. These services include agile technical and management training, agility assessments and transformations, and software supply chain strategy development. Before Valtech, Bud was Vice President, Capital One Financial Services, leading the Response Services Group in Marketing Acquisitions. In this role, Bud pioneered using Lean and Agile process principles to radically improve the cycle time, productivity, associate engagement, and quality of Response Processing. For five years, he led, managed and lived the experience of transforming people and processes toward lean and agile value creation. Ultimately, Marketing Acquisitions was regarded as a Capital One beacon for building a lean agile management system and culture for development and production execution.
Bud has been a Partner at Deloitte Consulting and a Senior Strategist at Monitor Company. He has degrees from the College of William and Mary and Harvard Business School.
Location: CPCC 3210 BLDG H2 second floor room 2132 West Campus Drive, Charlotte, NC 28208
Time: 6pm - 8pm. Food and networking for the first 30 minutes.
Past Meeting: August 28th, 2008 with Jeff Schilling of S1 -note new location
Jeff talked about their Scrum implementation, some of the great things they are doing, and some of the lessons they have learned.
Jeff's BIO:
Jeff Schilling is Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of S1 Enterprise Products Division. Jeff joined S1 in June of 1996 and has held several executive level roles including Director of Software Development and Chief Architect. In these capacities he has been instrumental in the growth and evolution of both the S1 Enterprise product and the engineering organization. He has been a key technology contributor to the S1 Enterprise suite of products including leading development of J2EE-based financial services applications. Schilling has over twenty years of technology and management experience. Prior to joining S1 he worked in the variety of lead technology roles focusing on business management software.
Jeff received his undergraduate degree from Lycoming College and his MS in Computer Science from George Washington University.
Location: CPCC 3210 West Campus Drive, Charlotte, NC 28208
Time: 6pm - 8pm. Food and networking for the first 30 minutes.
Past Meeting: July 14th, 2008 with Dr. Jeff Sutherland, co-creator of Scrum
Jeff joined us on July 14th. He is always an interesting and informative speaker.
Dr. Jeff Sutherland is one of the inventors of the Scrum software development process. Together with Ken Schwaber, he created Scrum as a formal process at OOPSLA'95. They have extended and enhanced Scrum at many software companies and IT organizations.
Jeff is a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, a Top Gun of his USAF RF-4C Aircraft Commander class and flew 100 missions over North Vietnam. Jeff has advanced degrees from Stanford University and Ph.D from University of Colorado School of Medicine. He is currently a Chief technical officer of PatientKeeper, Inc in Newton, MA.
Topic: Hyperproductive distributed Scrum teams
Here are the slides: 
Pretty Good Scrum v1.pdf
This is a hot topic with most companies - how do you deal with large distributed teams? What are the challenges with teams that are not co-located and how do you deal with it? How do you use scrum with multiple teams? What are the pitfalls to be on the lookout for and how do you get the best from your people?
This was a great chance to learn from the master himself, Jeff Sutherland. The meeting is free and open to anyone.
Location: Vanguard Group on Tyvola Road.
Vanguard is located off of Tyvola between Tryon and Yorkmont. The location is off N. Falls Drive just - turn west from Tyvola onto N. Falls and, at the end of N.Falls, go straight into the parking lot. Vanguard is the building on the left. Signs will direct once at the building.
Time: 6pm - 8pm. Food and networking for the first 30 minutes.
June 10, 2008
Mary Lynn Manns
May 15h, 2008
Alan Bartnick
Apr 24, 2008
Israel Gat
Mar 19, 2008
Open Space
Feb 20, 2008
Jared Richardson
January 29th 2008
Mary Poppendieck
December 4th, 2007
Jim York, an experienced Agile Coach and an experienced Certified Scrum Trainer (CST), will join us.
Topic: "Lean Thinking in Action"
We will start with some good food at 6:00pm
Location:
Lash Group
3735 Glen Lake Drive, Building 5 ??, Charlotte, NC 28208 (building on the left after the circle)
This is near Tyvola and Billy Graham Parkway.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=3735+Glen+Lake+Dr,+Charlotte,+NC+28208,+USA&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title
Oct 24th, 2007
Roy Maines joined us from Wachovia. Wachovia has made significant strides in the last few months in adopting Agile, and we heard their story, and asked them questions.
Here is his slide deck: 
iTech Scrum Presentation.ppt
Topic: A case study of Enterprise Agile Adoption
* where we started from
* how we got to where we are
* how it's worked, and how it hasn't (so far)
* lessons learned
* where we go from here
Your Q&A were a major part of the discussion.
Meeting started at 6:00pm with food and networking.
Location:
CPCC, IT Building, Room IT-2122
Elizabeth Street and Independence Blvd
Sept 12th, 2007
Mike Vizdos and Mark Pushinsky joined us. They were leading two CSM courses in Charlotte this week. And they are two great Agile coaches.
Mike has the excellent implementingscrum.com blog, with the great cartoons.
Topic: "Fixing your 2 Top Impediments in 60 Minutes"
This session included discussion and a "59 Min Scrum" exercise. This version addressed impediments. At the same time, for those new to Scrum, it gave them a concrete example of how Scrum works.
Your take-away should have been a method (and detailed methods) for addressing the Top 1 or 2 impediments in your firm (or your area).
Meeting started at 6:30pm with food and networking. The discussion at 7:00pm and end about 8:30pm.
Location:
UNCC
Specifically Room 101 of Cameron Applied Research Center
For a UNCC map: http://facilities.uncc.edu/maps/files/CampusMap8_5x11.pdf
If you come early, we have free parking in front of Cameron for 7 cars. Otherwise, when on campus, you will want to park in the Cone Deck, Visitors Lot and walk to the Cameron Research Building. The Cameron Applied Research Center is building 42 on the map. It is on Craver Road. The Cone Deck is on University Road (distinctly different than University City Blvd aka US49).
Visitor parking is also available in the new Union Deck on Cameron Boulevard, not to far from the Cameron Applied Research Building Here is a link to the campus map and bus service:
http://facilities.uncc.edu/maps/UNCC_Shuttle_map.pdf
At that time of night the campus shuttle is running on a 15 min. schedule.
To get to UNCC, a Mapquest map is here:
August 30, 2007
We will be having an Open Space this time.
Theme: "What I love and what I hate about our Agile Adoption." Detailed topics within this theme to be chosen later.
If you're not familiar with Open Space gatherings, you can read about the concept here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology
We will start with some good food at 6:00pm
Location:
Lash Group
3730 Glen Lake Drive, Building 3, Charlotte, NC 28208
This is near Tyvola and Billy Graham Parkway.
http://maps.google.com/?hl=en&q=3730%20Glen%20Lake%20Drive,%20Charlotte,%20NC%20%2028208
Last Meeting - July 11, 2007
We had Jeff Sutherland join us.
Topic: Distributed/Outsourced Development with Scrum: Fast, Lean, and Scalable
Bio: Jeff started the first Scrum at Easel Corporation in 1993 and worked with Scrum Co-Creator Ken Schwaber, to formalize the Scrum development
Distributed Scrum Charlotte 11 Jul 2007.ppt
June 5th,2007 Meeting
Doug DeCarlo joined us.
Topic: eXtreme Project Management ™ applied: How to Lead & Succeed in the Face of Volatility
No sooner do you say the word "plan," when something else has changed. Instead of managing priorities, you often find yourself prioritizing crises.
Traditional project management practices simply don’t cut it in today’s volatile, high-change, high-speed, high-stress ventures. To succeed on these extreme projects, today’s new breed project manager needs to adopt a quantum mindset, know how to apply a flexible project model, and at the same time, be able to unleash motivation and innovation.
Based on his work with over 250 project teams from around the world, Doug DeCarlo will share proven principles, practices and tools that have been captured in his highly acclaimed book, eXtreme Project Management: Using Leadership, Principles and Tools to Deliver Value in the Face of Volatility.
© 2007 Doug DeCarlo
Brief Bio: Doug DeCarlo is an internationally recognized paradigm shifter and a thought leader for how to succeed in today’s business environments that feature high speed, high change and high uncertainty. His work has earned him recognition as a keynote speaker, trainer, facilitator and columnist. Doug is the author of the highly acclaimed book, eXtreme Project Management: Using Leadership, Principles and Tools to Deliver Value in the Face of Volatility and a contributing author to the landmark book, the World Class Project Manager. He is one of the co-founders of the Agile Project Leadership Network. For more information visit http://www.dougdecarlo.com
Meeting starts at 6pm with food and networking. Doug will start the discussion at 6:30pm.
Location:
UNCC
Specifically Room 101 of Cameron Applied Research Center
For a UNCC map: http://facilities.uncc.edu/maps/files/CampusMap8_5x11.pdf
If you come early, we have free parking in front of Cameron for 7 cars. Otherwise, when on campus, you will want to park in the Cone Deck, Visitors Lot and walk to the Cameron Research Building. The Cameron Applied Research Center is building 42 on the map. It is on Craver Road. The Cone Deck is on University Road (distinctly different than University City Blvd aka US49).
To get to UNCC, a Mapquest map is here:
May 9, 2007 Meeting
Mary & Tom Poppendieck talked with us on May 9th.
Topic: Beyond Agile Software Development - Becoming Lean.
Lean thinking has had a dramatic effect on industries from manufacturing to banking to hospitals. In software development, lean principles lead us inevitably to agile software development – and beyond. Lean is not just about iterative development, it is about transforming customer needs into deployed software rapidly, reliably, and repeatedly. Lean is not about slowing down and being careful, it’s about catching errors the moment they occur so that you can reliably go fast. And finally, lean is about taking a look at the amount of work you have piled up in lists and queues – with an eye to getting rid of the queues entirely.
Mary & Tom Poppendieck are thought leaders in Agile, and specifically of Lean Software Development. They wrote Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit for Software Development Managers
We will have some food and beverage and networking at 6:30pm. The discussion will start at 7:00pm and go to about 8:30pm.
Location:
Lash Group, Corporate Center 3,
3730 Glen Lake Drive, Charlotte, NC 28208
This is near Tyvola and Billy Graham Parkway.
http://maps.google.com/?hl=en&q=3730%20Glen%20Lake%20Drive,%20Charlotte,%20NC%20%2028208
April 25,2007 Meeting
Bill Krebs talked with us on April 25.
Topic: "Did we do it? Measure Agile with XP:EF to improve and share".
XP:EF stands for "Extreme Programming Evaluation Framework". Laurie Williams, Dr Anton, and Lucas Layman and I came up with it a few years back for several purposes:
1) Put some objective data behind the hype of agile
2) Use it as a lightweight tool for mid course correction to help teams improve the quality of their product
Like many studies, we show context and outcome. But we have a section for subjective and objective metrics that indicate to what extent Agile, in this case XP, was really used. That makes case studies better, and helps the teams spot problems.
In the process our team moved from 57% of an ideal XP team to 72% of an ideal XP team and improved our quality by a factor of two and productivity by roughly 30%.
Here are Bill's slides: Krebs_xpef.ppt
And the spreadsheet for his technique: 
xpef_v14.xls
A copy of their background paper is here: 
Williams_Krebs_EASE_Jan04.pdf
Bio: Bill has worked in software development and performance for 24 years. He's been Agile since 2001. He attended the Robert O. Anderson school of management, and worked for the City of Albuquerque, IBM Software group, IBM Nordic labs, IBM Microelectronics, and Rational. He's has various patents, and has published ten papers. His focus is process improvement, building communities, Agile and Lean principles and techniques, and lightweight metrics. Bill currently works for IBM corporate deploying best practices across the company.
Here is the XLS that Bill worked on during the session: file:///C:/xpef_v14-1_data.xls
And here is the link to the podcast of Bill's talk: http://www.coe.uncc.edu/~jmconrad/ProjectManagement/Agile_Meeting_Bill_Krebs.exe I believe the first few minutes are missing, but most of it is there.
Location:
Lash Group, Corporate Center 3,
3730 Glen Lake Drive, Charlotte, NC 28208
This is near Tyvola and Billy Graham Parkway.
http://maps.google.com/?hl=en&q=3730%20Glen%20Lake%20Drive,%20Charlotte,%20NC%20%2028208
Mar 22, 2007
Laurie Williams, Associate Professor at North Carolina State University joined us for a discussion.
Topic: Empirical Studies of Test Driven Development
Here are the slides she used: WilliamsTDD.ppt
Test-driven development (TDD) has emerged as a practice of Extreme Programming. With TDD, a software engineer cycles minute-by-minute between writing automated unit tests and writing code. As TDD is considered as much (or more) a design process as a test process, no formal design precedes these cycles. This talk will provide an overview of TDD. The results of several empirical studies of the use of TDD by practitioners will be reviewed, in particular studies conducted at Microsoft and IBM.
Dr. Laurie Williams is an Associate Professor at North Carolina State University. She received her undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering from Lehigh University. She also received an MBA from Duke University and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Utah. Prior to returning to academia to obtain her Ph.D., she worked in industry, for IBM, for nine years. Dr. Williams is the lead author of Pair Programming Illuminated and a co-editor of Extreme Programming Perspectives. Dr. Williams has done several empirical studies on Extreme Programming and its development practices, pair programming and test-driven development.
Enticements: We will give away Agile Retrospectives by Derby & Larsen as door prize (from O'Reilly and the Pragmatic Bookshelf). And free pizza, as usual.
Location:
UNCC
Specifically Room 101 of Cameron Applied Research Center
For a UNCC map: http://facilities.uncc.edu/maps/files/CampusMap8_5x11.pdf
If you come early, we have free parking in front of Cameron for 7 cars. Otherwise, when on campus, you will want to park in the Cone Deck, Visitors Lot and walk to the Cameron Research Building. The Cameron Applied Research Center is building 42 on the map. It is on Craver Road. The Cone Deck is on University Road (distinctly different than University City Blvd aka US49).
To get to UNCC, a Mapquest map is here:
Feb 8, 2007
Tom Finnie of Lash Group and Guy Beaver of Vanguard joined us for a panel discussion of A Tale of Two Scrums -- discussing Agile adoption with Two Practitioners.
This discussion will be driven by your questions. We want you to ask questions to enable you to compare and contrast how Scrum (and other parts of Agile) were adopted at two very different organizations (Lash Group and Vanguard). (There will also be a little structure to the discussion.) Bring your questions!
Guy Beaver is a Certified ScrumMaster Practicing, and a software delivery manager at Vanguard, one of the world’s largest pure no-load mutual fund companies. His recent experiences include the introduction of Agile in a mature process-centric organization, and rapid delivery of enterprise web applications. He has over 22 years of software engineering and IT experience in several industries including DoD, NASA and Financial Services.
Tom Finnie is a Certified ScrumMaster at the Lash Group. Lash Group is a pioneer in designing solutions to reimbursement-related issues for pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, biotechnology firms, and payers. Lash's core strength is designing solutions for clients facing unique challenges associated with marketing new and existing products and a software. Tom has been with the Lash Group for 11 years and has within the last year worked with several teams to implement Scrum.
Location:
Lash Group, Corporate Center 5,
3735 Glen Lake Drive, Charlotte, NC 28208
This is near Tyvola and Billy Graham Parkway.
http://maps.google.com/?hl=en&q=3735%20Glen%20Lake%20Drive,%20Charlotte,%20NC%20%2028208
Jan 11, 2007
Michael Feathers joined us to talk about 'Coaching Software Development Teams: Notes from the Trenches'
Many thanks to Michael for an excellent discussion. Here are his slides:feathers_coaching.ppt. We may have a podcast or video soon. Check back later.
"When we first get into software development, we concentrate on technical skill. We learn how to program, how to debug, and how to design effectively. If we are lucky, we work in an environment where most of that work isn't wasted effort. Most of us gradually realize that we are sensitively dependent on our team. The way that we interact with our coworkers, and they interact with each other, can make work productive and fun, or wasteful and hellish. In this talk, I'll outline techniques you can use to help software development teams overcome obstacles, gain confidence, and work well with their surrounding organization."
Michael Feathers works with Object Mentor, Inc. He currently provides worldwide training and mentoring in Test-Driven Development (TDD), Refactoring, OO Design, Java, C#, C++, and Extreme Programming (XP). Michael is the original author of CppUnit, a C++ port of the JUnit testing framework, and FitCpp, a C++ port of the FIT integrated-testing framework. A member of ACM and IEEE, he is also the author of 'Working Effectively with Legacy Code' (Prentice Hall 2005).
Dec 13, 2006
On Dec 13th we discussed "the continuous refinement of XP" with Ken Auer. Meaning the continuous refinement of requirements, design, results, plan, and people.
Here are the slides he used. Of course, we know that face-t-face communication is preferred.
The video of the talk is here: <http://www.coe.uncc.edu/~jmconrad/ProjectManagement/Agile_Meeting_Ken_Auer.exe>
Ken Auer is the founder and president of RoleModel Software has over twenty years of experience in agile software development in a variety of roles from developer to management. Ken has been active in the development of object oriented software since 1985 and has been well known as a speaker and participant in many industry wide conferences. He founded RoleModel Software in 1997. In late 1998, RoleModel Software began building the first Extreme Programming Software Studio™ based on his vision. This is a place where apprentices, skilled journeyman, and software masters work together in an environment of continuous learning with extremely effective modes of collaboration to produce unusually adaptable and robust software for its clients. He is also the co-author of “Extreme Programming Applied”, published by Addison-Wesley in October 2001.
Further background on Ken Auer is given at FutureTopics.
Also, we have additional speakers in mind. Please see FutureTopics and contribute your ideas and passions.
Nov 9, 2006
On Nov 9th we discussed "Fearless Change with Mary Lynn Manns, who co-authored the book. Mary Lynn is also at the helm of Agile2007 (see Agile2007.org). I definitely enjoyed this one. And as time goes on, I am finding their ideas more and more useful. Indeed perhaps even more useful to me than any ideas in Agile itself (since I am a change agent). Here is a related article from Mary Lynn and her co-author, Linda Rising:
http://agile-carolinas.pbwiki.com/f/MLManns%20-%20LeadershipArticle.pdf
Here are the slides that Mary Lynn used. "You should have been there."
AgileCarolinas November2006-2.pdf
Oct 5, 2006
On Oct 5th, we discussed Agile and Scrum with Mark Pushinsky and Mike Vizdos. And discussed why "they don't grow avocados in Texas". Good exercise. Good Q&A with the group. This event was co-sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society, who gave us a room at UNCC. Many thanks to Prof. Jim Conrad.
They can be reached at: icmbnar@yahoo.com and mjv@michaelvizdos.com. There was no deck.
Sept 14, 2006
On Sept 14th, Arlen Bankston joined us to discuss Lean, Six Sigma, and Agile, focusing on how they can complement and enhance one another. Great discussion! Arlen is a Certified Scrum Master Practitioner, and he works for CC Pace.
His presentation is available here:
http://agile-carolinas.pbwiki.com/f/NC_AgileUsersGroup_LSSandAgile.ppt
July 18, 2006
On July 18th, 2006 Doug Shimp conducted a free seminar on Lean Software Development. This was an interesting talk about the connection between Lean (well known from the Toyota Production System, etc.) and Agile (better known in software development). Free pizza was served.
The slide deck that Doug used is available here:
http://www.netobjectives.com/events/download/leanaglcxn0607char_ppt.pdf
Recent Activities outside Charlotte
On Nov 1, 2006 Alan Buffington, EVP of Technology at Key Bank and Kate Van Buren, SVP at Key Bank, gave a great presentation at APLN-Richmond. Their deck is here: agile at key - Richmond APLN meeting.ppt
VERY GOOD presentation from the real world.