Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Jason Tanner:  Roadmapping

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Marilyn Manns:  "Leading Fearless Change:  Making your ideas happen"

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Dawn Cannan: "Executable Specifications with FitNesse and Selenium"

Slides coming soon!

Friday, July 23, 2010

Southern Fried Agile

Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/event/southern-fried-agile-2010.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Catherine Louis: "Leadership and K9 Training: Teaming and behavioral shaping methods used by GREAT vs. Terrible leaders"

Thursday, May 20, 2010

David Cate and Chris Mair: "Continuous Integration: Practices and Pitfalls"

Continuous Integration - Agile Carolinas - May 2010.pptx  

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Todd Olsen: "Agile Business Intelligence: Implementing a data warehouse using vertical slices"

Monday, October 19, 2009

James Collins: "The Fist of Agility"

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Ken Pugh on Acceptance Test Driven Development

Friday, August 14, 2009

AgilePalooza -- Jeff Sutherland, David Hussman, and others

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Open Space (http://www.openspaceworld.org/news/world-story/)

June 23 with Jason Sharpee

June 23: 6:00 PM - 8 ish

Topic: War Stories from the Trenches

Location:

CPCC

3210 CPCC West Campus Dr. (off Billy Graham Pkwy.)

Charlotte, NC 28208 

Building H2

Room 2132 (Building is at the far left as you drive in.)

May 21 with Ben Carey

May 21: 6:00 PM - 8 ish

April 28th with Andy Hunt

April 28: 6:00 PM - 8 ish

March 11th with Esther Derby

What's a Manager to Do?  How managers can reshape their roles with self-organizing agile teams

March 11th;  6:00 PM - 8 ish. 

Location: CPCC - 3210 CPCC West Campus Dr. (off Billy Graham Pkwy.),  Charlotte, NC 28208  -- Building H2 room 2101 (Building is at the far left as you drive in.)

Brief:  Sometimes I see teams that reject all direction and go their own way, declaring, “We are self-organizing.”  They are missing an important fact. When someone is paid by a company to be part of a team, that team exists within the organizational context. 

On the other hand, some managers hear the words “self-organizing” and believe the team is on its own—that they can go into semi-retirement.  But that’s not the case, either.

In fact,both are risky over-simplifications.  

When teams self-organize there's still plenty for managers to do, but their relationship with the team changes.  We'll explore principles to follow as the team takes on more responsibility for managing  their own work, making decisions, and managing team membership.

Speaker bio: Esther Derby works with individuals, teams, and organizations to improve their ability to deliver valuable software. Esther is recognized as one of the leaders in the human-side of software development, including management, organizational change, collaboration, building teams and retrospectives.  She’s been a programmer, systems manager, project manager, and internal consultant. She currently runs her own consulting firm, Esther Derby Associates, Inc., in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Esther has an MA in Organizational Leadership, is the author of over 100 articles and co-author of Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great and Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management..  She’s a founder of the AYE Conference and is a board member of the Agile Alliance. You can read Esther's articles and blog at http://www.estherderby.com or contact her at 612 724 8114 or derby@estherderby.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.

February 12th 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.

January 14th 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.

December 10th 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 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 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 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 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.

Other Notes

Please see the Special Announcements page for information on other up-coming events.

Please see the Joining page if you wish to join us. It's free.

Please see the Your Action page for actions you can take to support Agile-Carolinas. Perhaps the most useful thing is to invite others.

Please help get the message out that this group is available to others. See Getting the Word Out

Our group is affiliated with the APLN (Agile Project Leadership Network; see APLN Background) and the Agile Alliance.