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Calgary APLN 2008/2009
May 27, 2009 — Welcome to the 2008/2009 season of the Calgary APLN.
Please book these FREE Calgary APLN events in your calendar:
Jan 28, 2009 The Agile Mindset: Applying Agile in Non-Technical Areas of an Organization with Tiffany Lentz
Feb 27, 2009 Agile Retrospectives with Jennitta Andrea
April 29, 2009 Agile in a Nutshell with Jonathan Rasmusson
May 27, 2009 Planning for Success with Accurate Agile Project Estimation with Brian Donaldson
Calgary APLN events stop from June to August, stayed tuned for the next event in fall of 2009.
All meetings will run from 12:00 – 1:00pm and will be located at Fifth Avenue Place Conference Room Suite 202, 420 2nd Street SW. We are currently looking for sponsors to help bring these events to you free of charge. If you are able to sponsor an event please contact:
Mike Griffiths - Mike@LeadingAnswers.com or
Janice Aston – Janice@agileperspective.ca
Upcoming Events
Next Calgary APLN Event Fall 2009
Guest Speaker |
N/A |
Date |
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 |
Time |
12:00pm - 1:00pm |
Location |
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Description |
Calgary APLN events stop for the summer months. Become a Calgary APLN member to receive the newsletter in the fall regarding the next event. |
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Past Events
Planning for Success with Accurate Agile Project Estimation
Guest Speaker |
Brian Donaldson, Executive Technical Director, Quadrus Development Inc. |
Date |
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 |
Description |
Software estimation has been called a “black art”. Standard industry methods for estimating software projects are highly complex, geared toward very large waterfall projects and require a myriad of complex and non-intuitive inputs. Often Agile estimation approaches focus on stories or iterations, but fail in their attempt to accurately estimate an entire project. Quadrus has developed an easily accessible and accurate estimation methodology and tool, built on cutting-edge mathematics and statistics. This presentation will introduce the next generation in software project estimation and demonstrate the Quadrus estimation tool. |
About the Speaker |
Brian Donaldson co-founded Quadrus in 1993 and continues his active role as a senior member of the Quadrus leadership team and as a key strategic advisor to select Quadrus clients. Brian brings to his role a 20-year track record of success as an IT industry leader and an uncommonly wide breadth of skills and experiences. Brian began his career as a technical software architect, then moved into project management, and then progressed to overall program planning, IT business strategy and executive management. This unusual breadth of experience affords Brian a unique insight into the IT business and has helped him to amass a strong track record of building and leading highly effective teams and directing mission-critical technology initiatives. |
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Agile in a Nutshell
Guest Speaker |
Jonathan Rasmusson, Agile Coach & Consultant, Rasmusson Software Consulting |
Date |
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 |
Description |
If you’ve been doing Waterfall delivery most of your career - agile can be down right scary.
- Changing requirements - Adaptive planning - Iterative development - Time boxed delivery All intimidating things for managers and organizations used to doing things sequentially in discrete phases one stage at a time. Most people get intellectually what agile is (much of it they already do). What isn’t so obvious is how to explain it in simple terms to others and how waterfall shops can consider transitioning. In this introductory presentation, we will look at agile in simple terms explaining: Why / how we got here? Agile in a nutshell Agile in concrete terms Agile in people terms Myths about agile What you can expect from working on an agile team Which agile method is right for me? Three steps you can take towards agility today |
About the Speaker |
Jonathan is a software professional with a passion of agile software delivery. As a former consultant at ThoughtWorks, Jonathan got to cut his teeth early on agile methods like XP and Scrum, while working for companies like British Petroleum, Microsoft, and TransCanada Pipelines. As the co-founder of a local startup, Jonathan got to see first hand how agile methods could be adapted to work at web 2.0 startups. Currently serving at Shaw as a practice lead, Jonathan is keen on helping Shaw discover better ways to produce production ready software for their customers. |
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Reinvigorate Your Retrospectives
Guest Speaker |
Jennitta Andrea, The Andrea Group |
Date |
Friday, February 27th, 2009 |
Description |
You know you should be performing regular retrospectives, but you can't convince management or the team that it's a worthwhile investment of time ... Your team has been performing retrospectives every iteration, and they have become monotonous and have stopped producing valuable insights ... You've heard about retrospectives, but don't even know how to get started ... The difference between a retrospective that is considered dull and worthless and a retrospective that produces team bonding and valuable insignts is in the planning and preparation. All effective retrospectives share a common structure: safety, review history, insight mining, prioritization, and concrete action planning. Explore the different ways that iteration and milestone retrospectives fill in this structure based on the type of learning that we need to draw out of the team at a particular point in the project. Variations on the activities that fill in the structure are described and experienced first hand. Presentation Slide Notes |
About the Speaker |
Jennitta Andrea has been a multi-faceted, hands-on practitioner (analyst, tester, developer, manager) and coach on over a dozen different types of agile projects since 2000. Naturally a keen observer of teams and processes, Jennitta has published many experience-based papers for conferences and software journals, and delivers practical, simulation-based tutorials and in-house training covering: agile requirements, process adaptation, automated examples, and project retrospectives. Jennitta's ongoing work has culminated in international recognition as a thought leader in the area of agile requirements and automated examples. She is very active in the agile community: serving a third term on the Agile Alliance Board of Directors, director of the Agile Alliance Functional Test Tool Program to advance the state of the art of automated functional test tools, member of the Advisory Board of IEEE Software, and member on many conference committees. Jennitta founded The Andrea Group in 2007 where she remains actively engaged on agile projects as a hands-on practitioner and coach, and continues to bridge theory and practice in her writing and teaching. |
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The Agile Mindset: Applying Agile in Non-Technical Areas of an Organization
Guest Speaker |
Tiffany Lentz & Manu Tandon |
Date |
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 |
Description |
Agile techniques are often pigeon-holed as just applying to software projects and IT organizations. Agile techniques are a mindset more than a list of rules to follow and can bring efficiency and improvements to all areas of an organization. This presentation will cover a case study of ThoughtWorks experience with a major bank and credit card company in the US and their application of Agile techniques. We will cover the process, outcomes and challenges of the Agile implementation. The Agile Mindset Presentation Slides: Slides |
About the Speaker |
Tiffany Lentz is an Agile Consultant and Program/Project Manager and is proudly employed by ThoughtWorks, Inc. Tiffany has 5 years experience as a Project Manager with ThoughtWorks, with several years previous experience as a Financial Consultant at Nationwide Financial. Tiffany has worked on multiple and disparate system delivery projects, from inception to production. She has also assisted several organizations with Agile Enablement and Organizational Transformation efforts to incorporate and enhance efficiency and delivery processes. She is an author, mentor, coach and trainer of Agile methodologies, processes and practices. Manu Tandon is an Account Manager with ThoughtWorks Inc. During his tenure with ThoughtWorks, Manu has worked on Agile teams as a Tester, Business Analyst, Iteration Manager, Scrum Master, Agile Coach and Project Manager delivering systems that solve complex business problems. |
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The Agile Playground: Learning Games for the Agile Practitioner
Guest Speaker |
Michael McCullough, Quadrus Development Inc. |
Date |
Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 |
Description |
The Agile Playground: Learning Games for the Agile Practitioner playground |ˈplāˌground| noun |
About the Speaker |
Michael McCullough is a trainer and consultant at Quadrus. He has served as a project leader, trainer, coach and mentor for an impressive list of clients in a broad range of industries and business environments. With a broad background in software development and practical experience leading Agile teams, Michael is able to effectively assist and mentor clients in the adoption and application of Agile methodologies. Michael has a keen interest in team dynamics and approaches to creating environments for highly productive teams. Michael has deep, practical experience applying game techniques in the classroom and project room to communicate Agile values and principles. |
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