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Calgary APLN 2009/2010
May 27, 2009 — Welcome to the 2009/2010 season of the Calgary APLN!
Please book these FREE Calgary APLN events in your calendar:
October 1, 2009 Season Opener – Networking Social (Barley Mill, Eau Claire - Event 4:30pm to 6:30pm)
October 28, 2009 Panel discussion - “Hiring for an Agile Team”
November 25, 2009 Neil Johnson - "The Challenge of Adopting Agile Outside Software Projects"
January 20, 2010 Kris Read - “Agile At Your Software Startup”
February 17, 2010 Stelios Pantazopoulos - “Project Vital Signs”
March 24, 2010 Janet Gregory - “TBA”
Regular 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
Project Vital Signs
Guest Speaker |
Stelios Pantazopoulos, Lead Consultant, ThoughtWorks |
Date |
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 |
Time |
12:00pm - 1:00pm |
Special Notes |
*Registration will commence at 11:30am |
Location |
Fifth Avenue Place (Conference Room) |
Description |
In order to foster trust and credibility between a project team and its stakeholders, the team has the responsibility to clearly communicate the health of the project. As the leaders of a project, we can apply the metaphor of medical care and their use of “vital signs” to help form a holistic view of the state of the project. Come learn the five “Project Vital Signs”, their associated quantitative metrics and how to enable a team to effectively use them as a tool to diagnose and treat project health problems. |
About the Speaker |
Stelios is a Lead Consultant with ThoughtWorks. He has 13 years of IT professional services experience on 17 different projects. His project roles have included Project Manager, Iteration Manager, Quality Management Lead and Developer. As a project manager he has a reputation for bringing order to chaotic situations. He has delivered an experience report on automated functional testing to the Agile 2008 conference, a talk on "Project Vital Signs" to the Agile Tour Toronto 2009 conference and has been published in a book titled ThoughtWorks Anthology. |
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Past Events
Agile At Your Software Startup
Guest Speaker |
Kris Read, Chief Technology Officer, Curve Dental |
Date |
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 |
Description |
Want to be the next Twitter or Facebook? Find out some of the challenges in building and growing a "startup" software company with an agile development philosophy. The speaker will address how the ideology and practices of agile development, while healthy for development teams, can also be at odds (or perceived to be at odds) with success when defining your business focus, building your team, raising capital, applying for grants, pitching to investors, cultivating early customers, gaining certifications, meeting domain legal requirements, and even potentially selling your company. This talk will highlight the strengths and weaknesses of agile for tech startups, and offer some suggestions to new companies and budding entrepreneurs. |
About the Speaker |
Kris Read is Chief Technology Officer at Curve Dental, a Calgary-area startup offering web-based solutions to the dental industry. Curve Dental was a finalist for a 2009 Codie Award and has appeared on the cover of Dental Product Report Magazine. Kris has a Master's degree in Software Engineering from the University of Calgary, has a background in software development, and has been published both online and in print (including IEEE Internet Computing). In the past Kris has helped implement and improve agile methods at two previous Calgary-area startups, and he is a former moderator of the Calgary Agile Methods User Group. |
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The Challenge of Adopting Agile Outside Software Projects
Guest Speaker |
Neil Johnson, Principal Consultant, XtremeEDA |
Date |
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 |
Description |
Agile has become commonplace in software development. But beyond software development, the commonsense approach that many agile methods advocate for addressing problems in traditional process has lead to them being adapted and applied to a number of areas that include manufacturing, project management and others. One area that has been slow to pick up agile methods is semiconductor development. While the focus of semiconductor development teams has been primarily related to overcoming technical challenges, the team-oriented and organizational advantages that agile methods propose have been largely ignored. This approach cannot continue. This presentation discusses how agile practices might successfully be adapted for use in IC development and other technically complex disciplines. It is intended to assist people in applying agile methods in areas that are not traditionally associated with agile or people at companies that are reluctant to accept that agile methods may be adapted to suit their particular situation. Assuming no related experience, the presentation starts with a brief discussion regarding the technical and organization challenges faced in IC development and how day-to-day activities compare with those of software development. It continues by identifying some high value agile principles that represent major deviations from IC development norm and how they may be used successfully. A summary includes some lessons learned in applying agile methods and a vision for full agile adoption. |
About the Speaker |
Neil Johnson has been working in the field of IC design and verification for 10 years and has authored several papers on functional verification methods and testbench architecture. Recently, his focus has been more on project management and analyzing how agile methods may be adapted for use in the IC development domain. Neil is a certified scrum master and currently works as a principal consultant with XtremeEDA, a professional services company based in Ottawa. He also acts as co-moderator for www.agilesoc.com advocating agile methods in IC development. |
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Hiring for an Agile Team
Guest Speaker |
Dustin Aleksiuk (Developer) Jennitta Andrea (Tester) Janice Aston (Project Manager) John Johnston (Business Analyst) Gerard Meszaros (Solution Architect) |
Date |
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 |
Description |
Panel Discussion |
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Season Opener – Networking Social
Guest Speaker |
N/A |
Date |
Thursday, October 1st, 2009 |
Description |
To help build a vibrant Agile community in Calgary, we would like to invite you to a networking event. Come out and meet other Agile Leaders within Calgary, swap stories and share some laughs. Agile Recruiting has graciously sponsored the event by providing appetizers. Cash bar will be available. |
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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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