Past Calgary APLN Events

Project Vital Signs

Guest Speaker

Stelios Pantazopoulos, Lead Consultant, ThoughtWorks

Date
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
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.

Presentation Slides

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?

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.

Presentation Slides

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.

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.

Presentation Slides

Hiring for an Agile Team

Guest Speaker

Dustin Aleksiuk (Developer)
Dustin is a Calgary independent software developer and consultant. He has been using agile methods in various roles for the last 9 years.

Jennitta Andrea (Tester)
Jennitta has been actively engaged on a variety of different agile projects in Calgary as a hands-on practitioner (analyst, tester), consultant (retrospectives, assessments), and instructor. Her writing and conference presentations have brought international recognition as a thought leader in the area of agile requirements and test driven development.

Janice Aston (Project Manager)
Janice is an Agile project manager and coach currently working as an independent consultant. She is passionate about building high performing teams and delivering business value.

John Johnston (Business Analyst)
John is a BA and Agile coach at ThoughtWorks. He is particularly interested in finding ways to make agile and user centered design work together. Right now he wants to know more about Lean and Kanban systems.

Gerard Meszaros (Solution Architect)
Gerard is an independent consultant specializing in coaching agile teams. He is the author of the Jolt Productivity Award winning book xUnit Test Patterns - Refactoring Test Code and frequently speaks at agile conferences.

Date
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Description

Panel Discussion
Have you ever wondered what you should be looking for when hiring for an agile team? Is just having “agile experience” enough? What are some characteristics unique to agile teams? How can you possibly assess those characteristics? Come out and hear from a panel of experts on things that you might want consider. There will be an opportunity to ask questions and share your experiences.
Presentation Notes

Presentation Slides

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.

Presentation Slides

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.

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.

Presentation Slides

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.
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.

Presentation Slides

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 ...

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.

Presentation Slides

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.

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.
He has worked with clients in Financial Services, Insurance, Medical Health Systems and On-line Media. Most recently he has helped clients navigate the landscape of Agile Methodologies in order to develop road maps that lead to successful adoption of Agile practices within their enterprises. Throughout his career at ThoughtWorks Inc. he has enjoyed helping Project Managers, Business Sponsors, Development Leads, Risk Officers, Auditors, Executives, Business Analysts, Developers and Testers understand their roles on Agile teams and how each of them add value to the overall goal of making the delivery of enterprise software a more rewarding experience.

Presentation Slides

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
a place where a particular group of people choose to enjoy themselves :
• the mountains are a playground for hang gliders.
• this session is a playground for Agile teachers and learners.

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.

Presentation Slides