Presentation: TweetYou're Agile? So What?

Those of us in IT have spent a lot of time mastering agility, and we are proud of our accomplishments. It can come as a huge surprise when our customers, the business people, fail to be impressed by our accomplishments. We must ask the question, does our agility mean anything to the customer? The most likely answer, it does not! The customer cares about what we do, not how we do it.

But the proper answer should be Yes, definitely! An agile IT can provide so much more than working software artifacts. Agile provides a bridge connecting business objectives - Adaptability, Innovation, Sustainability - and the IT systems that are intended to support those objectives.

There are two prerequisites: two things will be necessary before our customers will fully appreciate our agility. First, we must understand the customer perspective, understand what they are trying to accomplish, how they have organized themselves and established workflows to do it, and how they believe our software can help them. This is harder than it appears, as neither side, today, truly understands the other. Second, we, IT, need to go beyond agile - more accurately, we need to achieve what Kent Beck described as the third stage of XP, "There are three stages of XP: out of the box, adapted, and transcended."

This presentation will detail and provide the ideas, perspectives, and techniques for achieving both prerequisites.

Presentation: TweetThe Challenge of Craft

Historically, the Craft movement was an act of rebellion against an agile community that seemed to be moving away from eXtreme Programming values (e.g. Courage) and practices (e.g. elegant code) that reflected pride of workmanship and towards Scrum and Lean, i.e. management. Like most rebellions, it was clear what Craft was against, but not as clear what is was for or how to achieve whatever objectives it might have. Things have improved greatly since then, but many challenges remain.

This talk attempts to explore perhaps the greatest of these challenges and how it might be satisfied. What does it mean for one to commit to Craft and what are the expectations of individuals, in terms knowledge, skills, and experience, as they transition from novice to professional to master. In doing so, we will examine variations on apprenticeship - the most common means for assisting individuals realize their potential as craftsmen.

Attendees will leave with some clear guidelines: how to plan and follow your individual achievement, how to best mentor and facilitate others, and how to help the community establish and maintain a tradition, a culture, of Software Craft.

Presentation: TweetLightning on Agile

A handful short talks, reflections on agile development, a weather report and forecast. The speakers will share their experiences from product line development, complexity management, continuous processes, and psychology and team effects. This is your think tank on what your projects could become. Complement your knowledge with many insights presented in comprehensive format, and use your opportunity for discussion.

Workshop: Modeling the Agile Enterprise: Integrating Business and IT Tweet

This is an analysis and design workshop. Participants will learn acquire knowledge and experience that can be immediately applied to modeling dynamic complex systems like the modern business enterprise.

The primary demands of business, today, is the ability to quickly innovate and adapt to constantly changing circumstances - the enterprise must be Agile. If IT is to support rather than inhibit the enterprise, it not only needs to be Agile but it must be deeply integrated with the business. This requires a new way of thinking, decomposing, analyzing and modeling the enterprise and IT systems.

The workshop will be divided into four sessions, each with a short break. Each topic in each session will include a team exercise, and each session will end with a team exercise.

Session One: Foundations
A. Systems
B. Decomposing Complex Systems with Objects
C. Everything is an Object
D. Team Exercise: Modeling Systems (either a commercial lines insurance company or a hospital intensive care unit)

 

Session Two: Modeling Objects
A. Tangible Objects, e.g. Forms
B. Intangible Objects, e.g. Transactions
C. Modeling Relationships
D. Team Exercise - modeling a complex domain

Session Three: Design
A. Making changes
B. Understanding options
C. Scenarios - Business and Design
D. Team Exercise: Scenarios for improvement - system modeled in Session One.

Session Four: IT Specification
A. From Scenarios to User Stories
B. From User Stories to Acceptance Tests
C. Software Objects
D. Team Exercise: Specifying and implementing a scenario