Presentation: "Skills for the agile designer"

Time: Monday 13:00 - 13:45

Location: Bayside 202

Abstract:

What makes an agile designer effective? Agile designers need to quickly see the essence of a problem, shape reasonable solutions, and communicate complex ideas. When things don't exactly go according to plan, they must react, readjust their thinking, and try again. This presentation introduces several techniques and vocabulary for articulating the nature of design problems and their solutions: Problem frames identify the 'typical structure' of software tasks. Designer stories set the stage for collaborative design. Role stereotypes are useful for assigning or assessing object behaviors. Control styles can help characterize and communicate control center designs. Trust regions can aid in spotting places where 'defensive' programming is needed.

Seasoned designers strike a balance. They know the difference between core and revealing design tasks and plan accordingly. When unanticipated difficulties crop, they adapt their work rhythms. Finally, we conclude by introducing different forms of criticism and how to handle them on the spot so you can hold your own and even learn something instead of having a heated discussion.

Audience: Developers, programmers, leads, and testers can benefit from learning how to characterize problems and solutions. Participants should be familiar with software programming, agile development, and object design, and be looking for new ways of 'seeing'.

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Rebecca Wirfs-Brock

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock invented the way of thinking about objects known as Responsibility-Driven Design. She is lead author of the classic Designing Object-Oriented Software (1990 still in print!), and Object Design: Roles, Responsibilities and Collaborations (2003). She is the design columnist for IEEE Software and past board member of the Agile Alliance. Through her writing, teaching and speaking she popularizes the use of informal techniques and thinking tools for designers, programmers, and analysts. Among her widely-used inventions are object role stereotypes and the conversational form of use cases.

Rebecca is recognized as an innovative and influential design practitioner. She spent 15 years at Tektronix where among other accomplishments were managing the first commercial Smalltalk system, project leader for low cost graphics terminals, and Program Manager of the Reusable Components Group at Tek Labs. Beginning in 1990 she was Director of Consulting and Training for Instantiations, Digitalk, and ParcPlace-Digitalk. In 1997 she founded Wirfs-Brock Associates. Most recently she has taught object design, architecture, and use case writing, and advises clients on design, modeling, and object-technology management in the financial, telecommunications, and government sectors.