Seattle Scrum Users Group

About the Speakers

Dhaval Panchal - Agile Coach, Analyst, and Certified Scrum Practitioner with SolutionsIQ. Trained and coached 30+ Scrum project teams during enterprise rollouts, including midsized to Fortune 10 companies. Background in development, business and functional analysis, organizational change, project management, and business intelligence

Michael Fortunato has started an Atlanta Scrum Users group. He announced it on the Agile Announcement mailing list (here) and they have just announced a time and venue for their very first meeting. If you’re in the Atlanta area, I would encourage you to attend. Here are the details:

Where: Think Interactive, Inc.
1350 Spring St. NW
Suite 300
Atlanta, GA 30309

When: June 17, 2008
7:00 - 8:30 PM

Contact: Michael Fortunato
404-579-3903
Meetup: http://agile.meetup.com/38/t/if_7199107/?gj=ej4

We wish them every success!

Presentation Found Here: Build a Better Product Owner (PDF)

Topic: Build a Better Product Owner
Are great Product Owners born or made? Though the idea is a tantalizing one, your chances of finding a “naturally gifted” Product Owner are slim. The role is often thrust upon unwitting individuals who may have only the most general idea of what will be expected of them. But ScrumMasters and their teams can help fledgling Product Owners develop the skills and abilities they need to be successful. In this session we’ll discuss specific actions and techniques teams can use to help their Product Owners succeed in this important role

About the Speaker: Angela Druckman is a Certified Scrum Practitioner and has been working with Scrum and other forms of iterative software development since 2002. Currently a Senior Project Manager and ScrumMaster, Angela works at Alliance Data in their Seattle office, expanding the use of Scrum and other Agile practices both internally and in client organizations.

Meeting Date and Agenda
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
6:00pm Food & Drink
6:30pm Some words of Thanks
6:45pm Topic: Build a Better Product Owner
7:30-ish End of talk, general questions etc.

Location
Qpass Corporate Headquarters
2211 Elliott Avenue
Suite 400
Seattle, Washington 98121
Phone: +1.206.447.6000

Further inquiries can also be emailed to SeattleScrum at Gmail dot com. This announcement may also be found at Seattle Scrums home page: http://www.SeattleScrum.org.

Presentation Found Here: Intro To Agile Engineering Practices (PDF)

Topic: Introduction to Agile Engineering Practices
Extreme Programming (XP) advocates a number of different technical practices including Continuous Integration, Test Driven Development, and Pair Programming. Scrum, however, is a process of simple inspection and adaption which doesn’t prescribe engineering activities. So why would Scrum teams want to know about XP technical practices? How can they help us deliver high quality software? In this brief introduction to Agile Engineering practices I explain what they are, and why they are important for Scrum teams to adopt.

About the Speaker: Kane Mar is a certified Scrum Trainer and Coach, specializing in Scrum and Extreme Programming. He has been working with Scrum since being introduced to it by Ken Schwaber in 2001. Prior to his work in Agile software development, Kane spent 15 years as a developer and project manager for waterfall and RUP projects working with Java, Smalltalk, C, SQL, and PL/SQL. More of Kane’s thoughts can be found at his blog: http://KaneMar.com/

BONUS: Chris Sterling and Solutions IQ have also generously offered 1 free seat to a Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) course in June.

Meeting Date and Agenda
Thursday, May 29th, 2008
6:00pm Food & Drink
6:30pm Some words of Thanks
6:45pm Topic: Introduction to Agile Engineering Practices
7:30-ish End of talk, general questions etc.

Location
Qpass Corporate Headquarters
2211 Elliott Avenue
Suite 400
Seattle, Washington 98121
Phone: +1.206.447.6000

Further inquiries can also be emailed to SeattleScrum at Gmail dot com. This announcement may also be found at Seattle Scrums home page: http://www.SeattleScrum.org.

Chad Eaves has started an Orlando Scrum Users group. He announced it on the ScrumDevelopment mailing list (here) and they have just announced a time and venue for their very first meeting. If you’re in the Orlando area, I would encourage you to attend.

The Orlando Scrum users group has a home page at http://orlandoscrum.org/blog/, and their first announcement can be found here.

We wish them every success!

Presentation Found Here: Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Distributed Environment (PDF)

Topic: Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Distributed Environment
The benefits of agile development are clear and evident when everyone is in the same location but do these benefits still hold in a distributed environment? This presentation will explore the challenges of a distributed environment and how one can use agile practices to overcome some if not all. The challenges of distance on these agile practices themselves are also explored. Finally, we will look at three case studies of projects using distributed Scrum.

About the Speaker: Stephen Michaud is the General Manager for Luxoft Canada, and kindly provided the following: “I have had five years of telecom software and hardware development experience at Nortel Network as a verification engineer, team leader, and project manager. I then suffered severe SQA culture shock when I moved into software tools development at IBM Canada (formerly Rational Software) as a development and QA manager. Moving from a market reality that demanded five nines of quality to the development tools industry where rebooting a desktop daily is acceptable release criteria opened my eyes and gave me a flexible perspective on SQA. My next stop was with Blackboard Inc (formerly WebCT) producing enterprise level e-learning software tools as a senior development manager in charge of SQA. Balancing the needs of an enterprise, mission critical software product being sold into a market where budgets are almost universally tight led to a very fast evolution in development practices which when combined with the development organizations move into agile gave rise to many novel approaches and solutions. Currently, I am the General Manager for Luxoft Canada where we consult on agile development and SQA practices.”

Meeting Date and Agenda
Thursday, April 24th, 2008
6:00pm Food & Drink
6:30pm Some words of Thanks
6:45pm Topic: Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Distributed Environment
7:30-ish End of talk, general questions etc.

Location
Qpass Corporate Headquarters
2211 Elliott Avenue
Suite 400
Seattle, Washington 98121
Phone: +1.206.447.6000

Further inquiries can also be emailed to SeattleScrum at Gmail dot com. This announcement may also be found at Seattle Scrums home page: http://www.SeattleScrum.org.

Presentation Found Here: Managing Software Debt (PDF)

Topic: Managing Software Debt
The Product Backlog in Scrum is used to prioritize implementation of features into software based on value. A Product Owner is charged with managing the Product Backlog to direct software implementation for the greatest possible Return on Investment (ROI). Entirely feature-based Product Backlogs do not consider the decay of software over time, and the resulting software debt can sink a project or company. Chris Sterling will highlight ways Scrum Teams and Product Owners can work with stakeholders to manage software debt over the life cycle of the product.

About the Speaker: Chris Sterling is a Certified Scrum Trainer and Agile Coach for SolutionsIQ. With over 14 years of experience in software development and consulting, Chris works on enterprise integration projects for technology startups, large corporations, and government agencies with a clear focus on enabling architecture. As an Agile Coach, Chris is an innovator and facilitator to increase product delivery consistency and quality in project management, architecture, and software development. Along with his daily responsibilities, Chris has released multiple free and open source projects and provides thought leadership on the use of open source in the enterprise. He was founder of the International Association of Software Architects (IASA) Puget Sound Chapter and currently supports the Seattle Scrum Users Group.

Meeting Date and Agenda
Thursday, March 27th, 2008
6:00pm Food & Drink
6:30pm Some words of Thanks
6:45pm Topic: Managing Software Debt
7:30-ish End of talk, general questions etc.

Location
Qpass Corporate Headquarters
2211 Elliott Avenue
Suite 400
Seattle, Washington 98121
Phone: +1.206.447.6000

Further inquiries can also be emailed to SeattleScrum at Gmail dot com. This announcement may also be found at Seattle Scrums home page: http://www.SeattleScrum.org.

Topic: Agile Estimating and Planning.

We’re excited to be hosting Mike Cohn from Mountain Goat Software. Mike Cohn has agreed to take a few hours out of his busy schedule to share some of the secrets of successful Agile Estimating and Planning. He will be talking about a range of estimating and planning topics that are sure to appeal to a large variety of people, from developers to senior management.

About the Speaker: Mike Cohn is the founder of Mountain Goat Software, a process and project management consultancy and training firm. He is the author of User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development and Agile Estimating and Planning, as well as books on Java and C++ programming. With more than 20 years of experience, Mike has previously been a technology executive in companies of various sizes, from startup to Fortune 40. A frequent magazine contributor and conference speaker, Mike is a founding member of the ScrumAlliance, and serves on its board of directors. He can be reached at mike@mountaingoatsoftware.com

Meeting Date and Agenda
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
6:00pm Food & Drink
6:30pm Some words of Thanks
6:45pm Topic: Agile Estimating and Planning
7:30-ish End of talk, general questions etc.

Location
Qpass Corporate Headquarters
2211 Elliott Avenue
Suite 400
Seattle, Washington 98121
Phone: +1.206.447.6000

Further inquiries can also be emailed to SeattleScrum at Gmail dot com. This announcement may also be found at Seattle Scrums home page: http://www.SeattleScrum.org

Topic: Agile Requirements With Fit

Agile projects are all about communication and collaboration. What does that mean for requirements? There’s no up-front requirements phase… does that mean there’s no requirements document or tool? What about functional testing?

Join James Shore for an exploration of requirements on agile projects. James will share what he’s learned about agile requirements in eight years of working with agile team, then introduce Fit, the confusingly-named Framework for Integrated Test. Learn why Fit isn’t what everyone thinks it is, what it has to do with agile requirements, and how you can use Fit to improve communication on your project. This will be an interactive session, so bring your product owner hat and join in!

About the Speaker: James Shore is the project coordinator for Fit and maintainer of the Java and C# versions. He’s been leading agile teams in success and failure since 1999. He’s been struggling with the question of agile requirements and functional testing for nearly as long. In 2005, the Agile Alliance granted Jim one of the two inaugural Gordon Pask awards for contribution to agile practice. His new book, The Art of Agile Development, has recently been published by O’Reilly. Find his blog, essays on agile development, and more at http://jamesshore.com.

BONUS: We will be giving aware 1 free seat to Mike Cohn’s Agile Estimating and Planning course (Feb 28th)

Meeting Date and Agenda
Thursday, January 31st, 2008
6:00pm Food & Drink
6:30pm Some words of Thanks
6:45pm Topic: Agile Requirements with Fit
7:30-ish End of talk, general questions etc.

Location
Qpass Corporate Headquarters
2211 Elliott Avenue
Suite 400
Seattle, Washington 98121
Phone: +1.206.447.6000

Further inquiries can also be emailed to SeattleScrum at Gmail dot com. This announcement may also be found at Seattle Scrums home page: http://www.SeattleScrum.org