Dynamic Test Plans

Test plans are useful for describing the current state of testing and communicating that information to others. The downside is that if they are not updated regularly, they fail to provide accurate information. If the information is inaccurate, then there is a danger that they will no longer be consulted.

I will discuss the motivation behind using test plans, followed by some of the typical problems that may be encountered. Finally, I will draw upon my team’s experiences with Team Foundation Server, and demonstrate (at a high level) what we did in order to keep our data centralized, updated regularly and consulted frequently: that is, dynamic test plans.

About the Speaker

Campbell Lazaruk has been a software tester since the day he graduated from NAIT. He has worked with Matrikon, Inc. for the past 7 years and is currently the Quality Assurance Manager in the products division.

Campbell has a B.Sc, Specialization in Mathematics and a diploma in Computer Engineering Technology from NAIT. When he’s not analyzing numbers, he can be found rocking out on his guitar or reading Slashdot.

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This meeting will be held in the IBM Innovation Center at 10044-108th Street. You can find more event information on our website at agileedmonton.org.

If possible, try to show up a bit before noon so that we can get started on time. Be sure to forward this information to anybody that would be interested.

Leveraging GIT in the Enterprise

Git was born from the need to better manage large open source projects. How is integrity of the repository ensured? How easy is it to start working with it? How much faster is it than the rest of the source control tools out there? How does history rewriting add value to how people commit and manage their changes? What are the advantages of the disconnected model? What are the power features of GIT? What powerful and advanced workflows does it enable?

We will systematically look at GIT and answer all the question. There should be some time left over for questions and answers as well!

About the Speaker

As a software professional, Adam Dymitruk specializes in .NET development, architecture and Agile practices. Having consulted for numerous clients over the years, he started working with a number of start-ups that are successful. He has also acted as a coach, off-shore development coordinator, strategy consultant, technical lead and development manager for various companies. He has incorporated his own software consulting company as of 1999.

Adam has focused his efforts in helping the development community through many avenues such as the board of directors of Agile Vancouver, conference organization for ALT.NET Canada and foundation of ALT.NET Vancouver. He has also taught I.T. courses at Langara college.

Adam holds a couple of Microsoft certifications and an Associate of Science degree. In his spare time Adam enjoys soccer and the Vancouver lifestyle.

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This meeting will be held in the IBM Innovation Center at 10044-108th Street. You can find more event information on our website at agileedmonton.org.

If possible, try to show up a bit before noon so that we can get started on time. Be sure to forward this information to anybody that would be interested.

Software Manufacturing

Why does it seem so much easier to manufacture physical things than it does to manufacture software? There seems to be a lot of lessons that the manufacturing industry learned long ago that we in the software industry struggle with. In his presentation, Software Manufacturing, Norm makes an analogy between software development and machine shop manufacturing. Can some of the approaches that have been obvious for decades in manufacturing be applied to software development? Can we use manufacturing ideas to improve throughput and cycle time in software development?

About the Speaker

Norm has had the good fortune of having worked with some amazing people at some amazing companies. During his ‘software life’, he has worked for a defence contractor, an internet start up, an industrial enterprise software products company, and now, a retail software products company. By some sheer stroke of luck, he managed to pass both the PMP and ASQ CSQE exams. He had the patience to sit through a two-day ScrumMaster course, so has been rewarded with a certificate and the right to call himself a Certified ScrumMaster.

After graduating college, Norm’s first job was as a Numerical Control programmer with an Aerospace manufacturing company. To this day he questions why he made the shift from manufacturing physical components to developing software. He is often heard mumbling the question, “Why is it called soft-ware when it’s so hard?”

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This meeting will be held in the IBM Innovation Center at 10044-108th Street. You can find more event information on our website at agileedmonton.org.

If possible, try to show up a bit before noon so that we can get started on time. Be sure to forward this information to anybody that would be interested.

What is Velocity?

Velocity is a project’s or team’s rate of progress. How does your project calculate Velocity?

Should a team focus on increasing Velocity? Or getting better at being Done? What should a team do if their velocity continues to decrease?

Presenting best practices and not-so best practices pertaining to project and team velocity and release planning. Encouraging open discussion using the audience’s experiences with team and project velocity.

About the Speaker

Hi! I have 14 years of architecture and application development experience. Some of my recent experiences include being VP, Engineering at Fanminder, a Software Development Manager at Sagebrush Corporation and an Engineering Project Manager with Intuit Inc.

At Intuit, I enjoyed mentoring expert contributors to become better leaders and working with employees on their professional development. During my time with Intuit I managed a growing team that was distributed across four remote locations. My team was repeatedly recognized for its commitment to innovation and our product, FinanceWorks, has won a prestigious award and numerous industry accolades.

In addition to my role with Fanminder, I own a small business that helps companies deliver rich internet applications that delight and wow their customers. In particular, I mentor and coach these companies in Scrum, XP and Test-Driven Development principles.

A little more on Dustin:
Dustin is extremely passionate about Agile software development practices. He can be seen attending and presenting at the monthly Agile Edmonton meetings. He is a Project Management Professional and a Certified ScrumMaster.

Dustin has a B.Sc. with a major in Physics and a minor in Mathematics from the University of Alberta. He is a loving husband and father of two. In his free time, he writes apps for the iPhone, shoots pool and plays flag football.

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This meeting will be held in the IBM Innovation Center at 10044-108th Street. You can find more event information on our website at agileedmonton.org.

If possible, try to show up a bit before noon so that we can get started on time. Be sure to forward this information to anybody that would be interested.

Knowing Your Rate of Discovery

Discovered work is all those little surprises that pop up during the course of a sprint and that appear to disrupt the planned work. My premise in this talk is that by tracking and understanding how much discovered work occurs in each sprint and monitoring it over time, we can create more achievable sprint plans and more predictable long-term schedules. Discovery rate is closely related to team velocity – especially for teams estimating with a relative effort system like story points – but it is subtly different. In the presentation, I’ll explain how it contributes to team velocity and how you can use it to more accurately estimate and plan future projects.

About the Speaker

Jim Whitelaw has been leading software development initiatives for more than 15 years and has been using Agile techniques for more than ten. His focus has been on web-based and web-enabled applications, including library automation and online banking systems. In 2006, Jim was hired by AAA video game studio BioWare to lead, coach and train development teams in Agile development. Jim is currently Principal Consultant at denovoPRO Consulting, a company he founded specifically to focus on helping software development teams to transition to Agile development and then grow their Agile expertise.

Jim has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Waterloo, has earned his PMP designation from the Project Management Institute and is a Certified Scrum Master. He has a US patent pending for methods related to securing data in online banking. Jim is an active member in the Agile community, a proponent of Scrum, and an enthusiastic leader, teacher and coach.

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This meeting will be held in the IBM Innovation Center at 10044-108th Street. You can find more event information on our website at agileedmonton.org.

If possible, try to show up a bit before noon so that we can get started on time. Be sure to forward this information to anybody that would be interested.

A Framework for Continuous Improvement: Building a Learning Organization

In this presentation I discuss what continuous improvement is and why it is critical in today’s world, then introduce the framework: a five-stage model that covers the entire life-cycle of an improvement. I provides tips and techniques for applying the framework to your improvement efforts and provide examples, both good and bad to illustrate the material. I also relate the material to the philosophy of lean thinking, which heavily influenced the development of this material.

About the Speaker

Basil Vandegriend is a software architect and developer who is passionate about creating great software and helping others to do the same. Basil is currently employed with CGI where his time is split between writing Java enterprise software and championing the use of effective software development practices and methods including continuous improvement. An avid reader of blogs, articles, and books on software development, Basil contributes his learnings to the community via his website: http://www.basilv.com/psd/

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This meeting will be held in the IBM Innovation Center at 10044-108th Street. You can find more event information on our website at agileedmonton.org.

If possible, try to show up a bit before noon so that we can get started on time. Be sure to forward this information to anybody that would be interested.

The Agile PMP: Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks

Agile methods emphasize trust, empowerment, and collaboration—moving us away from command and control project management to harness the passion, creativity, and enthusiasm of the team. In established organizations, success with agile practices hinges on how well traditional project managers adopt new ways of thinking about project structure and control. Building on the principles of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®), Mike explores how PMPswith experience in traditional development can adapt their styles and practices to become effective agile project leaders. Mike tackles the hidden assumptions behind the PMBOK and explores agile approaches for managing time, cost, and scope. Taking an in-depth look at PMIProcesses and Knowledge areas, he also explores ways to adapt them to agile projects. Project managers, business analysts, and other stakeholders will leave with a new way of thinking about project management practices within the agile context and new tools for delivering value in the face of uncertainty.

About the Speaker

Mike Cottmeyer is the Vice-President and General Manager of Pillar Technology Southeast. Pillar Technology is the leading provider of agile transformation services helping companies develop the technical practices and leadership competencies required for sustainable organizational change.

Prior to joining Pillar, Mike was an agile consultant, coach, and evangelist for VersionOne. Before VersionOne, Mike was a senior project manager for CheckFree Corporation where he led a portfolio of projects for their online banking and bill payment business unit. Mike has 20 years of experience leading IT initiatives using a combination of traditional, agile, and lean project management best practices.

Mike is a certified PMP Project Manager and a certified ScrumMaster. He co-created the DSDM Agile Project Leader certification and holds Foundation, Practitioner, and Examiner level certificates. Mike is an honorary member of the DSDM Consortium, a founder of the Lean Software and Systems Consortium, and helping lead the AgilePMICommunity of Practice.

Mike speaks internationally on the topic of Agile Project Management and writes for several blogs including http://www.leadingagile.comand http://blog.versionone.com and occasionally forhttp://www.agilesoftwaredevelopment.com . Mike co-authored the paper “Rethinking the Agile Enterprise” for the Cutter Consortium and is co-authoring a book on Agile transformations for Addison-Wesley.

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This meeting will be held in the IBM Innovation Center at 10044-108th Street. You can find more event information on our website at agileedmonton.org.

If possible, try to show up a bit before noon so that we can get started on time. Be sure to forward this information to anybody that would be interested.

PAS: Scaling Agile – A real life experience

PAS was a joint venture development initiative by 4 major oil and gas companies and CGI. Devon, Encana, Husky and Talisman joined with CGI to develop a new Production and Revenue Application. Each company put 3 senior business resources on the project. The development component of the PAS initiative cost $35M over 5 years with up to 90 people on the team. This presentation is on how we used Agile to achieve this mammoth undertaking.

The product is currently running in production at 5 major oil and gas companies with great reviews. It is also in production for several mid and smaller sized companies. CGI is currently marketing the product.

About the Speaker

Larry Shumlich – PAS Project Manager

Larry has over 30 years experience in Information Technology primarily in the delivery of applications. He was the Project Manager of the PAS Initiative for the last three years of the development project. Larry has been involved in Agile development since the early days and was one of the first Scrum Masters. Larry is currently a Director with CGI and the Delivery Manager for Alberta Health and Wellness.

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This meeting will be held in the IBM Innovation Center at 10044-108th Street. You can find more event information on our website at agileedmonton.org.

If possible, try to show up a bit before noon so that we can get started on time. Be sure to forward this information to anybody that would be interested.

Case Study: Implementing Agile on a Large Project

Implementing Agile methods on a large project can be extremely difficult.  There can be significant overhead involved in team communication along with a lack of “big picture” perspective.  This gets even more challenging when you’re introducing Agile methods on a project that already has an established project management methodology.

During this month’s Agile Edmonton meeting, Jim Clark, the Director of Applications Service Delivery for ATCO I-Tek, will present a case study on implementing Agile methods on a large project.  Jim has over nineteen years of professional IT experience in product development and business solution delivery, including positions of increasing responsibility and challenge with ATCO I-TEK, TransCanada and IBM Canada Ltd.  Ten of those years have been focussed on implementing Agile methods on mid- to large-sized projects.

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This meeting will be held in the IBM Innovation Center at 10044-108th Street. You can find more event information on our website at agileedmonton.org.

If possible, try to show up a bit before noon so that we can get started on time. Be sure to forward this information to anybody that would be interested.  In particular, this event would be excellent for project managers, VP’s, directors and even CIO’s.

“Software Project Estimation”

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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This meeting will be held in the IBM Innovation Center at 10044-108th Street. You can find more event information on our website at agileedmonton.org.

If possible, try to show up a bit before noon so that we can get started on time. Be sure to forward this information to anybody that would be interested.

Image credit:  pure9