Tuesday, March 25, 2008

AgileScotland Announcement: Linda Rising details

Hi everyone,
 
Here are the details from Linda Rising's course: 
 
This is a one-off chance to learn about the hardest part of software development: the "soft skills" of influence and retrospection.  And, since it's here in Scotland  and it only costs £200 it is remarkably good value.  Don't miss out.
 
Please contact me at clarke.ching+linda@gmail.com if you're interested
 
Please, please, please forward on this email to any colleagues or friends who you think might benefit from knowing about this course. We've already had a large number of people sign up but I've booked a large venue to cope with even more. 
 
Clarke

Linda Rising in Edinburgh - 21st of April

We are truly spoiled here in Scotland. 

imageHere's your one and only chance to learn how to do agile better from Linda Rising, one of the Agile word's original thinkers, right here in Scotland. 

Linda will present a one day workshop on the 21st of April, in Edinburgh, covering two skills vital to the agile practitioner:

  1. How to introduce new ideas, like agile, and make them stick, and, 
  2. How to get the most out of retrospectives by doing them properly. 

Linda is a very experienced author, practitioner and teacher.  It would be a shame to miss this opportunity. 

Fearless Change: Introducing New Ideas

Those who attend conferences or read books and articles discover new ideas they want to implement in their organizations—but they often struggle when trying to implement those changes. And, unfortunately, those introducers of change are not always welcomed with open arms. Linda Rising provides you with proven change management strategies to help you become a more successful agent of change in your organization. Learn what forces in your organization drive or slow change, and how to plant the seeds of change for buy-in and participation—from start to finish. One of the best things about these approaches is that you can use them on yourself to become more effective. Bring your organizational and personal change challenges and learn how these patterns can help you. Linda will discuss these and many other lessons as documented in the pattern language in her book (with Mary Lynn Manns), Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas.

Join Linda to learn how to overcome adversity to change and to celebrate your improvement successes and your organization’s new found practices.

Project Retrospectives

imageProject Retrospectives are an important part of any software development process. For those who are pursuing Agile development, the Principles Behind the Agile Manifesto states that, “At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly.” How can this be done? By taking the time to reflect and learn and proactively determine what should be done differently in the next iteration, release, or project.  Linda’s presentation will introduce techniques for project retrospectives, whether they are “agile” or not. The techniques help teams discover what they’re doing well so that successful practices can continue and identify what should be done differently to improve performance. Retrospectives are not finger pointing or blaming sessions, but rather a highly effective process in which teams reflect on the past in order to become more effective in the future.  Linda will share her experiences with leading retrospectives of several kinds for dozens of projects—successful and unsuccessful, small and large, in academia and industry.

Linda's lessons learned can be applied to any project to enable teams and organizations to become learning organizations.   

Who is Linda?

Linda Rising has a Ph.D. from Arizona State University in the field of object-based design metrics and a background, which includes university teaching and industry work in telecommunications, avionics, and strategic weapons systems. An internationally known presenter on topics related to patterns, retrospectives, and the change process, Linda is the author of numerous articles and four books Design Patterns in Communications, The Pattern Almanac 2000, A Patterns Handbook, and Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas, written with Mary Lynn Manns. Find out more about Linda at www.lindarising.org

Details

The training will take place in Edinburgh City Centre on Monday the 21st of April, starting at 9:30 running to 4:30ish. 

Because I'm doing all the admin etc for free and because you are paying for your own lunches, the course only costs £200 all up, payable directly to Linda on the day. 

Don't forget to bring your copy of Fearless Change along with you and get it signed.

We will end the day with an evening AgileScotland session

If you want to sign up for a position, please email me clarke.ching+linda@gmail.com and I will add you to the list.  (If you've already expressed interest then I will email you shortly to confirm details.)

Clarke Ching

079 2011 4893

Thursday, March 20, 2008

[AgileScotland] Introducing RollingRocksDownhill ... last chance for free download.

Hi everyone,

I guess that most of you know that for the last 3.5 years I've been working on a business novel about the use of Agile, Lean and Constraints Management in software development. 
 
Well ... yesterday I finally sent it my manuscript off to my copy editors. 
 
It's called "RollingRocksDownhill 1.0 - Agile and Lean software development for ordinary people with extra-ordinary ambitions".  If you've read Golratt's "The Goal", well it's just like that, only without the gratuitous sex scenes.  I should have it back in a month and just a few weeks after that I should have it on paper.

I've learned an awful lot during my time with AgileScotland, so as my way of saying thank you, I'd like to offer you all the chance to download - for free - a pdf copy of the book.  It is still in its pre-copy-edited state which means that it's readable, it's useful, but it still has a typo's etc.  Some of the content will change a little, following the edit, but not much.  It also has a few swear words.

If you would like a copy then forward this email to my books hero - Steve.Abernethy@CCXCO.com - and I (not Steve, he doesn't exist) will send you a link to the pdf.  You are welcome to send the book to any friends or colleagues too.  I expect that this will be your last chance to get your hands on the book for free.

thanks everyone,

Clarke

--
Clarke Ching
www.clarkeching.com
+44(0)7920114893

[AgileScotland] Two things - Linda Rising Course confirmed & ScotlandOnRails

Hi everyone,
 
I've been very busy lately (you'll see why in a few minutes) so I apologise for not sending this note out earlier.
 
Two things:
 
1) The training day with Linda Rising on the 21st of April is going ahead.  It will cost £200, payable to Linda on the day, and will be in central Edinburgh.  I'll post a fuller description out early next week.  Thanks to everyone who has already signed up - it makes my life an so much easier when booking venues etc!
 
2) The ScotlandOnRails conference guys have had more people sign up than they ever dreamed of, but luckily they're an ambitious lot and have a decent sized venue ... so, they can handle a few more bookings. If you've still not bookend then scroll down ...
 
Clarke
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Paul Wilson <paul.wilson@merecomplexities.com>
Date: Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 10:13 PM
Subject: [AgileScotland] Scotland on Rails Conference and Charity Tutorial
To: AgileScotland@yahoogroups.com



On 27 Feb 2008, at 13:37, Paul Cowan wrote:
> Where can I enrol for the beginners course?
>


In advance of the Scotland on Rails Conference, we are holding a
Charity Tutorial on the day before the conference - Thursday 3
April.  This is a chance to both give people new to Ruby and/or Rails
a kick-start in the language and framework prior to the conference,
and raise some money for a very worthwhile cause - the Childrens
Hospice Association Scotland (  http://www.chas.org.uk/ ).

It's also a chance to be taught by, and get tips and tricks from,
some of top international Ruby and Rails developers.  For instance,
if you've done any Rails (or Ruby) you're almost certain to have used
the Ruby build tool, Rake, and there's a good chance you've used
Flexmock too -  Jim Weirich, the author of both those tools, is one
of the tutors.


While aimed at conference attendees, the tutorial is open to all.
All you need to do is donate at least £75 to CHAS at this URL

http://justgiving.com/scotlandonrails

The tutorial is being held in Edinburgh University's Pollock Halls
complex on 3 April.  Details are here:

http://scotlandonrails.com/tutorial


BTW, there's still a few places left at the conference proper.  If
you want to hear about the future of Ruby and Rails from some of the
thought-leaders in the community - including Rails on the Java
Virtual Machine from the core of Sun's JRuby team -  now's probably
the time to get your registration in at

http://scotlandonrails.com/register



----
Paul Wilson
http://merecomplexities.com

Scotland's first Ruby on Rails Conference
4 - 5 April 2008
http://scotlandonrails.com







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