Saturday, January 26, 2008

Make the Requirements FIT - 28 Jan, Glasgow - Joining Instructions

Here are the joining instructions for Brain Swan and Paul Wilson's presentation on getting the most out of automated acceptance testing with FIT.

Location: JP Morgan Offices, 45 Waterloo Street, Glasgow, G2 6HS.
Time: 19:30 to about 21:00. Monday 28 January.

On arrival tell the security guards that you're here for the Agile Scotland meeting.

If you are thinking of coming please email Clarke (clarke [[dot]]ching [[at]] gmail [[dot]] com) and he'll get your name added to the list.

The JP Morgan offices are close to Central Station, and a ten minute walk from Queen Street. The Edinburgh / Glasgow (Queen Street) trains run on the quarter hour until 19:00, then on the half hour until 23:30. The timetable is here.


View Larger Map

The JP Morgan offices are on the south side of Waterloo Street. Below is a picture taken from the direction of Central Station.

JP Morgan Offices

Friday, January 18, 2008

Fwd: BarCamp Scotland 2008 Invitation

fyi - these BarCamp events have a very good reputation.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Renata Samulnik <r.samulnik@ed.ac.uk>
Date: Jan 18, 2008 10:21 AM
Subject: BarCamp Scotland 2008 Invitation
To: undisclosed-recipients



You are invited to the 2nd annual BarCamp Scotland, to be held in the
School of Informatics on February 2nd, and in ACE on February 1st. Last
year we had over 200 attendees from all over the Country. We encourage
you to come and participate by presenting either your projects,
research, interests or leading a discussion group. Sign up to do so the
ay of the event.

http://barcamp.org/BarCampScotland2008



*BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share
and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with
discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees. Participants drive
the event. Its free & open to all. You can sign up to come along on this
page. *


<http://barcamp.org/barcampscotland>

BarCamp Scotland will be held on Saturday
the 2nd of February 2008 from 10.00 to 21.00 GMT in the Concourse of the
Appleton Tower at the School of Informatics at the University of
Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The night before on Friday, the 1st of February, BarCampScotland
will be launch with a cocktail party and presentations on "Digital Arts,
Sound Design and Media" in the Alison House in the School of
Architecture at the University of
Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland. BarCamp Scotland will start at 18.00
on Friday and end at 21.00.

Friday night will be "Digital Arts and Media"; Saturday's theme will be
"Web 2.0, Social Networking (Facebook especially), The Intersection of
Arts and Informatics, The Intersection of Cleantech and Information
Technology, Mobile applications, Open Innnovation, Software as a
Service, Consumer robotics applications, Educational Software,
eLearning, Web 3.0 and Virtual Worlds and Environments".

Partly sponsored by the European Union through ERDF funding

Sincerely,

--
Renata Samulnik - Secretary
Level 8 - Room 8.16
Commercialisation Suite
School of Informatics
Appleton Tower
EH8 9LE
Phone: 0131 650 9992



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

Thursday, January 17, 2008

AgileScotland - Make the requirements FIT - Glasgow - 28th of January.

Hi everyone,
 
Last year I was very lucky to discover the joys of automating tests using FIT when the team I was managing used it to write and then automate hundreds of tests on an old Cobol and Oracle system.  Although I was skeptical at first, I'd say that in the first month we automated 2 - 4 months worth of manual testing using FIT on this old legacy system.  That was great from a productivity and cost perspective but the key benefit, for me as the project manager, was that we used the tests to communicate and collaborate with an extremely demanding customer and it helped us to rebuild trust with them very quickly.  I really don't have the words to describe how the mood of the whole project changed, during a 15 minute session in my clients conference room,  when we demonstrated the tests they'd helped prepare, running and passing, in real time.
 
I was profoundly impressed with what we achieved with FIT.
 
And then, a few weeks ago, I had lunch with Brian and Paul and discovered that - despite our success - we could, actually, have done things an aweful lot better than we do.  Bummer!
 
If you'd like to hear why then Brian and Paul - who are two of Britian's foremost agile experts, even if they're too modest to admit it - will be giving a presentation in the JP Morgan offices in Glasgow at 7:30 on Monday the 28th of January.  Please email me - clarke.ching@gmail.com - if you'd like to come along - I'll add you to the security list and email you "joining instructions".
 
Make the requirements FIT - by Brian Swan and Paul Wilson
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Communication and collaboration are are the heart of Agile methods. An existing tool can help you to improve both on your project, but most people don't use it that way.

That tool is FIT (http://fit.c2.com/ ). As part of this presentation you'll find out:
* when you should use FIT.
* how using FIT badly can destroy productivity.
* what the most common mistakes writing FIT documents are.
* How you can improve communication and collaboration by making FIT part of your development process.
 
Happy New Year to you all!
 
Clarke Ching
07920114893.

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Scotland on Rails Conference - Edinburgh, April 2008

Happy New Year to you!!!
 
It's not that long ago that AgileScotland hosted the Ruby on Rails course in Edinburgh with guru Chad Fowler.  About 20 locals attended the course - and that was while Ruby on Rails was still considered bleeding edge. 
 
Things have moved on a little and I'm thrilled to hear that my friends at ScotlandOnRails are hosting a Ruby on Rails conference in Edinburgh, in early April 2008.
 
 
So far they've got over 30 session proposals submitted but they're looking for a few more.  The deadline is Sunday 20th January.
 
Go take a look.  IThis is your chance to be involved in the leading edge of software development, right here in Scotland.
 
Clarke Ching