[AgileScotland] Edinburgh training day ... now Friday the 29th

Hi everyone,

We've had very good uptake so far,  which isn't surprising, I guess...

Please note: we've had to move the training day to FRIDAY the 29th, rather than Thursday. 

Clarke

Full day "Introduction to Lean and Agile" training in Edinburgh & Glasgow ... FREE

Do you work in Software Development? Do you want to enjoy your job more? Do you want to ship more projects?

update: date now Friday 29th May.

Today I'm delighted to announce the first of our very low-cost AgileScotland "open source" training courses.

Title: "An introduction to Lean and Agile - for Scottish Businesses"

Presented by: Clarke Ching and Rob Lally.

Where: Princess Street, Edinburgh

When: Friday 29th (was Thursday 28th May), starting 9:15 for 9:30; finishing around 4pm;

Cost: FREE if you are currently not employed; otherwise £30; we'll provide coffee & tea but you'll need to provide your own lunch.

Learn Agile and Lean from two of the UKs most experienced Agile and Lean practitioners/coaches.

After attending this course you will understand why Agile (in it's many flavours) works, why it is sometimes hard work, and what you can do to make it easier. You will know Agile well enough that you'll be able to explain it to your bosses, your staff, your colleagues. You'll know enough to sell the financial benefits of Agile to your bosses and to plan your first agile initiative.

We will cover:

* Why? The business reasons for doing Agile

* What? The technical reasons for doing Agile

* Yes, but ... why do Agile projects stuggle (hint: they execute the practices superbly, but miss the prinicples)

* A solid overview of Scrum, Kanban, and Extreme Programming

* An introduction to Test Driven Development.

* Agile / Lean for the IT department (i.e. when you run more than 1 project).

Prerequisites: You must already have at least 2 years professional experience working on (or with) Software Development teams. You must live or work in Scotland.

Restrictions: Only 2 people maximum from each company;

Book now by emailing me at clarke.ching@gmail.com giving me an idea of your employment status, job title, and why you'd like to attend, then very early next week I'll confirm your position. We expect to fill up very quickly so it's first come, first served. If you'd prefer to attend the course in Glasgow then email me too - if you don't ask, you don't get.

Please forward this on to anyone who might be interested ... We will try to repeat any popular courses.

--- Clarke Ching, Linlithgow, Scotland.

1. Author of "Rolling Rocks Downhill" ... a business novel about software development; coming soon from the Pragmatic Bookshelf.

2. Author of "Rocks Into Gold" ... a biztech parable for developers who want to THRIVE during the recession. www.RocksIntoGold.com
www.clarkeching.com
Phone: 079 2011 4893

[AgileScotland] London Lean & Kanban (Europe) 2009 Sep 27-29

Hi everyone,

 

Some of you many be interested in the Lean / Kanban conference being put on in London later this year.  See below.  They're got a fantastic lineup.

 

Speaking of conferences with fantastic lineups ... Rob Lally and I spent the last month or so speaking with some of Scotlands most gifted Agile / Lean / Other practitioners and we now have a fantastic lineup for our as-yet-un-named mini-conference.  I can't name names, nor specific dates, just yet but you're all going to be very impressed with some of the stuff that's going on out there. 

 

---
Clarke Ching -  
1.  Author of "Rolling Rocks Downhill" ... a business novel about software development; coming soon from the Pragmatic Bookshelf.
2.  Author of "Rocks Into Gold" ... a biztech parable for developers who want to THRIVE during the recession.  www.RocksIntoGold.com
www.clarkeching.com
Phone: 079 2011 4893

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David J Anderson <netherby_uk@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Mon, May 18, 2009 at 5:03 PM
Subject: [agilemanagement] ANN: Lean & Kanban (Europe) 2009 Sep 27-29 London
To: agilemanagement@yahoogroups.com


Rob Hathaway (and his colleague Jason Smith @ Indigo Blue) with Karl Scotland (EMC Consulting) are organizing the European version of the Lean & Kanban Conference in London this coming September.

http://ukleanconference.com/

Mary Poppendieck, Alan Shalloway, Don Reinertsen and I will be key note speaking. Other notable speakers include Kenji Hiranabe and Jeff Patton (both Gordon Pask Award winners), John Seddon, Hal Macomber and Corey Ladas.

Online registration isn't open yet but you can call the number on the web site and pre-register with Jason. The event is strictly limited to 200 people because of the venue. Quite a few folks have already pre-registered - many more than registered early for Miami. We do expect the event to sell out given the high level of interest in Kanban in London and the stellar speaker line up.

David
http://www.agilemamagement.net/



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AgileScotland clinic - Edinburgh, Thursday afternoon, 21st of May

Hi everyone,

 

If you'd like a little free, confidential* Agile or Lean (or even Kanban or TOC) advice from a local expert then .. we're holding the next AgileScotland Clinic next Thursday, the 21st of May, in Edinburgh.  Send me a note and I'll book you in with one of the experts.  

 

Yours leanly ...

 

Clarke

 

* Don't worry, your conversations will remain 100% confidential.

[AgileScotland] Clinics ... East Coast

Hi everyone,

 

Wow! I've been very pleasantly surprised by the overwhelmingly positive response to the Agileclinics.  I was a little nervous that people might think it was a daft idea, but apparently not.  Take a look here to see how Agile Austin are running their AgileExpert sessions.  I've taken a slightly different direction in that rather than dropping in, I'm asking people to book.  I'm not sure what's best but I was concerned about confidentiality and scheduling issues.

 

So here are the Bio's of our east coast based contacts. I've known all three for at least 5 years and they really know what they're talking about.

 

1.  Alan Francis - http://cardboardsoftware.com/

With 15 years experience as a developer, I've built systems for clients that include Power Stations, Multimedia Authors, Breweries, Retail Stores and Investment Banks.  I am a Rails and RubyGems contributor, spoke at RailConf, RailsConfEurope and RubyConf, and organised the wildly successful Scotland-on-Rails Ruby conference.  I can do Java, but these days, I mostly do Ruby or iPhone work.

 

I'm also a consultant,  I made an early move towards Agile Methods and attended the first XP Immersion course hosted by Kent Beck and Martin Fowler in 1999.  I became an active member of the XP community, speaking and teaching at conferences such as XP200x, XPDay, XPUniverse.

 

I like building software, but I *love* building teams.

2.  Brian Swan - http://www.codedexterity.com/

 

Brian is an Agile mentor with extensive experience in both the technical and the management aspects of Agile.

He has successfully led a variety of teams transitioning to Agile methods helping them to improve quality and customer satisfaction and deliver software into production with substantially reduced lead times.

Brian has over 14 years development experience and a particular interest in test automation and continuous integration. He developed EXACTOR, an open source acceptance testing framework for Java, (http://exactor.sourceforge.net) that has been successfully used by many teams to test both web and rich client applications.

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

I am an Agile/Extreme Programming coach and coder who has worked with many teams to improve their
process and ʻAgilityʼ.  I have been practising Test-Driven Development since 2000, and other Agile practices
since 2002.  Over the past ten years, 70% of my positions have been repeat-business, or through recom-
mendation.

I am an active member of the local Ruby and Agile communities, and co-organiser of the very successful Scotland on Rails
conferences.  I currently code mostly in Ruby, Java, and Objective-C but am open minded about other languages.

I'll send out the West Coast list shortly.  If you'd like to volunteer to help or if you'd like a little friendly advice then send me a note. 

 

Clarke 

 

[AgileScotland] - Talk at Napier University - "Don't blame the Project Manager-the problem can be the status of your IT Governance"

Hi everyone,

 

Pritam Chita from Napier University forwarded this on to me.  It looks VERY interesting and I hope to go along.  Maybe I'll see you there.

 

Clarke

 

****

 

The following talk will be given by Shirin Sherkat-Khameneh on Monday 4th May 2009 at 4pm in Room F29. Merchiston Campus, Edinburgh Napier University

 

Title:      "Don't blame the Project Manager-the problem can be the status of your IT Governance"

 

 

Abstract:   Project Management needs IT Governance to deliver the right solutions at the right time effectively and efficiently.  Using examples from the Technology and Public sectors, this seminar will discuss the symptoms of ineffective IT Governance and how they impact Project Management and what Project  Managers can do to help address the issues.

 

 Brief Bio:  Shirin Sherkat-Khameneh is a Management Consultant with over 25 years experience working in the Technology and Public sector. She has been involved in business process  improvement for over 20 years and has championed the delivery of a number of IT Governance frameworks. Her most recent appointment was for the Scottish Parliament.

 

 If you wish to attend, please contact me ( p.chita@napier.ac.uk )  to reserve a place

 

Pritam Chita

  

Lecturer in Software Project Management

School of Computing

Edinburgh Napier University

 

 

Tel: +44 (0)131 455 2708

Fax: +44 (0)131 455 2727

Mob: +44 (0)777 556 0717