AgileAttitudes Article
 
 
 

Vol 01 Issue 06- Agile Development Conference Report

  
 
Back to the list of articles Agile Attitudes Volume 1, Issue 6 July 9, 2004 A free bi-weekly email newsletter Brought to you by Agile Rules consulting www.agilerules.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Welcome to Agile Attitudes, a newsletter of ideas, insights and technical tips that help people find better ways to develop software. Feel free to share this with anyone - just be sure you send or print the whole thing, including the copyright notice. Directions for managing your subscription are below. O><O><O><O><O><O Nancy V. and Ron Morsicato will be speaking at the XP Agile Universe Conference, and Embedded Systems Conference. See below for details. O><O><O><O><O><O New England Agile Bazaar next meeting at Pizzeria Uno, 287 Washington Place, Newton, MA. Cost: $10.00 at the door covers pizza, refreshments. Diana Larsen will be speaking on Self Organizing Teams. More info at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AgileBazaar/ O><O><O><O><O><O Agile Development Conference Report by Nancy Van Schooenderwoert The second Agile Development Conference happened last month in Salt Lake City, and I'd like to share with you some of the interesting ideas from workshops and conversations. I was there to present my ideas on agile testing techniques for embedded software, and I met another presenter, Bill Greene, from Intel who leads a team doing highly specialized firmware development for their Itanium processor family. His team codes entirely in assembler, and uses proprietary tools to simulate the processor's behavior. One theme that Bill mentioned in his talk was something I found underlying the experience of other agile coaches and team leaders I met there. That's the notion that people will fight against change unless they are allowed to have a real hand in it. For instance, Bill suggested that his team members move to a common XP work area. They'd never hear of it; they liked their individual cubicles and weren't about to give them up for something they were unsure of. So Bill said how about if we just take down the upper portion of the partitions separating the cubes, and try that a couple weeks. Then if it's not better, he'd agree to putting everything back. Once they were given an "undo button" in this way, they agreed to give it a try. They never went back, and that was true for other changes Bill urged later on, so long as he let them have control over the changes. Another interesting experience report came from Paul Hodgetts, an agile coach based in southern California. He compared his experiences with clients who moved quickly to agile practices with those who adopted the new practices gradually. The case studies he presented showed that stronger teams resulted when the team members adopted agile practices on a timeframe comfortable to them, using metrics and retrospectives. It's odd how obvious - almost trite - the above sentence seems! Why would anyone expect a process change to work well if it was adopted faster than the team could handle? But there are plenty of instances where companies decide to move their developers to agile methods instantly. If it'll boost ROI, then sooner is better - right? Not if it is going to create turmoil and resentment in the team. Members of the Silicon Valley Patterns Group were out in force. I must have met a couple dozen! They meet every week and discuss current topics in software patterns, with a strong side interest in Extreme Programming. I talked with Russ Rufer who founded it and asked him what gave him the idea for this. He said he's originally from the Chicago area and they have a patterns study group. But living in California, he couldn't attend. So he started one and it's thriving. Who says software types are anti-social;-) Their website is http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SiliconValleyPatternsGroup O><O><O><O><O><O More articles on Agile software topics at http://www.agilerules.com Within our company we have a sub-specialty in embedded systems. Our site has articles on embedded XP and we support a discussion list focused on the use of agile methods for building embedded software. The list signup info is at http://www.agilerules.com/mailinglists.phtml O><O><O><O><O><O To help you get started with in-depth research into Agile Attitudes topics, we have added a Library section to our web site at http://www.agilerules.com/library.phtml Order using our links and receive discounts up to 30%! O><O><O><O><O><O If you enjoyed this issue or found it useful, forward it to a friend! Help spread the word about better ways to build software - invite your friends and colleagues to join our growing reader community at http://www.agilerules.com/mailman/listinfo/agileattitudes O><O><O><O><O><O Looking for a speaker for your next corporate or society meeting? We present dynamic, informative programs on topics of interest to managers and technical staff in their transition to more flexible, robust ways to create software. O><O><O><O><O><O Want to reprint this issue in your company or society newsletter? For permission to reprint any of the articles, contact us at info@agilerules.com. O><O><O><O><O><O Public Appearances Ron Morsicato and Nancy V. will speak at XP/Agile Universe Conference in Calgary, Alberta, Canada; August 15 - 18, 2004 Agile Methods for Safety-Critical Software Development. See http://www.agileuniverse.com/schedule/index Nancy Van Schooenderwoert will present on "Embedded Extreme Programming Experience Report and Clinic" at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston, September 13 - 16, 2004 See http://www.esconline.com/boston/ If you would like to receive an email as soon as we know of an event in the Boston area of interest to the agile software community, you can sign up for the announcements list at http://www.agilerules.com/mailman/listinfo/agileannounce O><O><O><O><O><O Your feedback is welcome! Send feedback to info@agilerules.com To manage your subscription: http://www.agilerules.com/mailman/listinfo/agileattitudes O><O><O><O><O><O Brought to you by Agile Rules consulting 162 Marrett Road, Lexington MA 02421 Copyright (c) 2004 Agile Rules info@agilerules.com O><O><O><O><O><O Privacy notice: We will not release a subscriber's address to any third party for any reason. This is a strictly opt-in newsletter. No one is ever subscribed without their explicit request. ______________________________________________ AgileAttitudes mailing list AgileAttitudes@agilerules.com http://www.agilerules.com/mailman/listinfo/agileattitudes </plaintext> </td id="bodytable_r1_c3_body"> </tr id="bodytable_r1"> </table id="bodytable">