Hi,
The following email is part of an initiative by the north-west based
geek groups. Please reply to the survey if you think you may be
interested in co-working anytime.
Many thanks,
Kevin


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Paul Robinson <paul@...>
Date: Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 3:41 PM
Subject: [cwm] Fly The Coop survey
To: co-working-manchester@googlegroups.com



Sort of a crosspost from GeekUp:

Fly The Coop is a non-profit co-operative established to provide co-
working and collaboration across Manchester (and ultimately... beyond?).

You can find out (a little) more about Fly The Coop (FTC for short),
here:

http://www.flythecoop.co.uk/

This Wednesday just gone, Fly The Coop held a co-working day at the
Science Park and started to plan for the future.

We established during the course of that, rather than us inventing
what we want, we should ask the community at large what they want.

So, as it's Friday afternoon, I'd like you to take 10 minutes to help
us work out what you want or need from a co-working space. We've
designed a questionnaire to try and help us understand the needs of
the community as a whole. Take a peek:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=7ImiuFlWgOk_2bsQYHkUN3Jw_3d_3d

This is focused at Manchester, but if you travel into Manchester from
afar occasionally we'd be pleased to hear about what you think too in
case you'd ever want to call in - we ask for personal details at the
end and the only bit that is compulsory is the postcode so we can
identify where you are: the rest of your personal information is
entirely optional.

Your responses will be anonymised/aggregated with other responses
before being passed onto the FTC board of directors.

--
Paul Robinson

http://vagueware.com :: paul@... :: +44 (0) 7740 465746

Vagueware Limited is registered in England/Wales, number 05700421
Registered Office: 3 Tivoli Place, Ilkley, W. Yorkshire, LS29 8SU
Correspondence:   55 Velvet Court, Granby Row, Manchester, M1 7AB



--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Co-working Manchester" group.
To post to this group, send email to co-working-manchester@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
co-working-manchester+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/co-working-manchester?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

next XP Club meeting:

When: 10th of December (2nd Wednesday)  @7pm for 7:30pm

Where: Leeds, Victoria Hotel Pub, room behind the bar

What:  Gary Short's talk on Design Patterns.

A byte more:
Finally we are hosting a Premiership speaker with loads of presenting
experience, charisma and software development history spanning over
the decades.
Gary is a Technical Evangelist for Developper Express, writes his
personal blog for few years now, and also a work blog.
Gary is an avid speaker presenting at various conferences and
developers gatherings all over the country and on international stage
too.
Please see his blog for an extensive list of talks and while you
there, please have a look at the tags, to see how many things interest
Gary.

Extras:
After the talk, some Q&A session and some networking, we will all head
off to Leeds Christmas Market, to have some wurst, sauerkraut and
continental lager.
Drinks and snacks thanks to our sponsors are free.
We will also draw one free personal license for any of the products by
JetBrains - our fantastic sponsor.

WWW:
http://xpclub.erudine.com
http://garyshortor.web140.discountasp.net/blog/Default.aspx
http://community.devexpress.com/blogs/garyshort/
http://www.festiveleeds.com/christmasmarket/


Thanks!

How about asking Ivan Moore.

Hi all,

Can anyone recommend an existing (generic) model/diagram for continuous
integration? I could quite easily draw one based on classic models such
as Fowler's; however, I wonder if anyone's come across a generic
diagram?

Hope everyone who attended the conference yesterday had a good time!

Cheers,
Ant
---------------------
Treasurer | AgileNorth
Software Process Architect | Cegedim UK

Joel Spolsky wrote a whole book from the springboard of a blog posting
on the topic of recruiting programmers.  I've not read the book, but I
can recommend the blog post:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html

Regards,

Dave Potts.
http://dadhacker.blogspot.com

2008/10/15 johnharkins1 <john.harkins@...>:
> Hi
>
> I'm in the market for a couple of agile .net developers and it is more
> important than ever that we get the right people. We are a small team
> so complimentary team fit and skill set are crucial factors for us.
>
> I get spammed on a daily basis from recruiters, I'm worried that by
> posting this I will be deluged with unsolicited emails attempting the
> hard sell. As you can probably tell I'm disillusioned with the
> recruitment business - I've had too many Lionel Hutz's, lion tamers
> and desperado's sent to me for interviews.
>
> Does anyone have any success stories to share, a personal
> recommendation would be superb.
>
> Thanks
>
> John
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

Hi

I'm in the market for a couple of agile .net developers and it is more
important than ever that we get the right people. We are a small team
so complimentary team fit and skill set are crucial factors for us.

I get spammed on a daily basis from recruiters, I'm worried that by
posting this I will be deluged with unsolicited emails attempting the
hard sell. As you can probably tell I'm disillusioned with the
recruitment business - I've had too many Lionel Hutz's, lion tamers
and desperado's sent to me for interviews.

Does anyone have any success stories to share, a personal
recommendation would be superb.

Thanks

John

Methods & Tools is a free e-newsletter for software developers, testers
and project managers. Fall 2008 issue's content:

* Controlling Project Risk by Design
* How to Choose Candidates for Large Agile Companies
* Outsourcing Software Testing
* Managing Scrum Meetings

35 pages of software development knowledge that you can download from
http://www.methodsandtools.com/mt/download.php?fall08

Hi,

To introduce myself, I work with Alex Scordellis at ThoughtWorks in
Manchester and I've started helping him out with the geek nights up here.

The next TW geek night will be on Thursday October 23rd.  One of
ThoughtWorks' senior consultants Luke Barrett will be exploring the
topic of Usability Testing.  Luke's special interest is in interface &
interaction design and achieving the best results when you're working
in an agile manner.

As usual, full information is up on the wiki[1] along with
registration details. Please do register if you plan to come along.

Hope to see you there


Richard


[1]
http://manchestergeeknights.wetpaint.com/page/Usability+Testing

Hi everybody,

The next TW geek night will be on August 27th. This time round we've
hauled two brave members out of the audience to lead a couple of
sessions with a common theme of developing high quality software.

Andrew Stopford will be talking about MbUnit - an alternative to
NUnit. Andy is a former lead on the MbUnit project.

Chris Morris will be leading a workshop designed to find out what you
believe quality means in the software you develop.

As usual, full information is up on the wiki[1] along with
registration details. Please do register if you plan to come along.

Hope to see you there

Alex

[1]
http://manchestergeeknights.wetpaint.com/page/Techniques+For+Producing+Quality+S\
oftware

Hi everybody,

Just a quick email to let you know that the next installment in
ThoughtWorks' Manchester GeekNights will be on July 21. This month I'm
delighted to present Pat Kua, one of our top Agile coaches, who will
be leading an interactive session: The Agile Primer.

Full information, including an abstract, links to Pat's blog and other
writings, timing and venue information is online at
http://manchestergeeknights.wetpaint.com/page/The+Agile+Primer If
you're interested in coming, please register online - the venue
requires names in advance.

Alex

Methods & Tools is a free e-newsletter for software developers, testers
and project managers. Summer 2008 issue's content:
* UML versus Domain-Specific Languages
* We Increment to Adapt, We Iterate to Improve
* Building Products with Acceptance TDD
* Getting and Keeping Control over your Project

60 pages of software development knowledge.

To download or read this issue go to http://www.methodsandtools.com/

Hi all,

Put a placeholder in your diaries for the 4th Annual AgileNorth
Conference. Early indications suggest the event will run towards the
end of October, possibly early November, 2008.

Watch this space!

Ant Grinyer
AgileNorth Treasurer

Hi all,

Hope everyone enjoyed the free AgileNorth conference event in April! The day was a great success. I wonder if our fellow members can now return the favour with some research participation please. ;-)

Having worked in software development for over 15 years in many organisations using different development methodologies such as waterfall, RUP, SCRUM and XP, I'm still not sure if there is a specific 'type' of organisation that is more likely to adopt agile approaches than others?

I guess it could be argued that those organisations that are more innovative or open to change are more likely to adopt agile methods?

To try and gain more understanding, I've decided to run a short survey to determine what factors might or might not influence the adoption of agile methods, in the hope to provide some enlightenment. If we get enough participation, I then hope to report this back to the group to see if there are indeed any trends. To participate, could I kindly ask you to fill in the survey using the link below? The survey is short and should take around 5-10mins to complete.

http://ou1211237011.agile-adoption.sgizmo.com

I believe if we can determine the characteristics of organisations that adopt and do not adopt agile methods, we can get a better understanding whether certain organisations are more conducive to adopting agile methods?

For those that know me as AgileNorth Treasurer, you will know this is NOT a marketing survey and is used for doctoral and practitioner research purposes. All findings and results will be published to this group and responses treated in strict confidence.

Your participation is greatly appreciated, so please help and spend 5-10 minutes participating in this short survey.

Thanks,

Ant Grinyer
AgileNorth Treasurer | Senior Business Analyst

Hi Everybody!

There is still time to register for an Agile Course as they are coming up fast! What are you waiting for?

Certified ScrumMaster Training

Date: 05/28/08 – 05/29/08   Location: NYC, NY   Trainer: Joseph Little Rally Software Development

Date: 07/16/08 – 07/17/08   Location: Waltham, MA Trainer: Michele Sliger Rally Software Development

To Register Click Here

Course Overview

This two-day ScrumMaster certification course provides everything you need to get started with Scrum. One of the largest and fastest-growing Agile project management methodologies, Scrum is a simple software management technique that has a small set of interrelated practices and rules, is not overly prescriptive and is able to produce productivity gains for software development teams almost immediately.

Delivered by Certified ScrumMaster trainers, this course shares time-tested practices for managing product backlogs, planning your releases and iterations (Sprints) and tracking and reporting progress. You'll learn how to plan and run Sprint Planning Meetings, daily Scrum Meetings, Sprint Reviews, Sprint Retrospectives and more!

On completion, participants are registered as Certified ScrumMasters (CSMs), which includes a one-year membership in the Scrum Alliance, (www.scrumalliance.org) where valuable ScrumMaster-material and information are available exclusively to CSMs.

Important Note: Certification and membership to the Scrum Alliance is not available through the "Agile Program Management with Scrum" courses.

Agile Project Management

Date: 06/03/08 – 06/04/08   Location: Fairfax, VA   Trainer CCPace

To Register Click Here

Course Overview

This course is aimed squarely at project managers and other team leaders who plan, lead and execute on Agile projects. This class will go into greater detail on how the project manager will estimate work, plan and schedule the execution, monitor progress, report progress and ensure that the Agile process is being followed for maximum effectiveness. Release planning, iteration planning, estimation, task boards, earned value and more will be covered in detail.

The Compleat Agile Managerâ?¢ : A Workshop Exploring the Eight Competency Areas for Managing in the Agile Organization

Date: 06/10/08     Location:  Fairfax, VA   Trainer: Michael Spayd – CCPace

To Register Click Here

Course Overview

At the end of the workshop you will be capable of adding significant value to your Agile project teams and the supporting organization.

Specifically, you will gain the following:

• An overview of the eight competency areas needed as a manager to effectively contribute in an Agile environment
• An understanding of how these competencies play out in real life situations, both in general and in one or more of your own situations
• A grasp of how your own managerial values align-or conflict-with the Agile approach, and mitigations for when they do not align
• Experience in how an Agile process works in a real world situation beyond a software development team (e.g., the workshop will be run as an Agile backlog)

How can I make a real contribution, given that Agile teams tend to manage themselves? Ever since Agile became popular at the beginning of the decade, managers have been asking this question. A definitive role for managers is still nonexistent in the Agile literature. Agile team members have even been heard to jest that they don't need a manager anymore! Given the nature of self-organizing teams, this is may be an understandable perspective, but nothing could be further from the truth.

An Agile organization desperately needs managers, ones with new skills, alternate mindsets, and a fresh perspective on managing. The job of manager shifts from director / manager of the team's work, to a position of coach, boundary keeper, obstacle remover and organizational change driver. Also, exercising a few specialized skills from Lean and Agile thinking rounds out the list.

The Compleat Agile Manager™ comprehensively defines and explores these new competencies, so necessary for effective management in an organization adopting Agile. Participants will significantly increase their contribution as manager, moving beyond the basics of Agile to beginning mastery of these Agile management disciplines. The course combines mini-lectures, expert demonstrations, skill development exercises, scenario discussions (small groups), and a case study. (Yes, it will be a long day!)

Certified ScrumMaster Training, CC Pace

Date: 07/08/08 – 07/09/08     Location:  Fairfax, VA   Trainer: Bob Schatz, CCPace

To Register Click Here

Course Overview

Agile project management is as radically different from traditional project management as Agile processes are different from traditional methodologies. Rather than plan, instruct and direct, the Agile project manager facilitates, coaches and leads. This person is called a ScrumMaster in the Scrum Agile process to denote the difference and remind the person filling this role of the new responsibilities. Accepted participants learn how to be a ScrumMaster and how to make a development team, a project, or an organization Agile. Exercises, case studies, and examples used to bring home the realization of how to be a ScrumMaster instead of a project manager.

In this workshop you will learn to:

• Remove the barriers between development and the customer so the customer directly drives development;
• Teach the customer how to maximize ROI and meet their objectives through Scrum;
• Improve the lives of the development team by facilitating creativity and empowerment;
• Improve the productivity of the development team in any way possible; and,
• Improve the engineering practices and tools so each increment of functionality is potentially shippable

CC Pace's Certified ScrumMaster Trainers engage the participants with a highly interactive approach that gives participants hands-on practice applying Scrum in multiple project settings and situations. This course will equip participants with the knowledge, skills, and tools to successfully implement Scrum as ScrumMasters.

As a result of their successful completion of the program, each participant receives an individual license and copy of the Scrum methodology, Scrum training materials, and Scrum software. In addition, Certified ScrumMasters receive a complimentary 1-year membership in the Scrum Alliance, and are listed as certified ScrumMasters on the Scrum Alliance website.

Advanced ScrumMaster

Date: 07/15/08 – 07/16/08     Location:  Fairfax, VA   Trainer: CCPace

To Register Click Here

Course Overview

The ScrumMaster role is a challenging one; ScrumMasters are expected to be facilitators, servant-leaders, mentors, advisors and process gurus. It's a tough job. As an organization progresses with Scrum, dysfunction begins to surface and many impediments are unearthed. This is inevitable. It is common at this time for the organization to want to drop Scrum and return to previous ways of working. It takes a strong ScrumMaster to mentor both his team and the wider organization through such difficult times.

The Advanced ScrumMaster training course offers a tool kit to ScrumMasters for navigating the turbulent waters of organizational change. The course is aimed at software professionals who have already taken the CSM training and are actively practicing Scrum.

This is not a quick-fix solution (those do not exist) but an in-depth exploration of facilitation and problem solving techniques. Through lecture, discussion, role-play and hands-on exercises participants will experience different ways of approaching problems and discover how to draw relevant solutions best suited to their own context.

Drawing from real-world Agile experience and a deep understanding of group dynamics and paradigm shifting within the workplace the facilitators will guide the participants through their own journey of discovery. At the end of the course the participants will have both a clearer vision of how to face their current challenges and an awareness of how to apply their own personal skills, qualities and experiences to their role of ScrumMaster.

For more information and to register, please view our course listings
at http://www.agileuniversity.org/index.jsp

Cheers,

Hannah Shain

info@...

Hello again,

Just a quick email to let you know that the next installment in
ThoughtWorks' Manchester GeekNights will be on June 4. This month, Jay
Fields will be talking and leading discussion about Domain Specific
Languages.

Full information, including an abstract, links to Jay's blog and other
writings, timing and venue information is online at
http://manchestergeeknights.wetpaint.com/page/The+5Ws+of+DSLs. If
you're interested in coming, please register online - the venue
requires names in advance.

Hope to see some of you there,

Alex

The AgileNorth April 2008 event was a great success!

Speakers included David Anderson, Karl Scotland, Portia Tung, and
Pascal Van Cauwenberghe.

We had an excellent turnout and were graced with some very interesting
presentations and highly entertaining team games.

For information and proceedings for the day, visit our website at the
usual address: http://www.agilenorth.net/

Cheers
Ant
(AgileNorth Treasurer)

Hi everybody,

The second of ThoughtWorks' new series of Manchester GeekNights will
be on Wednesday May 7. This month, James Lewis and Alistair Jones will
be discussing Domain Driven Design, a philosophy for writing software
that places emphasis on a business-aligned domain model and provides a
vocabulary for how to implement the model in object oriented code.

If you missed Stuart and George talking about Synthesis last time out
- maybe you went to GeekUp - fear not. Things are in motion to get
them up to a NorthWest Ruby Users Group (www.nwrug.org) meeting soon.

Full info is online at
http://www.thoughtworks.com/what-we-say/events/geek-nights-man_uk.html.
If you're interested in coming, please register online - the venue
requires names in advance

Hope to see some of you there,

Alex


Alex Scordellis
ThoughtWorks UK

m: +44 (0)7793 674388
e: alex.scordellis@...
yahoo im: alex.scordellis

AgileNorth FREE Mini Event - www.agilenorth.net

Take part and share a wealth of experience of Agile Project Development.

David Anderson - Modus Cooperandi
Karl Scotland - Yahoo
Portia Tung - Exoftware
Pascal Van Cauwenberge - NAYIMA

UCLan - Adelphi Conference Room - Saturday 26th April - Lunch 12 noon
then 1-5pm.

Register with either treasurer@... or
secretary@...

Ant,

What are the times for this event?

Andy.


On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 9:46 PM,  <ant.grinyer@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> AgileNorth 2008  'FREE' Agile Mini Event
>
> Saturday 26th April 2008
> University of Central Lancashire, Preston
>
> Sessions:
>
> Kanban in Software Development
> David Anderson
> http://www.agilemanagement.net/Articles/Weblog/KanbaninAction.html
>
> Kanban Experiences
> Karl Scotland
> www.availagility.wordpress.com
>
> Real Options in Software Development
> Portia Tung – Exoftware
> http://selfishprogramming.blogspot.com/
>
> This event is FREE but if you want coffee and to eat please register!
>
> To register or to obtain further details contact either:
> treasurer@... or secretary@...
>
> See you there!
>
> AgileNorth (c) 2008
> www.agilenorth.net



--
Andrew Beacock
email: andrew@...
blog: http://blog.andrewbeacock.com
skype: abeacock

agile / apache / java / leadership / linux / mobile / ruby / subversion / web

Saturday 26th April 2008
University of Central Lancashire, Preston

Sessions: 

Kanban in Software Development
David Anderson
http://www.agilemanagement.net/Articles/Weblog/KanbaninAction.html

Kanban Experiences
Karl Scotland
www.availagility.wordpress.com

Real Options in Software Development
Portia Tung – Exoftware
http://selfishprogramming.blogspot.com/

This event is FREE but if you want coffee and to eat please register!

To register or to obtain further details contact either:
treasurer@... or secretary@...  

See you there! 

AgileNorth © 2008
www.agilenorth.net

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG.
Version: 7.5.519 / Virus Database: 269.22.11/1371 - Release Date: 10/04/2008
12:23

In this Skills Matter In-the-Brain session Agile expert, Rachel Davies
will discuss Agile retrospectives.

Retrospectives are meetings that get the whole team involved in the
review of past events and brainstorming ideas for working more
effectively going forward. Actions for applying lessons learned are
developed for the team by the team. Scrum teams hold their
retrospectives at the end of every Sprint. This talk will explain what
you need to do to facilitate an effective retrospective for your team.

For more information & registration:
http://www.skillsmatter.com/event/agile-scrum/agile-retrospectives

Methods & Tools is a free e-newsletter for software developers, testers
and project managers. Spring 2008 issue's content:
* OpenUP
* How Quality is Assured by Evolutionary Method
* Creating an Agile environment
* Real Reuse for Requirements

60 pages of software development knowledge.

To download or read this issue go to http://www.methodsandtools.com/

>  I don't think the day will be about "agie methods"

Who knows? :)
Thanks for the tip,
Kevin

Kevin,

I don't think the day will be about "agie methods" - typo in your post...

;)

Andy.

On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 9:54 AM, Kevin Rutherford
<kevin@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi,
>
>
>  On 02/04/2008, Andrew Beacock <yahoo@...> wrote:
>  > Ant,
>  >
>  > This sounds excellent, count me in!
>  > Hey, if you're lucky I might even blog about it... ;)
>
>  http://silkandspinach.net/2008/04/03/the-next-agilenorth-event/
>  :)
>



--
Andrew Beacock
email: andrew@...
blog: http://blog.andrewbeacock.com
skype: abeacock

agile / apache / java / leadership / linux / mobile / ruby / subversion / web

Hi,

On 02/04/2008, Andrew Beacock <yahoo@...> wrote:
> Ant,
>
>  This sounds excellent, count me in!
>  Hey, if you're lucky I might even blog about it...  ;)

http://silkandspinach.net/2008/04/03/the-next-agilenorth-event/
:)

Ant,

This sounds excellent, count me in!
Hey, if you're lucky I might even blog about it...  ;)

Andy.

--
Andrew Beacock
email: andrew@...
blog: http://blog.andrewbeacock.com
skype: abeacock

agile / apache / java / leadership / linux / mobile / ruby / subversion / web