BJSS, the Leeds-based IT Consultancy and Development firm, will be
speaking at the next Agile Yorkshire session on the 12th October.
They are sending along two of their Senior Technical Project Managers
to give a "warts and all" presentation on one of their key current
projects.  The presentation will talk about how to remain agile when
managing a very large project and will discuss some of the key
challenges and issues they faced.

The presentation will be very interactive so come armed with questions!

Please visit www.agileyorkshire.org to register and for more details.

Regards

Neil

PS As usual, please forward, tweet or blog about this meeting.

"A case study exploring how agile methodologies were used to help
change the way sports are traded at William Hill forever."

After last months successful meeting with one of the best discussion
sessions we have had to date there is another experience report this
month and, knowing Toby and David, plenty of controversial topics
thrown in to rattle agile purists!

More details at www.agileyorkshire.org

See you there.

Regards

Neil

Friday 10th December 2010 - Adelphi Conference Room - UCLan, Preston

Welcome from 9.00 am with 9.30 am start

A highly interactive and practical day allowing delegates to experience a number of Agile techniques and practices.  Feedback and reflection together with experiences from others with a range of implementation know-how should make this a useful day for anyone contemplating or at the early stages of Agile adoption.

Whilst no prior knowledge or experience is assumed, it is required that delegates are prepared to get involved, take part in practical exercise and contribute to feedback sessions.

This is a free event but numbers are strictly limited due to the team focussed approach of the day, so book your place now.  More details on www.agilenorth.org

Bit late I know but ...

Come along and discuss what has made a difference to your year -
either positive or negative. It can be technologies you have adopted,
meetings you have been to, methodologies you have tried or books you
have read. This will be in the form of informal talks (thanks to
Ashley and Robert for starting the ball rolling). For those who want
to present then we'll make time. For those who'd rather not or who
don't have time to prepare anything we will run a park bench panel
(http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ParkBenchPanel) and see where it goes.

For more details see www.agileyorkshire.org

See you there.

Regards

Neil

www.agilenorth.org

This year is the 10th anniversary of the Agile Alliance; perhaps time for review and retrospective! 

• Is Agile now main stream? 
• Is there evidence that Agile can reliably deliver software on time, within budget? 
•  Are software development issues the same as 10 years ago? 
• Has Agile made a difference? 
• What are the major issues facing Agile over the coming years?

We are looking for contributions from practitioners, managers, researchers or other stakeholders to present and discuss evidence of the benefits, drawbacks and practices of Agile software development projects.

Hi everyone,



This year JAX London is holding a FREE event offering the chance to hear from
specially selected speakers, learn about latest technologies, meet with peers
and interact with the community.


This year the JAX London Community Night offers two strands to choose from.
  In one room, Arun Gupta hosts a live JavaEE hacking Night
And on the main conference stage hand-picked sessions are delivered by leading
industry speakers.
AND you can also come along early and attend one of the day's final sessions
from the main conference agenda



Join us at the Park Plaza Victoria, from 5.45pm on Tuesday 12th April.



Main Conference Sessions:


6.00 – 6.45pm: `   Using CDI Extensions to Make a Better Java EE' – Dan Allen,
JBoss
MORE

6.00 – 6.45pm:     `RESTful Services with Java EE'  – Blaise Doughan & Doug
Clarke, Oracle
MORE

--------------------------------------------------
7.00pm                 JAX London Community Night Welcome
7.05 – 7.35pm    `Usability in APIs and Languages' –Stephen Colebourne,
OpenGamma

--------------------------------------------------
7.55pm –              Live JavaEE Hacking - Arun Gupta, Oracle
     *Pre-registration required*
--------------------------------------------------

7.55 – 8.25pm     Globals - The free database from InterSystems, Iran
Hutchinson, InterSystems

8.25 – 8.55pm     `Introduction to BIRT 2.6' –Jason Weathersby, Actuate
Corporation

JAX London Community Night options:

-    Live JavaEE Hacking session – hosted by Arun Gupta, Oracle
Put your JavaEE knowledge to the test, in this live JavaEE hacking session led
by Java EE and GlassFish Evangelist Arun Gupta.

There are strictly limited spaces for participation in the Hacking Night, so
pre-registration is a must to avoid missing out.



To register go to:  http://jaxlondoncommunitynight2011.eventbrite.com/


Thanks and hope to see you there,

Suzanne

Methods & Tools - the free e-magazine for software developers, testers and
project managers - has just published its Spring 2011 issue with the following
articles:
* Automated Acceptance Tests and Requirements Traceability
* Managing Schedule Flaws using Agile Methods
* User-Centric Design and the Power of Personas
* Complexity Theory for Software Developers
* Build Patterns to Boost your Continuous Integration
* GivWenZen – Behavior Driven Development for FitNesse
* Celoxis - Web Based Project Management
* Tellurium Automated Testing Framework
* Apache CXF
* RSpec Best Practices
* Maven Plugins

80 pages of software development knowledge that you can download from
http://www.methodsandtools.com/mt/download.php?spring11

I'll be co-hosting the next Agile Yorkshire meeting with Mark van
Harmelen. From 18:00-19:00 (as well as the usual networking) Lightning
Talks will be happening. If you'd like to present for 5 minutes on an
Agile topic, bring along your slides.

Hope to see you at Old Broadcasting House, Leeds on Tuesday April 12.

Robert


An Evening On Retrospectives
---------------------------------

Mark and Robert invite you to an evening on retrospectives. Fresh from
fun at XP Manchester, they promise to host a programme with little bit
of something for everybody. Or your money back! (Easy for a free
event.)

Between 6pm and 7pm early birds network and catch a variety of
Lightning Talks including short introductions to agile development,
facilitation and (of course) retrospectives. The main event opens at
7pm and features a participatory mix of talks and exercises, including
a Park Bench forum to share experiences of retrospectives and a
session focussing on "Running Your First Retrospective".

As always, Agile Yorkshire is free and open with a friendly welcome to
one and all.


Why Retrospect?
---------------
Iterative development methods are powered by a strong, positive
feedback loop. This makes retrospectives an essential tool. Like any
good tool, they can be used in a wide variety of ways - for example to
bond teams, collect knowledge, generate insights or continuously
improve process. But without good technique, these meetings can
produce negative feedback - reinforcing failure and enculturising
blame.


But Who Are Mark And Robert?
----------------------------
Mark van Harmelen has worked in a whole slew of different areas in
Computer Science, including, in the dim and distant past, staring down
oscilloscopes and logic analysers looking for lost nanoseconds. Mark
spent several years specialising in user interface and interactive
system design, and, in part based on work at National Panasonic’s
Tokyo Research Centre, produced Object Modelling and User Interface
Design: Designing Interactive Systems together with a bunch of
collaborators.  In 2002 he led the team that formulated the
establishment of the Meraka Institute in South Africa. Mark now runs
Hedtek, a small software house that specialises the production of
social software to support educational processes and other high tech
topics; for example
recently putting 1.3T linked data triples on the web. Mark teaches an
annual software engineering course module in the University of
Manchester’s School of Computer Science, most recently on agile
methods. He has a PhD in
Computer Science.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Object-Modeling-Interface-Design-Technology/dp/020165789\
9/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1301587951&sr=8-1
http://www.meraka.org.za/
http://hedtek.com/
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~mark/

Robert Burrell Donkin is agile developer by day, open sourceror by
night. Old enough to have experienced DSDM and Extreme Programming
when they were shiny, he remembers well the dark days before test
first. Open source highlights include micro-libraries in the Apache
Commons, community building in the Apache Incubator and email protocol
implementation in Apache James. Had fun helping Mark with last year's
Agile course module. Elected a Member of the Apache Software
Foundation in 2005.

@itstechupnorth
http://itstechupnorth.me.uk
http://robertburrelldonkin.name
http://www.jroller.com/robertburrelldonkin/
https://www.ohloh.net/accounts/robertburrelldonkin

Next Tuesday[1] we[2] plan to break out into 2 concurrent streams for
30 minutes (just after 20:00)

"Running Your First Retrospective" helps those inspired to introduce
retrospectives

"Retrospectives Park Bench" uses a Park Bench Panel [3] to crowdsource
practical experiences of retrospectives

I'd like to ask anyone who's participated in retrospectives to reflect
a little this weekend on their experience. It'd be great if the
bloggers amongst our community could post something on retrospectives
this week. We don't have a planet [4] but posting links in replies to
this post would work.

Hope to see you on Tuesday (or read your blog if you can't make it)

Robert

[1] Agile Yorkshire@Old Broadcasting House Networking and Lightning
Talks from 6, Main Event from 7.
[2] Mark van Harmelen http://hedtek.com/
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~mark/ and Robert Burrell Donkin
http://robertburrelldonkin.name
[3] http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ParkBenchPanel
[4] eg http://planet.apache.org/committers/

@OBH [1], Leeds

From 6pm, lightning talks[2], networking, drinks and pizza
From 7pm, the main event: Retrospectives (hosted by Mark van Harmelen
[3] and myself [4])
See [5] for details

Hope to see you there either from 18:00 for the talks and networking,
or from 19:00.

Robert

[1]  http://www.oldbroadcastinghouse.com/
 
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?minlon=-1.55853224754&minlat=53.7956182861&maxlon=\
-1.53853212833&maxlat=53.8156221008

[2]
  6:10 Facilitation Basics
  6:20 TDD: Writing The First Test
  6:30 Introduction to Agile (AKA Agile in 5 minutes!)
  6:40 Introducing Retrospectives
   And maybe more as yet unannounced
   (If you want to talk about something Agile for 5 minutes, grab a
slot on the day)

[3] http://hedtek.com/
  http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~mark/

[4] @itstechupnorth
http://itstechupnorth.me.uk
http://robertburrelldonkin.name
http://www.jroller.com/robertburrelldonkin/
https://www.ohloh.net/accounts/robertburrelldonkin

[5] http://www.agileyorkshire.org/event-announcements/12Apr2011

AgileNorth - 09th June 2011 - Final Call for Presenters

UCLan, Preston - www.agilenorth.org

"The State of Agile" - what's realing happening in the industry?  It's ten years since the forming of the Agile Alliance and the Government has recently announced that Agile methodologies should be used in Government IT Projects, what's the view of practitioners, consultants and businesses on current practice?

Share your views and experience at AgileNorth.  03rd May is the final date for expressions of interest to present a topic at this years conference.

Submit details to secretary@...

Thursday 09th June 2011 - UCLan, Preston

An exciting and varied range of presentations at this year's event - something for everyone!!

Check the website - www.agilenorth.org - to see the first of the confirmed speakers.  We'll add more over the coming days with the full programme early next week.

Price again held at £95 per person - good lunch, stay connected, share experiences and learn. 

Thursday 09th June 2011 - UCLan, Preston

Programme now confirmed, see www.agilenorth.org - and it's looking good!!  :)

Register on the web site or email secretary@... to reserve your places - still only £95 per person.

Thursday 09th June - UCLan, Preston

• Is YAGNI the enemy of flexibility?
• At the Extremities of Extreme
• From Choas to Kanban
• Agile Transformers – Autobots versus Decepticons

Just some of the presentations from our varied programme - see www.agilenorth.org

Do you know an individual, team, project or organisation that has made an outstanding contribution to Agile this year?

Would you like to nominate them for this year's Agile Awards?  http://www.agileawards.co.uk/Awards2011.html

Nominations close 01st July - Awards Presentation Dinner on London on 05th October.

For anyone interested in Agile and lean, Ian Carroll will share [1]
experiences combining Kanban with Continuous Delivery. A week
Wednesday (July 27) at ThoughtWorks, Manchester. Free as in beer.

Robert

[1] http://www.superdevs.com/events/2011

Free one day event

Robert

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Andy Longshaw
Date: Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 7:39 PM
Subject: [xp-manchester] Mini-SPA sessions
To: xp-manchester@googlegroups.com


Hi folks,

I'm forwarding this on because I believe the sessions at it would be
of interest to members of the group. There are a mixture of techie
sessions on JavaScript and HTML5 and some team/communication sessions
so you might find something that appeals to you:


Mini-SPA comes North!

Come and experience some of the highest-rated sessions from the BCS
Software Practice Advancement (SPA) conference for free at the
Mini-SPA 1-day conference. This year, Mini-SPA comes to Manchester at
the Manchester Conference Centre on Monday 3rd October. The sessions,
which cover topics from technology to teams, are selected from those
that scored highest in the main conference which ran in London in July
this year. And the best thing is ... it's free. Places go quickly so
don't miss out. Register today for the best of SPA at
http://minispa2011.eventbrite.com/


Regards

Andy

------------------------------------------------------
Andy Longshaw

"Wisdom, justice, compassion, integrity"
(The four words engraved on the mace
of the Scottish Parliament which seems
to sum things up nicely)

The Methods & Tools magazine has just released in the article "Dialogue Sheet"
by Allan Kelly. The Dialogue Sheet is a new technique for team retrospectives.
This technique involves a large sheet of paper that help to create good
discussion and teamwork in Agile and Scrum projects.

http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=124

Hi All

For next weeks meetup we'll be doing a hands on legacy code techniques session and I think there might be one or two lightning talks too (more details to follow). The workshop will require us to have enough laptops for everyone to pair and a development IDE such as Visual Studio or Eclipse - so if you have a laptop then bring it along. The material will be language agnostic but with my background in static typed languages I would be interested to see how the exercises work in a dynamic language. The exercises won't tax the knowledge of the syntax of the language you choose to use so don't be put off if your coding is a little rusty :) 

Also, I'm aware that we have lurched towards the developer end of the spectrum for the last couple of meetings and in a few conversations with members of the QA/PM community they have expressed concern at this.  There is some initial interest in running a parallel session to discuss agile processes and documentation in a highly regulated environment. Keep an eye on the mailing list to see how this evolves.

We have plenty of space at Old Broadcasting House and could easily run a parallel sessions if anyone wanted to do something around other areas of agile software development. Feel free to kick off an idea on the mailing list - even if it is just a discussion you want to have. I think it would be great if we could be a forum for various disciplines to come together but not to be reduced to talking just about the common denominators of agile.

Cheers

Neil

Hi all,
XP-Manchester is running an event as part of the Global Day of
Coderetreat [1] on December 3rd this year. The event will run from 9am
to 5pm, at a venue yet to be decided somewhere in the city centre
(I'll post more details as we have them). There's a list of the other
global events that day here [2]. If you'd like to sign up, visit our
event page [3]; or if you just want to follow the news as the
arrangements for the event unfold, you can follow #xpman on Twitter,
or join our Facebook group [4] or join our email group [5].
Cheers,
     Kevin

[1] http://coderetreat.ning.com/
[2] http://coderetreat.ning.com/events/event/listByDate?date=2011-12-03
[3] http://coderetreat.ning.com/events/global-day-of-coderetreat-in-manchester
[4] http://www.facebook.com/groups/178534742197986/
[5] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xp-manchester