On Monday, June 26th, Agile Denver will host guest speaker Alex
Pukinskis. Alex will explore Agile Organizational Transitions, or "Even
the Best Get Stuck Sometimes - It's Getting Unstuck That Matters!" The
meeting will be held at the Qwest Auditorium in the downtown Denver area.

Agile Methodologies like XP, Scrum, and Crystal work great off-the-shelf
for some organizations. But many companies struggle with practices that
don't work for them, or find that these lightweight methodologies leave
them without support for key aspects of their business. Most end up
adopting a hybrid of multiple methodologies adapted for their specific
context.

This is risky business - cherry-picking your favorite parts of agile
methodologies can leave you without enough process, in danger of a
chaotic, code-and-fix mentality that relies on heroics to ship any
software at all. An incomplete Agile transition can leave you with
crisis after crisis as you struggle to pick up the pieces of a broken
process.

In this talk, we'll look at different trajectories organizations follow
as they transition from Waterfall (or from no process at all) to Agile.
We'll discuss key "process smells" that indicate you've gone past
agility and are slipping into chaos mode. We'll also talk about how to
redirect and get back on track if your agile transition is foundering.

This talk is appropriate for managers, programmers, testers, or anyone
who is struggling (or wants to avoid struggling) with a transition to
Agile development.

Visit http://www.agiledenver.org for meeting updates and information
about Agile Denver.

AGENDA:

6:00 - 6:30 PM Refreshments, networking and announcements
6:30 - 8:00 PM Alex Pukinskis presentation

SPEAKER

Alex Pukinskis is an Agile Coach for Rally Software Development, where
he helps organizations of all sizes succeed with Agile methodologies.
Prior to joining Rally, Alex worked as a project manager and coach at
ThoughtWorks, where he helped large enterprise clients customize agile
methodologies for their needs. Alex has also consulted independently,
helping startups and independent software vendors improve quality and
reduce time-to-market through Agile.

With a background that includes both technical work and management, Alex
is skilled with hands-on coaching, mentoring, and training for the
entire software life cycle. At Rally, Alex leads the technical coaching
practice, guiding teams through agile engineering practices as well as
agile project management techniques. Alex is a Certified ScrumMaster
Practitioner (CSM-P), and holds a B.A. from the University of Connecticut.

SPONSORS

The June 2006 meeting sponsors are:

- Rally Software Development (http://www.rallydev.com)
- Addison-Wesley (www.awprofessional.com)
- Softpro Books (http://www.softpro.com)
- Qwest (http://www.qwest.com)

DIRECTIONS

The Qwest auditorium is in the Qwest building on the corner of 17th and
Curtis. The street address is 1005 17th Street. Take the exterior
escalators facing 17th from street level to Level 1. You can then access
the elevators via doors to the right of the escalator landing. Take an
elevator to Level A for the auditorium. If these doors are locked, go to
the main building lobby which is on Level 1 if you proceed from the
escalator landing.

In addition to street parking, there is an outside parking lot on the
East side of the Qwest building that costs around $6 after 4pm. Several
other lots are within a few blocks and covered parking can be found in
the Tabor Center for around $5.


A G I L E D E N V E R
www.agiledenver.org