On Monday, October 23rd, Agile Denver will host guest speaker
John Farnbach presenting "Dynamic Resource Management: Another avenue to
new product agility." John will explore the problems of traditional
project management in a rapidly changing, uncertain world and present
new ideas that give product developers more latitude to respond to
change. An unexpected benefit of the new thinking is that project
schedules can be made both shorter and more dependable than with
traditional management methods.

The Agile software movement values the ability to respond to change
instead of following a plan. But what can you do when Agile approaches
don’t fit? Your company or your client may not be prepared to adopt
Agile processes, the nature of your project may not be compatible with
Agile methods, or your product may not be software at all, but hardware
or systems.

Many companies, both small and large, can’t or aren’t ready to adopt
Agile principles, but they still need to respond to change without
sacrificing their ability to deliver customer value. Using traditional
project planning and management methods, it seems impossible to respond
to changing requirements, new opportunities, or unplanned demands for
customer service without missing commitments on existing projects.

If Agile methods don’t fit your company or your client, Dynamic Resource
Management is a way to improve agility without stepping too far from
traditional project management. Many of the barriers to agility are
rooted in the traditional thinking about project management, and by
understanding these barriers and changing them, you can make your
projects more responsive to change, without sacrificing schedules or
budgets.

John will discuss new ideas about project planning, and scheduling,
including useful tools such as:

• Project planning to deal with, rather than ignore, change and uncertainty.

• Why planning for variance usually speeds project execution.

• How to use real time project status information to balance resources
across a portfolio of projects.

• Managing specific resource constraints to optimize project flow.

• Avoiding three major pitfalls in applying the new paradigm.


AGENDA:

6:00 - 6:30 PM Refreshments, networking and announcements
6:30 - 8:00 PM John Farnbach presentation

1. Limitations of deterministic project planning in dynamic, uncertain
environments.
2. Using Dynamic Resource Management to plan for variance.
3. Methods and tools for using Dynamic Resource Management
4. Organizational challenges in implementing Dynamic Resource Management


SPEAKER

John Farnbach has 35 years' experience managing new product development,
marketing, and business units in both large and small companies. He has
worked inside and consulted with organizations ranging from global
companies to five-person developer teams in many industries including
instrumentation systems, computer peripherals, and semiconductors.

He is currently Principal of Silver Streak Partners LLC, working with
executives of growing companies improve the business impact of product
innovation.


SPONSORS

The October 2006 meeting sponsors are:

- cognence (http://www.cognence.com)
- Softpro Books (http://www.softpro.com)
- Qwest (http://www.qwest.com)

cognence finds and fixes the weak spots in a company's software
engineering processes, increasing productivity by 50% or more. cognence
experts work on-site with progressive, forward-thinking organizations to
implement software improvement efforts that work for agile, iterative
and waterfall methodologies.

By collaborating with key players at all levels, a realistic plan for
improvement is designed - one that's in line with your organization's
business goals and suitable to your environment. The result is
optimized performance of both your software tools and your people.

To learn more, visit http://www.cognence.com or attend the upcoming
seminar on November 2:

http://www.cognence.com/rscty


DIRECTIONS

The Qwest auditorium is on Level A of 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. Those doors may be locked after business hours.

If these doors are locked, proceed to the main building lobby which is
on Level 1. From the lobby, you can take a walkway over to the
auditorium. There will be someone on hand to direct you from the lobby.

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. Covered parking can be
found across the street under Independence Plaza (the Rock Bottom
Brewery) and in the Tabor Center for around $5.


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