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Keynote Sessions & Speakers
| Wednesday, September 21, 8:45 AM |
Agile and Adaptive Project Management—The Declaration of Interdependence
Alistair Cockburn, Consultant
Whereas the Agile Software Development Manifesto is a short and sweet list of principles for developers, the Declaration of Interdependence for Agile Project Management is more of a mouthful. The Declaration of Interdependence was written to provide concrete guidance for software projects and projects in general with applicability to general management. In constructing it, a dozen senior consultants, designers, and managers—project, product, and line—validated that it covered their individual core operating frameworks. In this talk, noted software designer, manager, and methodologist Alistair Cockburn, a co-author of both documents, unravels the six rules of operation in the Declaration of Interdependence. In the Declaration, project managers agree to increase ROI, deliver reliable results, expect uncertainty, unleash creativity and innovation, boost performance, and improve effectiveness. Join Alistair and your peers to learn how to achieve these important goals in your organization.
Alistair Cockburn Earning his Ph.D. at age 49 with his thesis “People and Methodologies in Software Development”, Alistair Cockburn proved it can be done in the middle of life and that it is possible to use the word “people” and “software development” in the same sentence in an academic setting. He has led a string of successful projects— some in software and some not in software—and rolled the above experiences together to help craft both the Agile Manifesto and the Declaration of Interdependence. When consulting, his lead card is not to “improve techniques but rather to improve attitudes.” His supporting materials can be found at http://Alistair.Cockburn.us.
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| Wednesday, September 21, 10:00 AM |
Politics and Polemics in a Corporate Measurement System
Bill Curtis, Borland Software Corporation
Long, long ago in a company far, far away, Bill Curtis designed one of the largest software measurement systems ever deployed. Ultimately, it reported to senior management system measures that foretold the loss of one-half of the fifth largest company on earth. Covering all of the corporation's far-flung businesses, this measurement system highlighted the four critical factors that determine a project's fate and provided categories for normalizing and classifying the company's software. It showed that many executives do not understand normal variation, and others do not want to admit what they do know. Through Bill’s fascinating and sometimes bizarre story, you’ll be convinced that system measurement is not only a technical undertaking but also a political one. In addition, you will learn about measurement standards for successful systems—standards you may be able to apply in your organization.
Bill Curtis is the chief process officer of Borland Software Corp., a global leader in helping companies optimize their development and delivery of software applications. He was co-founder and chief scientist of TeraQuest until its acquisition by Borland in 2005. Bill is a former director of the Software Process Program in the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University and is coauthor of the Capability Maturity Model for Software. Prior to joining the SEI, Bill directed software research at MCC, developed systems at ITT’s Programming Technology Center, evaluated development methods in GE Space Division, and taught statistics at the University of Washington. He has co-authored four books, sits on the editorial boards of several journals, and has published over 150 papers on software development and management.
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| Wednesday, September 21, 4:30 PM |
Transitioning to Agile Development
Jean Tabaka, Rally Software
In its early adopter phase, Agile software development targeted well-defined, small, co-located teams. However, the Agile movement has now taken the leap into mainstream, transforming the software landscape across teams and even across organizations. Agile is now regularly in use by such mainstream companies as CapitalOne, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, British Telecomm, and Barclays Bank. In order for the benefits of Agile practices to take hold, and more importantly to be sustained, in these larger contexts, organizations must be prepared to discard dysfunctional behaviors that have accumulated over decades. Doing so can be messy and painful. But the pain is well worth the benefits and value that Agile development brings, particularly in organizations where software is their lifeblood. Jean Tabaka discusses her experiences in helping groups of varying sizes (8-person teams to 3000-person IT departments) and contexts (startups to mainstream ISVs) transition to Agile development. She’ll discuss the pain points and fear factor in scaling Agile practices across teams and organizations and then provide compelling arguments for an Agile organizational shift and how to achieve it.
Jean Tabaka, an Agile Coach with Rally Software, specializes in creating, coaching and mentoring collaborative, agile software teams. Jean brings over 25 years of experience in software development to the agile plate in a variety of organizational contexts including internal IT departments, ISVs, government agencies, and consulting organizations. Having implemented both plan-driven and agile development approaches for Sybase, Siebel Systems, and Qwest, as well as a variety of smaller ventures, her work has spanned industries and continents. As an agile mentor, Jean coaches software teams through training and facilitation to adopt agile principles and practices using a hybrid of the leading agile methods. In addition, with a passion around collaboration practices, she guides organizations in creating high-performance teams. A Certified Scrum Master as well as Certified Scrum Trainer and Certified Professional Facilitator, she holds a Masters in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University and is currently authoring a book on software project collaboration entitled “Collaboration Explained: Facilitation Skills for Collaborative Leaders.” Jean can be reached at jean.tabaka@rallydev.com.
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| Thursday, September 22, 8:30 AM |
Six Impossible Truths about Developing Software—All Before Breakfast
Tim Lister, Atlantic Systems Guild, Inc.
“Alice laughed: 'There's no use trying,' she said; 'one can't believe impossible things.' 'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'”—Alice in Wonderland . . . Now older, and at least appearing wiser, Tim Lister has declared that he can say pretty much anything he wants and get away with it. Therefore Tim is going to talk about the impossible things that many developers believe—things that often make us look just flat stupid to the outside world. He believes that declaring things to be impossible is both therapeutic and the first step toward finding a better way to deal with our limits and frailties. Working to get the requirements right before beginning development is an example of believing an impossible thing. Learn about Tim’s five other impossible truths and begin your personal recovery program.
Tim Lister is a software consultant at Atlantic Systems Guild, Inc., based in the New York office. He divides his time between consulting, teaching, and writing. With his business partner Tom DeMarco, Tim is co-author of the book, Waltzing With Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects (Dorset House, 2003) which won Software Development magazine’s Jolt Award as General Computing Book of the Year 2003-2004. Tim Lister and Tom DeMarco also co-authored Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, available in fourteen languages. Tim is a member of the Cutter IT Trends Council, IEEE, and the ACM. He is in his 20th year as a panelist for the American Arbitration Association, arbitrating disputes involving software.
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| Thursday, September 22, 4:15 PM |
Choosing the Best of the Plan-Driven and Agile Development Methods
Lee Copeland, Software Quality Engineering
We seem to be under a curse in our profession. Although not cast by a witch or a wizard, the curse affects us just the same. It is the curse of “either/or”—the curse that we must choose either “this” or “that” but we cannot choose parts of both. Nowhere is this more evident than in today’s struggle between the adherents of the traditional “plan-driven” and newer “Agile” approaches to software development. What most overlook is that both groups want to achieve exactly the same goal: quality software that meets customer needs within the constraints of time, budget, staff, and technology. They differ only on the strategies to achieve this goal. For example, both groups agree that system requirements must be understood; their differences lie in questions of “how much of what to do and when to do it.” Lee Copeland offers insights and suggestions on the methods and approaches that will be most valued on your project—control vs. flexibility, individual contribution vs. process guidance, and contractual specification vs. adaptable delivery. Find out which of the plan-driven and Agile processes will work best in your organization and in your project’s context.
Lee Copeland With more than thirty years of experience as an information systems professional at commercial and nonprofit organizations, Lee Copeland has held technical and managerial positions in applications development, software testing, and software process improvement. Lee has developed and taught numerous training courses on software development and testing issues and is a well-known speaker with Software Quality Engineering. Lee presents at software conferences in the United States and abroad. He is the author of the popular reference book, A Practitioner's Guide to Software Test Design.
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