Join us  for the May 2013 meeting

This meeting is free

Meetings are from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (Networking 6:00pm - 6:30pm)

Kanban - Myths and Misconceptions

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"What is the Kanban Method?" 

• It’s not about replacing your current software development process.
• It’s not about changing or removing your team's current titles and roles or adding any new ones.
• It’s not about a process that is only for support, maintenance, or "dev ops" teams.

Does any of the above surprise you? 

During the Kanban Leaders Retreat (KLRUS) in San Diego last November of 2012, several leading kanban coaches, trainers, and practitioners participated in a session focused on identifying some of the “surprising” myths and misconceptions about the Kanban Method observed as they coach, train, and guide others on work sites. 

How about these, any surprises here for you?

• It doesn’t require all work items to be “sized” the same.
• It doesn’t require you to stop using fixed-length iterations (though you might).
• It doesn’t require you to stop estimating (though you might do much less).

In this session Frank Vega (shown below) shares some of the insights gathered from leaders at KLRUS about several of the myths and misconceptions discussed there. If you’re just beginning to learn about the Kanban Method, this presentation will provide a useful foundational perspective to keep in mind as you continue your research and reading of articles, posts, etc. Those who are a bit more experienced with the Kanban Method will benefit too by becoming more familiar with these misconceptions and how our community is working to address them. 

Thanks to our event sponsor:  

Meeting Location

Sysco Corporation

1390 Enclave Parkway - Houston, Texas - 281-584-1390        

PARKING:  Please park in front of either Sysco building (1370 & 1390 Enclave Parkway).

If front lots are full, park on the street along Forkland Drive and walk around to the front entrance of 1390. 

    Join us for the April 2013 meeting

User Stories: Across the 7 Product Dimensions

User stories are a powerful technique agile teams use to communicate requirements. Yet all too often, stories are poorly written or even incomprehensible.  Some stories are too big and travel across delivery cycles. Some are too small and don't deliver sufficient details for developers or value to customers. Others are not yet “ready” to be specified with acceptance criteria. Join Paul to learn the 7 Product Dimensions—the 7 D's—which yield “just right” stories that users and product owners can write and developers understand. You'll see how to use the 7 Dimensions: User, Interface, Action, Data, Control, Quality, and Environment as the basis for conducting “structured conversations” in which you explore options and evaluate them again value considerations so you can assemble them into cohesive user stories. Leave with a practical, collaborative framework for discovering the right—and “just right”—stories worthy of specification and delivery.

Paul R. Reed, Senior Associate with EBG Consulting, has led Agile teams working on complex products in companies of all sizes. He excels at helping companies transition to Agile by leveraging an adaptive rollout strategy. Paul is author of two books with Addison-Wesley, Developing Applications with Java and UML and Developing Applications with Visual Basic and UML, and speaks at a variety of industry conferences. A practicing Certified Scrum Master, Paul offers hands-on experience in bringing real-world, sound architecture into the product life cycle. He is also highly sought-after to troubleshoot projects that are struggling to adopt Agile practices. Paul's workaday experience, coupled with his talents in business analysis and design using a variety of application life cycle approaches, contributes to his ability to get projects back on track to deliver business value.

Meeting Location

Sysco Corporation

1390 Enclave Parkway - Houston, Texas - 281-584-1390

PARKING: Please park in front of either Sysco building (1370 & 1390 Enclave Parkway).

If front lots are full, park on the street along Forkland Drive and walk around to the front entrance of 1390.

Join us  for the March 2013 meeting

This meeting is free

Meetings are from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (Networking 6:00pm - 6:30pm)

The Timelessness of Lean Management?  Lessons from the Field

Sanjiv Augustine is an industry-leading agile and lean expert, author, speaker, management consultant and trainer.  He is the President of LitheSpeed, an agile consulting, training and product development company.  For over 12 years, Sanjiv has assisted leading clients adopt Agile including:  HCA Healthcare, General Dynamics, The Capital Group, Nationwide Insurance, Comcast, Capital One, CNBC, and the Motley Fool.  He is the author of the book Managing Agile Projects (Prentice Hall 2005) and several publications including Transitioning to Agile Project Management: A Roadmap for the Perplexed, The Lean-Agile PMO: Using Lean Thinking to Accelerate Agile Project Delivery; and the founder and moderator of the Yahoo! Agile Project Management discussion group.  Sanjiv was also a founder and advisory board member of the Agile Leadership Network (ALN), and an organizing member of the PMI’s Agile Community of Practice. As an in-the-trenches practitioner, he has personally managed agile projects varying in size from five to over one hundred people, trained thousands of agile practitioners via workshops and conference presentations, and coached numerous project teams.

Meeting Location

Sysco Corporation

1390 Enclave Parkway - Houston, Texas - 281-584-1390        

PARKING:  Please park in front of either Sysco building (1370 & 1390 Enclave Parkway).

If front lots are full, park on the street along Forkland Drive and walk around to the front entrance of 1390. 

Thanks to our event sponsor:  

Join us  for the February 2013 meeting

This meeting is free

Meetings are from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (Networking 6:00pm - 6:30pm)

Stop Starting, Start Finishing

David Hawks is an Agile Coach and Trainer in Austin and CEO of Agile Velocity. Prior to that he was a senior technical lead/ manager/ director in multiple companies implementing agile practices. David is the Education Chair of Agile Austin and holds the following certifications: CSM, CSP, PSM, and PMI-ACP.

Meeting Location

Sysco Corporation

1390 Enclave Parkway - Houston, Texas - 281-584-1390        

PARKING:  Please park in front of either Sysco building (1370 & 1390 Enclave Parkway).

If front lots are full, park on the street along Forkland Drive and walk around to the front entrance of 1390.