Where:
Infusionsoft (Google Map)
2065 W. Obispo Ave.
Gilbert, AZ 85233

Agenda:
6:00 – Registration (Infusionsoft providing Food and Drink)
6:20 – Announcements
6:30 – Learning exercise: “Collaborative Origami”
7:00 – Begin “Selling Agile to Management”
8:00 – Closing Remarks

PLEASE REGISTER - If you are already a member of the Phoenix Scrum User’s Group, you have already received an email about this event, just select the “Registration Link” in that email. If you’ve not received that email, please sign-up (on the right), and we’ll get it out to you!!

Topic: Selling Agile to Management

Things need to change! Over the last 20 years around 66% of software projects have failed. Agile can help us turn this figure around.  If you are reading this you are either already sold on Agile, and need to convince your boss to sign off on an Agile project, or you are a manager that wants justification into starting an Agile project. This session will look at why managers and executives should be interested in supporting Agile methodologies, why projects continue to fail and ideas on providing a different approach to increase ROI.  We will look at the following areas so you can use data to sell Agile up the management chain to get your project underway.

• History of succeeding/failing projects
• Guerrilla Scrum (remember those old prototypes?)
• Better Communication
• Costs, Continuing Costs!!
• Why Scrum fails
• Distributed Scrum
• Project Portfolio Management

Although all of these topics could be discussed for a day each, this session gives an overview of what positive impact Agile methodologies can have on these areas.

So if you are a manager wanting to discover how Agile can be justified  or whether you need to get management/executive buy in to run an Agile project, come and discover why Agile makes a difference and take some good ammunition back to get more buy-in to start being Agile.

Speaker Bio:  Richard Sharpe

Rich Sharpe has been working in the Agile space on and off for around 10 years. Whether on a project, consulting with teams or speaking at conferences, Rich is passionate about Agile and Scrum and has seen that it actually does make a difference not only to the bottom line, but more importantly, to the motivation of teams that use it.
As an ex-developer at IBM Rich understands the technical pain around large and small projects and communication issues that occur. Whether it’s implementing build processes and continuous integration or advising on management issues, Rich has seen positive changes at many large and small organizations where Agile has been adopted. Over the last few years Rich has been investigating how to raise Agile awareness to managers and Executives and to tie in the smaller Scrum model to a larger Enterprise model incorporating Lean methodologies.

Rich has published several articles over the last 5 years and has spoken at conferences in Europe and the USA including Agile Development Practices, JavaOne and many technical user groups. These sessions range from technical topics to QA and statistics to managing teams. He is currently on the steering committee for the Phoenix Scrum User Group.

Where:
Infusionsoft (Google Map)
2065 W. Obispo Ave.
Gilbert, AZ 85233

Agenda:
6:00 – Registration (Infusionsoft providing Food and Drink)
6:20 – Announcements
6:30 – Begin “Scrum, XP, and Lean – Fundamentals and Relationships”
8:00 – Closing Remarks

PLEASE REGISTER - If you are already a member of the Phoenix Scrum User’s Group, you have already received an email about this event, just select the “Registration Link” in that email. If you’ve not received that email, please sign-up (on the right), and we’ll get it out to you!!

Topic: Scrum, XP, and Lean – Fundamentals and Relationships

In this session of the PHXSUG, we’ll cover everything you need know to implement Scrum, XP, and Lean!  Ok, definitely not “everything“.  Obviously, a real understanding of Scrum, XP, and Lean takes much more time than we’ll have.  However, in this meeting we will quickly discuss the core concepts of each (with plenty of audience participation).   The real value of this meeting will come from the discussion of how these different approaches relate to each other and how they may be used together.

We’ll adjust the depth of discussion on each individual approach based on audience feedback.  For example, if everyone already understands Scrum basic, we’ll spend less time there, and we’ll move on.  After providing some foundation for each approach we’ll get to the good stuff:
•    Can we leverage all three approaches, and if so, how?
•    What should we start with?
•    What might cause us to focus on one approach versus the other approaches?

Again, there should be lots of audience discussion.  So if you have little to no experience using these Agile approaches, this should be a good session for you as you’ll get a brief overview of all three approaches and how they relate.  If you are more experienced with one or more of these approaches, this session should give you some ideas on what you might want to look at next.

Speaker Bio:  Perry Reinert

Perry Reinert  is currently the Director of Development at Infusionsoft.  His responsibilities include creating technical excellence in software development using agile practices (including Scrum).  Previously, Perry has taught classes at ASU, worked at Orbital Sciences Corporation, and worked with Cisco Systems on large-scale e-learning projects.  Perry has done extensive consulting and has had engagements with companies such as General Dynamics, Burr-Brown, Double-Tree Hotels, and Texas Instruments.  Perry helped co-found the Phoenix Scrum User’s Group.

Where:
Infusionsoft (Google Map)
2065 W. Obispo Ave.
Gilbert, AZ 85233

Agenda:
6:00 – Registration (Infusionsoft providing Food and Drink)
6:20 – Announcements
6:30 – Begin “Collaborative Exercises for Release Planning”
8:00 – Closing Remarks

PLEASE REGISTER - If you are already a member of the Phoenix Scrum User’s Group, you have already received an email about this event, just select the “Registration Link” in that email. If you’ve not received that email, please sign-up (on the right), and we’ll get it out to you!!

Topic:  Collaborative Exercises for Release Planning

Collaboration doesn’t mean working on a shared document. It means interacting with each other in meaningful ways. This highly interactive, workshop-style presentation will present some collaboration techniques focusing on those which can be used during agile release planning to dig out details which might otherwise be missed.  If your organization struggles with understanding true customer needs, or you struggle with estimating the size of a release, or you simply can’t manage to remember everything necessary for a successful release, then you should definitely attend this presentation!

Speaker Bio:  Bob Hartman (aka “Agile Bob”)

Bob Hartman is one of approximately 15 people the Scrum Alliance has certified as both a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) and a Certified Scrum Coach (CSC).  His extensive experience with agile and Scrum teams has included working with large and small organizations including HP, Western Union, Pearson Education, Weyerhaeuser, Siemens, Arapahoe County Colorado, Vibrant Media, Starz Network and the University of Iowa.  Bob founded both Agile For All and the Agile Cooperative and has dedicated himself to his vision of Making Agile a Reality® for organizations around the world.

When: Thursday - June 17, 2009 (6:00pm – 8:00pm)

Where:
Infusionsoft    (Google Map)
2065 W. Obispo Ave.
Gilbert, AZ 85233

Agenda:
6:00 -  Registration (Infusionsoft providing Food and Drink)
6:20 -  Announcements and topic selection
6:30 -  Begin “Topic Tables”
8:00 -  Announcements

PLEASE REGISTER - If you are already a member of the Phoenix Scrum User’s Group, you have already received an email about this event, just select the “Registration Link” in that email.  If you’ve not received that email, please sign-up (on the right), and we’ll get it out to you!!

Topic Overview:

We did this back in October, and it worked so well, that we’re doing it again.  We’ll begin the meeting by brainstorming on some Agile/Scrum topics.  We’ll all vote and select between 3-5 discussion topics.   Then, we’ll assign each discussion topic to a table – hence the name “table topics” .  The group will split up, and people will sit at whichever topic table interests them.  Everyone at the table will talk about the specified topic for a fixed period of time (e.g., 25 min).  After the time limit, people shift to another topic.  That’s it – simple, fun, friendly, and informative!  The topics will be whatever we decide at the meeting, so bring your favorite troublesome topic or question (we’ll have some topic ideas too).   Depending on the number or people participating, we’ll probably end up around 3-5 “Topic Tables”, and 20-30 minutes per topic.  That will give everyone a chance to rotate through several discussions.

Special Note: Are you new to agile/scrum?  Well, do NOT skip this meeting thinking “I don’t know enough”.  This meeting format is a particularly great way to meet experienced people and capitalize on their experience.  Topic Tables are good for newcomers as well as experienced “agilists”.  Everyone gets exposed to multiple topics, many viewpoints, and tons of experience all in a single night.

Speaker Bio:

No dedicated “speaker” – just members talking about all the hot topics!!!

Where:
Infusionsoft (Google Map)
2065 W. Obispo Ave.
Gilbert, AZ 85233

Agenda:
6:00 – Registration (Infusionsoft providing Food and Drink)
6:20 – Announcements
6:30 – Begin “The Product Backlog – Recognizing when a story is at the right level of detail (plus, determining story priority and estimating story size)”
8:00 – Closing Remarks

PLEASE REGISTER - If you are already a member of the Phoenix Scrum User’s Group, you have already received an email about this event, just select the “Registration Link” in that email. If you’ve not received that email, please sign-up (on the right), and we’ll get it out to you!!

The Product Backlog – Recognizing when a story is at the right level of detail, plus determining story priority, estimating story size, estimating release duration and committing to a schedule to deliver product

Stories, story priority, and story sizing is vital to the Product Backlog, Release Planning, Sprint Planning, and actual delivering of commercial or operational value iteratively and incrementally.  When you are sizing your stories, at the Product Backlog level, a story should contain just enough detail for the team to be able to estimate its relative size to other stories.  When estimating size of your stories, at the Sprint Backlog level, a story should contain enough detail for the team to be able to determine what the solution involves or what it will take them to deliver the story.

This presentation will cover recognizing when a story is at the right level of detail and demonstrate a technique to prioritize and size your stories. Russell will also discuss a technique to estimate velocity which can then be applied to Sprint 1 planning.

Speaker Bio:  Russell Pannone

Russell Pannone is the founder of www.WeBeAgile.com. With almost 30 years of experience, Russell is an industry thought leader and an agile/lean product (system-software) development practitioner.   He is also the Editor-In-Chief of the Agile Journal and the Agile/Lean Product Development Enterprise Adoption Lead and Coach at US Airways.

His passion is to serve in any way, working side-by-side with folks on real projects and applying system-thinking and delivering often commercial or operational value. While at the same time helping folks deal with the emotional and creative tension of moving from the individual’s, team’s or organization’s current state to their “shared” vision of “being” agile and lean.   Some of his system-software development credentials are:

• Certified Scrum Professional (CSP), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), application pending for Certified Scrum Coach (CSC)
• ITIL Foundation V2/V3
• UML 2.0 Fundamentals
• IBM Certified Solution Designer – IBM Rational Unified Process 7.0

Russell can be contacted at rpannone@WeBeAgile.com

When: Thursday - April 15, 2010 (6:00pm – 8:00pm)

Where:
Infusionsoft (Google Map)
2065 W. Obispo Ave.
Gilbert, AZ 85233

Agenda:
6:00 – Registration (Infusionsoft providing Food and Drink)
6:20 – Announcements
6:30 – Begin “A Scrum Project Experience”
8:00 – Closing Remarks

PLEASE REGISTER - If you are already a member of the Phoenix Scrum User’s Group, you have already received an email about this event, just select the “Registration Link” in that email. If you’ve not received that email, please sign-up (on the right), and we’ll get it out to you!!

Topic: A Scrum Project Experience

The Scrum framework is fairly easy to understand.  In about five minutes (http://www.infoq.com/news/2006/11/scrum-in-five-minutes) you can get basic definition.  Application and experience is the real way to learn!  In this meeting we will, together, do a simple project using Scrum.  We will have a Goal, Sprint Planning Meetings, Sprints and Retrospectives.  We will make estimates and measure our Velocity. Depending on our progress, we may do as many as five Sprints!

You need not worry about programming, testing or other technical skills.  Just bring your enthusiasm of participation and learning. The project will be easy…or not.  ;^)

Experience is the best teacher.  Even long-time Scrum and Agile practitioners can learn from a compact experience followed by discussion of what we learned.  Please come and help create something wonderful!

Speaker Bio:  Alan Dayley

Alan has been doing embedded development for nearly 20 years, in projects ranging from built-in and production test to embedded application firmware and embedded product user interfaces.  His awareness of information flow between people drove him to rediscover Agile principles as a means of revealing enterprise impediments and creating high performance teams.  A Certified ScrumMaster and Certified Scrum Professional, Alan now works on integrating Agile further into the enterprise, coaching in Agile for an engineering department designing next generation SSDs and continuing a grass-roots Scrum introduction he started over two years ago.  Go to http://dayleyagile.com to contact him.

Where:
Infusionsoft (Google Map)
2065 W. Obispo Ave.
Gilbert, AZ 85233

Agenda:
6:00 – Registration (Infusionsoft providing Food and Drink)
6:20 – Announcements
6:30 – Begin “Testing on the Team”
8:00 – Closing Remarks

PLEASE REGISTER - If you are already a member of the Phoenix Scrum User’s Group, you have already received an email about this event, just select the “Registration Link” in that email. If you’ve not received that email, please sign-up (on the right), and we’ll get it out to you!!

Topic:  Testing on the Team

We’ll discuss testers and testing on a Scrum team.  Topics to be covered will likely include:

• Agile – thinking agile not just agile practices
• Scrum – a framework not a rule set
• QA – preventing defects not just finding them
• Testing – validation and finding defects
• TDD – a mindset change, you can’t think of everything
• Continuous Integration (CI) – regression testing should always be done
• Test Environment – like for like systems or false positives and false negatives

Since each one of the above topics could be an entire meeting (or more), topic depth will depend somewhat upon audience participation and interest.

Speaker Bio:  Bob Small

Bob Small is the founder of The Quality Consortium of Phoenix  (http://qaphoenix.com).  He has 12 years experience in the IT industry.  Bob has been a developer for a Professional Senior care provider.  Bob started as a System Tester for the number one domain registrar in the world.  Bob continued his career in testing and advanced into Quality Assurance at a leading contact center solution provider.  Bob has recently started guest lecturing at local Universities and colleges.  Bob has won worldwide online testing contests (uTest.com).  He continues to learn Agile techniques and mentor those around him in testing techniques and methods.  He has taught developers and mentored junior QA analysts in testing methodologies and QA responsibilities.  Favorite quote is: “Plan your work, work your plan.”

Where:
Infusionsoft (Google Map)
2065 W. Obispo Ave.
Gilbert, AZ 85233

Agenda:
6:00 – Registration (Infusionsoft providing Food and Drink)
6:20 – Announcements
6:30 – Begin “Agile all the Way Down!”
8:00 – Closing Remarks

PLEASE REGISTER - If you are already a member of the Phoenix Scrum User’s Group, you have already received an email about this event, just select the “Registration Link” in that email. If you’ve not received that email, please sign-up (on the right), and we’ll get it out to you!!

Topic: Agile all the Way Down

Agile is usually described in the context of creating and supporting a more dynamic team inside of a old-fashioned, top-down corporate structure.  Much attention is paid to how to argue the benefits of Agile to nay-sayers, as well as finding and nurturing like-minded people to guarantee success.  But what if we were to build an entire company on an Agile foundation?  Should be a stroll in the park, right?  Don’t be so sure.  I’ll share some stories and lessons from living in this all-agile environment and talk about what we are doing right as well as the vast landscape of potential improvement ahead of us.

Speaker Bio:  Chris Young

Chris Young is the Scrum Master at Integrum Technologies.  He has been programming now for nearly 15 years, but he only counts the last three because in 2006 he joined the team at Integrum, and became an eager Agile practitioner.  Since then, Chris has been helpful to many teams and many projects as he tries to distill the essence of Agile Software development to his teammates and product owners.

Where:
Infusionsoft (Google Map)
2065 W. Obispo Ave.
Gilbert, AZ 85233

Agenda:
6:00 – Registration (Infusionsoft providing Food and Drink)
6:20 – Announcements
6:30 – Begin “Doing Agile Isn’t the Same as BEING Agile!”
8:00 – Closing Remarks

PLEASE REGISTER - If you are already a member of the Phoenix Scrum User’s Group, you have already received an email about this event, just select the “Registration Link” in that email. If you’ve not received that email, please sign-up (on the right), and we’ll get it out to you!!

Topic Overview: Doing Agile Isn’t the Same as BEING Agile!

People often say “We’re doing agile at my company.”  What does that really mean?  Unfortunately it usually means the organization has picked a small number of agile practices they attempt to do without really paying attention to the overall results.  If a company is “doing agile well” it may even mean they are doing as many agile practices as possible.  However, in practice there is a big difference between “doing agile” and “being agile!”  Companies BEING Agile perform better than companies doing agile.  They see higher morale among their employees.  They use Agile as a tool rather than a process.  Most importantly, being Agile means being devoted to the principles which drive success rather than hoping the practices will drive success.  Whether you are using XP, Scrum, AUP, Crystal or another agile methodology come learn the basic principles and how to internalize them so your team, organization or enterprise can BE agile rather than DO agile!

Speaker Bio:  Bob Hartman

Bob Hartman, also known as “Agile Bob”, has spent over 30 years in software development.  His logic-based approach to development and quality was honed early in his career when he obtained both Bachelors and Masters degrees in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  After graduation he acquired wide-ranging industry knowledge by working in almost every role in the software industry including developer, tester, documentation writer, product manager, project manager, business analyst, development manager and executive.  Bob is no stranger to problems inherent in using an agile process having spent 5 years as VP of a publicly traded  company which switched to agile during difficult times.  Over the past 10 years he has grown from being an early adopter of agile to his current status as a Certified Scrum Coach (CSC) who has done significant training, coaching and mentoring in all areas of agile development.  He has been a speaker at numerous conferences, seminars and workshops where his engaging style, holistic view of development, and personal anecdotes are always well received by attendees.  You can contact Bob at 303-766-0917 or through his blog at www.agilebob.com.

Where:
Infusionsoft    (Google Map)
2065 W. Obispo Ave.
Gilbert, AZ 85233

Agenda:
6:00 -  Registration (Infusionsoft providing Food and Drink)
6:20 -  Announcements and topic selection
6:30 -  Begin “How’s the Product Owner”
8:00 -  Announcements

NOTE:  We also have a special Give Away this Month:  Mike Cohn’s new book “Succeeding with Agile”, and Planning Poker Cards!

PLEASE REGISTER - If you are already a member of the Phoenix Scrum User’s Group, you have already received an email about this event, just select the “Registration Link” in that email.  If you’ve not received that email, please sign-up (on the right), and we’ll get it out to you!!

Topic Overview:

A Product Owner has the power to champion a great Scrum Team, or defeat them.  A great PO provides crystal clear direction and distills competing desires into laser focus, not just for the team but also for the enterprise.  A bad PO can perpetuate chaos, misdirection and confusion.  This meeting will focus on this key Scrum role.  Alan will guide a discussion about the Product Owner role.

- How is the role defined?
- Job and focus of the Product Owner
- ScrumMaster and Product Owner interaction
- What do the Product Owner and the Team developers owe each other?
- What works for you?

Please come with your own input to this discussion.  We hope many Product Owners will be in attendance too.  Scrum is not just for the ScrumMasters!

Speaker Bio:  Alan Dayley

Alan has been doing embedded development for nearly 20 years, in projects ranging from built-in and production test to embedded application firmware and embedded product user interfaces.  His awareness of information flow between people drove him to rediscover Agile principles as a means of revealing enterprise impediments and creating high performance teams.  A Certified ScrumMaster and Certified Scrum Practitioner, Alan now works on integrating Agile further into the enterprise, coaching in Agile for an engineering department designing next generation SSDs and continuing a grass-roots Scrum introduction he started over two years ago.

A Product Owner has the power defeat or champion a Scrum Team. A great PO provides direction and distills competing desires into laser focus, not just for the team but also for the enterprise. A bad PO can perpetuate chaos, misdirection and confusion. This meeting will focus on this key Scrum role. Alan Dayley will guide a discussion about the Product Owner role.

- How is the role defined?

- Job and focus of the Product Owner

- ScrumMaster and Product Owner interaction

- What do the Product Owner and the Team developers owe each other?

- What works for you?

Please come with your own input to this discussion. We hope many Product Owners will be in attendance too. Scrum is not just for the ScrumMasters!