Kaizania at GovTech 2009!

As part of our mission to foster, support and assist the adoption of Agile software development techniques within Southern Africa, Kaizania sponsored and attended the recent Govtech 2009 conference at the Durban International Conference Centre – see http://www.govtech.co.za/

The conference itself was a great success and exceedingly well organised. If the conference is the standard at which government IT projects are to be delivered, SA citizens are in for excellent ICT service delivery.

Our conference started on Sunday the 13^th of September when Kaizania sponsored the Project Management Special Interest Group (PM SIG) event http://www.govtech.co.za/conf_pmsig.asp.

We were first of all treated to an overview of the Gautrain project by the man in charge – Jack van der Merwe, CEO of the Gautrain Project. It was a fascinating insider view into one of the largest public private partnership projects in the world today. Jack himself was no less fascinating than the project itself. It is heartening to see and hear about the amazing talent we have in South Africa. More information on the Gautrain project can be found at http://www.gautrain.co.za/

Next up there was a panel discussion with the following panellists:

• Jack van der Merwe                      CEO Gautrain project
• Craig Smith                                       SITA IFMS Programme Manager
• Gideon Smit                                      SITA Quality Manager
• Lionel Bisschoff                               CEO Kaizania
• Manon Deguire                                Valense Managing Partner

Some interesting project management aspects were discussed, but it was no surprise that a barrage of questions regarding the nitty gritty details of the Gautrain project were directed at Jack.

Kaizania at GovTech 2009 - Ben and Lionel

One interesting question was regarding techniques to motivate and promote team spirit on project teams consisting of cross-cultural, remotely located team members. Jack described how the project and management world has changed from very hierarchical command-and-control organizational structures and processes to lead-and-co-ordinate organizational structures and processes. A common vision and associated goals provide the basis for self-organizing teams to achieve an organization’s goals, led by business and agile project leaders. The Flexible Production era is what it is all about – more info on that in Kaizania’s white paper here.

From the 14^th to the 16^th of September the Kaizania stand was manned by

• Ben Cilliers                          General Manger Kaizania
• Arrie van der Dussen      Agile Business Manager Kaizania
• Lionel Bisschoff                 CEO Kaizania

Kaizania at GovTech 2009 - Ben and Arrie

We used the ever present sticky notes of the Agile world to decorate our stand, as well as Version One posters, a flat screen showing Agile related videos and our Kaizania pull down banners. The Kaizania stand attracted much attention and we met many interesting people, many of which are now very keen to embark on the Agile journey. Success!

Thank you to all the folks at SITA that assisted Kaizania in sponsoring and exhibiting at Govtech 2009. We look forward to being at Govtech 2010, apparently in Cape Town!

Kaizania Agile Coaching in the press!

A recent case study has been done on SDT by the BrainStorm magazine…

SDT gets Agile – Rethinking and reshaping an entire product development cycle means a big change in mindset.

Read the full article here http://www.brainstormmag.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3479:sdt-get-agile&catid=43:in-depth-analysis&Itemid=86

Seems like the value of Agile and proper Agile coaching is starting to gain momentum!

A day of Scrum, Agile, good food, networking and some dodgy weather in Cape Town on Spring day 2009!

thinkingagile had the opportunity to attend the first ever Scrum-day in South Africa on Spring day… well, typically Cape Town, Spring day turned-out to be more to be a stormy, windy, rainy, cold day!

Weather aside, it was a great day, well organised and overall a Scrum success… well done to the SUGSA committee who organised this great day!

The day was split into two tracks, Business and Technical, therefore catering for all the preferences. Personally, I was split between the two and ended up attending sessions across…

Later the afternoon, the delegates was treated to a live video feed with Jeff Sutherland. His topic for the talk was ‘Take no prisoners’ which was very suited to Scrum overall… Scrum is not for sissies at all!

Adopting Scrum and reaching your expected goals with Scrum is relatively easy, however, not for the faint hearted, especially at the beginning…

A more detailed post on the day will be done later this week, I have invited a guest blogger to join me in wrapping up this event on thinkingagile… first, it’s the trek back to Gauteng and better weather to see if I can’t at least get the feeling of Spring this year!