SUGSA Gauteng 13 Aug 2009 Event Feedback – Agile Engineering Practices

It was a wonderful event, full of Agile content made possible by keen Agilists!

This event was proudly sponsored by:

As promised, herewith the content from the event:

Agile Engineering Practices:
( Click here to download a PDF version of the presentation )

Lionel talking to us about Agile Engineering Practices

Trying to cover Agile Engineering practices in 30 minutes is pretty tough – there will always be a different way to do it. What Lionel tried to do was ignore specific code or technical aspects, and to present the essence of what Agile engineering is.

Summed up from the presentation it is:

• Let the “7 lean principles” and “7 wastes to be wary of” guide your every decision
• Software is part engineering and part craft – practice your craft and be proud of what you do
• Run a clean and efficient workshop through “Sort, Systematize, Standardize, Shine, Sustain” – for all your tools and code
• Code must be read and re-understood many, many times over, by humans, therefore code should be as clear and “English” as possible – use abstraction and a never ending focus on good naming of abstracted logic to achieve this
• Test driven development is the best process to achieve good, modular, well named code developed in a highly iterative fashion
• Design in the large follows the same principles as design in the small – use interfaces, abstractions and ensure single responsibilities
• Quilt coding – by having cohesive but loosely coupled components working through stable interfaces where separation of concerns have been achieved, one approaches the situation where multiple functional components can be stitched together as and when their functionality is needed
• When tackling a big new system, go breadth first, and only when really needed go deep to prove a certain functionality or technology. Where to go deep is driven by the risk associated with functional and technical unknowns – don’t go deeper than what is needed to reduce risk to an acceptable level – then repeat for remaining risk areas across the breadth. Follow lean principles
• Use sensible, repeatable, maximally automated release processes all the way from a workstation to dev to integration to qa to uat to live. Be able to roll forward and back to any point in time on the code and database.
• Use Agile version control methods – good introduction by Henrik Kniberg at http://www.infoq.com/articles/agile-version-control
• If you do the above, you do not need Big Design Upfront (BDUF). In fact, you will beat a BDUF approach every time, since you can change your mind at multiple levels in your solution stack and between components, with TDD watching your back
• Stay lean – question the status quo – build your craft

Kanban Case Study – Educos
( Click here to download a PDF version of the presentation )

Liz talking to us on Kanban at Educos

Liz Bath from Educos Vision Services, http://www.educos.co.za, then went ahead and treated the audience with a well-prepared case study on the effects of Kanban as an Agile solution to Service Support within Educos…

This was an eye-opener and definitely opened-up some minds during the presentation…

Thanks Liz and all from Educos, not just for the Case Study, but also for the lovely gifts everyone received!

The committee would like to thank each and everyone who attended, and for those who could not make it, well, hope to see you next time, we hope these presentations will convince you to make the time!

Book the next event so long, we are tentatively planning the next event for 1 October 2008, and if you would be interested in speaking at the event, please send us your details and proposed topic to agile@kaizania.co.za.

We are also looking for venue sponsors for the evening, please mail Arrie van der Dussen at agile@kaizania.co.za may you be willing to either provide us with a suitable venue or willing to assist in paying for a suitable venue…

Keep Scrumming!

Agile Bootcamp public training completed!

Another 2-day course completed by Kaizania, Agile Bootcamp, last week in Centurion…

This was again a fantastic group of people, seems like the people who attend Agile training are always open-minded, eager to learn and active particants!

The companies represented, NuPay – JunkMail – Telamenta – Investec, made for good variety in opinions, experiences and organisational size and complexity!

We deviated a little bit from our previous course outline which was focused around Scrum, to a course outline focusing on laying the foundation of Agile first – Flexible Production Era (download the whitepaper here).

Then we covered Scrum, history and principles of Scrum, Scrum framework and all the roles, ceremonies and artefacts in detail.

Different to our previous courses, we introduced Kanban to the delegates as an Agile solution to service support development organisations and teams. We did this by playing a great game to illustrate Kanban and the financial effect thereof… What was nice to see was the teams actually embracing the concepts and principles discussed earlier from Lean, especially avoidance of waste!

Overall, a great success and a fantastic opportunity to spend time with eager Agilists!

Kaizania likes to think that we not only train and coach folks on our training courses, but that we also treat them a little bit… and we can truly say we did, what a fantastic venue for training at KleinKaap, and the food was fantastic!

A venue with style, warm and friendly service and absolutely great food! Well done all at KleinKaap!

Here is some feedback from JunkMail who were on the course:

“I found the course to be highly informative and enlightening with regards to a better PM approach, handling the demands of modern online business development. The course was very well presented and kept the flow going strong, making for a mentally sparking and invigorating experience.

I am confident that this will assist us significantly in our development team to minimise development time and maximise accountability among developers for their various tasks. The reduction in project specifications time is also a huge bonus to us.

Well done guys! I would recommend Kaizania training in a heartbeat.”

- Douglas Bailey, Internal Development Manager, JunkMail Publishing Group

Next course is planned, not yet confirmed, for mid-September… may you be interested, please send a mail to agile@kaizania.co.za or phone Arrie on 083 700 2181 and we can place your name and preferred dates on a list, which will help Kaizania to try and accommodate all as best as we possibly could!

REMINDER 1: Scrum User Group South Africa – Gauteng Event #4: 21 May 2009

This is the first reminder for the next SUGSA Gauteng event on the 21st of May 2009 and we have some interesting updates for you on the evening’s content:

As promised, we have an organisation who will present a case study on the benefits realised with the adoption of Scrum and Agile…

Case Study:

Harry King of Rosami Products & Services, who are contracted to 2Dialog – a company based in Richardson, Texas, will be presenting a case study on how Scrum is assisting them in realising the expected benefits of Agile off-shore development in South Africa…

Book review:

Lionel Bisschoff will again entertain us with a book review

Agile and Scrum Committee Reading List:

The SUGSA Gauteng committee will for the first time reveal what we are reading and a list of subjects and books/articles on those subjects will be handed out.

So far we had overwhelming response and we are looking forward to see everyone… however, please don’t hesitate to bring friends/colleagues and whoever you think might benefit or add to the discussions planned!

Event registration:  http://www.scrum.org.za/resources/event-registration/event-registration-gauteng

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 The previous events were so well attended and using your feedback from this, we have decided to use this event for an open discussion around Agile and Scrum with help from a panel of experts.

Case studies will be presented for discussion, Scrum practitioners and organisations using Scrum will be present to share their ‘war-stories’ with us and to answer your questions.

 Join us for an evening of open discussion – bring your questions, bring your concerns, bring your own ‘war-stories’ and share with all of us… we are all keen to learn!

When: 21 May 2009

Time: 18:00 for 18:30

Where: Momentum Auditorium 1, Centurion, Pretoria (click for map)

Event registration:  http://www.scrum.org.za/resources/event-registration/event-registration-gauteng

Sponsors: Kaizania and Momentum

Refreshments will be served before and after the event.

For any additional information, please contact agile@kaizania.co.za.