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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 13th 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 14th to the 16th 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!
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!
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!
It was a wonderful event, full of Agile content made possible by keen Agilists!
This event was proudly sponsored by:
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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 and Agile Testing
December 10, 2009 in Agile Commentary, Events | Tags: agile tester, agile testing, agile training, coaching, consulting, kanban, quality, scrum, scrum overview, testing, what is scrum? | by thinkingagile | Leave a comment
Kaizania was invited to speak to a group of testers at Standard Bank recently on Agile and Agile Testing.
This was a really pleasant experience and the conversations we’ve had during the open session confirmed that Agile is an absolute need these days and not just something nice to attempt.
We all know that the role of the tester within Agile is very much neglected, however, we do determine that Agile is all about Quality and the different way to look at Quality.
In Agile we look at quality as Business Value Delivered over Total Cost and that there is absolutely NO TRADE-OFF to quality.
Anything not producing quality and value to your customer is believed to be waste. Who are the best people to assist you in determining waste? The Agile Tester is playing a big role in assisting you for sure!
In Agile we believe that quality is to be delivered by adopting a ‘whole team approach’, where the complete team, customer and developers are mutually accountable for quality.
This presentation provides an overview to how we got to what we call Agile and how Agile and Quality link to Agile Testing…
Download the presentation here: Kaizania: Agile and Agile Testing