Agile Florida

Title: Testing as Communication, Real-World Techniques
Location: Navigator Coffee Squadron, 7643 Gate Pkwy, Jacksonville, FL 32256 (904) 928-0048
Description: This session covers how Hashrocket, an experienced Ruby on Rails consultancy, uses a wide range of real-world testing techniques and agile methodologies every day to satisfy client customer requirements. It will describe the life cycle of our testing workflow, from story capture to customer acceptance. This includes an overview of: fine-grained requirements gathering in “user story” form; how we manage stories and communicate transparently with the client using a web-based tracking tool; how story-driven development is expressed as test-driven development; and, how we enhance client/developer communication by writing plain-text tests in the vocabulary of the customer’s domain. In this session, you will learn how to turn natural-language requirements into running code that both customer and developer alike can communicate around; how to express customer requirements at the appropriate levels of abstraction, from high-level integration tests all the way down to granular unit tests; and, how to properly employ the latest tools, such as RSpec, StoryRunner, Selenium, Webrat, and fixture factories.

More at http://rubyjax.com/2008/9/17/september-meeting
Start Time: 19:00
Date: 2008-09-30
End Time: 21:00

Title: Tampa Agile Meeting: A Better Culture Change Approach for Busy Practitioners
Location: Microsoft 5426 Bay Center Drive Suite 700 (7th Floor) Tampa, FL 33609
Description: From Michael:

Hi Folks! Just a reminder that our next Agile Tampa group meeting will be Thursday, September 18. Mike Russell from ARC http://www.arccorp.com/index.html will be graciously giving a presentation that his company presented at the Agile 2008 conference in Toronto. The presentation is entitled “A Better Culture Change Approach for Busy Practitioners”. Agile Thought http://www.agilethought.com/Pages/default.aspx will be our sponsor again supplying us with the all-important pizza, which will be available at 6pm. The talk will start at 6:30 and we will be meeting at the new Microsoft location: Microsoft 5426 Bay Center Drive Suite 700 (7th Floor) Tampa, FL 33609 Phone: (813) 281-3900 Fax: (813) 289-0034 Map If you haven’t already, please send me an e-mail at AgileTampa@live.com if you plan on attending so I can get an accurate count for pizza! Thanks!- Michael Russo

Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2008-09-18

“Leading the Agile Transition”
September 25th and 26th
Marriott Atlanta Perimeter Center
http://summit.aplnatlanta.org

For the past few years, local APLN chapters have organized and hosted regional Leadership Summits. These events have been very well received and attract fantastic speakers and exceptional local thought leaders.

This is your chance to attend an Agile conference specifically designed to address the needs of the Agile community in Atlanta and the Southeast. Our speakers will discuss topics ranging from Product and Portfolio management to Agile Architecture and Metrics. Each speaker will present two talks, one geared toward the practitioner that is looking for tools and techniques they can use on a daily basis, the other toward leaders considering, or leading, a switch to Agile.

The summit is geared toward new and seasoned Agile leaders at all levels: organizational leaders, product leaders, development leaders, and project leaders. This is your chance to spend a whole day with some of the leading experts in the area of Agile Leadership, to network with with other agile leaders, and to share your experiences and concerns with those who are in the same situation as yourself.

The Dallas and Seattle Summits were a huge success! Next up is Atlanta!

The APLN Leadership Summit format includes:

• Networking opportunities throughout the day
• Speakers addressing how to lead their organizations to become agile.
• “Think Tank” sessions on Agile Leadership with topics addressing advanced leadership tools, experiences, lessons learned, and issues yet to be resolved.
• Networking social at the end of the first day to review think tank solutions and suggestions.

The APLN Atlanta planning committee has lined up an all star group of speakers and local Agile leaders. The conference is limited to 120 participants so you need to act now. If you are in the area, or able to make a the trip, the Atlanta Summit will be well worth attending.

For more information (including speaker bios and abstracts) and information on how to register, please visit the APLN Summit home page: http://summit.aplnatlanta.org

For those who may not be able to make the Orlando Scrum meetings on the 3rd Tuesday evenings of the month, one of our members has started a Scrum Lunch discussion on meetup.com

http://agile.meetup.com/41/

Come enjoy the lunchtime agility and some great Thai food!

Title: Orlando Scrum Meeting
Location: Orlando, FL
Description: Our next meeting is August 19 at Altamonte Springs Panera on 436. Robert Dempsey will providing a presentation on Agile project estimating.

Thanks to Ken Nordquist of NPhusion who is this meeting’s sponsor..
Please RSVP to chad@orlandoscrum.org if you are planning on attending our August meeting.

Meeting Time: 7 PM

Panera
696 E Altamonte Drive
Altamonte Springs, FL 32701
(407) 332-7600 | phone

If you have any questions or suggestions let me know at chad@orlandoscrum.org.

Start Time: 19:00
Date: 2008-08-19

Just a reminder that the next Agile Tampa meeting is this Wednesday (August 13th) at 6pm. Get all of the details in the above link - and note that the location has changed!

The talk this month is by Cory Foy entitled “XP and Scrum: Tools and Practices for Making Your Organization Agile”. Hope to see you there!

Title: Orlando Scrum - Scrum Simulation
Location: Panera Bread, Altamonte
Description:

Our members asked for it, and they are going to get it. At our next meeting we will be doing a Scrum simulation! Curious about what Scrum is, how it works, and how it can benefit you? Come to our next meeting and find out. And an added benefit is you don’t have to put on rugby gear.

Thanks to Ken Nordquist, who will be leading our simulation.

At this time our meeting is still scheduled to be at Panera on Atlamonte Drive. This may change due to space needs. Updates will be posted here and in emails.

Meeting Time: 7 PM

Panera
696 E Altamonte Drive
Altamonte Springs, FL 32701
(407) 332-7600 | phone

If you have any questions or suggestions let me know at chad@orlandoscrum.org.
Start Time: 7:00 pm
Date: 2008-07-15
End Time: 9:00 pm

The Secrets of Agile Teamwork course coming to Florida (Jacksonville area) in October!

For those of you who attended the talk on “soft skills” in agile at the June meeting of orlandoscrum.org and you want in-depth knowledge on how to help your teams become more collaborative, this is the course for you!

The course is being taught by Diana Larsen and Esther Derby, authors of the Agile Retrospectives book. If you have ever been in their tutorials at the agile conferences, you know that this course will be highly collaborative, fun, and very enlightening.

Because of the collaborative nature, the course is limited to 10 participants. You can register now at Agile University

http://www.agileuniversity.org/course_details.jsp?courseid=131

Hope to see you there.

The Jacksonville Code Camp is coming up on August 23rd. They’ve got part of the site up to be able to register and suggest sessions. So far, the list is very heavy on Agile topics, so it should be a good time. Be sure to head over and register or suggest a session!