I wanted to let every one know that my good buddies over Improving Enterprises in conjunction with Microsoft are hosting another install of the AgileDotNet Conference. Improving Enterprises was named by the Dallas Business Journal and SMU to the prestigious Dallas 100 list – ranking as the 16th fastest-growing company in the Dallas area in 2009.
These guys know Agile and are one of the best if not THE best in the .NET Space.
Head on over to http://agiledotnet.com/ for registration and session information.
At the February NwaDnug meeting I presented “Introduction to Agile Software Development”. Several people requested access to the slides so I have updated my presentations page to include the slide deck (PDF format).
It was a great session and I really enjoyed everyone that made comment and help the discussion going. These are my favorite types of presentations.
Rob Tennyson also did an awesome job presenting Advanced LINQ. I always enjoy it when Rob presents and hope to see him behind the podium more.
Thanks to Zach Young for making the recording of the meeting available here.
It was a great meeting and I really enjoyed presenting.
On November 14th, 2008 Improving Enterprises in conjunction with Microsoft and the Dallas C# SIG putting on an exciting one-day event to bring together the world of Microsoft .NET development with the world of Agile methods. Designed for both those experienced with Agile techniques and for those new to them, attendees can expect interesting presentations based on real-world experience from some of the industry’s leading Project Managers, Developers, and Business Analysts who have embraced Agile principles within .NET development environments.
This is going to be an awesome conference, with tracks for developers, analyst and project managers. Check out the full schedule and presenters.
I am planning on attending and if anyone else wants to go and carpool let me know.
Be sure to register because seating is limited and I will see you Irving, TX.
Robert Tennyson will be covering aspects of Agile Design from the Agile, Principles, Patterns and Practices in C# book, by Robert C. Martin, and Micah Martin. This presentation will focus on what it means to have an agile design. He will also write the Copy program from the book and work through the process of turning it into a solid agile design. If you are new to agile design, this would be a good meeting to attend on July 10th, 2008.
Rob has been developing enterprise applications for around 8 years now. His current development environment is Visual Studio 2008 with ReSharper 4.0 and his current language of choice is C#. He writes both ASP.NET and Windows applications. Rob’s current topic of interest is what it means to write Agile and maintainable code. You can follow Rob on his LetsTalkCode blog.
You can find out more info about this at the Northwest Arkansas .NET User Group, here is a direct link to the calendar event here.
This months meeting location is NWACC Corporate Learning at 4004 N. College Ave, Ste L. Fayetteville, AR.
Recently I became aware of the concepts used in conference and meeting that I am falling in love with. The Open Spaces conference style and the Fish Bowl Dialog utilized by ALT.NET in their recent conference.
Chris Patterson, a collegue, has posted about his experience at the ALT.NET Open Spaces event, titled Open Spaces In Practice. I was extremely impressed with his description of the Fish Bowl meeting style. He has posted on his blog about the experience. I am going to try this in a few meeting, our user group and some of my team project meetings.
While researching I found the Unconference Blog by Kaliya where she has post regarding Unconference. Methods: The Fish Bowl Dialog. Her blog is focus on unconventional style meetings and conferences as the description of her blog stats:
The name "unconference" arose to describe conferences that step outside of the more traditional model -- that is, presentations selected months beforehand, sponsors buying speaking slots, boring panels of talking heads, and high fees.
So, of course I check out the ALT.NET Open Spaces Conference site. I love the description of the Open Spaces Conference style:
Whoever shows up is the right group. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have. Whenever it starts is the right time. When it's over, it's over.
An Open Space conference's agenda is decided upon by the conference participants during the opening of the event.
I have been in contact with Chris and want hope to utilize this style of dialog in my team meetings, and would love to put on an Open Spaces conference in Northwest Arkansas. I have been talking to everyone I know about this and trying to learn more. I will continue to post more info as I learn more.