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Slides from the last meeting Sept 22nd

Slides from the last joint meeting with SPIN on Sept 22nd are at
http://spin.asqphilly.org/PastMeetings.html

Added by John Voris, Lead Coordinator on October 1, 2010 at 7:11pm — No Comments

Code Kata August

Thank you to Andre, Bonnie, Adam, Aaron and Sebastian for coming out to Code Kata night at the Math Forum! This was an experimental kata night in that we were trying out architectural katas for the first time.



In the beginning we went through a summary of the basic elements of architecture: communication/distribution, presentation/interaction, state management, processing, resource management and tools. For this we followed the slides that Ted Neward provided especially for this…

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Added by Audrey R. Troutt on August 25, 2010 at 9:30am — 3 Comments

QA Team Member as an Equal

Many organizations give a lot of weight to their developers but neglect their QA departments. There are many misconception about the role of QA. This happens more in bigger organizations where there is a greater emphasis on strict demarcation of responsibilities. This creates a culture of silos. It encourages developers to believe that they are not required to interact with QA. Most developers start thinking that they are better than…
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Added by Ravindar Gujral on August 24, 2010 at 6:30pm — No Comments

Local Motors- A story of integrated development

This is a great story of a company that is trying to challenge the existing model of a mass producer building something that everyone consumes. Local Motors is an integrated and a more distributed mechanism to buying cars: http://www.local-motors.com/videos. This company exemplifies the movement towards a more decentralized way of doing things, where you empower not just your employees but the client itself.


I have yet to see…
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Added by Ravindar Gujral on August 18, 2010 at 9:50pm — No Comments

Follow-up from August's Roundtable

First of all, thanks to Keith for hosting!


It was a great discussion. We will definitely have more of this events in the future...


Nobody…
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Added by Sebastian Hermida on August 17, 2010 at 9:00pm — 6 Comments

On Planning

Let me start this article with a story I heard listening to a presentation by Ricardo Semler: Gary Kasparov, the chess grandmaster, played a computer nicknamed “Deep Thought” sometime in the 1980’s and he won. Deep Thought could think many moves ahead,…

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Added by Ravindar Gujral on May 18, 2010 at 12:33pm — 2 Comments

Creating a drawing is a lesson in software creation...

I often struggle with my inability to say code verbally without writing it or drawing it. Sometimes I start out TDD and then my inner well of code overflows into the code and I find from myself or my pair I need to stop! I ask myself why do I do this? Why do I jump into code? I like tests, I love tests more than you can imagine because I hate lots of words for documentation.



I was beating myself up over this while driving to work recently and it dawned on me. How do I draw? My drawing… Continue

Added by John Ferguson on April 30, 2010 at 4:38pm — 1 Comment

Fan-out Release Planning



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Added by D. André Dhondt on April 15, 2010 at 12:50pm — No Comments

How to meet other craftsmen

I had the luck to meet a craftsman during these holidays. He is not a software craftsman. He does not work with computers, but with construction and repairs of homes and apartments. He is a master mason.



During my stay in Spain, I had to interview and evaluate the proposals of three local constructions shops to almost rebuild from scratch an old apartment there.



I observed a bunch of similarities with the craftsmanship movement of our software industry. This actually… Continue

Added by Sebastian Hermida on January 18, 2010 at 10:19pm — No Comments

Pair Exchange Program

I just finished the first ever pair programming exchange program!



It all started when I was at SDTConf back in October. I don't remember the exact conversation, but the question was generally if software development as a craft takes two programmers pairing together to pass on and practice the craft then how will it ever scale?



Someone jokingly suggested that…

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Added by Audrey R. Troutt on November 19, 2009 at 6:00pm — 2 Comments

On Teams- Forming, Changes and Stability: An Opinion piece.

On Teams- Forming, Changes and Stability: An Opinion piece.



Teams are a collection of individuals that come together as a cohesive unit to work on a shared common goal. The group understands that the shared goals and outcomes are achievable if everyone cooperates and works towards a solution as a team, much like being in a lifeboat together. When we are in that boat together we learn to deal with those who are different and to tolerate those we don't like.



This is a basic,… Continue

Added by Ravindar Gujral on November 8, 2009 at 12:36am — No Comments

Death by Team Room, or Teamroom-Acide

anchovies
Agile teams are often co-located with all team members sitting in one physical room. The rooms are often spacious, with ample natural light, an effective layout, nearby private space, etc., and, as a result, productivity is high.



But, there is an anti-pattern; productivity-robbing team rooms that please no one,…
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Added by David A. Bulkin on November 7, 2009 at 3:06pm — No Comments

My learnings at Code Retreat Philadelphia

I have published a summary of what happened during the first Philadelphia code retreat.

Read all about it here

Cheers,
Sebastian

Added by Sebastian Hermida on November 2, 2009 at 10:45pm — No Comments

Agile Tour 2009 Open Jam Part 2

The Agile Tour is over, but that doesn't mean there still isn't good information to get out of it. Here are the notes from the second OpenJam that took place: Is Scrum Evil???

http://fasterslowerbetter.blogspot.com/2009/10/agile-tour-2009-open-jam-part-2.html

Added by Doug Bailey on October 15, 2009 at 11:58pm — No Comments

Agile Tour 2009 Open Jam Part 1

Agile 2009 came to Philadelphia and had some great sessions. It provided information for people new to Agile as well as experienced.



One of the three options available included an Open Jam. We had 3 topics that covered Certification, Scrum is Evil?, and Agile in a ERP. I want to thank all of the people who attended Open Jam. The discussion was great. For those who missed the sessions consider joining an open space discussion in the future.



Attached are the notes from the… Continue

Added by Doug Bailey on October 6, 2009 at 11:41pm — 2 Comments

Chickens, Pigs, Piglets, and Chigs?

Chickens, Pigs, Piglets, and Chigs Although many don’t like it, all agilists are familiar with the chicken and pig joke that explains that pigs are committed to success, while chickens are at best involved. As we continue to move to larger scale enterprise agile, we can benefit from understanding varying levels of participation and commitment. As such, I use terms like piglets and chigs to describe patterns and anti-patterns of team participation.



Piglets are part time participants that view their role as… Continue

Added by David A. Bulkin on October 5, 2009 at 11:32pm — No Comments

Join our LinkedIn Group too!

There are lots of ways to get plugged in to Agile Philly. We run a LinkedIn group, an e-mail announcements and discussion group, and this web site.

Why bother? Being a member of Agile Philly gets you free access to the best thought leaders, trainers and consultants in the world (don't take my word for it--look at our…

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Added by D. André Dhondt on September 24, 2009 at 7:20pm — No Comments

The Almost Daily Sit-Downs

You can find literally hundreds of blog posts and articles on the Daily Standup, a.k.a. Daily Scrum. But there is little written about what often comes, or at least should come, after, the Daily Standup.



What, you may ask, should come after the Daily Standup? Well, the Almost Daily Sit-Downs of course!



To find out more about the Almost Daily Sit-Downs, check out my companies blog at...…

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Added by David A. Bulkin on September 7, 2009 at 11:31pm — 3 Comments

What I am thinking about software development

To some extent, the golden age of software development is over. Starting in the 1960's and going at least through 1999, most companies and corporations spent a large proportion of their IT budgets developing and maintaining their own software. This was a time when the number of software developers expanded from near zero to millions of people in the US and many millions more around the world.

That expansion is now over. I believe that the absolute number of software development positions… Continue

Added by Joel A. Adams on September 4, 2009 at 10:45am — 4 Comments

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