Agile Training Class is HERE!!

The Agile Las Vegas Users Group is very excited about the upcoming Agile training on Friday October 7^th.  We are looking forward to meeting and learning with other professionals in the Las Vegas community.  You will find some helpful information about the event below.

Get Ready

Read this guide (DoBetterScrum-v2.pdf) to understand one flavor of Agile Project Management called Scrum.  Reviewing the attachment will help you understand some of the principals of the training class.  You can also visit the Scrum Alliance for more suggested reading materials.

When & Where

Date: Friday October 7th from 8:30 AM – 5:30 PM

Location:  Unique Communication Solutions Conference Room

1665 W Horizon Ridge Pkwy, Henderson NV 89012 (Drive to the very back of the complex to find the building and parking) MAP

Food

We will have snacks and coffee in the morning and break around noon for a short lunch.  A light lunch will be provided.

See you soon. If you have any questions please feel free to call, email, or text.

Brett Burbidge 702-372-2373 • Tori Abajian 702-204-0102

Agile & Scrum Training – Values, Foundations and Practices. “Pay It Forward”

Friday, October 7, 2011 in Las Vegas. Open to greater Las Vegas Area IT Professionals Only.

The Agile Las Vegas User Group is excited to welcome Bachan Anand, a Certified Scrum Professional to Las Vegas for this one day, highly interactive, Agile training course. Bachan has over 5 years experience training and leading Agile teams. He has helped many companies throughout the United States adopt Agile methods. He will be in Las Vegas for one day only at the request of the Agile Las Vegas User Group, you don’t want to miss it.

Agile and Scrum have changed our world of work from a dull, mechanical one to a vibrant, thriving and joyous one. We wish to spread the awareness and invite others to the world of Agile and Scrum, to share the knowledge, through our training sessions. “Paying it forward – Donation only” is our way of giving back to the community. Minimum donation for this event is $50.

Event Details
Where: Las Vegas, NV - Location TBD
When: Friday, October 7, 2011 8 AM - 4 PM
Cost: Pay it forward - donation only (min $50.00)
Seating is limited - Please register today - http://1-day-agile-scrum-training-lasvegas.eventbrite.com/
Questions, Contact:
Tori Abajian CSM, PMP – 702-204-0102 tori.abajian@gmail.com
Brett Burbidge CSM – 702-372-2373 brettburbidge@gmail.com

Who Should Attend
Anyone who would like an introduction to Agile and Scrum for immediate application. Typical roles include IT Managers, Project Managers, Business Analyst, Developers, and Quality Assurance Team Members

Topic Covered
The course is designed to illustrate Scrum in action.
• Understanding the Agile Manifesto and what it means to practice its Values and Principles.
• Essence of Scrum: values, foundations and a new way of thinking.
• Understanding how Scrum values and foundations are related to the practices.
• Get a sense of what self-organization is (and is not).
• Review the diagram of mechanics of Scrum framework, roles, artifacts and flow.

Why Attend
Not only will this be a great time to be immersed in Agile/Scrum learning from a seasoned Agile professional but you will also have the opportunity to meet and learn with other Agile professionals in the Las Vegas Area. This course is for Southern Nevada IT Professionals only.

Agile Las Vegas User Group Meeting July 20th

Please join us for the Agile Las Vegas User Group meeting on July 20th at 7 PM.

Come and enjoy meeting other agile software development leaders in the Las Vegas/Henderson Community.  We are planning for a great night of networking, information, food and fun.  Be prepared to share any job openings you have and if you are looking, there will be time to let everyone know.

When: Wednesday July 20th 7pm - 9pm

Where: 1665 W Horizon Ridge Pkwy, Henderson NV 89012 Google Map

Agenda:

• 7:00 - 7:30 Food & Introductions
• 7:30 - 8:00 Presentation
• 8:00 - 9:00 Questions, Answers, Open Discussion

Dinner (BBQ) provided.

Invite everyone you know but please ask them to register so that we know how much BBQ to order!

If you plan on attending please use the following form to register.  We will use it to keep count and for future communication.

https://spreadsheets0.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&formkey=dHdoV0dMWTY2WGVTM0Z2ZmNMaVR1LWc6MA#gid=0

There is a LinkedIn Group for group communication, questions and anything else related to our group.

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=3891555

For more details or comments check out www.AgileLasVegas.com.

If you have questions please feel free to call or email me.

Look forward to seeing you there.

If you have any questions feel free to call or email me.


Brett Burbidge
brettburbidge@gmail.com
702-372-2373

Being Agile Webinar by Axosoft

Here is a great webinar about agile development called Being Agile. It was hosted by Axosoft and the presenter was Sean McHugh (http://thescrumblog.blogspot.com). Download the file to watch the video. The presentation starts at about 10 minutes in and goes for about 35 minutes. The rest of the video is Q & A which is really good stuff. To keep up with their coming web casts click on this link: http://www.axosoft.com/training/scrum_webinar (I think they will keep this up to date...)

My 30 second break down:

Lots of tools but Agile is a concept

Agile Manifesto breakdown

- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan

What is agile development? A framework...
"An iterative development framework focused on feedback and collaboration"

One form of Agile is Scrum. Who are the players?

Product Owner

Scrum Team

Scrum Master

Backlogs

Estimation

The Sprint

Burndown

Retrospective

I recommend this to everyone starting with Scrum or those who just want a nice refresher.

Click here to watch the webinar (Requires Windows Media Player, best viewed in IE, sorry)

If the link does not work then right click and copy the address and paste it into WMP Open URL window.

May 25th User Group Meeting

Agile practitioners please join us for the first Agile Las Vegas User Group meeting on May 25th.

Please register here if you plan on attending.

When: May 25th 7pm - 9pm

Where: 1665 W Horizon Ridge Pkwy, Henderson NV 89012 Google Map

Agenda:

• 7:00 - 7:30 Pizza & Introductions
• 7:30 - 8:00 Group backlog
• 8:00 - 9:00 Open discussion

Pizza & Snacks provided

If you plan on attending please use the following form to register. We will use it to keep count, for communication and name tags for the meeting.

http://tiny.cc/AgileLVReg

Also we created a LinkedIn Group for group communication, questions and anything else related to our group. Feel free to join to updates.

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=3891555

Looking forward to it!

Why a Have a Las Vegas User Group

I have a local dentist (http://www.gublerdds.com/doctors.asp) that took all of my dental work to a local group of experts for advice he calls it a study club.  In a dental study club different dentists from the area come together face to face to talk about real cases and get advice from their peers.  When I went back to the dentist for the my review he had made some slight changes to the original plan.  It gave me confidence in the decisions he has made in my dental care over the past few months.

Using a similar pattern the purpose of a user group is to gather people from the agile community together to talk about our real life cases and situations, learn from each other and ultimately to help each other deliver better software to our customers.

Drawing by Sanjay Shetty, found at http://edotnetdevs.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/purpose-of-user-group-meetings/

Product Owner Roles

I love this list of Product Owner responsibilities.  It is short and concise.  We have this poster along with the Scrum Master roles and Team roles up around our Scrum board.  Download the poster here: Product Owner Role Poster

The Product Owner represents the voice of the customer and decides what will be built and in what order.

• Conveys his/her vision to the team


• Ensures that the Scrum team works with the “right things”


• Writes customer-centric user stories


• Prioritizes User Stories based on business value


• Maintains the Product backlog


• A Product Owner cannot be the ScrumMaster


• Holds the team accountable to their commitment


• “The Single Wringable Neck”


• Responsible for forecasting Release Dates


• Ensures profitability


• Accepts or Rejects work results


• Produces and shares the product Road Map

Does not

• Estimate work


• Give more work during the sprint