Category Archives: xtreme programming

What Makes Agile Projects Succeed (or fail)? – Code Camp

Approximately 30 people came together Sunday morning to examine the question: “What makes agile projects succeed (or fail)?” This was one of my sessions at Silicon Valley Code Camp 2007, an open space conference that had over 900 registrants.

We generated and clarified almost 50 success or failure factors. Next the whole group participated in ranking the factors into tiers, from most important to least important. Dot voting was used to allow each participant’s experience to count equally, resulting in a result that reflects the collective wisdom of the group present. We managed to do all of this in less than an hour and a half! To learn more about the process and how to use it, click here.

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Agile Open CA – Retrospective

Agile Open California 2007 has come to an end. I am sitting on a pier here at the Fort Mason Center, enjoying a muffin from Greens, watching sailboats, and collecting my thoughts.

I met some truly interesting people, heard some amazing stories, and learned much. I am exhausted and energized at the same time. I am so inspired, that I have volunteered to be a part of the conference team for next year! This was the most amazing conference experience that I’ve ever had.

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Lunch With Joel Spolsky

I’m sitting in a Starbucks in the ‘Multimedia Gulch’ area of San Francisco, having just shared some fine San Francisco Burritos with Joel Spolsky. It’s been a few years since we last chatted, and much has changed. Joel’s company, Fog Creek Software, has more than doubled in size. They have mostly filled their recently expanded office space and Joel is busy figuring out how much space they should get to accommodate future growth. A new version of FogBugz has just been released and Joel is doing a demo tour. I think he still has space available in a few of his Bay Area demos. If you get a chance, check it out. I’ll be there tomorrow morning in Mountain View.

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Agile Project Leadership Open Space

Tonight I participated in an open space event put on by the Bay Area Agile Project Leadership Network. I did a short workshop on how to make the business case for agile. Though the presentation used no slides, I made use of some of the concepts and diagrams from this PowerPoint deck, which is in turn a subset of what I present in the Agile Overview workshops.

The event was well organized and the participants were a smart and enthusiastic bunch. I look forward to the next get together, on Tuesday September 11th.

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New Classes Available – For Free!

To celebrate America’s two hundred and thirty first birthday, The Technical Management Institute is reducing the price of our one-hour and two-hour classes to zip, zero, or free! For about the cost of a drink of tap water, you can have me come to your company and put on one of these short-format workshops. This will only last a limited time, so act now!

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