Scrum User Group

Slides from the “Software Testing – How has agile changed the game? with Karen Greaves” are available for download here.

Popularity: 21% [?]

When: 6 May 2010, 6PM

Venue: Allan Gray Portswood office in the Presentation Room on the third floor. You can download a map here. Everyone parking in the Portswood parking area will have to pay for their own parking tickets. There is also parking available in Beach road.

Cost: Free

Sign up for this exciting event here.

Topic: Software Testing – How has agile changed the game?

Karen goes back to the core of why we test and what we know about testing from research data. She will explorer the implications of agile software development on testing: what has to change in our approach to testing in an agile environment; and what can we still use from traditional testing techniques. She will cover some automation tips, defect tracking, test reporting and finally some technical things testers really need to understand.

About the Speaker

Karen started out her career as a Software Tester for Microsoft on Windows 2000. She learned a great deal about testing in this complex environment with about 3000 people working on a single product. She was fortunate enough to be trained in testing fundamentals by Cem Kaner. It’s 10 years later and Karen been working with agile teams for 5 years, she is still passionate about testing and as a Scrum Coach is interested in how the discipline of testing has been affected by agile.

This event’s catering is kindly sponsored by Hetzner

Popularity: 45% [?]

When: 8 April 2010, 6PM

Venue: Allan Gray Portswood office in the Presentation Room on the third floor. You can download a map here. Everyone parking in the Portswood parking area will have to pay for their own parking tickets. There is also parking available in Beach road.

Cost: Free

Sign up for this exciting event here.

Topic: Software Development Practices with an Agile mindset - Toe dipping at human speed

Slides: Development Practices

Marius de Beer will introduce Agile software development practices that teams can adopt without exceeding the rate at which they, and their management, can change.  These practices have been cherry picked as a low barrier start to a life long journey of honing our skill in meeting the demands of iterative- incremental- software delivery.

None of these practices are new, yet they are far less mainstream than their management counterparts.  The lack of adoption is caused by one part bad Public Relations (PR) and two parts panic. Panic is easily explained; Extreme Programming (XP) is the de facto remedy when development teams have to take a feature from “story” to “release ready” in two weeks.  Test Driven Development and Pair Programming are the only two practices in XP that have received significant airtime.  Both these practices cause developers to assume the fetal position and cry “mommy”. Bad PR is slightly more complex.  There has never been a business model around XP, which means no one took the time to explain it to executives that approve spending, and by extention, initiatives.

This talk will empower managers and developers to implement software development practices with an Agile mindset without fear or trepidation.

Aslam Khan from Factor10 and Roderick Lim Banda from KASE will join Marius for a panel Q&A session after the talk.

About the Speaker
Marius’ interest in software systems started at an early age and he has been “living the life of software” ever since.  After qualifying as a Mechanical Engineer in 1991 he focused on the design of mechanical systems with electronic controls.  In 1996 his transition to pure software systems development was complete. Since then Marius has been involved in most of the dominant software technologies and environments, from high availability back-end systems handling thousands of transactions per second, to small embedded systems running mission critical software with minimal memory and processing power. From 2002 Marius has been an avid practitioner of Agile Engineering Practices and as technical lead and mentor has help more than 10 teams adopt these practices. In 2008 he also started coaching in Agile Management Practices and completed an Agile Apprenticeship in the USA and Canada which included his Scrum Master Certification with Ken Schwaber. Marius has mentored teams in implementing Scrum and Kanban.

This event’s catering is kindly sponsored by Intec

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Popularity: 33% [?]

Following a call for nominations to the new 2011 SUGSA Committee, a total of 5 candidates put forward their credentials during the time allotted in terms of the SUGSA election procedure.

Because 5 elected members ideally constitute a SUGSA Committee, the outgoing Committee deemed it unnecessary to hold a round of voting to determine the Committee for the new year. Consequently, it is with pleasure that I inform you that the 2011 SUGSA Committee comprises  Marius de Beer, Charl Dreyer, Kevin Fourie, Karen Greaves and Peter Hundermark.

One of the first tasks awaiting the new Committee will be to elect office bearers; once this has been done you will be notified by email.

On behalf of SUGSA, the outgoing Committee, and all SUGSA members, I would like to extend our best wishes to the 2011 SUGSA Committee for a successful year growing the awareness and practice of Scrum in South Africa.

Popularity: 45% [?]

When: 4 March 2010, 6PM

Venue: Bandwidth Barn, 125 Heerengracht Street, Cape Town

Cost: Free

Sign up for this exciting event here.

Topic: UX and User Centered Design in Agile Development with Phillip Barrett

The most reliable way to achieve usability and deliver the right user experience is with user-centred design.
It’s a collection of tools and techniques that helps digital project teams stay focused on what customers need right the way through the design process. The talk will cover some basics on what UX is and then focus on Phillip’s experience using this approach with agile teams and the challenges this imposes.

About the Speaker
Phillip Barrett is a director of Flow Interactive, a user experience design, research and strategy consultancy based in London.
He’s been consulting in user experience since 1999, when he joined Flow. He’s designed all sorts of user experiences and worked with hundreds of users in the process. He’s worked with plenty of different client organisations too – including Vodafone, Standard Life and The BBC.

This event’s catering is kindly sponsored by Scrum Sense

Popularity: 41% [?]