Better Software Conference & EXPO 2009

PRESENTATIONS

Transitioning Your Software Process to Agile

Agile software development presents an appealing array of possibilities for building better software-customer focused development, high team communication, frequent releases of production-ready software, and early lifecycle testing. Unfortunately, many organizations who have attempted to develop software using agile methods have not been very successful at transitioning to an agile process. Often, the organization attempts to change too much of its software process too quickly.

Jeffery Payne, Coveros, Inc.

Using Agile to Increase Value in Lean Times

The proof is now in, and it shows that implementing agile is the best way to get critical, revenue-generating applications to market faster and at less cost. How much money and how many jobs could your organization save? Richard Leavitt and Michel Mah document the financial returns agile project teams are experiencing compared to their traditional counterparts and provide you with a business case toolkit for your senior executives considering agile practices.

Richard Leavitt, Rally Software Development
Virtual Retrospectives for Distributed Software Teams

Project retrospectives are challenging enough when the software development team and stakeholders are together in one location. What happens when the team members are spread across multiple locations, time zones, and continents? John Terzakis describes the key challenges of retrospectives for geographically dispersed software teams and provides solutions he has used to address each challenge.

John Terzakis, Intel Corporation

Weathering the Storm: Navigating Through Resource Constrained Waters

An economic storm is upon us, with rough waters, dark skies, and hard choices on the horizon. Have you taken action to prepare your projects for challenges when "business as usual" seems a likely recipe for disaster? Payson Hall identifies proactive steps for software project managers and sponsoring executives to prepare their projects and portfolios for increasingly resource constrained times.

Payson Hall, Catalysis Group Inc

What Your QA Program Is Missing

Many software development organizations have a Quality Assurance (QA) component. Often, QA is just an impressive name for "we do some testing before rolling out our product." True QA encompasses an integrated process that guides software development from inception to delivery using approaches such as CMMI®, Six Sigma, and ISO. The software testing that occurs near the end of a software development process is a separate, standalone activity that assesses "fitness for use" before delivery.

Dawn Haynes, PerfTestPlus, Inc.

What's More Important: Being Agile or Creating Value?

Agile processes and tools have become very popular over the past few years. They promise success where many organizations have had failures. Concerned over struggles to "be agile" and worried that they are not doing everything that every agile consultant says they must, some organizations are worrying whether their projects are really agile or not. Is worrying about whether or not we are really agile the point? Are we, in our rush to be "agile," losing sight of what's really important?

Jonathan Kohl, Kohl Concepts Inc.

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