I’m very pleased with the final Agile Cambridge 2010 program. We received 42 speaking proposals, a very good number considering that is a first-time event. The quality of the session proposals was also excellent, and any of them could have made it into the final cut. For our other conferences there are usually some poorly thought-out proposals, so this was a refreshing change.

Keynote speakers for AC2010 are James Whittaker (Google) and Rachel Davies (Agile Experience). James is the author of several well-known books on software testing and Rachel is the author of the recently-released Agile Coaching book. James is making the trip from the US West Coast to be at the event.

The main programme consists of around 20 sessions covering topics across the software life cycle. The focus of the event is on sharing practical experiences of agile software development and this is reflected in the speaker line-up, most of whom have been applying agile principles in industry for many years, and in the conference format, which emphasizes hands-on learning and interactive discussion.

An early-bird booking period runs until 31st August. Visit the Agile Cambridge 2010 website for more information.

Thanks to Red Gate Software, InfoQ.com and Skillsmatter for supporting the event.

CALL FOR SPEAKERS

Submission Deadline – Friday July 16th 2010

With its emphasis on providing practical advice, Practical Product Lines 2010 is the ideal opportunity for managers, architects, developers and others to understand how to benefit from Software and System Product Lines methods, tools and technologies. The conference language will be English.

We are seeking high-quality session proposals covering topics on any practical aspect of Software Product Lines

Sessions could cover topics such as:

• Product line architecture
• Domain analysis and domain engineering
• Model-driven development for software product lines
• Agile methods for software product lines
• Migrating legacy systems to product lines
• Multisite development with product lines
• Knowledge sharing within product lines
• Product line scoping, requirements engineering for product lines, testing software product lines, variability management
• Product line evolution
• Tool and technology development and adoption
• Other topics related to the practical realization of software product lines

Case studies and interactive sessions based on any aspect of these and related approaches are particularly encouraged although more theoretical sessions are also welcome.

Take part in Practical Product Lines 2010 and find out how you can boost your productivity while improving the quality and time-to-market of your products.

In addition to paying no conference fees, being a speaker gives you a unique opportunity to present your viewpoint to our audience.

Visit http://www.practicalproductlines.org/ppl2010/speak.php for more information.

I’m putting together a new conference on agile software development and I’m looking for speakers.

The emphasis of the conference is on sharing practical experiences. I’m also trying to reach the parts that other agile conferences don’t reach by looking for speakers who can lead sessions that other conferences may not cover.

Suggested topics:

* Adopting and evolving agile approaches
* Agile product management
* Agile software development
* Agile testing
* User experience and design in an agile world
* Agile technical communications
* Coaching and mentoring agile teams
* Leadership
* Tool and technology adoption
* Distributed agile teams

Case studies and interactive sessions (hands-on, workshops, games…) based on any aspect of these and related topics are particularly encouraged.

Accepted speakers pay no conference fees.

Visit http://www.agilecambridge.net/ac2010/speak.php for more information.

This month’s Software East talk will take place at Red Gate Software. The speaker will be Dr. Rachel Jones of Instrata.

Places are limited and will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis. Event free of charge if you add your name to the list of attendees on or before February 15th, £10 thereafter (payable by invoice).

Synopsis
User-centred design: where it adds value and when you would engage this expertise in a development project.

User-centred designers have a skill set to carry out activities as varied as user interface design, user testing, user requirements specification, user research, concept creation, and user-centred innovation. On existing projects, a software engineer or business analyst is often asked to do some of these activities and muddle along as best they can.

In this talk, Rachel will discuss the type of development projects where user-centred design skills add value (and the type of projects where muddling along is fine) and indicate where and when user-centred skills are best engaged. User-centred designers also show new directions and spawn new projects in concept creation and user-centred innovation. Rachel will use case studies from projects with organisations such as Nokia, Skype, Microsoft and Oxfam, as well smaller organisations, to illustrate the various types of project where user-centred design expertise is used, the techniques employed and the process that is involved.

About Dr. Rachel Jones

Rachel has over 20-years experience working in user-centred design. Rachel founded Instrata with the purpose of bringing a people-centred approach to the innovation and design of technology to improve the user experience of systems and services and hence deliver greater value. Instrata is a leader in new service definition, novel concept creation, user research, and user-centred interactive solutions. Instrata has been conducting global projects for over eight years and has worked with clients such as BBC, BT, Microsoft, Nesta, Nokia, Orange, Oxfam, Reuters, Skype, Vodafone and Yahoo.

Prior to Instrata, Rachel was employed by two of the foremost pioneers of user-centred design, Xerox EuroPARC and Sapient. Rachel has a PhD in Human
Computer Interaction, publishes internationally and has authored 10 patents. Rachel is on the steering committee for the International Conference on
Ethnographic Praxis in Industry, she was Industrial Chair of the International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia in 2009, and co-technical chair for the British HCI conference in 2009.

Agenda:
18:30 – 19:00 Registration and Networking
19:00 – 20:30 Talk
20:30 – 21:00 Networking

A light buffet will be available from 18:30.

Visit the Software East web site for more information.

Thanks to Red Gate Software and ACCU for supporting Software East events.

With its focus on sharing practical experiences, Code Generation 2010 is the ideal opportunity for software practitioners to understand how to benefit from emerging tools, technologies and approaches in the broad area of Model-Driven Software Development.

Call for Speakers:
Submission Deadline: Friday January 15th 2010

We are seeking high-quality session proposals covering topics in model-driven software development (including Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs), Model-Driven Architecture (MDA), Executable UML, Software Factories & Software Product Lines, Generative Programming and related areas). Sessions could cover topics such as:

- Tool and technology development and adoption
- Code Generation and Model Transformation tools and approaches
- Defining and implementing modelling languages
- Domain Analysis and Domain Engineering
- Language evolution and modularization
- Meta Modelling
- Runtime virtual machines versus direct code generation

Case studies and interactive sessions based on these and related approaches are particularly encouraged although more theoretical sessions are also welcome.

Take part in Code Generation 2010 and find out why it is Europe’s leading event on Model-Driven Software Development.

Accepted speakers have their conference fees waived

For full details and instructions on how to submit a session please visit: http://www.codegeneration.net/cg2010/speak.php

Hear what participants thought about last year’s conference in this short video clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsKQeuCCSvg

What people said about our previous events:

“I’ve been working in domain-specific modelling for a dozen years … and in this time this has been the highest-quality conference on this topic that I’ve been to – and I’ve been to a few.”

“The combined—for that matter, individual—expertise present was remarkable, and presented a tremendous opportunity for knowledge exchange.”

“The presentations were all top quality, making it often difficult to decide between the concurrently running sessions. The wealth of MDD knowledge present at the event was impressive, not only from the presenters, but from the other delegates as well.”

Code Generation 2010 is organised by Software Acumen.

The next Software East event on 19th November will see Lean and Agile software consultant Karl Scotland talk about Five Steps to Kanban.

Synopsis

A Kanban System for Software Development provides an alternative means of creating an Agile Development process using Lean Thinking. Creating a Kanban System is not as simple as adopting a previously defined process as a starting point. Instead, a team needs to come up a model of its own process which will form the basis for further continuous improvement. This talk will introduce 5 steps that a team can use to create their own Agile process using a Kanban System for Software Development.

About Karl

Karl Scotland is a versatile software practitioner with over 15 years of experience covering development, project management, team leadership, coaching and training. For the last 10 years he has been successfully applying Agile methods, and most recently has been a pioneer and advocate of using Kanban Systems for software development. Currently a Lean and Agile Coach with EMC Consulting, Karl is a founder member of the Lean Software and Systems Consortium and the Limited WIP Society, and has previously championed Agile and Lean Thinking with the BBC and Yahoo! Karl writes about his latest ideas on his blog at http://availagility.wordpress.com/.

Visit the Software East web site for more information.

Dutch speakers will be interested in Jan Bosch and Markus Völter’s recent interviews for Bits&Chips magazine.

The two product line experts were interviewed ahead of this month’s Practical Product Lines conference which they are keynoting and which I am co-organising.

English speakers will have to come to the conference in person to find out more from them…

Jan Bosch interview: http://www.practicalproductlines.org/ppl2009/pressreleases/JanBoschInterview.pdf

Markus Völter interview:

http://www.bits-chips.nl/nieuws/bekijk/artikel/bij-product-line-engineering-liefst-zo-veel-mogelijk-modelleren.html

Booking is now open for October’s Software East talk with internationally-renowned speaker Tim Lister on Project Patterns: Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies.

Synopsis

Tim Lister, a Principal of the Atlantic Systems Guild, along with five of his partners at the Guild, have been compiling project patterns from their combined 150 years of project consulting, and they have delivered them in their Jolt Award winning book, Adrenalin Junkies and Template Zombies: Understanding Patterns of Project Behavior, Dorset House, 2008.

We all talk about “best practices” but a tiny minority of organizations actually practice them all. But not to worry, think of “best practices” for human health. We know all about them, but very few of us actually practice them all. Maybe if someone did arduously practice all health practices they would forget to have a life.

Tim has come to believe that project patterns are stronger than best practices. They are the habits, the decision practices, and the corporate culture, the unstated rules, which dominate office life.

The first key is to identify your own organization’s patterns. If they are positive, how can you perpetrate them across all projects? If they are negative, how can you break the habit?

Tim will start the talk with some examples from the book project. He will then let the audience offer up some of their own patterns.

Tim Lister

Tim Lister is a software consultant at the Atlantic Systems Guild, Inc., based in the New York office. He divides his time between consulting, teaching, and writing. Tim is a co-author with his Guild partners of Adrenalin Junkies and Template Zombies: Understanding Patterns of Project Behavior, (Dorset House, 2008), He, is also co-author with Tom DeMarco of Waltzing With Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects (Dorset House, 2003.) Both books won Software Development magazine’s Jolt Award as General Computing Book of the Year, for 2003-2004, and 2008-2009. Tim and Tom are also co-authors of Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, (Dorset House, 1999) now available in 14 languages.

Tim is currently a member of the Cutter IT Trends Council. He is a member of the I.E.E.E. and the A.C.M. He is in his 26th year as a panelist for the American Arbitration Association, arbitrating disputes involving software and software services.

This event will take place at Red Gate Software, Newnham House, Cambridge Business Park.

Directions to Red Gate Software.

Tickets (including light buffet) £15 if booked before 5th October available at the Software East  web site.

The observant among you will have noticed that the Code Generation 2010 web site is now live.

The conference will take place from June 16 – 18 2010 at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge – the same venue as for Code Generation 2009.

A Call for Speakers will be issued next month and we expect the full programme to be announced towards the end of February 2010.

If you can’t wait until then to find out more about Model Driven Software Development then please consider joining the Model Driven Software Network in the meantime.

I promised earlier that I would talk a bit about my own plans when I take part in October’s Practical Product Lines conference.

Being a co-organiser of the event I can’t be too biased but putting that aside for a moment here are the sessions I plan to take part in:

Mapping Product Line Value Streams – Marc Evers and Willem van den Ende. My reasoning – I’ve read about value streams but never applied them in a product line setting. I like getting my hands dirty in sessions and this promises to have lots of groupwork.

The challenges of implementing lifecycle management for Product Lines - Danilo Beuche. My reasoning – whole life cycle management for product lines is an emerging area. (We are also UK & Ireland distributors for pure::variants and a certain amount of loyalty must be shown…)

Productivity as a Management Tool - Peter Mazereeuw – My reasoning – I’ve never heard Peter speak and in my role as a product line consultant questions about measuring the success of the product line are key for senior management. I’m also keen to hear how other participants measure their product lines – and what sort of figures they’re seeing.

There are many other great sessions at the conference but having parallel streams always means I miss out on some good stuff. No doubt I’ll be kicking myself after I find out that people have got even more from the sessions I didn’t attend…