Agile Boston, Agile MA, Agile training Boston, Agile training MA, APLN Boston, APLN MA

Let's be clear: Agile Boston's mission is to encourage & help the Greater Boston Agile community to become the most active, most innovative & most vibrant Agile learning community on the planet, by any measure that can be named. Are you with us ? Good ! Attend AGILE BOSTON OPEN SPACE 2010 on September 16 !!

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AGILE BOSTON OPEN SPACE 2010 !!

SAVE THE DATE!! SEPTEMBER 16 2010

At the WESTIN HOTEL in Waltham MA

The largest Agile Open Space event EVER HELD in Boston !!

Our Event Theme: "PEOPLE & INTERACTIONS"

Keynote with Jean Tabaka, author of COLLABORATION EXPLAINED. Great sessions in the morning and and a great Open Space in the afternoon, includes lunch, and costs just $69 ($49 through August 06).Register today.

Speakers include: Jean Tabaka, Steven "Doc" List, Johanna Rothman, Amr Elssamadisy, Dan Mezick, Joe Krebs, Mike Cottmeyer, Dan LeFebvre... and more! Register Here.

Learn More.....

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The PERSONAL AGILITY WORKSHOP , an experiental 1-Day workshop with Amr Elssamadisy and Ashley Johnson is COMING TO BOSTON on September 14 !!

And it's just $99 bucks! How is this possible? Why does Boston have the highest-quality, lowest-cost events available in the USA? Learn more here.

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NEXT MEETING,WEDNESDAY, Sept 08 2010, 630PM to 830PM

JIM McCARTHY on: NEW TOOLS FOR THE AGILE QUIVER

Click here to get full info & register for the NEXT MEETING....

Learn MORE.....

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COMMUNITY NOTES- THINGS TO PONDER

Ask Your Mother: The Unusual Role of Scrum Master. Posted 2010-06-26

Lack of Team Authorization, Part 1: Good Scrum Gone Bad. Posted 2010-06-29

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SCHEDULE OF EVENTS: Here are your upcoming Agile learning opportunities:

SEPT 8: Monthly Meeting, JIM McCarthy on TOOLS FOR THE AGILE QUIVER. Free. Learn more

SEPT 9: Workshop. PROTOCOLS FOR MAXIMAL AGILITY with Jim McCarthy. $149. Learn more

SEPT 14: Workshop: PERSONAL AGILITY with Amr Elssamadisy and Ashley Johnson of GEMBA systems. $99. Learn more

SEPT 16: Conference: AGILE BOSTON OPEN SPACE with great speakers in the AM followed by a great OPEN SPACE in the afternoon. $69 includes lunch. Open Space ! Learn more.

Coming up:

SEPT 22: Monthly Meeting. Book author and Open Space facilitator Jay W. Vogt on his book Grounded Visioning, and more! Free. Details coming soon.

OCT 27: Monthly meeting. Super-well-known MYSTERY SPEAKER, a signer of the Agile Manifesto and well-known book author, on ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING he wants to teach! Free. Details coming soon !

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OVER 250 individuals attend AGILE BOSTON OPEN SPACE 4/28/2010 !!

We had an amazing OPEN SPACE event on April 28. Did you miss this event on April 28 ?? Learn more....

It was ONE GREAT DAY with speakers including KEN SCHWABER in the AM... then lunch and the OPEN SPACE event facilitated by world-class facilitation authority Steven "Doc" List.

Participating speakers in the AM include Michael de la Maza, KEN SCHWABER, Amr Elssamadisy, Steven "Doc" List, and Dan Mezick.

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239 (TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY NINE) attending on 11/25/2009 !!

See the EVENT DETAILS here !!

Wait......

Who is Agile Boston organizer Dan Mezick ??

Why is does Dan's interview from Agile2009 appear on InfoQ?

What's this about Dan writing the Agile news, weekly, on InfoQ?

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COMMUNITY NOTES: Things to Ponder, and Act upon....from Dan Mezick...

Lack of Team Authorization, Part 1: Good Scrum Gone Bad. Posted 2010-06-29

Ask Your Mother: The Unusual Role of Scrum Master. Posted 2010-06-26

BART Analysis of Your Team Organization: Boundary Authority Role and Task.

Group Relations: an Intro to GR work.

Scrum, BART and Group Relations: a Primer

Community Meritocracy: How to Organize

Canonical Scrum: The simplest and most significant form of Scrum. There is no standard Scrum implementation !

Zombie Teams: Teams have a 'body'...violating this personal space of your team, without team consent, is a very BAD idea!

This Zombie Teams post is linked to from Jeff Sutherland's Scrum log. Learn more...

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Click here to get full info & register for the NEXT MEETING....

We are Agile Boston. We meet for Agile training events, one per month. We are dedicated to spreading Agile methods and thinking through the software development community in greater Boston. We meet in Waltham MA on the 4th Wednesday, except for August and December....click here to send us an email about absolutely anything on your mind now.

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Welcome to the Agile Boston web site !!

Our average meeting has over 90 attending !!

We run AGILE BOSTON OPEN SPACE on 04/28/2010 and get over 250++ individuals attending !! We charge JUST $29-- and it includes lunch !!

We have 239++ attending GIVE THANKS FOR SCRUM on 11/25/2009 !!

We have 138 attending the November meeting !! (Jeff Sutherland)

We have 147 attending the February meeting !! (Ken Schwaber)

We have 81 for the April meeting !! (Ellen Gottesdiener)

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Get on the Agile Boston mailing list .....to stay notified of Agile news and events in Massachusetts.)

Ken Schwaber, at the February 09 meeting.

We are Agile Boston. We meet for Agile training events, one per month. We are dedicated to spreading Agile methods and thinking through the software development community in Boston. We adhere to Scrum values. We meet Waltham MA on the 4th Wednesday, except for August and December....

Click here to get full info & register for the NEXT MEETING....

The primary best practice in Agile software development is Scrum—a set of methods, roles and rules that can increase software developer productivity by 10 times if you are willing to follow the simple rules. We teach and discuss Scrum and the art and science behind it. We also cover Test Driven Development, XP and other best-practices under the Agile umbrella.

Experienced Agile practitioners from throughout Boston attend and present at our meetings. We have educational presentations, a focus on Scrum training, and some informal networking time. We also have some very interesting group-level exercises in which we develop expertise and empirical experience in Agile and Scrum.

The leader of the group is Dan Mezick. You can learn more about Dan on this web site. Dan is a Scrum Coach who is an invited speaker to events like Agile2007, Agile2008 and Agile2009. Learn more about Dan here

Anyone can attend a meeting provided you are willing to participate in making the meeting a success. We run mock exercises at the group level that are a lot of fun. Most of these revolve around Scrum tasks like planning, estimating and running Sprints. If you are looking for a very fun way to learn to more and more about Agile and Scrum, this is the place.

This web site contains everything you need to learn more and attend a meeting. Scrum and Agile are gaining a tremendous amount of traction recently. A recent search of DICE.COM indicated over 1000 jobs nationally with the word ‘Scrum’ and over 3000 jobs with the word ‘Agile’. Come to our events to learn how these methods are transforming software development worldwide.

Attending a meeting is simple: send us an email indicating your planned attendance, and show up. We meet at Microsoft office in Waltham MA. See you at the next meeting !

Click here to send an email question to Agile Boston.

Click here to get full info & register for the NEXT MEETING....

Looking for Boston area usergroups? Click here to view a list of local Boston-area groups.

Agile Boston Sponsors:

Microsoft is the world's greatest software company, with offices in Waltham and Cambridge Massachusetts.

Agile Coaching & .NET Training from NewTech

New Technology Solutions Inc is Dan Mezick's company. NewTech is a provider of Agile Training Courses and Scrum and agile Coaching to businesses of all sizes in the Northeast..

VersionOne pioneered the agile management tool market in 2002. The company is a leader in team and enterprise-level project management solutions.

Rally Software provides tools, services and training for Agile teams.

Mingle is the leading Agile Project management tool, from THOUGHWORKS.

The Scrum Training Institute with Scrum's co-creator JEFF SUTHERLAND provides Certified Scrum training in Massachusetts, New England and worldwide.

Scrum.Org with Scrum's co-creator KEN SCHWABER sustains Scrum, and provides a variety of Scrum assessment tests, certifications and related Scrum training....

Big Visible provides Agile coaching and Agile training for teams, departments and entire enterprises.

Sullivan and Cogliano is a leading staffing firm, located in Boston. S&G is a total staffing solution for getting you the right people, with the right skills, at the right time.

Incrementor provides agile/Scrum training and coaching throughout the USA, with offices in NYC. Incrementor: "agile is our business".

Telerik provides comprehensive Testing Tools for Agile Teams using .NET and Visual Studio

Serious about Scrum? You MUST PASS Scrum's NOKIA TEST....

Any serious Scrum implementation must pass the NOKIA TEST before using advanced techniques such as Scrum-of-Scrums. Are you ready?

This test is the STARTING point for implementing advanced Scrum techniques such as multiple teams working from the same backlog.

According to the NOKIA TEST for Scrum, you are doing Scrum, if:

Iterations. You must be doing iterative development cycle of 6 weeks or less.
Testing.You must be testing as you develop software, and preferably, writing tests IN ADVANCE of development.
Agile Specification via User Stories. You'll want to be using user stories for requirements, keeping them small, independent, and testable.
Product Owner. You have one, preferably with a Release Plan, and one that writes the User Stories.
Product Backlog. You have one, PRIORITIZED by business ROI. Ideally, you an measure ROI based on real revenue, cost per Story Point, or othr metrics.
Estimates. You have estimates, developed by the WHOLE TEAM, ideally by using Planning Poker.
Burndown Chart. You have one! It is updated every day of a Sprint, and you report Stories, not Tasks, since Tasks are not a measure on "done-ness".
Team Disruption. You have only Scrum roles consisting of Product Owner, Team and Scrum master, and NO ONE is disturbing the Team as they work on the current Sprint.

SUMMARY

Scrum is simple to describe and hard to follow. It has the following structure:

Three Roles. The three Scrum roles are Product Owner, ScrumMaster, and Team. That's it!
Three Ceremonies. You have three main meetings in Scrum: the Sprint Planning meeting, the Sprint Review, and the Daily Scrum stand-up.
Three Artifacts. You have three essential documents in Scrum- The Product Backlog, the Sprint backlog, and the Burndown Chart. Remember that the main item is the User Story, estimated in Story Points......
Three Best Practices. Scrum as of 2008 now defines THREE best practices: the use of User Stories, the use of Planning Poker, and the use of the Scrum board.

Learn more....