Agile Management Blog David J. Anderson's Agile Management Blog - The agile manager's recipe for success: focus on quality; reduce work-in-progress; balance demand against throughput; prioritize! APLN Summit: One Week to Go! Register Now 10 Jul 2008 at 12:00am There is only 1 week left before the APLN Agile Leadership Summit: Advancing the Agile Enterprise, at the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle. We've got a fantastic lineup of speakers and breakout sessions. It's a mini-Agile conference here in the Northwest. Don't miss out! Registration is only $400. This is the cheapest Agile conference you can attend this year. Register Now! We still have room for about 20 more people. We may take walk-ins on the 17th. However, we'd like you to register before COB Friday so that we can give the hotel the final catering numbers. Thanks. See you there! Technorati tag: APLN, Agile+Management, Project+Management, Leadership, Lean, Software+Engineering 3rd Annual State of Agile Development Survey 17 Jun 2008 at 12:00am VersionOne are organizing the 3rd annual survey. This has proven to be the best industry survey over the last 2 years. Despite the fact, it is organized by a tools vendor, it's very independent. The quality of the survey relies on each and every one of you to participate and make it as good as it can be. Share in the summary results and earn the chance to win a prize! Take a few minutes now to fill out the survey and help us all understand just how well or not agile is being adopted in industry. It is that time of year again - The 3rd Annual 'State of Agile Development' Survey has now been launched with results to be released August 4th at Agile 2008 in Toronto. Remember that this is not a vendor or tool survey, it is meant as a global survey on the general state of Agile development (hence the catchy name). Last year the survey received 1,700 completed surveys from 71 countries. The results from past surveys have been written up in publications ranging from CIO Magazine to InfoQ to SDTimes and the Agile Journal. The results are also e-mailed directly to participants. Learn more and take the survey HERE It should take 5 - 10 minutes to complete and your participation is greatly appreciated. What do you get for participating? By contributing and sharing data anonymously, you will help create the largest data collection on the value of Agile development practices and have direct access to the aggregated results. We also are giving away participation prizes consisting of 3 Amazon.com gift certificates totaling $1,250.00. Technorati tag: agile APLN Summit: Early Bird Rate Expiring 15 Jun 2008 at 12:00am You have 3 days remaining to register for the APLN Agile Leadership Summit in Seattle (July 17-18) and get the $100 earlybird discount. Don't miss out. This is a fantastic event, at a great venue, and is a steal at only $300. Register now and save! Technorati tag: APLN, Management, Leadership, Agile, Lean, Project+Management APLN Summit: Jeff Beehler Confirmed for Panel 13 Jun 2008 at 12:00am I'm delighted to announce our 3rd panelist for our Agile Leadership Summit, on July 17th and 18th at The Edgewater hotel in Seattle, will be Jeff Beehler who runs the Visual Studio Team System product group at Microsoft. Jeff has experience a team of about 450 folks geographically spread and trying to change them to a more agile way of working for the traditional code'n'fix Microsoft PLC methodology. I was a big fan of Jeff's when I was at Microsoft. And I believe that our audience will love his insights, humor and his objective approach to management using custom templates and reporting with Team Foundation Server. Don't forget to Register Now! Only 5 days left at the Early Bird rate of $300. We are still looking for one or two more sponsors. If you'd like to part of our event get in touch. Technorati tag: APLN, Management, Leadership, Agile, Lean, Project+Management, Microsoft, Visual+Studio+Team+System, Team+Foundation+Server, TFS, Jeff+Beehler APLN Summit: Avanade is our 4th Gold Sponsor 6 Jun 2008 at 12:00am Avanade have been a long time supporter of the APLN in Seattle. They sponsor the local chapter meetings and provide us with a venue for our monthly meetings. Dale Christian, CIO, is one of our confirmed panelists. Today, I'm happy to announce that Avanade will be a Gold sponsor. They are our 4th confirmed Gold level sponsor. We only have one remaining Gold level sponsorship position. The Gold level has been selling fast and I know there is going to be some fierce competition for that last spot. We've got a super event for you to attend. The best program of any APLN event ever. Two key notes, 8 tracks of open space. A leadership panel session. Get to work directly with thought leaders from the agile community like Luke Hohmann and Mike Griffiths. Rub shoulders with respected leaders from local firms like Dale Christian and Erik Arnold. Find your next employer by meeting the best most agile organizations at the APLN Agile Leadership Summit. Register now! and save $100 off the full price. Technorati tag: APLN, Management, Leadership, Agile, Lean, Project+Management, Avanade APLN Summit: AMS Services will be a Gold Sponsor 6 Jun 2008 at 12:00am AMS Services in Bothell, Washington is the latest firm to announce sponsorship for our event. We're delighted to have them involved and I'd like to thank them for their support of the APLN and the agile community in the Seattle area. We're working hard to make this a fantastic event and to keep the price down so low that registering is a no-brainer. Register now! and save $100 off the full price. Technorati tag: APLN, Management, Leadership, Agile, Lean, Project+Management, AMS+Services APLN Summit: Erik Arnold Confirmed for Panel 6 Jun 2008 at 12:00am I'm happy to announce that my former colleague Erik Arnold, VP of IT Services (and acting head of IT) for Corbis, has confirmed he will be one of our panelists for the APLN Agile Leadership Summit in Seattle, at the Edgewater Hotel on July 17-18. Don't miss out! Register now! Erik heads up one of the most effective agile IT shops in Seattle. They've demonstrated a solid reputation for releasing high quality software on a frequent basis and for building a highly collaborative trusting relationship with their business colleagues. Corbis is one of the few truly institutionalized enterprise scale agile organizations in the Seattle area, and consequently we're delighted to have Erik on the panel to answer questions about how he is handling the challenge of sustaining a true high maturity agile organization. Technorati tag: APLN, Management, Leadership, Agile, Lean, Project+Management, Corbis APLN Summit: More sponsors announced 5 Jun 2008 at 12:00am SolutionsIQ will be a Gold Sponsor for our event. SolutionsIQ have both Brent Barton and Lance Young taking part running our Scrum track. SolutionsIQ is a long time supporter of the agile community in Seattle. They host the APLN Redmond chapter and co-sponsor the Seattle Scrum Users Group. We're glad to have them on-board. In addition, NetObjectives have confirmed they will be a Silver Sponsor. Thanks to both firms for supporting the agile community in Seattle and the APLN. Don't miss out. Make sure you get to spend quality time with leaders in the agile community, Register now! Check out the agenda.Technorati tag: APLN, Management, Leadership, Agile, Lean, Project+Management, NetObjectives, SolutionsIQ Merrifield in Motion 4 Jun 2008 at 12:00am I want to congratulate my friend Ric Merrifield on the publication of his article, "The Next Revolution in Productivity" in Harvard Business Review this month. This management approach which looks at capabilities rather than process flows has been around a few years at Microsoft. They used to call it "Motion." The article doesn't mention that name so I don't know whether they are still using it. Ric tells me that there is a book just around the corner and that he's really beginning to build momentum around the approach. One of his co-authors Jack Calhoun has been a big fan of my book for several years. He used to pass out copies at Microsoft before he learned I was working there. One day, I was invited to a meeting with a few folks and Ric and Jack were both present. Jack didn't put it together until I introduced myself, then I got one of those moments for me, "Ah, you are that David Anderson," he proclaimed. I get that a lot ;-) The curse of a common name. The Motion heat map approach is a very focused approach to improvement. At Modus Cooperandi, we specialize in focused approaches to change and performance improvement. This makes me think I need to go talk to Ric and figure out whether we should be offering Motion as part of our services. At the very least, we could do with analyzing how the Heat Map approach fits with our Lean, TOC, reduction of variability in the value stream approach. I also wonder if there is a mapping between Motion and CMMI and whether the two could play together nicely? I think I'll give that one to Oksana to research ;-) Technorati tag:Ric+Merrifield, Jack+Calhoun, Microsoft, Harvard+Business+Review, HBR, Management APLN Summit: VersionOne goes Gold 3 Jun 2008 at 12:00am I'm delighted to announce that VersionOne are the first firm to confirm a Gold level sponsorship for the APLN Summit in Dallas. VersionOne has been a long time supporter of the APLN and we're glad to have their continued support. With VersionOne it is more than just money. They are supplying the badges and lanyards. In addition, Paul Culling has been an invaluable help with marketing on for the summit. He's helped us with pricing, strategy and awareness. Mike Cottmeyer of VersionOne, while an officer of the APLN, will be a speaker and facilitator and we're delighted that Robert Holler, founder and CEO will also be present at the event. I've known the VersionOne guys for many years now. They've been great supporters of the community and they are fun guys to hang out with. It's great to have them in Seattle. Don't miss out register now... (and save $100 until June 18th) Technorati tag: APLN, Management, Leadership, Agile, Lean, Project+Management