FutureMeetings - Agile Atlanta User Group

1. Topics We'll Do Soon

These are topics for future meetings that are still in the works. Have an idea? Want to plan a future meeting? Use this page to record your thoughts, status and to reserve your date.

Subscribe to our yahoo group for meeting announcements and discussion (just in case I forget to update the wiki).

Intro to Agile Thinking Short Abstract:

Why do the conversations that talk about Agile Development sound so simple yet the essence keeps eluding me? What does it take to really shift our heads into an Agile thought process? When we explore agile topics or read the works from the “agile gurus” it doesn’t resonate deeply enough for us to make real changes, why? Often What we read seems either simplistic, pure marketing or just vague and it is often a mixture of all three... This talk explores some of the basic thought patterns behind good agile thought and trys to make them more applied.

Meeting Coordinator: Doug Shimp

Me (doug dot shimp at 3back.com ) is available Sept 10 or 11 to deliver this seminar. We can offer the same location we are using to deliver our Certified ScrumMaster course Sept 11-12 for members if the are interested in having this talk delivered.

? -- Intro to eXtreme Programming

Meeting Coordinator: ?

AndrewFuqua has done this a few times in the past and can again if interest is expressed.

? -- CodeFest

Meeting Coordinator: ?

Some kind of problem to solve where everyone pairs and actually writes code

? -- Planning Game Simulation

Meeting Coordinator: ?

We've done this once before but more than two years, I think. Paul Gale presented. We simulate a planning game to show the benefits of early releases. And, we learn about how to do a Release Plan

? -- Design Patterns Games

Meeting Coordinator: AndrewFuqua

There is a local design patterns study group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/atlanta-dpsg/ . One thing I think we will do some time is play industrial logic's design patters card games. There are a few decks around town. I have one. And I have XP playing cards too. That's a lot of fun. We'll do that soon if interest is expressed to Andrew.

? -- XP Card Games

Meeting Coordinator: AndrewFuqua

If interest is expressed to Andrew, he will lead some xp card games.

2. A Cornucopia of Topic Ideas

Possible ideas for topics include the following (feel free to add your own):

Behavior driven development -- the evolution of TDD?
A book report on an agile topic (e.g., Lean Software Development)
Agile process experience reports
A technology or approach that facilitates software development
Agile business considerations (bidding for contracts, running a business with a lean philosophy, what is ROI and why should developers care about it, etc.)
A high profile person in our industry imparting his wisdom
Planning and estimating techniques
Industrial XP v. regular ol' XP
Finding a real product manager or customer and helping him write real user stories for a real product (maybe eventually contracting out our labor to help build that product)
Inviting a skeptical product manager or customer to our meeting to sell him on the idea of XP
Subscribing to yahoo groups for other agile user groups to get (steal) topic ideas
Presenting fundamental XP topics to encourage new membership
Doing an interesting XP/Agile project (inspired by http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?MonopolyUserStories).
Collaboration Workshop
An Agile Introducing to Agile – How to introduce agile into an organization piecemeal. This topic could also cover substitutes for agile practices when they are not accepted by management.
Agile Testing
Agile Failures - Conditions that lead to failure
Stealth Agile - How to interface with traditional environments (e.g. Gant Charts, Projects, CMMI, etc)
Distributed Agile
Acceptance Test Tools -- How are people writing/automating acceptance tests? People using different methods could write a few acceptance tests for the same site and then demonstrate the process. Discussion could also include how qa fits into your current [agile] process.