This slot was earlier held by Anders Sixtensson from Softhouse, but both Anders and the Øresund Agile committee are convinced that when you have such a celebrity as Andy Hunt visiting the conference day, everyone wants to hear what he has to say about “The Future of Agile”.

1) The Pragmatic Thinking & Learning book and workshop are not about programming and not about management, but both programmers and managers are an important part of the target audience. Could you elaborate on this?

Well I guess my first question would be, what is programming really all about? We tend to think that programming is all about tools that we use: the programming languages, libraries, frameworks, the IDE.

But programming really isn’t about any of those things, is it? In fact, as I say often when speaking on this material, software development all happens in your head. Software development is a creative, inventive, endeavor. The real tools we need to focus on revolve around creativity and invention. And that’s what my book is about: creativity, invention, and intuition, as it applies to programmers, managers and other folks who work with intellectual capital.

2) Why should people who have already read your book come to the workshop?

That’s a very good question. If you had asked me that last year, I would have said there is no need to come. You’ve already read it all. However, I regularly get people who come up to me after each workshop, who have already read the book, and say how much more they got out of the workshop just by having me explain it. There isn’t that much new or different content, but it is a different experience. After all, context matters.

In the book, I briefly mentioned the differences in learning styles between visual learners, auditory learners, and kinesthetic learners. So this reaction is really not surprising at all. Many people will learn better from hearing the material than they would will from have reading it, and almost everyone can benefit just from the different perspective of experiencing a live presentation versus reading a book.

3) Obvious next question: Why should people who have not read your book come to the workshop?

You have to start somewhere . Not everyone has the time and bandwidth to sit down and read a book piecemeal over the course of several days or weeks. But they might be able to take a few hours and listen to a presentation. Ideally, you’d want to do both. If it were me, I think I’d like to hear the presentation first, and then go back and read the book.

But as I point out again and again, everyone is wired a little differently. What works for me may not work for you, and vice versa.

4) If you make a sequel to to the book, or an “extended edition”, is there something that you want to add (or change)?

That’s a really hard question. The basic problem with this material is that the topic area is so vast. There were a lot of interesting things that I had to leave out just due to space constraints. I would have liked to have added a lot more detail, but that would’ve made it a much more academic piece and not nearly as readable. A I think if I had to do it again, I would emphasize the creative aspects more, and possibly talk more about cognitive biases and bugs in the system. At least, these are the more interesting topics to me now. Next month I may have a different answer

Jim Coplien at Øresund Agile 2008

1) Jim, some of us have seen that social network analysis is a hot issue in the business press
at the moment, there was for instance an article about the subject in Wall Street Journal quite recently.
Why, in your opinion, has this issue come up on so many companies’ agenda now?

I think that as we come into the V Generation’s conquest of the workplace, the workplace itself is transforming. I have been working with some CTOs recently who are puzzling on how to capitalize on the new modes of communication of Generation V. These challenges have led them to focus on something that in fact always has been important to an effective, lean workplace: a good environment for communication. Social networking is a tool with direct insight into this area. We’ve been using social network analysis tools for more than 15 years, but they’re just now coming into fashion in management circles.

2) Which parts of this “Social Network Analysis” that they talk about in the newspaper articles
will you cover at your workshop in Copenhagen?

We will describe how social network analysis is done and what kind of results it will give. From there we will move on into practical application of the results in everyday workplace settings.

3) What would you say, would be the major benefit that leaders and managers from software
companies would get from your workshop?

I think it will help managers see communications at a whole new level: at the level of large-scale patterns of communication in their own enterprises. Too many managers focus on the small-scale communication issues through personal development programs, not fully appreciating the communication leverage that comes with effective governance, organizational design, and their shaping of the value system. This stuff goes deep — and we hope to touch on that at Øresund Agile.

At the moment all of our workshop-leaders are out travelling all over the world, but to get some more bits of information about their workshops we send out some short questions that they answer while sitting at some air-port or hotel.  Here are three short ones from Mary Poppendieck about Workshop 1 — Designing a Lean Software Development Process.

Mary, what do you think is the greatest value the pariticpants will get from your workshop?

The greatest value that participants will get from the class will be working in small groups with colleagues to understand a current software development process and discovering what might be the most effective ways to consider improving it. They will also do an exercise in how to go about improving the process.

Who would you say that this workshop is mainly aimed at?

This workshop will be aimed at people who are already using an agile development process and want to get even better.

Can you say something about the relationsship of this workshop to your books and other seminars?

We are currently writing a new book called “Leading Lean Software Development” which consolidates new ideas we have learned over the past two years. It will be available in fall of this year. Topics in this workshop will come from key points we have developed for that book. The workshop will be a mix of tried and true ideas coupled with new ways of looking at the software development process.

Teacher will be Arne Åhlander, who is Softhouse’s most experienced Scrum Trainer.

The venue will be Bojesen at Axelborg on Vesterbrogade 4A, just opposite the Radisson SAS Royal Hotel (and the Tivoli Gardens).

Registrations can be made att Softhouse Education’s site

As usual at Softhouse Education’s Scrum Master Certifications every participant will get an own box with Softhouse’s unique Scrum Master Kit.

"I was very impressed by your Scrum kit. It was not only well done and accurate, but all of the pieces fit together very well." Ken Schwaber, co-founder of Scrum.

]]> http://www.2009.oresundagile.org/blog/scrum-master-certification-copenhagen/feed 0 http://www.2009.oresundagile.org/blog/test-run-report http://www.2009.oresundagile.org/blog/test-run-report#comments Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:55:06 +0000 admin http://oresundagile.org/?p=445 We did a test run of Workshop 2 —  Team Alert last weekend and got some great reactions (and some good insights on what to improve). I tricked some friends over by inviting them for dinner and the promise that they would aid mankind (ok, so maybe I actually phrased it more like “you will test run our workshop”). After some food, wine and drinks we kicked it off. To my delight it was a success and in three hours we managed to go through almost everything included. Some tweaking remains perhaps. It was very clear how they each iteration developed towards a team and adapted to the situation. But they did not want to stop there! We ended up running another three hours just for cheer fun and we all got several laughs out of it. This is definitely a workshop I wish I could attend myself.

by Michael Rozenberg

The Radisson SAS Royal Hotel was the largest hotel in Denmark when it was completed in 1960 and was the first skyscraper in Copenhagen. It is located in the heart of the city, close to Tivoli.

The entire hotel from the exterior facade through to the stainless-steel cutlery used in the restaurant and the Swan and Egg chairs gracing the lobby have been designed by famous Danish architect, Arne Jacobsen.

The structure is twenty stories high and a defining characteristic of Copenhagen’s skyline. The structure was inspired by New York Park Avenue structures, namely Skidmore, Owings and Merrill’s Lever House. The building’s sense of lightness emanates from its Lever House-inspired form with a two-story base supporting its lofty “punch card” tower. The effect is also enhanced with the architect’s placing of “thin aluminum mullions and the pale glass pandrels, and avoids appearing as a dominant foreign object in conflict with its surrounds.

Now the magazine is the leading magazine on Lean and Agile Development in Northern Europe, and the latest issues have had over 2000 readers worldwide.

The latest issue include the following articles:

• Alistair Cockburn on the pros and cons of use cases and user stories
• Dealing with the Backlog. Ola Sundin describes how the Product Backlog can be used to increase communication in the project
• Jim Coplien puts User Stories on trial
• Henrik Kniberg shares some of his experience on how to implement Scrum.
• Lean Reflections by an Armchair General – Lean and Agile in 19th century warfare

Order your own free copy from Softhouse Consulting!