Speaking at Lean Software and Systems Conference

I am more than honored to have been selected to speak at the Lean Software and Systems Conference in Atlanta in April. I’ll be presenting an experience report on my projects using Kanban over the last year and a half.

The presentation will obviously focus on my experiences, so very little theory or how-to about Kanban here. Given the subject of the conference in general, there probably isn’t a big need for a how-to on Lean software, anyway. So I’ll share successes and failures, and the collaboration with other members of the team to improve the process for different projects.

If you’re in the greater Atlanta area April 21-23, try to get to this conference. Many of the innovators in Lean Software will be speaking and there will be a significant number of people applying this in the real world. I’m almost as excited to be attending it as I am to be speaking at it!

CodeStock Recap and Kanban Talk Slides

I had a great time at Codestock this past weekend. I didn’t get to many sessions, but I did go to a number of open space sessions (have some work to do on my blog) and the normal “hallway” sessions that never disappoint.

My talk on Lean and Kanban went really well. There were only a couple seats left in the smallish room we had, but that lead to a much more interactive discussion. The slides are available to download, with some notes in the deck.

To answer a couple more questions from the group, here are a couple of the resources I mentioned in the talk:

• Core Ladas blog: http://leansoftwareengineering.com/
• Implementing Lean Software Development by Mary and Tom Poppendieck

Coming soon will be Agile Zen. I’ve taken a peek at the beta, and it’ll be quite a tool in helping people and teams do lean development. Sign up for their mailing list to get notified when it comes out.

Now Batting Leadoff for CodeStock…

I am honored to have been selected to speak at CodeStock and will be delivering having my Kanban conversation in the great state of Tennessee. I’m really looking forward to this as I didn’t make CodeStock last summer, and it looks like a great two day event. The good folks that have organized the conference have slotted me in one of the opening sessions on Friday, so we’ll get our Lean on early in the conference.

There are a number of sessions I’m looking forward to, and since mine is over early I should get to a bunch of them. But, as with any regional conference, I’m looking forward to the hallway sessions as well.

If you’re thinking about going, go get registered, it looks like it’s going to be a good time.

Indy Code Camp Recap

For the first time in my short speaking career, I stepped over my imaginary Microsoft Line and out to another region…alllll the way to Indianapolis. I’ve driven to Memphis to talk, and stay in my region, but never the whopping 3 1/2 hour drive to Indy to see the good folks over there. After this trip, I think I’ll step over the imaginary line a few more times.

First, a big thanks to Dave Leininger for putting on a great event. There were over 200 people at the event, and it seemed all were enjoying themselves. Dave drew speakers from 5 states for the Indy Code Camp, so tip of the hat for getting the word out.

The hallway sessions are always good, but I missed out on a few running Jeff to the airport and back. (And not finding the airport right away didn’t help.) But even with my limited hallway track time, I still met some new folks and talked shop with some familiar faces.

I’m already looking forward to my next foray over the imaginary line that is the western border of Ohio. (Maybe a trip east is in order? :) )

Some April Kanban Talks

I'm happy to have been selected to two conferences in the region to share an hour or so of Kanban, and my experiences with it.

The first will be at Central Ohio Day of .Net on April 18th in Wilmington. This is a great little conference that combines the forces of the dev communities of Dayton, Cincy, and Columbus for a day of geeking out. In addition to the great sessions they have lined up, there will also be Open Spaces. If you've got time on a Saturday in the spring, this is a great gathering at a great price...free!

The following Saturday, April 25th, I'm going to trek north and present at the Kalamazoo X conference. This is the first year for this conference, and it looks really interesting. It's focus is on the non-tech side of development, so there will be lots of dev process, design, and user interaction type talks. All the stuff we need to know without opening up our favorite IDE. As an added bonus, this place is in Kalamazoo for a required stop.

That will keep a couple Saturday afternoons busy in April for me. Now, if a certain local hockey team can keep the Saturday evenings busy...

Codemash 2009 thoughts

Another Codemash has come and gone, which means there are more than a few recap posts out there, so I'll add mine to the pile.

The biggest take away for me this year was the sheer number of people I got to talk to, shake hands with, and bend an elbow with. In past years, that group has been basically limited to the other Quick folks that were up there or a small circle of people outside of Quick that I knew. This year, though, that number was much larger. I can easily attribute this to two things.

First, I got out and about in the community more in '08 than in past years, including a few speaking gigs around the region. I got to hang out for extended times with new colleagues from Cincy to Grand Rapids and a lot of places in between. That made for a lot of familiar faces while strolling around Kalahari.

Second, and this is probably the larger of the two: Twitter. I started in on Twitter last year after Codemash and before I headed to Mix, and it showed at this year's edition of Codemash. The number of people I could talk with in person because we'd had a few conversations on Twitter made starting those conversations much easier.

For the content itself, I was really impressed with the Pre-Compiler. This was the first year for the extra day, and I wish they'd have spread that material over the whole conference. I found myself wanting to be in three places at once on Wednesday. I ended up with a morning of Ruby with Joe and Jim, and an afternoon of Lean and Kanban with Dave Laribee.

For the full conference, I was all over the place. Some open spaces, some sessions, some hallway conversation, some recovery time that we don't need to discuss here, etc, etc. I took in Venkat's second session (skipped the Scala one), made sure I saw Mary Poppendieck, saw Laribee's DDD talk, and a few others.

Open Spaces I was really looking forward to on the heels of all the news from DevLink and what Alan Stevens did down there. I got to two, one on pair programming and one on branding yourself. I submitted one, but thanks to the snow and the room changing a couple times my turnout was five other people from Quick. We decided we could cover this at another meeting and headed back out into the sessions. So, overall I was a bit let down with the Open Spaces, but I think good content in the sessions combined with good content in the Open Spaces makes for some tough choices. Alan runs a slick Open Space, though. The ceremony is kind of cool. [Insert essence v. ceremony joke here]

My mini-speaking part in the show was when Jon Kruger, Steve Harman, and myself gave some first hand experiences with Kanban in the QSI vendor session. We ended up with a decent turnout and went 10 minutes over our allotted time taking more questions. I thought it turned out really well.

So, another Codemash behind me, and another kick in the butt to start the new year. Top of the list, clean up the blog. In the branding open space I learned that using the default theme from .txt turns people off...thank goodness I use the default blogger theme, instead. I'm going to get Graffiti installed and get a better look for it.

eRubyCon takeaways

I had the pleasure of attending eRubyCon here in Columbus Aug. 15-17. This is the second year for the event organized by Joe O'Brien, and the first year I got to attend. Josh Holmes has put up great reviews of the sessions up on his blog.

Since I don't really want to repeat Josh, what were my takeaways from the event?

First, that I still need to get more involved in Ruby. This is just a cool language that allows you to do so much as a developer. The allure of RSpec aside, it just reads well and makes sense. So, a couple things came to mind as near term goals. First, I need to start with some simple scripts for everyday tasks, and write them in Ruby. Second, I'm going to try to wire up IronRuby to test some of my C# hobby code. Doubt I want to drag that one into the office just yet. Those two items should get the ball rolling for me.

Second, and I think the larger takeaway for me, was that the .Net community was almost totally missing. I noticed this in two areas, there were very few .Net developers in attendance, and most of the topics only recognized that Ruby people were converting from Java. There was a lot of Java venom being tossed around for that reason, but the opposite of love isn't necessarily hate. It's apathy. The .Netters took it on the chin in the apathy department.

What can we in the .Net space do about this? First and foremost, get out there and see what else is going on. There is a lot of software not written on a Microsoft platform, what can you learn from them? I'm not saying learn something top to bottom, but get ideas from others. In the end, language doesn't matter as we're all trying to solve people problems, and the better armed you are to solve those problems, the better off we are as a whole.

Before I lay all this at the feet of the .Net community, those outside the Microsoft environment have a little responsibility here, as well. When Michael Letterle and Josh Holmes were up to give the IronRuby, Silverlight double header the room cleared a good bit. For the same reason the .Net folks should look outside their comfort zone, maybe others should take the chance to look inside the big blue monster to see what's happening.

I'm well aware of time constraints and family and "I'm already learning seven other things!" and a reading list that's growing faster than it's shrinking. But, instead of hitting your fourth Day of .Net in a row, take in a Ruby or Python conference. Or, if you're already at a Ruby conference, stick around and see what IronRuby is bringing to the Microsoft and Ruby communities.

One of my favorite terms of late is Jim Holmes's "Specializing Generalist." Looking inside or outside the Microsoft space, as the case may be, will add to the Generalist side of the equation. And, who knows, may change what you decide to be a Specialist in.

A little CodeMash love

Coming up in a few days will be CodeMash at the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, OH. Having been to a few conferences, I consider this one a "don't miss." And here's why...

1. It's an indoor waterpark...nerds in speedos!

2. The collection of speakers and topics is second to none. This isn't your, "JAVA OR DIE!!!" meeting, just as its not, "Bill Gates cured my brother-in-law's limp," type show, either. It's a gathering of people passionate about their chosen field, wanting to share that passion, and get information on areas outside their comfort zone.

3. The Kalahari sells alcohol. Consider the alcohol induced war stories: "I had to deal with a five part composite primary key that allowed nulls!" It can only get better from there...

4. Keynoters that include Neal Ford (who also gave a keynote last year), Scott Hanselman, and Brian Goetz.

5. Breakout sessions with Neal Ford, Brian Goetz, Bruce Eckel, and Brian Prince! (Yes, I know, "one of these things is not like the others," but he has a direct impact on my paycheck.)

6. Conference food!!

If one or more of those six items hasn't piqued your interest then how about adding them all up: Brian Prince in a speedo delivering a presentation on Agile Development with a beer in one hand and a ham or turkey sandwich in the other.

Now that your interest has waned, fear not that won't happen. (And that direct impact on my paycheck is likely negative, now...)

Seriously, this is a good conference. If your looking for a "bang for your buck" type deal, then it's tough to beat CodeMash. I've been to pricier conferences and gotten much less out of them, mainly because much less was available. Last year's highlights for me were two breakout sessions with Scott Guthrie following his keynote and a session with Neal Ford on how to be a better overall developer. (Additionally, I had a strange urge to attend Burning Man...)

I came away last year being a little upset with myself for focusing too much in my .Net comfort zone, something I'm going to avoid this year. There are a couple of .Net sessions I want to see to learn some of the newer features, and one on Castle that I want to see. Beyond my comfort zone, there are a few Python sessions that I think I'll check-out. Oh, and I'll be in attendance at anything being presented by Neal Ford.

If you're planning on attending, look me up and say hi. I have a nullable composite key story to share with you. And, I don't own a speedo.

Yet.