Fwd: Test Message - HTML Format:What's Going On At Agile Austin

[Walter Bodwell]

Here's a first cut at the newsletter for this month.  Please send any additions / corrections.  It will go out Saturday evening.

Walter

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http://www.walterbodwell.com
http://www.planigle.com (Planigle, the way to Plan Agile)

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From: Agile Austin <Agile_...@mail.vresp.com>
Date: Thu, May 29, 2014 at 9:20 AM
Subject: Test Message - HTML Format:What's Going On At Agile Austin
To: wbod...@gmail.com

Welcome to Agile Austin's monthly newsletter.  In it, we'll publicize what's new at Agile Austin, upcoming events, blog entries from the local community and anything you need to know about Agile Austin.

What's New At Agile Austin

 

Election.  We're looking for those interested in running for the Agile Austin board for 2014-15.  We now have a tentatitve slate of candidates.  This will finalized at the June meeting and the election will go from that point to the end of June.  The board will be announce on July 1 and their term will go from September 1, 2014 to August 31, 2015.  If you're interested in becoming a candidate, send an email to vicepr...@agileaustin.org.  To vote, you need to be a member of Agile Austin at the time the election starts (see http://www.agileaustin.org/join/).

Board meeting.  For those who were unable to attend our May board meeting and are interested in what we talked about, you can see the notes here.

 

Meetings

 

June 4 (noon -1:00 pm)	QA SIG Downtown - Agile Austin QA SIG Downtown - Relationships Between Big Data, The Cloud, and Predictive Analytics HomeAway, 1011 W. Fifth Street, Austin, TX 78703 We'll be switching gears a bit for the June QA SIG Downtown with a presentation from Arpit Gupta.  In this talk, Arpit will give an introduction to some topics that impact the QA world more and more, including big data, the cloud, and predictive analytics.  He will link these key concepts to the current market and how they fit each other.  This will be an interactive session that will include some real world use cases and scenarios. Speaker: Arpit Gupta To Register (and for more info): http://www.eventbrite.com/event/11732501227
June 4 (6:00 - 9:00 pm)	Agile Austin U - Foundations Course - Agile Values & Principles St. Edward’s University–North Austin, 9420 Research Boulevard, Echelon III, Suite 100, Austin, TX 78759 The Agile Austin U Foundations Course is a 9-week night course that is free to our community. The intent is to introduce the core concepts of Agile, Scrum, Lean Software and Kanban. There will be two volunteer instructors for each class and dinner will be provided. Proof of Attendance will be provided for those interested in claiming PDU's.  There will be one registration for the whole course rather than one per class. If you register for this course, the expectation is that you will be able to attend the entire 9-weeks of instruction.  To Register (and for more info): http://www.eventbrite.com/event/11762161943
June 6 (noon - 1:00 pm)	Agile Leaders SIG - Release To Production Cadence CA Technologies, 5001 Plaza on the Lake, Third floor, Austin, TX 78746 Products and Services do not add value until deployed to Production and used by end users! Hence, how can an effective release cadence help drive teams from requirements gathering all the way to deploying to Prod? This gets especially more complicated in large IT Organizations with numerous dependencies, environments, competing priorities, etc...  Max will share and hear best practices that have been implemented. Like in every Agile Leaders SIG, ideas will flow as experienced individuals approach the same scenario from different angles!  Speaker: Max Ekesi To Register (and for more info): http://www.eventbrite.com/event/11788003235
June 10 (noon - 1:00 pm)	Kanban SIG Planview, 8300 N Mopac Expy, Austin, TX 78759 More information will be sent to agileaust...@googlegroups.com as it becomes available.
June 10 (6:00 - 9:00 pm)	Monthly Meeting - Purity vs Pragmatism when it comes to Agile BancVue, 4516 Seton Center Pkwy, Suite 300, Austin, TX 78759 There's lots of hype around various methodologies (Agile! Lean! etc) these days which has led to a level of zealotry that conflates process with progress. This talk aims to call that out, address it and offer advice on wading through the noise. Speaker: Jeff Gothelf Note: Afterwards we'll give the candidates for the board a chance to speak, so this will be a great chance to determine who you'll want to vote for. To Register (and for more info): http://www.eventbrite.com/event/11598093209
June 11 (6:00 - 9:00 pm)	Agile Austin U - Foundations Course - Scrum Overview & Roles St. Edward’s University–North Austin, 9420 Research Boulevard, Echelon III, Suite 100, Austin, TX 78759 The Agile Austin U Foundations Course is a 9-week night course that is free to our community. The intent is to introduce the core concepts of Agile, Scrum, Lean Software and Kanban. There will be two volunteer instructors for each class and dinner will be provided. Proof of Attendance will be provided for those interested in claiming PDU's.  There will be one registration for the whole course rather than one per class. If you register for this course, the expectation is that you will be able to attend the entire 9-weeks of instruction.  To Register (and for more info): http://www.eventbrite.com/event/11762161943
June 12 (6:00 - 9:00 pm)	Book Club - Thinking, Fast and Slow 5 of 5 Bridge360, 10415 Morado Cir, Bldg I, #350, Austin, TX 78759 While not strictly speaking a book about Agile, Nobel-winner Kahnemann shares the results of a lifetime of experimental psychology research. The book is replete with insights into individual and group behavior. I notice the impact on my own behavior every day - so join us, and understand (and manage) your brain better.  Amazon link: http://amzn.to/1hFf0Ng The Kindle version is only $2.99, the best investment you'll make this year, even if you don't come to the book club - but we hope you will. Our first meeting was a VERY lively discussion, and we were almost standing room only! Our new host (Bridge360) is very cordial (and nowhere near the 360 Bridge, check the venue and your map!)   Provisional Schedule: June 12 - section 5 (end) This will be a fun read, join us! To Register (and for more info): http://www.eventbrite.com/event/11419639449
June 17 (noon - 1:00 pm)	The Xenia Project - Planning Meeting #2 BancVue, 4516 Seton Center Pkwy, Suite 300, Austin, TX 78759 Xenia is the ancient Greek concept of hospitality, the generosity and courtesy shown to those who are far from home and/or associates of the person bestowing guest-friendship. This project's goal is to organize a community hack-a-thon that will involve college students and local professionals collaborating on real-world projects for non-profit organizations. To Register (and for more info): http://www.eventbrite.com/event/11742812067
June 18 (noon - 1:00 pm)	QA SIG North - Automated Analytics Testing with Open Source Tools Planview, 8300 N Mopac Expy, Austin, TX 78759 Marcus Merrell has graciously agreed to present the same topic that he did at the STAREAST conference earlier this month. Hope you can make it!  Analytics are an increasingly important capability of any large web site or application. When a user selects an option or clicks a button, dozens—if not hundreds—of behavior-defining “beacons” fire off into a black box of “big data” to be correlated with the usage patterns of thousands of other users. In the end, all these little data points form a constellation of information your organization will use to determine its course. But what if it doesn’t work? A misconfigured site option or an errant variable might seem insignificant, but if 10,000 users are firing 10,000 incorrect values concerning their click patterns, it suddenly becomes a problem for the QA department―a department which is often left out of conversations involving analytics. Join Marcus Merrell to learn how analytics work, how to get involved early, and how to integrate analytics testing into the normal QA process, using Selenium and other open source tools, to prevent those misfires from slipping through. Speaker: Marcus Merrell To Register (and for more info): http://www.eventbrite.com/event/11787662215
June 18 (6:00 - 9:00 pm)	Agile Austin U - Foundations Course - Agile Requirements & User Stories St. Edward’s University–North Austin, 9420 Research Boulevard, Echelon III, Suite 100, Austin, TX 78759 The Agile Austin U Foundations Course is a 9-week night course that is free to our community. The intent is to introduce the core concepts of Agile, Scrum, Lean Software and Kanban. There will be two volunteer instructors for each class and dinner will be provided. Proof of Attendance will be provided for those interested in claiming PDU's.  There will be one registration for the whole course rather than one per class. If you register for this course, the expectation is that you will be able to attend the entire 9-weeks of instruction.   To Register (and for more info): http://www.eventbrite.com/event/11762161943
June 25 (6:00 - 9:00 pm)	Agile Austin U - Foundations Course - Release Planning & Estimation St. Edward’s University–North Austin, 9420 Research Boulevard, Echelon III, Suite 100, Austin, TX 78759 The Agile Austin U Foundations Course is a 9-week night course that is free to our community. The intent is to introduce the core concepts of Agile, Scrum, Lean Software and Kanban. There will be two volunteer instructors for each class and dinner will be provided. Proof of Attendance will be provided for those interested in claiming PDU's.  There will be one registration for the whole course rather than one per class. If you register for this course, the expectation is that you will be able to attend the entire 9-weeks of instruction.  To Register (and for more info): http://www.eventbrite.com/event/11762161943
June 26 (6:30 - 8:30 pm)	Board Meeting - June Meeting Agile Velocity, 8140 N. Mopac Expressway, Building IV, Suite 140, Austin, TX 78759 Join the board in discussing how things are going with Agile Austin. See here for the current agenda / notes (it will be updated during the meeting). To add to it, send an email to bo...@agileaustin.org. The first thing we do in board meetings is ask for additional topics / prioritize the topics at hand. As a result, the agenda will change. The best way to encourage discussion of a particular topic is to attend. To Register (and for more info): http://www.eventbrite.com/event/11731409963

Blog Entries from the community:

• Motivation Problems for an Agile Team
• Why Agile Exemplifies Power

That's it for this month (check the web site for late breaking news).  As always, we welcome your feedback.  How can we help you solve the problems you face in becoming more agile?

The Agile Austin Board

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