AgilePalooza is a community event that brings together internationally recognized agile coaches and trainers with local software professionals. Attendees will learn about advancing agile methods through workshops and collaborative sessions.

Use promo code V1Save50-C for 50% off. Only $35!

Speakers include: Dr. Ahmed Sidky has a Ph.D. in value–based process frameworks for effective agile adoption. Ahmed’s work has gained popularity and respect in the agile community as a pragmatic approach for organizations of all sizes attempting to adopt agile. Diana Larsen Drawing on 15+ years of experience working with technical professionals, Diana is a pragmatic agile consultant with FutureWorks. Diana leads system-wide groups in collaborative thinking and planning, as well as guiding teams through project kick-offs, chartering and retrospectives. Dave Sharrock drives change within technology-driven organizations through the introduction of agile product development practices, using agile frameworks such as Scrum. And more!!

For $69, attendees receive a full day of agile learning, lunch and the opportunity to participate in one of two tracks: Practicing Agile and Planning Agile. The Practicing Agile track is geared toward those interested in agile fundamentals and engineering practices and the Planning Agile track is for those planning and managing multiple teams and projects.

Go here to learn more and register: http://www.agilepalooza.com/Portland2012/default.asp

Please note new date!! Moving to avoid conflict with SEMPDX Rooftop Networking Party.

Come meet for drinks and engage with fellow professionals in a relaxed social setting to exchange stories, career advice, and make new connections in the local industry. All positions in the IT and Technology worlds are welcome, including project managers, systems engineers, desktop support, dba's, developers, security analysts, business analysts, enterprise architects, design experts, IT/Technology managers, and all other associated fields.

Please note, this event is at Kell's new 2nd location in the Pearl District. It is a wonderful establishment with a great back room tailor-made for events like this. Come join us!!

Sponsored by Portland Job Group. www.jobgroup.org

Come meet for drinks and engage with fellow professionals in a relaxed social setting to exchange stories, career advice, and make new connections in the local industry. All positions in the IT and Technology worlds are welcome, including project managers, systems engineers, desktop support, dba's, developers, security analysts, business analysts, enterprise architects, design experts, IT/Technology managers, and all other associated fields.

Last month’s event featured conversations running the gamut of the technical industry, from how to implement Agile & Scrum methodologies in non-Engineering areas to the pros & cons of the coming Windows 8 product. The only way to know where the conversation will go this month is to show up and participate!

Please note, this event is at Kells new 2nd location in the Pearl District. It is a wonderful establishment with a great back room tailor-made for events like this. Come join us!!

Come meet for drinks and engage with fellow professionals in a relaxed social setting to exchange stories, career advice, and make new connections in the local industry. All positions in the IT and Technology worlds are welcome, including project managers, systems engineers, desktop support, dba's, developers, security analysts, business analysts, enterprise architects, design experts, IT/Technology managers, and all other associated fields.

Please note, this event is at Kells new 2nd location in the Pearl District. It is a wonderful establishment with a great back room tailor-made for events like this. Come join us!!

Sponsored by Portland Job Group. www.jobgroup.org

In the agile software development world many techniques exist to aid teams in constructing and organizing backlogs into sprints. But what about a collaborative technique to visualize the big picture between the vision and the product backlog? How do you support fixed milestones while still being agile? Roadmaps can help bridge the gap between the long term vision and the current sprint. So what are some best practices? What methods have been used in the past, good and bad, and how can we improve the process at our own organizations?

Panelists: •Adam Light, Management Consultant - Agile Delivery •David Nash, Vice President Product Management, ADP •Dean Bergan, Vice President Network Engineering, ADP Dealer Services International •Dave Patterson, Sr. Agile Software Engineering and Quality Leader
•Dorian Simpson, Managing Director, Planning Innovation and former PDMA President

Moderator: •Jeff Krueger, Chairman of the TAO Technology Leadership Exchange and PM Evangelist

Please join the Technology Association of Oregon Development Forum and the Oregon Product Development Managers Association in a panel discussion as we share ideas and talk about lessons learned.

Event Details: When: Thursday, January 31, 2013 Time: 5:30 - 8:30 PM (includes buffet dinner) Where: Kells Irish Restaurant, Portland,OR Cost: $25 Members $45 Nonmembers Register: TAO - 503-228-5452

Series Sponsors: Rally Software Salesforce.com

Level up your skills, network with peers, and learn to deliver better products, services, and solutions with this unique workshop from nuCognitive.

Developing solutions to customer problems is complex balancing act. Some products fail due to a flawed business model while others are neither desirable nor useful. This workshop invites teams to shift their thinking from developing a product or service to delivering a holistic solution that balances business, usage, and technology.

The Three-Circle Model is both a descriptive and a prescriptive approach to develop holistic solutions. It is based on the three fundamental perspectives needed for a balanced and compelling solution; Business, Usage, and Technology. -The Business circle represents the economic viewpoint. A solution must be marketable, profitable, and affordable. -The Usage circle represents the conceptual viewpoint. A solution must be desirable, usable, and useful. -The Technology circle represents the implementation viewpoint. A solution must be manufacturable, functional, and consumable (by the industry and associated ecosystems).

These three circles can be arranged in a Venn diagram with overlaps for Value, Capability, and Ingredients.

The Three-Circle Model forms a cohesive and consistent taxonomy that can be used by organizations as the basis of a shared vocabulary, thereby reducing misinterpretations and wasteful communication churn. The model is also the underlying architecture for a solution life cycle. Unlike other life cycles with phases that are based on activities (e.g. exploration, planning, development), the solution life cycle’s phases are based on the state of the solution itself. This makes the life cycle activity and method agnostic, so it works with Agile, Lean, traditional, and hybrid approaches.

Learning Outcomes: -Describe the three fundamental perspectives of a solutions: Business, Usage, and Technology -Describe the three two-circle overlaps in the model: Value, Capability, and Ingredient -Understand what a balanced solution means -Evaluate a product, service, or solution using the model to locate weaknesses and knowledge gaps -Apply the Three-Circle Model to a solution life cycle -Improve communication among teams using a common vocabulary and taxonomy for solution development -Use the model to diagnose and improve issues in solution development

Who should attend: Product management, product owners, product developers, service designers, architects, product managers, engineers, business development, business strategy, marketing, planners, project managers, software developers

Level up your skills, network with peers, and learn to accelerate stakeholder value delivery with this unique workshop from nuCognitive.

The first Agile principle is "Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software." However, in practice this does not seem to be true nearly as often as it should be. Teams often fail to provide early, frequent delivery of stakeholder value. Instead, they focused on spikes, class libraries, infrastructure, and other inward-focused work, without an understanding of their stakeholders and what they value. As a result, many teams start with what is most familiar, easiest, or most convenient for them rather than what stakeholders value most.

Why do teams often become focused on (or even obsessed with) feature development and maximizing development velocity? Without explicit focus on value, the association between velocity, feature development, and value-delivery is weak - perhaps even non-existent. At best, these projects are conducted sub-optimally. Frequently, they fail when stakeholders remove funding because they perceive a lack of value add.

Value-driven delivery is achieved using the answers to three simple, but not at all easy, questions: 1. Who are your stakeholders? 2. What do they value? 3. What are you doing in the next two weeks or less to provide value to them?

Teams often have many more stakeholders than they first realize. Value-driven Delivery ensures those stakeholders are made explicit, and that the list of stakeholders is kept current throughout the project.

Value-driven delivery captures and maintains stakeholder values in a quantified, verifiable way. This ensures that teams can know the real effects of each stakeholder value delivery, and prevents work based on an outdated understanding of value.

Value-driven Delivery also challenges teams to sequence deliveries so that they deliver the most valuable things first. This can have tremendous benefits, generating early business results and reducing the time required for the team to get into a positive Return on Investment for the project.

Value-driven delivery makes a natural overlay for Scrum, but does not require Scrum's use to be effective. Value-driven delivery does not ignore features and velocity, but it explicitly places value delivery above those things as the top priority.

Two other advantages to Value-driven Delivery worth mentioning: First, it is not limited to software, but applies to all aspects of an organization, including the executive suite, human resources, finance, IT, and product teams. Second, it is not focused on or limited to any particular scale. In fact, it is scale-free, working on small teams and teams of more than 500 engineers in a 100K-person company.

Learning Outcomes: -The definition and nature of value -The principles and practices of Value-driven Delivery -How to use Evolutionary Delivery to manage value-driven work, alone or in concert with Scrum -Fundamentals of several disciplines and models that aid value-driven work, including the Kano Model, elements from Diffusion of Innovations, UX Proof Points, and the HEART Framework -Attendees will gain enough understanding to begin using Value-driven Delivery in their own work if they desire. -Additional sources of information will be provided for continued learning.

Who should attend: Product management, product owners, product developers, service designers, architects, product managers, engineers, business development, business strategy, marketing, planners, project managers, software developers

Want to take your career to the next level?

Practical, Hands-on Training for Advanced Excel Formulas & Functions

Microsoft Excel is perhaps the most important computer software program used in business today. That's why so many workers and prospective employees are required to learn Excel to enter or remain in the workplace. Unfortunately many college students, recent grads, and professionals haven’t mastered Excel or have the adequate Excel skills employers are seeking. According to Payscale, “ 80 percent of job openings require spreadsheet and word-processing software skills. Yet so many people never even give Excel a chance because it has an intimidating stigma around it.”

If you walk through the finance or accounting department at any major corporate office, you will see computer screens filled with Excel spreadsheets outlining financial results, budgets, forecasts, and plans used to make big business decisions. Marketing and Product profesionals using Excel to list customer and sales targets; managing thier sales force and planning future marketing plans based on past results. Pivot tables to quickly and easily summarize customer and sales data by category with a quick drag-and drop. HR professionals using giant spreadsheets full of employee data and understand exactly where the costs are coming from and how to best plan and control them for the future. Supply logistic professional to manage inventory and forecasts demand.

In essence, you can turn an entire department around just because you know how to manipulate data in order to get an aggregate view.

STRUCTURE OF COURSE

Advanced functions and formulas

 * Logical functions
 * Conditional functions
 * Financial functions
 * Text functions
 * Date functions
 * Array formulas

Lookups and data tables

 * Using lookup functions
 * Using MATCH and INDEX
 * Creating data tables

Advanced data management

 * Validating cell entries
 * Advanced filtering

Advanced charting

 * Chart formatting options
 * Combination charts
 * Graphical objects

PivotTables and PivotCharts

 * Working with PivotTables
 * Rearranging PivotTables
 * Formatting PivotTables
 * PivotCharts

Exporting and Importing Data

 * Exporting and importing text files
 * Getting external data

Analytical Tools

 * Goal Seek
 * Scenarios

Macros and Visual Basic

 * Running and recording a macro
 * Working with VBA code

BENEFITS

Not only are many business professionals using Excel to perform everyday functional tasks in the workplace, an increasing number of employers rely on Excel for decision support.The ability to analyze data is a powerful skill that helps you make better decisions. Microsoft Excel is one of the top tools for data analysis and the built-in pivot tables are arguably the most popular analytic tool.

MAKE YOUR RESUME STAND OUT

They are NOT seeing if you simply have Excel as a skill. They are diving deeping when it comes to determining which candidate to interview and hire. They look for Pivot Table, VLOOKUP, Macros, VBA, Conditional Formatting, Charting and Filtering…These are far more telling of your ability to an employer then writing Excel. Someone who writes VLOOKUP, Pivot Table, Filtering demonstrates an ability to analyse data and so has eliminated a potential barrier in the mind of the hiring manager reviewing your resume. In essence, use actual Excel functions in your Resume!

INCREASE YOUR EARNING POTENTIAL

Did you know that Excel know-how can instantly increase your job prospects as well as your starting salary? Excel is a transferrable skill that any hiring manager understands is critical. Research shows job applicants who know MS Excel make $22.66 per hour on average compared to the $20.14 per hour their peers make who don’t know the program. That’s roughly an extra $20 per eight-hour workday and $100 per work week, simply for knowing how to use a single computer program. Moreover, full-time employees in certain industries can see a starting salary bump of anywhere from $1,000 to $7,000 per year based on their Excel skills. That’s not chump change you can ignore.

INSPIRING ENTREPRENEUR?

A majority 63 percent of twenty-somethings want to start their own business. How will you stay organized, track data, or forecast your finances if you’re not spreadsheet-savvy? Many millennials simply want their first job. But, what about your performance once someone hires you? The biggest complaint employers have about millennials is that they lack basic hard and soft skills.These skills include things like teamwork and problem solving, but also basic administrative skills like MS Word and Powerpoint. Once you’re hired, you want to meet the basic requirements of your role without stressing.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR

Martin Jetton has 30+ years of advanced supply chain analytics, predictive analytics, and statistical consulting experience. He's currently a Principal at the Liberty Advisor Group, where he works in advanced supply chain analytics. In his previous role, he was the Senior Predictive Consultant at Corios; where he developed predictive models and scorecards, forecast trends, identify uncertainties, and assign the ideal strategies to maximize performance. The firm’s clients are in the banking, brokerage, credit, utilities and healthcare industries.

WHO SHOULD COME?

People whose work is completed through MS Excel; Software Engineers, Finance Professionals, HR Professionals, Marketing Professionals, Project Managers, Technology Professionals.

ADDITIONAL BENEFITS?

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: PLEASE CONTACT US AT [email protected].