Learn everything you need to know about agile delivery in this three-day course. We use an innovative course structure that allows you to do real agile software development in cross-functional teams. Using two instructors and splitting the group as appropriate, we ensure that programmers get plenty of technical depth without boring everyone else.

You'll learn:

• Eliminating bugs
• Incremental requirements
• Working with stakeholders
• Customer tests and acceptance test-driven development
• Test-driven development
• Refactoring
• Code management
• Continuous integration
• Exploratory testing
• Pairing
• Incremental design and risk-driven architecture
• Cross-functional collaboration

Programmers, testers, on-site customers, business analysts, project managers, product managers, ScrumMasters, coaches, team leads, and anyone else on an agile team will benefit from this course.

Results

After completing this course, you will be prepared to:

• Work in a cross-functional team with on-site customers, testers, and programmers
• Understand and accommodate diverse stakeholder opinions
• Build and ship complete increments of software in one-week iterations
• Create nearly bug-free code using test-driven development, refactoring, and exploratory testing
• Prevent build failures with continuous integration
• Build technical infrastructure incrementally alongside features

Testimonials

"I don't know how they pulled off the [class project], but going through four iterations brought the concepts home. Also I was a programmer wanting to learn about the project development side. Diana's four-quadrant diagrams (about stakeholders) were enlightening as was Jim's [incremental design] box diagrams and analogy of TDD to double-entry bookkeeping. Thank you!!" --Steve Tamura, Developer

"Extremely educational--lots of new material. Well organized." --Dave Goldman, Senior Developer, Inspiration Software

"They were great. They were funny, understanding, and answered questions well." --Ven Cohen, Programmer/Technical Lead, ISI

This is a free talk open to the public and presented by the Rose City Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN).

Logistics: Networking from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM Talk presented from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM (doors close at 7:15)

Talk: Developing Requirements for Legacy Systems presented by Bill Baker

Abstract: Many legacy systems were created without documented requirements. Over the years, changes were made, often without adequate documentation. Software quality suffers as the system becomes more and more complex. This presentation will provide a case study of bringing requirements management and other related process improvements to a legacy software product — one which has been successful for over twenty years.

A cross-functional team of management undertook a project to improve significantly the processes related to requirements. This presentation describes the lessons learned while undertaking this project. Among these are: • A good implementation start is essential. Outside consultants are useful. Fully involve all stakeholders. • Different audiences have different needs. Find effective ways to communicate to each audience. • Be pragmatic when choosing what requirements to write and how much effort to put into describing the current system. • Leverage tool adoption to make changes that are more general to the software development process.

Author Bio: Bill Baker is a software development manager at Sage in Beaverton Oregon. He has been involved in software development, project management, and process improvement for a number of years. While at Harland Financial Solutions, Bill led the improvements outlined in this paper. Bill has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Washington State University and an excessive collection of other degrees from Washington State University and Michigan State University.

About the Rose City SPIN: The Rose City Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN) is a monthly forum for networking, mutual support, and promotion of effective software practices. We exchange practical experiences, ideas, knowledge, wisdom, and war stories about the technical, business, and human facets of software process improvement. The Rose City SPIN serves the software development community of the Portland/Vancouver metro area. Whether you work for a large company or a small one, corporate or self-employed, industrial or academic setting, you are welcome at the Rose City SPIN.

Build Winning Products with Rapid Customer Insigh The Build Winning Products with Rapid Customer Insight workshop gives you the tools necessary to deliver successful products through more effective ways to access customers, listen for their needs, and integrate this learning into real products. This program is ideal for Agile and Lean development teams working with fast-paced development schedules.

Exclusive offer! OTBC has partnered with Planning Innovations to pilot this program to 12 participants at a special “at cost” rate of $57. By participating, you agree to join us for a 90-minute facilitated discussion to provide Planning Innovations feedback on the program. After this pilot offer, the program will normally be offered at $895/participant.

The best way to learn is by doing. This program is highly interactive with role-playing, real customer interviews, and participating in real world requirements tradeoff discussions using the tools we discuss in the program.

We'll focus on key questions and challenges, such as:

• How do I determine the right customers for insight?
• How can I build a customer panel for fast access?
• What are the best ways to really “listen” for customer needs?
• How can I understand the tradeoffs customer make every day?
• How do I manage and communicate fuzzy customer input?

SQAUG Presents:

Murky Waters: Where Do Tests Come From? A discussion about requirements, and other sources for the development of test cases

Moderated by: Mary Torres Lead QA Engineer, Viewpoint Construction Software, Portland, OR

at Con-Way 2055 NW Savier, Portland, OR 97209 on Wednesday April 17, 2013 5:30pm until 7:30pm

Where do tests come from? Pittsburg. No not really. Actually, we hope to discuss the various sources for tests in the different SDLC environments. We want everyone to share good practices for gleaning information needed for testing, including; rummaging through requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, code commentary, etc. Do your Product Managers write up test cases, DEV’s? Business Analysts? Tech facilitators? Remember Use Cases? Much of what we used to do, has become muddled and wrapped up in terminology and processes that no longer mean the same things they used to. Let’s talk it through and see if we can help each other in this murky water.

Mary Torres; our moderator for this event currently works at Viewpoint Construction Software as Lead QA Engineer. She a degree in Computer Science, has almost 17 years working in the software industry, and has worked in QA for that entire time. Her work experience includes QA management, automated testing, and functional testing. She is also a certified scrum master. Mary has worked on projects that have utilized traditional Waterfall and Agile/Scrum SDLC’s.

Event is FREE and Open to the Public

Agenda: 5:30-6:00PM: Pizza, Networking and SQAUG Announcements 6:00-7:30PM: Scheduled Moderator: Mary Torres

Details: • Event is Free to the public • Onsite parking (directions below) • Light dinner and beverages will be served • No RSVP is required to attend

SQAUG is Portland/Vancouver area’s only Software Quality Assurance User Group! We are NEW, and would like to extend a warm welcome to everyone who would like to participate in a user group dedicated to growing the Quality Assurance field.

SQAUG is made up of a group of SQA professionals who have banded together in an open forum to learn from each other through a series of interactive discussions, engaged debates, training presentations, exploring tools, and general networking and sharing of job opportunities. Our goals are to expand knowledge about Software Quality to all professionals who are passionate about their careers, and take Software Quality seriously.

For more on SQAUG: http://www.sqaug.org/ Linked in: SQAUG Meetup: SQAUGPDX