Bring your questions. Bring your Problems. Join us for Lean Coffee facilitated by Diana Larsen.

Lean Coffee started in Seattle in 2009 when Jim Benson and Jeremy Lightsmith wanted to combine lean and Knowledge work. Now, Seattle Lean Coffee happens every week, and is very popular.

Lean Coffee is a structured, but agenda-less meeting. Participants gather, build an agenda, and begin talking. Conversations are directed and productive because the agenda for the meeting was democratically generated.

(http://leancoffee.org/)

Details and Pizza:

This event is free and is at Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

Looking to improve your health, happiness or productivity? Or just gain more self-awareness? Then join our QS meetup! It's free and all are welcome.

The October meetup will be graciously hosted by Puppet Labs. We'll have show & tell presentations from several individuals who do self-tracking as well as a general discussion.

If you're game, bring by drinks and/or snacks for all to share! We look forward to seeing you there!

Ubuntu Oregon will be holding a 12.10 Release Party at PuppetLabs.

Pizza, Soft Drinks and Beer are also being provided thanks to the folks at PuppetLabs.

Additionally the folks at InkTank will be sponsoring some 12.10 release shirts!

Frank D’Andrea is an enthusiastic Agile evangelist, mentor, educator, and most recently, the Vice-President of Software Development at Tater Tot Designs. He has extensive experience in managing web and software development projects as well as mobile application and Content Management System development efforts. He is an experienced process improvement specialist with expertise in both Agile and Waterfall development environments.

Frank has leadership experience in both Product and Project Management as well as hands-on experience as a Certified Scrum Professional. Frank has been involved in numerous extracurricular activities as well; such as a 10-year stint of teaching poetry, literature, creative writing, and composition classes at Portland Community College; representing Portland as a member of Portland’s National Poetry Slam team; publishing and performing with Haiku Inferno, and getting his J.D. from Willamette University College of Law.

Here's the abstract:

Agile Still Sucks.

Bringing Agile into an organization is never a good idea. It is disruptive, complicated, and very expensive. It brings organizational dysfunction to the surface and shines a bright light on business practices that sabotage teams and fail to deliver value to clients. Further, unwitting teams may adopt a version of Agile that becomes dogmatic, inflexible, and interested in perpetuating the "process” of Agile rather than being, well, agile. The only thing worse than bringing Agile in, is trying to get Agile right.

That said, everyone should be using Agile. This presentation will explore ways to bring Agile into an organization, how to choose the right "flavor” of Agile, and what to do when it goes badly – because it will. This presentation will also examine how to expand the Agile conversation from within the software development team, outward to internal stakeholders, and eventually into client engagements.

Details and Pizza:

This event is free and is at Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub for further discussion of launching Agile Projects.

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

Bio:

Jez Humble is a Principal at ThoughtWorks Studios, and co-author of the Jolt Award winning Continuous Delivery, published in Martin Fowler’s Signature Series. He has worked with a variety of platforms and technologies, consulting for non-profits, telecoms, financial services, and online retail companies. His focus is on helping organisations deliver valuable, high-quality software frequently and reliably through implementing effective engineering practices.

Details and Pizza:

Many thanks to New Relic for covering the speaker costs!

This event is free and is at Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub for further discussion of launching Agile Projects.

Talk description:

Businesses rely on getting valuable new software into the hands of users as fast as possible, while making sure that they keep their production environments stable. Continuous Delivery is a revolutionary and scalable approach to software delivery that enables any team, including teams within enterprise IT organizations, to achieve rapid, reliable releases through better collaboration between developers, testers, DBAs and operations, and automation of the build, deploy, test and release process.

I’ll start by discussing the value of CD to the business, inspired by the lean startup movement. I’ll then present the principles and practices involved in continuous delivery, including value stream mapping, the deployment pipeline, acceptance test driven development, zero-downtime releases, and incremental development. I’ll cover how CD is enabled by an ecosystem including Devops, cloud computing, agile testing, and continuous deployment.

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

Join the Spotify, Rumblefish, Twilio, MapQuest, Mozilla and your fellow hackers at Puppet Labs for a day of visualizations, data analysis, and general hacking via a number of awesome APIs.

Open to the public, the MusicFestNW (MFNW) and Portland Digital eXperience (PDX) Music Hack Day is designed to celebrate the confluence of music and technology by bringing the community together for a little hacking around music.

Live in PDX? Love Git? This is the group for you!

There might be cupcakes! You won't know unless you show up.

Join the brand new pdxgit mailing list to connect with your local Git peeps: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/pdxgit

PRESENTATIONS:

• William Van Hevelingen and Spencer will talk about automating their Samba DFS root servers as discrete resources using Puppet and Hiera.
• Corey Osman will talk about his IPMI library for Ruby and accompanying Puppet module. IPMI is an interface for managing computers, e.g. changing BIOS, rebooting, etc.
• Adam Gandelman of Canonical's OpenStack team will talk about using Jenkins/Hudson continuous integration to do pre-commit and post-commit tests, and seek out advice on doing this better.

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

Welcome OSCON attendees!

We'll focus this month's meeting on lightning talks and discussions, allowing us to cover many interesting devops topics in a conversational way -- we're very good at this sort of thing, e.g. see notes from a similar meeting. If you have a talk, please get in touch on the mailing list or in person at the beginning of the meeting.

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

Agile Chartering ignites your project Liftoff in a way that gives impetus to the project team, and the business, and sets the endeavor on the trajectory to success. Project leaders and team members use Agile Chartering to inform, inspire, and align everyone involved in product delivery. Experience a journey through the framework for effective, yet lightweight, "just enough" Agile chartering, including the three key elements of inspiring Purpose, collaborative Alignment, and dynamic Context. Learn why real-life team members say Agile Chartering provided the initial momentum that powered their projects toward success.

In this high energy talk, Diana Larsen, co-author of Liftoff: Launching Agile Teams and Projects, will take you on an exploration of ways to accomplish team and project Liftoffs, including the vital step of chartering the project.

Bio:

Diana Larsen partners with clients in the software industry to create, guide, and fortify resilient workplaces and improve project performance. In addition to consulting with and coaching leaders and teams on adopting Agile work systems, she draws on 20+ years of working with technical professionals to lead team, project, and whole system processes for collaborative thinking and planning. Diana co-authored Liftoff: Launching Agile Teams and Projects and Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great. She serves on the board of directors of the Agile Alliance and is a principal of FutureWorks Consulting LLC.

Details and Pizza:

This event is free and is at Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub for further discussion of launching Agile Projects.

PRESENTATIONS:

Michael Stahnke of Puppet Labs will give a presentation on "Packaging". He'll talk about the correct way to create custom packages of software and incorporate them into your devops workflow so you can more effectively isolate changes and improve the repeatability of your configurations.

Igal Koshevoy will present "A Barbarian's Guide to Avoiding Packaging", a short talk on abusing your configuration system. Although not "correct", this approach can save time, simplify workflow, and minimize infrastructure needed compared to building custom packages in certain cases.

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

TOPICS:

• Igal Koshevoy: Including system migrations inside configuration management recipes, e.g. rearranging directories. Pros and cons for whether this should even be done and tips to reduce headaches later. There will also be group discussion since it's a common enough need, there are many ways to do this, and it'd be good to hear how others deal with this.

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

Prioritize People Over Process: The Brain Science of Happy Agile Teams

Learn how to apply neuroscience and psychology to more effectively work with each other as a happy team that produces better software. You will take away:

• Concrete techniques for more quickly building trust on teams
• Actionable ideas for managing social stress
• Proven techniques for getting the best results from each other

Comments from the Game Developers Conference presentation of similar material:

"Mr. Scott Crabtree was also an absolutely excellent speaker - very inspiring, thought-provoking, and energizing! Please have him back on the same topic of the importance of happiness within teams in the future!"

"The speaker about happiness was amazing."

"Scott Crabtree was Excellent...an excellent tutorial that I would recommend to anyone."

Presenter:

Scott Crabtree, Chief Happiness Officer, Happy Brain Science: www.HappyBrainScience.com/about

This event is free and is at Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm and will run until 8:30.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub for further discussion of agile fluency

PDX11 is proud to welcome John Tortorici, CEO of Chart Solutions and Craig Froude, Former President of WellMed and Executive VP of WebMD to lead Roundtable #4 – From Bootstraps to Boardroom! Attendance is limited, and RSVP only.

On Monday, May 14th from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m, we will hold our fourth of the 2012 PDX11 Roundtable Series. This session’s topic is “Bootstraps to Boardroom” – a firsthand account of how Informedics and WellMed were started, matured, and acquired by Mediware and WebMD respectfully. We think you will find these two success stories interesting and informative.

Taking place at Puppet Labs 411 Northwest Park Avenue #500. Doors will be open at 5:00 p.m. for pre-discussion networking, and we will start promptly at 5:30 p.m. As a community effort to support the software segment's economic growth, the Roundtables are at no cost to attendees.

The Portland startup scene is full of activity, talent, and new concepts – if you’ve got these but need a candid, firsthand roadmap on applying solid strategy to your business idea, this Roundtable’s for you. Refreshments will be served, and there are a limited number of seats. Please RSVP to Tamsen Galloway to reserve a spot at the Roundtable.

About the PDX11 Roundtable Series:

The PDX11 Roundtable Series is an answer to the startup community’s request for a roundtable-style, firsthand interaction with software leaders who have expertise in specific topics. These will be held on a regular basis throughout the year. For more information about the PDX11 Network, please visit www.pdx11.org

Please RSVP to [email protected] to reserve your spot at the roundtable!

For every Ubuntu release we like to organise parties all over the world. At these parties everyone is welcome and we get together to celebrate, meet new friends and often introduce people new to Ubuntu to our community and our Operating System. Release parties are not only a great way to meet people but they are a lot of fun!

RSVP for the event is available here: http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/ubuntu-us-or/1609/detail/

What alternatives are there to the predominant linear management approach which relies on reductionism and the ability to predict. How can you avoid the temptation to engineer and control outcomes by manipulating the component parts of organizations business and process?

Ola describes his nonlinear approach, where he combines Real Options, the Mikado Method, and evolutionary design to form a dynamic, diametrically opposite perspective to the familar linear management view.

Presenter:

Ola Ellnestam likes to combine people, technology and business which is best done with simple means and flexible processes. More than that he likes to share his knowledge and experiences because that’s how new insights are created according to him. Ola is a founder of Agical.se , a board member of the Agile Aliance, director of the Agile Alliance conference sponsorship program, and co-author (with Daniel Brolund) of The Mikado Method book.

This event is free and is at Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub for further discussion of agile fluency

Also, on Thursday, April 19, join Ola for a one-day workshop on The Mikado Method

For more information on the workshop, see: http://calagator.org/events/1250461927

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

We will be having a hackathon of up to 50 people at Puppet Labs!

Coffee, beer and pizza will be present to optimize for maximum hacking throughput.

Have a web app that you want to run in the cloud? Want to learn more about polyglot Platform-as-as-service? Come on by.

Cloud Foundry had a huge code push to Github a few days ago with many changes and improvements, including a public Gerrit instance at http://reviews.cloudfoundry.org where you can participate directly in the mainline development. Github is used purely as a mirror: https://github.com/cloudfoundry

There are many forks of Cloud Foundry. How many will survive? Which will merge back? The story has yet to be written.

Much love to our sponsors!

Puppet Labs: http://puppetlabs.com

Tier 3: http://tier3.com

Offshore development and distributed teams are here to stay (see CIO Journal 2/27/12 “Offshore Outsourcing Can Boost Agility).” Some people contend that it can’t be done effectively. Come hear a case study of how one distributed Scrum team (Beaverton/Bangalore) learned to work together, rapidly improve velocity in a few sprints, and deliver the expected product on schedule. Jean Richardson and Rob Mills will discuss what it took to make it happen, the ups, the downs, and the lessons learned.

Robert Mills currently is the VP of IT at Rivermark Community Credit Union and was previously the Director of Engineering for CoreLogic, Consumer Services. Rob has led multiple organizations during their transition from waterfall or iterative processes to using Scrum. His organizations have been both global and local as well as both in Software Engineering and Information Technology.

Jean Richardson is experienced in Scrum and leadership coaching, adaptive and predictive project management, writing, training, public speaking, and requirements and business analysis. She has led, coached, and participated on both co-located and distributed teams, presented to IEEE IPCC on virtual teaming, and has been previously engaged to create an offshore development best practices white paper for a large local high-tech firm. Her client list includes a wide range of businesses including ADP, CoreLogic, Daimler/Chrysler, Action Without Borders/Idealist.org, Mentor Graphics, Portland General Electric, Oregon Health Authority, The Regence Group, and Tripwire.

This event is free and is at Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub.

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

Jonathan "Duke" Leto will be talking about Cloud Foundry http://cloudfoundry.com

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

Have you ever begun an Agile adoption, only to watch in dismay and puzzlement as the change fizzles out like a wet firecracker? Have you generated excitement for these new ideas, seen them seem to take root and grow, only to find a year later that people have fallen back into their old ways of doing things? Or, are they now cherry picking Agile practices, perhaps using Agile terms, but ignoring the Agile values? If so, you are not alone. In this talk, Tamara Sulaiman Runyon discusses some reasons why simple practice adoption is not enough; and why transformation is so difficult to make stick in many organizations. Topics include: the nature of change and complex systems models - where do we fit? The key role that vision and leadership play in instigating and supporting transformation; the potential iceberg of organizational culture as a change blocker, as well as people aspects - the levels of discomfort caused by any change; and measuring the growth of competence as Agile practices and Values are assimilated.

Presenter Bio:

Tamara Sulaiman Runyon has been assisting teams in transitioning to agile methods both as a hands-on ScrumMaster and as an Agile Coach and Scrum trainer since 2003. Her passion lies in helping organizations plan and implement Agile transformations. In her role as Enterprise Agile Coach at Intel, she is deeply involved with leading and supporting Agile teams and practices throughout the organization.

She is a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) and Project Management Professional (PMP). Tamara is the co-originator of the AgileEVM materials and processes that integrate the traditional project management practice of Earned Value Management with the Scrum framework. As a thought leader she is currently serving on the Agile Alliance Board of Directors. Tamara continues to publish articles on Agile-related topics in industry publications such as Agile Journal, Methods and Tools, InfoQ, Projects@Work and gantthead.com. She also shares her experiences, ideas and expertise as a presenter and speaker at conferences.

This event is free and is at Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub for further discussion of agile fluency

Triage-a-thon 2011

Love Puppet? Hate the backlog of tickets? Want to help us out? The Puppet community has grown really fast and a lot of you have logged tickets and issues. We’ve tried to give those tickets as much love as we could but some slip through the cracks and sometimes we get overwhelmed. We’ve recognised this and want to try to get a handle on the backlog of tickets. But we need your help to do this.

What we’re going to do is hold a Triage-a-thon hosted locally in our offices and virtually on IRC and the Web. We’re going to review all the open tickets in the Puppet project with a view to:

Update and confirm that issues are still relevant

Ensure tickets are in the right status and all the right information is present to help us resolve it

Close any invalid or no longer relevant tickets

We’ll assign blocks of tickets to every participant, have documentation explaining what you need to do and provide people on the ground to help you make decisions and answer questions.

We’ll also provide pizza, snacks (and beer!) and a venue locally in our Portland, OR offices. Virtually we’ll provide an IRC channel, IM and rewards (t-shirts, patches, stickers, badges, and books) for people who triage tickets and get involved.

It's time for your yearly Agile tune-up! Has your Agile team made its new year's resolutions yet? If not, this month's AgilePDX meeting will help. It's all about helping you understand what you can do to improve the state of your Agile practice.

James Shore will kick things off with a description of Agile Fluency. He'll describe multiple levels of proficiency and help you figure out where your team is today. Then, he'll provide specific techniques and practices to focus on as you work to reach the next level.

Next, we'll turn it over to you! You'll break into groups focused on the issues that matter most to your teams. You'll have the opportunity to learn from each other's experiences and to discuss how you can improve your team. Experienced Agile practitioners will be on hand to answer questions and help you figure out which improvements will make the most difference for you.

This event is free and is at Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub for further discussion of agile fluency

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

Difficulty iterating? Stuck in a rut at work? Throw caution to the wind and host a hackathon! You can finally play with Shiny Thing 2.0, show it off to your friends and teammates, all in a format that will encourage you to work in small, iterative slices.

Growing in popularity in recent years, hackathons provide a venue for folks to get together, explore new ideas and (hopefully!) build working software in the span of a couple of days. Come learn about their use in the corporate space and the public space at large, how to sponsor one, and how to make the event create lasting effects. We'll also explore the parallels between agile development and hackathons, and how each is good practice for the other.

Ben Houston is a pragmatic software engineer who is currently in love with mazes and geometry.

This event is free and is at Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub for further discussion of chicken wings and other agile conundrums.

This coming Sunday, December 4, we will be holding a first ever combined Ubuntu Local Jam and Debian Bug Squashing Party in Portland, OR.

Interested in giving back to your favorite distribution? Whether you're an experienced developer or making your first foray into the world of Open Source, please join us for a day of community fun!

Q. What is an Ubuntu Local Jam?

A. An Ubuntu Local Jam is like an Ubuntu Global Jam:

 https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGlobalJam

... except not scheduled over Labor Day weekend when people are out of town, so more folks are able to attend!

Q. What is a Debian Bug Squashing Party?

A. A Debian Bug Squashing Party is an event where Debian developers and enthusiasts gather to fix bugs for an upcoming release.

 http://wiki.debian.org/BSP

More information will be available soon on ubuntu-us-or at lists.ubuntu.com and debian-portland-soc at pdx.debian.net.

Hope to see you there!

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

Test Driven Development has reached maturity. Goad Testing takes you a level deeper, examining what tests really are and using the outcome of that exercise to derive new ways of keeping software - both production and test - healthy, flexible, and on-specification. Making distinctions is a critical aspect of a test: It allows a test to serve as an executable specification. Sometimes this ability is lost in the course of maintenance. Goad testing is a way to prevent that from happening without introducing significant extra work or complexity.

About Max Guernsey III, Hexagon Software LLC: I’ve been in the software development industry for over ten years. Nearly half of that has been spent mentoring teams in various aspects of Agility, including Design Patterns, TDD, User Story creation & analysis. In the last few years, I’ve become interested in how Lean and Agile fit together.

This event is free and is at our new location, Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub for further discussion of chicken wings and other agile conundrums.

When designing a cross-platform mobile app, HTML5 is likely your best choice. However, what about when you need to design a native app across platforms? How can you remain true to your design while also providing a truly native platform experience?

Guest speaker Neil Cadsawan will share ideas on how to approach design for multiple mobile platforms, including iOS, Android, and Windows 7. After the presentation we will engage in a sketching activity based on the concepts from his lecture.

This is a non-sponsored event. Feel free to bring beverages or snacks to share!

Round 3 of the software build for the PDX11 Mentor Network! Join Portland's top coders and network leaders, and put your fingerprints on the PDX11 Mentor Matching software. Hosted by Puppet Labs, and refreshments provided.

In 2009, Performance Health Technology went "all-in" and began the adoption of agile methodologies throughout the software development process. In this talk, you'll take a multi-year journey with a growing small business and experience the transition from the blissful ignorance of cowboy-coding through the misery and despair of a sinking, dysfunctional organization, and on to the satisfaction and exhilaration that comes with a high-functioning agile team.

This interactive presentation is about both the pain and the fulfillment that comes with developing software in a small business, before, during, and after agile adoption. Developers, Business/IT Managers, Agile Coaches, and Executives are invited to look behind the curtain to see how PH Tech narrowly escaped from the Pit of Development Despair and survived a Total Immersion into Agile.

Chad is the Director of Information Technology at PH Tech. His responsibilities include all aspects of technological infrastructure and software development, including three technology departments; Information Systems, Business Intelligence, and Software Engineering. When he's not talking about healthcare or technology, he's expounding the life-giving qualities of bacon and BBQ. Buy him a beer and he'll give you the recipe for the greatest chicken wing rub he's ever stolen.

This event is free and is at our new location, Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub for further discussion of chicken wings and other agile conundrums.

PRESENTATIONS:

Corey Osman will present his experiences with SSDs (Solid-State Drives), fast memory-based storage:

• types of SSD
• how much it cost
• how it differs from traditional storage
• filesystem bottlenecks
• latency
• SSD vendors
• usage with oracle
• benchmarking
• life expectancy
• raid and SSD
• how to persuade your boss into buying one
• enterprise vs consumer grade
• power usage

Jacob Helwig will talk about his recent experiences with Puppet, Ubuntu CloudInit and AWS to provision groups of servers.

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

IxDA Portland Presents An Evening of Improv - September 20, 2011

Join us for a spectacular evening of fun and daring improvisational games! This event is designed for creative professionals with an emphasis on spontaneous play and team-building exercises. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll learn practical tools and tips to boost creativity and productivity. Our three illustrious co-hosts have nearly 5 decades of combined improvisation and business consulting experience.

If you already have improv experience, you will love this event. If you have little or no improv experience, but are willing to jump in and take creative risks in a safe, fun and judgment-free environment, you will love this event. If you want to build your creative muscles and team effectiveness, or just let your hair down and have some fun, you will love this event. Come and join us!

Here's the format for the evening. We'll start with a brief introduction and demo session, and then jump right into an interactive session of shared play. The direction we take from there will be improvised, based on your preferences. We'll work in groups or pairs, with plenty of time for play, facilitator coaching, and dialogue. We'll finish with a debrief and Q&A at the end of the evening.

Our Illustrious Co-Hosts:

Shelley Darcy - On Your Feet, Super Project Lab

Shelley trained with The Groundlings in Los Angeles, and has been improvising and performing for 15 years. She is the Executive Director of Super Project Lab, an improv outreach program serving at-risk and underserved populations around Portland. Shelley is also a consultant with On Your Feet, a mini-multinational firm that uses improvisation and experiential techniques to teach companies to navigate growth, uncertainty and rapid change.

www.oyf.com http://www.superprojectlab.org/

Brad Fortier - Brody Theater, United Way, Interdisciplined

Brad Fortier has a Master's degree in anthropology, a passion for improvisation and education, and a pair of angel wings. Brad is the Community Speaker of the United Way Portland, Education Director at the Brody Theater, and has performed around the world. Brad wrote a fascinating book on the social science of ensemble improv called "Long-Form Improvisation: Collaboration, Comedy and Communion." He is also a consultant who performs ethnographic research, facilitates creative workshops, and teaches collaboration, communication and leadership. Brad uses smart words like "liminal" and "communitas" and still makes everyone feel like family.

http://bradfortier.com/ http://www.brodytheater.com/

Patricia Colley - Flow Interaction Design, Improvocateurs

Patricia Colley has studied improvisation in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Baltimore, and has been a user experience designer, consultant and facilitator for 20 years. Patricia uses design methods, critical inquiry and improvisation techniques to help organizations and individuals live and work in optimal flow. Patricia has seen how improv can alter the way people communicate and work together. She wants you to experience the awesome power of improv, too.

www.interactionflow.com www.improvocateurs.com

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

Kick off party for OSCON, please register your attendance at OSCON.eventbrite.com

IMPORTANT: PLEASE RSVP AT THE URL ABOVE, IT'S FREE!

ALSO: The date has changed to Tuesday.

ScaleOutCamp PDX (CloudCamp) is an unconference where early adopters of Cloud Computing technologies exchange ideas. With the rapid change occurring in the industry, we need a place where we can meet to share our experiences, challenges and solutions. At ScaleOutCamp, you are encouraged to share your thoughts in several open discussions, as we strive for the advancement of Cloud Computing. End users, IT professionals and vendors are all encouraged to participate.

TOPICS: * Igal Koshevoy will talk about using Vagrant to manage virtualized development environments. Using this open source tool, you'll be able to give developers fully configured virtual machines containing all the services, libraries and dependencies they need to get started immediately. These virtual machines are provisioned using Chef, Puppet or shell, letting you give devs the same stack as the one you're using for your production environment.

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

Goal: Community development of a website to help Portland's growing tech community find Mentors and share knowledge.

Inspired by Calagator and ePDX.org.

This is our kickoff and initial hackathon. We hope to have a basic mentor/mentee matching website working by the end of the day.

The Portland Development Commission will be providing food & drinks!

All skill levels welcome, and also people who are passionate about technical mentoring and knowledge sharing.

Join the Google group to share ideas and coordinate development: http://groups.google.com/group/pdx11-mentor-development

Also, there's a pilot program so Mentors and Mentees can start connecting right now: http://goo.gl/s7QlX

Thank you to Puppet Labs for hosting this event!

UPDATE: We're not meeting this month. Instead, please join us at the Open Source Bridge birds-of-a-feather session. The schedule hasn't been finalized yet, but it'll be sometime on June 21-24.

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

Value-first in the nick of time: how agile methods and lean program management averted crisis to deliver the goods on a $20 million business process change.

Part experience report, part expedition, this presentation will take you inside an Agile adoption nested within a project turnaround. From diagnosis through prescription, convalescence, and recovery to eventual triumph and the acceptance of a new status quo, you will hear how a century-old organization transformed its application delivery capability in the face of a crisis, growing a project team from six to 60 developers inside two months and accelerating from one release in six months to several releases every sprint. This is a must-see for anyone who has ever struggled against organizational inertia or dreamed of rapidly scaling Agile from the team level to the enterprise level to the sound of cheering business managers.

Our speaker is Adam Light, Ph.D. Adam is a Management Consultant and Principal at SoTech Advisors (www.sotechadvisors.com) where he plans and executes successful projects and builds work systems that deliver on client goals.

Adam has more than fifteen years’ experience designing and developing business applications from shrink-wrapped software to real-time information services in domains from natural resources management to supply chain optimization.

As a planning and program management leader, Adam has worked with as few as three and as many as twenty teams, using Agile methods and critical chain techniques to turn around failing projects, revive ailing organizations, and redesign application delivery at the enterprise scale. His broad perspective and deep experience enable him to rapidly deliver return on investment from large projects.

This event is free and is at our new location, Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub for further discussion.

Great software comes from getting your team’s best ideas into the product. Jim McCarthy, who led the legendary turnaround of the Visual C++ group at Microsoft, left Microsoft in 1996 to create a team dynamics laboratory to figure out how to always create a create a high performance team.

The McCarthy lab has focused extensively on this challenge, and has produced 11 rich, precise protocols (called the Core) for making unanimous decisions, supporting quality thinking, strengthening design iterations, and incorporating feedback, emotions, nobility, and passion into products.

Learn about these protocols in this motivating, challenging talk. In just a few minutes, you can pick up the fundamentals of an entirely new class of tool.

• Do you notice too much discussion and arguing and would prefer the best ideas would just get implemented now? –Learn about the Decider Protocol which guarantees unanimous team decisions with accountability and moves the team forward with a bias toward action.

• Do you accept that it is vitally important that you get the opinions of others about the quality of work products but notice that it is consistently painful to give and receive feedback? – Learn about the Perfection Protocol which solves all the problems associated with criticism.

• Do you notice that dumb things consistently happen on your team and everyone seems to lack self-awareness to some degree, including you? – Learn about the Core Commitments which provide a team constitution about commitment and accountability to the team. And learn about the Personal Alignment Protocol which allows each team member to address self-awareness around courage, integrity, passion and other virtuous behaviors.

This event is free and is at our new location, Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub for further discussion.

Presentations: * Corey Osman will give a presentation on OpenNMS and other SNMP management tools. * Igal Koshevoy will give an introduction to the Chef configuration management tool; how to use its resources, third-party cookbooks, and the chef-solo toolset; how to write cookbooks, definitions, lightweight resources/providers, and roles. He's been building out a comprehensive multi-site configuration and plans to open source most of the code and tools soon, and thus has plenty of real code he can show.

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

Being a ScrumMaster is not a role for the faint of heart. Effective ScrumMasters use a combination of natural talent, common sense, insight, observation technique, and--well, let's admit it, luck to help teams sustainably use Scrum to reliably deliver business value. But the standard two-day training course doesn't fully prepare us for what lies ahead.

In this talk, subtitled, "What I Wish I Knew Before I Became a ScrumMaster," experienced and newer ScrumMasters(or anyone who wants to help a team succeed and deliver) discover and share non-obvious insights into what a ScrumMaster can do to help their teams grow into great teams -- and learn a valuable technique.

This event is free and is at our new location, Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub for further discussion.

This month we are excited to host a lecture followed by a brainstorming activity.

Corey Pressman, founder and owner of Exprima Media, will discuss his recent trip to Peru where he conducted contextual user studies for an iPad app designed to serve remote coffee farmers. His talk is focused on the value of ethnographic research for cross-cultural app design.

After Corey's lecture we will engage in a brainstorming activity using Corey's case study as inspiration for local research opportunities.

We look forward to seeing you there!

IxDA Portland is the local chapter of the Interaction Design Association: http://www.ixda.org/local/ixda-portland

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

The Software Summit in December was a milestone event to chart the course of a strategic plan aimed at helping the Software Cluster thrive. At that event, we announced the formation of three networks in response to industry feedback. Each of these networks is now building tangible deliverables to further support the growth of Portland’s software industry.

On Wednesday April 6, 2011, you are invited to attend a reception where we will launch another significant new initiative that will drive economic development within the Software cluster: the Portland 100. Please join me and many of your industry peers as Nitin Khanna, CEO of MergerTech and former CEO and founder of Saber, rolls out the program. The program will also include a recap of the PDX11 Unconference and Hackathon at Portland State University April 1-2 and a brief update on progress of our various networks.

What: Suds & Spirits reception Where: Puppet Labs, 411 NW Park Ave. Suite 500, Portland, OR 97209 When: 5:00PM – 7:00 PM Program 5:30PM -6:00PM

I hope to see you on Wednesday April 6th.

Regards,

Gerald Baugh Portland Development Commission

ABOUT THE GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Meetings are usually on the third Monday of the month. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

Join us March 16th at 6:30 pm as AgilePDX explores New Horizons in TDD. Two local experts, Mark Knell and Marty Nelson will preview their proposed talks for Agile 2011. They will discuss applying TDD at new scales: in the micro, with assertions driving the composition of tests, and in the macro, with confirmational aspects of features driving the communication of vision and intent

Mark's Talk:

Most tests follow an arrange/act/assert pattern that dates back to the earliest days of xUnit. A bowling test might set up a new frame, roll a ball, and expect that if no pins are left standing, the score will be a strike. But this test also passes if there were never any pins set up in the first place. Difference-Asserting Fluent Tests use a DSL to close this and several other loopholes in NUnit and MSTest assertions, while letting you keep those tools in place. You've heard of syntactic sugar? This is syntactic caulk. And more.

Mark Knell is a developer and Agile coach working in Portland. He has a master's degree from Harvard University Extension.

Marty's talk:

We all hope that our software will satisfy the goals and desires of our users and customers. Yet most development starts by focusing on features as a mechanism to achieve an outcome, rather than creating something demonstrable that will confirm that the vision and intent has been achieved. What if these confirmational and functional aspects were really two sides of the same feature that could be exploited to develop features in a test-driven manner? Feature TDD is a technique that does just that: create confirmational aspects that clearly establish desired outcomes and then use those to test-drive the functional mechanism that is the focus of traditional software development.

Marty Nelson is the Head of Architecture at Accelrys, Inc., an ISV offering Enterprise Lab Management solutions that serve a rapidly changing pharmaceutical and scientific R&D industry. Marty has been practicing agile development since 2003 and has taken a keen interested in the last couple of years in the architectural and organizational application of agile values and principals.

This event is free and is at our new location, Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub for further discussion.

3by10 is a monthly presentation and networking event in which three creative professionals or students from the Portland area get ten minutes each to present a recent project. The theme this month is Mobile Design.

Jeanne Turner: Brave New Coupons: The story of the Chinook Book iPhone App, as designed by Small Society and Ecometro.

Matthew Spellman: Work in Progress: How information design is helping volunteer organizations use Portland as a prototype for the nation.

Maya Powch: Screens in Motion: Designing for the active user in the adidas miCoach Mobile App

The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) is the voice of the industrial design profession, advancing the quality and positive impact of design. (http://www.idsaor.org/)

IxDA Portland is the local chapter of the Interaction Design Association (http://www.ixda.org/local/ixda-portland)

This month's session has two parts: * Four lightning talks sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly of transitioning to Agile or practicing Agile. * Collaborate to refine Agile PDX's charter.

This event is free and is at our new location, Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub for further discussion.

Puppet Labs recently moved offices and is now located in the Pearl District. Our new office occupies nearly 10,000 square feet—the entire top floor—of the General Automotive Building. Two walls of floor to ceiling windows offer beautiful views of the Portland skyline and the Park Blocks. Reclaimed wood trim and solid maple desks are warm and inviting, and industrial lighting fills the penthouse space with the bright future of open source in Portland.

We hope you'll join us for a night of celebration!

Space is limited, so please RSVP

Puppet Labs is proud to offer the following services by local Portland restaurants, bars and entertainment:

Limited open bar by the Teardrop Lounge Catered Snacks by Toast Live music by the Scott Pemberton Trio

This month, come to the Agile PDX 'Agile Tune-Up' meeting and tune up your agile process! Our panel of experts and practitioners will give you personalized feedback on the issues you're facing in an informal workshop-like format.

Before the session, visit http://agile-pdx-tune-up.appspot.com/ for a brief questionnaire that will help you identify your areas of greatest risk. Then bring a printout with you to the session to get targeted advice on what to keep doing and what to change!

This event is free and is at our new location, Puppet Labs. It begins at 6:30 pm with pizza, sponsored by PNSQC (Many thanks to both Puppet Labs and PNSQC for supporting agile in Portland).

The program starts at 7:00 pm.

After the program you're invited to join us for a no-host gathering at a nearby brewpub for further discussion.

GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops

PRESENTATIONS: * Cody Herriges: "Introduction to Puppet Types and Providers" -- A talk about the conceptual design, gotchas and best-practices for creating these important automation building blocks. * Igal Koshevoy: "Puppet Enterprise" -- A talk about the new Puppet Enterprise product and some lessons from building it.

GROUP: pdxdevops is a Portland, Oregon user group that explores the glorious intersection of software development and systems operations, and shares practical advice on working effectively in an era of agile infrastructure, server automation and cloud computing. Website: http://pdxdevops.org/ && Twitter: @pdxdevops