Agile Leadership Network Houston

 Janurary meeting

Refactoring your code-a Key Step in Agility 

Our thanks to Dr. Venkat for presenting the core principles of refactoring and walking us through examples that demonstrate the benifits of refactoring and writing good code. 

About the speaker

Dr. Venkat Subramaniam is an award-winning author, founder of Agile Developer, Inc., and an adjunct faculty at the University of Houston.
He has trained and mentored thousands of software developers in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia, and is a regularly-invited speaker at several international conferences. Venkat helps his clients effectively apply and succeed with agile practices on their software projects.

Venkat is the author of ".NET Gotchas," the coauthor of 2007 Jolt Productivity Award winning "Practices of an Agile Developer," the author of "Programming Groovy: Dynamic Productivity for the Java Developer" and "Programming Scala: Tackle Multi-Core Complexity on the Java Virtual Machine" (Pragmatic Bookshelf). His latest book is "Programming Concurrency on the JVM: Mastering synchronization, STM, and Actors.

Find out more http://www.agiledeveloper.com/index.html

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 Meeting Location

Sysco Corporation

1390 Enclave Parkway - Houston, Texas - 281-584-1390       

Please park in front of either Sysco building (1370 & 1390 Enclave Parkway).

If front lots are full, park on the street along Forkland Drive and walk around to the front entrance of 1390.

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Please join us in thanking our sponsors for their generous support of
Agile Leadership Network Houston

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PMPs may file for 1 PDU under Continuing Certification Requirements’ “Category 4: Other Providers."

Special December Event

In place of our regular monthly meeting, ALN Houston invites you to join us for a special December social.

Come join us for a special evening of conversation and great piano music!    A time to relax before the hustle and bustle of the holidays begins.   Spouses and guest are welcome! Come join the fun!

Date/Time:   December 8th 7:00pm – 9:00pm  ....(1st Thrusday of the month)

NEW Location:   CROWNE PLAZA , 14703 Park Row (corner of Hwy 6 on the north side of I10) , Houston, TX  77079,  Phone: 281-558-5580  www.crowneplaza.com

Cost:  $10, per person (includes a drink and appetizers), please register on-line as no cash will be accepted at the door.

Contact:   Kim Payne (Event Coordinator), 832-244-5116, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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 November Meeting

The Information Age, Knowledge Workers, Agile and the Future of Management

Have you ever wondered what a company would look like if the Agile concepts were applied on a company wide basis?  Come see what that would look like as well as discovering how the arrival of the information age is changing everything.  This dynamic presentation will show you the organizational and management structure of the future and how any company can be transformed into an information age organization.  The result being a much more productive and profitable organization with happier customers, happier employees and happier stakeholders!  

Dean E. Tucker began his career at Boeing working on the 747 and Apollo rocket programs, then at IBM he was a Systems Engineer (selected to five consecutive Systems Engineering Symposiums) and held numerous management positions with IBM before leaving and becoming an author, speaker, futurist and consultant. He holds both a BS and MS in business administration from Wichita State University and also attended the Harvard’s Presidents Class.

Dean is a one-of-a-kind, fast-moving, passionate and inspiring speaker that leaves audiences excited and wanting more! His rare combination of communication skill and proven principles that utilize the power of purpose capture the heart and imagination of the audience and provide inspiration to all who seek new answers to old challenges.

He is also the author of "Using the Power of Purpose: How to overcome bureaucracy and achieve extraordinary success! "

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 Meeting Location

Sysco Corporation

1390 Enclave Parkway - Houston, Texas - 281-584-1390       

Please park in front of either Sysco building (1370 & 1390 Enclave Parkway).

If front lots are full, park on the street along Forkland Drive and walk around to the front entrance of 1390.

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Please join us in thanking our sponsors for their generous support of
Agile Leadership Network Houston

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PMPs may file for 1 PDU under Continuing Certification Requirements’ “Category 4: Other Providers."

Building a 100 MPG Road Car in 3 Months

It would be easy to admire Joe Justice. He’s managed to be successful following his passion - and as a result - made his dreams true through his achievements following Agile Principles.
Joe is the CEO of Wikispeed, a company that has built a gasoline-powered vehicle (the SGT01) that exceeds 100 Miles per Gallon (MPG) in three months using Agile. Joe started with the ambitious idea of joining the Progressive Insurance Automotive competition in 2009 that offered a $10 million prize for the winner in building a vehicle that exceeds 100 MPG using UDDS federal standards (followed by all car manufacturers for selling in the United States.) While Joe’s constructed car reached 10th place out of 136 entrants, Wikispeed, grew from just one “above average” Joe to over 110 volunteers in seven countries and gained international recognition. Note - this isn’t a one man lightweight glider, but instead a car that can reach up to 194 MPH, has a five star crash test equivalency, sits up to four adults, has plenty of cargo room (with AC and a radio to boot!)
What made Joe Justice different from his competitors was that he didn’t follow the rules of big companies like Tesla, Ford and Chevrolet but instead employed modular, iterative Agile building practices such as Scrum, Kanban and Pomodoro. Joe’s “secret sauce” as he put it, is the ability to quickly modify and improve parts within a seven day release cycle instead of the typical 10 years old designs delivered by major automotive companies. He honed that ability through his “day job” as a computer developer / architect in an IT company that only employs Agile principles in their delivery. Wikispeed employs the intelligent and frugal use of tools such as a blog on Scrum retrospectives, YouTube videos, Facebook, Free Conference, Dropbox, GoogleDocs and many more.
By using interchangeable parts (and help through an online community that grew at a viral pace in helping Joe improve his designs), Wikispeed produced a vehicle that could have its chassis replaced in the time a tire is normally changed. This allows the team mechanics to switch from a car to a truck or a four seat car to a two seat car in minutes. Wikispeed took this concept to all the primary aspects of the car that have to do with efficiency, from door dye molds to power requirements and near zero friction brakes.
Wikispeed also used pairing and swarming to improve output. Joe adopted pairing from Extreme programming to have the mechanics always work in pairs. Swarming happens when a mechanic gets stuck and everyone available in the team coming to help until solved and perhaps surprisingly, it always gets solved. Joe purchased three of every tool to ensure no one has to ask for the tool to try something and have any awkwardness result from asking for a tool to try something. This kept team morale high as when one person fixed an issue, everyone felt like they won together!
Wikispeed’s international attention has resulted in being placed on the cover of Automobile magazine, being interviewed by Discovery channel http://youtu.be/9c_XWlVwdTc   and being showcased in car shows next to the major automotive companies. Joe also spoke as TEDxRainier http://youtu.be/MkmyKmQppq8 to a standing ovation! As Joe put it, the results of Wikispeed are like King Kong giving a high five to Jaws in front of a nuclear explosion! Nice!

Location

Sysco Corporation

1390 Enclave Parkway - Houston, Texas - 281-584-1390

Please park in front of either Sysco building (1370 & 1390 Enclave Parkway).

If front lots are full, park on the street along Forkland Drive and walk around to the front entrance of 1390.

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Sponsorship

Food and Refreshments

were provided by ALN Houston's family of sponsors

Contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it today!

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Please join us in thanking our sponsors for their generous support of
Agile Leadership Network Houston

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PMPs may file for 1 PDU under Continuing Certification Requirements’ “Category B: Other Providers."