AgileBCS

Book Review Lunch for 7 May

Mike — Wed, 05 May 2010 15:50:31 +0000

This Friday, May 7th is our scheduled book review session. The group will cover chapters five and six of Agile Testing. This weeks session will be at the Improving offices (map).

Don’t forget your “brown bag” lunch. There will be sodas and water available.

Agile PM: April 28th at Improving Offices

Mike — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:26:52 +0000

Join us on April 28th at 6:30pm for a pair of presentations on Agile project management. The first will be a presentation by Allen Hurst on Agile Adoption Strategies. Allen will walk us through some of the reasons Agile adoption fails and provide a few ways to know what practices you can—or more accurately should—adopt.

The second will be Agile Estimation and Naked Planning, presented by Mike Abney. Mike will start with a brief examination of estimation strategies and ways to improve estimates. He will then describe a method of planning that doesn’t require estimates at all: Naked Planning.

Pizza will be provided, sponsored by Improving.

If you have not been to Improving’s offices before, the map below should help:

View Larger Map

Friday Lunch for April 23rd

Mike — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:52:16 +0000

AgileBCS will be having our Friday lunch meeting at Vietnamese Taste. This is a social lunch, so feel free to bring a friend. This is also a great time to come and get to know the group if you are new.

View Larger Map

Agile Games : April 1st on TAMU Campus

Mike — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:59:02 +0000

Want to learn agile principles and concepts in one of the quickest, most fun, and most effective ways possible? Come play games with us on Thursday April 1st at 6pm in HRBB (Bright Building) 113.

Don McGreal is bringing to College Station a variation on his best-of-conference Agile 2008 and 2009 presentation on learning agile through play. Don’s formal abstract:

This fun, energetic, and interactive session will explore techniques for accelerating the adoption and understanding of agile principles through experiential learning. The audience will participate in games and exercises that will illustrate how to target unique learning Vectors (Physical, Emotional, and Impressional) to maximize understanding. Whether you are looking to learn new and powerful techniques to convey and reinforce the (sometimes vague) concepts and principles behind agile or just looking to learn about agile in a fun and unique way, this session is for you.

Here are those event details again:

Date: April 1, 2010
Time: 6—8pm
Location: The H. R. Bright Building on the A&M campus.

See you there!

Friday Lunch March 26th at La Bodega

Mike — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:49:16 +0000

Our standard Friday lunch this week will be at La Bodega, across from Café Eccel. See you there at 11:30am. Map is below:

View Larger Map

Meetings the Week of Feb 22

Mike — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:26:50 +0000

We have two get-togethers this week. First up, our monthly evening meeting is this Wednesday the 24th at 6:30pm. I will discuss using Streamlined Object Modeling patterns by walking through an example with the group. Come with some ideas for a relatively simple domain to model. I will be testing my memory of how to do this “live” and from scratch by modeling something provided by one of the audience. If time permits, I will carry this through to implementing a simple, OO-based, Java implementation.

We will have the meeting at the Improving office on the second floor of 1700 Research Parkway and pizza will be provided.

After that, Friday is our next lunch. It is planned for Teriyaki Park in Bryan at 11:30am.

Note: The linked map actually points to La Riviera, which is in the same shopping center. Google currently has the address for Teriyaki Park incorrectly listed as “North Texas Avenue” instead of “South Texas Avenue”. Don’t search Google Maps for the address! If anything, search for “3700 South Texas Avenue, Bryan, Texas”.

Jan 28th Lunch: Fuddruckers

Mike — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:25:48 +0000

Come and join us tomorrow at 11:30am for lunch and Agile/Lean discussion at Fuddruckers on Harvey Road. We plan to decide on our next lunch by the end of the meeting, so bring your lunch location ideas with you!

View Larger Map

Hope to see you there!

Dec 4th Lunch: Carino’s Italian

Mike — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:26:11 +0000

Time flies, and another lunch Friday is upon us. This week we’re going to try Carino’s at 620 Harvey Rd. There is a map on the Carino’s site.

Join us at 11:30am for a discussion of Agile, Lean, and other topics. Specific topics on the table:

What is the difference between Agile and Lean?
How many practices are needed before you can call yourself Agile?
Are the benefits of Agile actually dangers (transparency, sustainable pace, people have to work together)?
What is debt in Agile projects?

Nov 20th Lunch: Pho John’s

Mike — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:12:05 +0000

While we may be cancelling our next two evening meetings, we will continue to meet for our bi-weekly lunches. The next one is scheduled for this Friday, November 20 at 11:30am. The location, chosen on our Google Group, is Pho John on Texas Ave. just north of Holleman.

View Larger Map

Evening Meetings Cancelled Until January

Mike — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:00:31 +0000

Our evening meetings for November and December have been cancelled as many of us will be enjoying the Holidays. We will pick back up with a meeting on January 26, 2010.