Abstracts

Speaker	Title	Abstract	Public
Frederic Oehl	Introduction to Agile Methods	In 2001, 17 software engineers published the Agile Manifesto. We will review the Manifesto to talk of the changes involved by the move to agile. We will also introduce some of the Agile Methods.	Beginner
Fran O'Hara	Scrum – A Tester's Perspective	Of all the agile methods, Scrum seems to be spreading the most. However, Scrum does not say much about testers and testing and, in many cases, organisations using agile struggle to implement effective approaches to testing and achieving the productivity enhancements with the required level of quality. This is because of issues such as • Implementing SCRUM as a effective work management approach but without designing/adopting appropriate development and test practices within the incremental framework • Partial implementation of agile methods and agile mindset sometimes resulting in negative quality implications • No clear Scrum test strategy This presentation will: • Explain the essence of Scrum, its roles, practices and the mindset changes required • Define how the tester fits into the Scrum team • Present the key learning points so far in Scrum from a test perspective including testing without detailed requirements, testing strategies in incremental/iterative environments and how to integrate agile practices such Test Driven Development (TDD) and exploratory testing in Scrum	All
Colm O'hEocha	New to Agile	1) Agile is different - it involves a paradigm shift in how we conduct software development. Its not just a case of buying a new tool and renaming roles in the team - it involves a highly pragmatic, risk-adverse approach to development, based on the same lean thinking that made manufactures like Toyota world leaders in product development. 2) Agile is good - research shows it is delivering real business agility, productivity, quality. Real world experiences with agile can be used to build strong business cases and demonstrate its benefits. 3) Agile is going mainstream - contrary to common myths, its not just for small co-located teams working on green-fields projects where quality isn't critical. Its being applied across global enterprises and a wide variety of project types.	Beginner
Richard Bowden	2 Case Studies	Richard will speak on his experiences with using scrum on two projects with varying results - a website redesign project and the configuration/deployment of a Saas based front office solution.	All
Mark Sheppard	Agile in Action	If you are new to Agile and you’ve heard some phrases like “Showcase”, “Daily Stand-up” and “User Story” but were too embarrassed to ask what they meant, this session is for you. By referring to actual examples and case studies, we will bring these terms to life. We will show you how real business value was delivered by projects big and small using these and other Agile techniques.	All
David Williams	Agile Services Oriented Architecture	Does Agile development help you develop Service Oriented Architectures? What happens when you combine the world of SOA with Agile practices?	All