Agile software development has helped companies both large and small react more quickly to changing business needs.  But delivering great software in a predictable, timely way is only part of the solution.  Companies also need to validate new business ideas (products or services) and be able to react quickly based on that learning before they run out of money.

The Lean Startup philosophy, coined by Eric Ries, combines an Agile development approach for execution with a complementary Customer Development approach (formalized by Steve Blank in Four Steps to the Epiphany) to quickly validate that you are solving the right problems for the right customers using the right business model.

This combined approach is designed to help businesses get through a cycle of Build, Measure, Learn, as quickly as possible while keeping cash burn low.  In this session, we’ll discuss the basics of this approach, and how it applies to software startups as well as more established companies trying to launch new products or services.

Dave Churchville is the founder and CEO of ExtremePlanner Software, creators of ExtremePlanner (agile project management tool), and ClientSpot, (online project collaboration and time tracking software).  He has nearly 20 years of experience building software, leading teams, and occasionally making a mess of things before finding his way.  Dave has been using Agile methods for the last 10 years in environments ranging from tiny startups to large corporations, ever since reading Kent Beck’s original XP Explained book.

Agile San Diego has scheduled their annual summer social for Wednesday, August 4th at Costa Brava on Garnet in Pacific Beach beginning at 6:30 PM.  Each year, we decide to take a break from our regular topics and just chill out.  Of course, this being the group that it is, someone will invariably bring a laptop, so I imagine there will be some pair programming, too!  There will also be a few books we are giving away, so if you want some summer reading, show up on Wednesday, August 4th.  As always, no RSVP is needed – just show up .

Come for the wine!  Come for the sangria!  Come for the tapas!  Most of all come to hangout with your friends and enjoy the summer Spanish style!

Special guest speaker Agile Bob shares a bit of his storied Agile experience…

People often say “We’re doing agile at my company.” But what does that really mean? Unfortunately it usually means the organization has picked a small number of agile practices they attempt to do without really paying attention to the overall results. If a company is “doing agile well” it may even mean they are doing as many agile practices as possible. However, in practice there is a big difference between “doing agile” and “being agile!” Companies BEING Agile perform better than companies doing agile. They see higher morale among their employees. They use Agile as a tool rather than a process. Most importantly, being Agile means being devoted to the principles which drive success rather than hoping the practices will drive success. Whether you are using XP, Scrum, AUP, Crystal or another agile methodology, come learn the basic principles and how to internalize them so your team, organization or enterprise can BE agile rather than DO agile!

See the Monthly Meetings tab for logistics.

At our meeting on May 6th, Llewellyn Falco was presented with the AgileSanDiego Agilist of the Year 2009 award. Llewellyn has set the bar high for future awards with his work in 2009.

Llewellyn has worked tirelessly to spread Agile ideas & philosophy with particular focus on the technical practices of XP, by speaking at many local user groups. The talks have taught many local developers to unit test, refactor and deal with legacy code in a very practical manner. The spirit of Agile collaboration is evident in that all his sessions are co-taught, and re-iterated upon to improve their stickiness (chance that the audience will remember the key points). Llewellyn also developed free online resources for programmers in 2009 including screencasts and blog posts relating to code excellence. As a result of this work, he was hired as an instructor by DevelopMentor.

As well as evangelizing Agile practices through education, Llewellyn branched out through technical innovation. With help from Dan Gilkerson and Woody Zuill, he spent much of 2009 developing and promoting an open source tool “ApprovalTests” for unit testing. The goal of this tool is to make unit testing easier and more accessible for coders which is typical of Llewellyn’s work.

Llewellyn has proved to be a huge asset to Agile San Diego by being one of the main activists in guiding and growing the local Agile community. He is known in the community for being enormously generous with his time and expertise, readily offering to pair program with anyone with an issue, or coach a small company through technical difficulties. During 2009, he hosted Monday night coding sessions at his house where junior and senior developers alike were welcomed to collaborate and enjoy programming together, and he coached new speakers to encourage more Agile topics at local user groups and conferences.

And finally, at the end of last year Llewellyn began developing a curriculum in collaboration with Lynn Langit for young children, using TDD and pair programming, ensuring their first experience in programming is an Agile one.

Congratulations to Llewellyn and a big thank you from Agile San Diego.

This award was sponsored by Look Forward Consulting.

Many thanks to the award steering committee for all their hard work that made this happen; June Clarke, Alicia McLain, Gary Moore, Carlton Nettleton & Dave Weir.

We intend to recognize an influential person that has made an impact on our community every year about this time. The individual needs to be a resident of San Diego County but need not affiliated with Agile San Diego. So keep your eyes and ears open for a potential 2010 Agilist of the Year!

To kick things off we’ll be presenting the Agilist of the Year award, followed by a lightening talk by Llewellyn Falco about a curriculum he has been using to teaching kids programming using TDD.

Certified Scrum Product Owner

May 26th & 27th

Clinton Keith

$1,000

ASD discount: $50 off, code: “San Diego”

Certified ScrumMaster Training

June 2nd & 3rd

Agile Bob

$995-$1,250

ASD discount: $100 off, code: “AGILESD“

Welfare CSM

June 7th & 8th

Carlton Nettleton & Tobias Mayer

$250-$550

This meeting will be on Saturday, April 24th from 7 to 8:30 PM in Brea, CA (in Orange County).  Sign up here to attend.

First up, Steve Ross from Agile San Diego will give an introduction to Behavior Driven Development using Ruby, Cucumber, and rSpec. This will be a practical how-to for developers who have not yet integrated Behavior Driven Development into their workflow. You’ll see a straightforward, concrete example of outside-in, spec-first development, and there will be a demo of creating a simple Rails web app using behavior driven methodologies.

Then Rob Kaufman of SDRuby will give an overview of the diverse landscape of common Ruby testing frameworks, beyond Cucumber and rSpec. He will lay out the pros and cons of each, and how they can be best applied to different types of applications. He will give his thoughts on the philosophy behind each of the frameworks and then open it up for discussion.

After which we will convene at Rock Bottom for some brews with our Ruby friends, about 10pm. Please join us there even if you can’t make the meeting.

The meeting starts at 7:30 in the Computer Science & Engineering Building at UCSD. To park on the UCSD campus, you must purchase a $3 parking pass. Map and parking directions are here: http://bit.ly/blhraC

Come represent Agile San Diego!

Our main speaker (Steve Ross) will be creating a Rails blog as a means to demonstrate BDD using Cucumber and RSpec.

More info to follow on what SDRuby has lined up…

http://sdruby.org/