LeanDog Site

Who We Are

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Our Values...

... are the foundation for all decisions. They serve as the compass that guides us through our personal and professional lives. All action; all thought; in every way we represent ourselves; we must represent our values.

Be fair.

Find the answer that best serves all parties. Act upon your highest sense of right.

Improve.

Grow continuously, personally and professionally, in small ways. Evolution is the sum of many tiny, nearly indiscernible adjustments.

Innovate.

Seek new ways; seek new means; do the unexpected.

Take Initiative.

Present your ideas. Put forth the extra effort. The one who makes the most mistakes, learns the most lessons.

Be accountable.

Answer for your mistakes and your deserved praise will come.

Be forgiving.

Seek to understand and assist. Do not condemn others for their differences. To criticize and dismiss leaves neither party better off.

Participate.

Become truly involved. Make this your team, for it already is.

Have respect.

Honor your coworkers and clients.

Live.

Make your life rich in many ways. Seek new experiences, new relationships, and a new perspective. Then bring it back and teach others.

And always, Tell The Truth.

Our Team

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Good Times. Great People. Excellent Software.

LeanDog is, above all else, a team of great people doing excellent work.

Herding Dogs

Jon Stahl

Chief Executive Officer

Jon co-founded LeanDog after 18 years of experience providing IT leadership in both Fortune 500 and start up organizations. His passion is eliminating waste, optimizing the performance of IT teams and helping organizations become lean and agile. Jon provides extensive hands on experience in organizational transformations to Agile and Lean practices. He is an active leader in the Agile and Entrepreneurial community. He openly shares his learnings at conferences and meet-ups. More >>

Jeff "Cheezy" Morgan

Chief Technical Officer

Jim Gorjup

Chief Operating Officer

Jim Gorjup has spent 20+ years in the Information Technology field at Fortune 500 and start-up companies. His prior roles include application developer, architect, manager and senior manager. His expertise is in the Insurance industry, specifically Property and Casualty Insurance, having spent over 20 years of his career. Most recently he has focused his attention with Executive Information Technology Recruiting and Consulting. More >>

Michael "Doc" Norton

Craftsman

Michael Norton (doc) is an Agile Coach and a partner with LeanDog living in Wadsworth, OH. Michael's experience covers a wide range of development topics. Michael declares expertise in no single language or methodology and is immediately suspicious of anyone who declares such expertise. A frequent speaker, Michael is passionate about helping others become better developers, working with teams to improve delivery, and Software Craftsmanship. More >>

Gregg Bobinski

Director of Business Development

Gregg Bobinski has spent over 30 years in business development to corporate IT companies, holding various roles including Director of Business Development at LeanDog Software Studio, Business Development Manager at ThoughtWorks Inc, Business Development Executive at Cap Gemini Ernst and Young, Sales Training Manager at Cap Gemini and Sales Executive at Systemation. More >>

Nick Barendt

Nick is a software developer and would-be entrepreneur. He has developed extensively in the embedded space, for robotics, machine vision, manufacturing, and data acquisition. More >>

Sporting Dogs

Ben Woznicki

BenWoz loves working with clients to realize their dreams by solving problems in the real world with software. Woz has worked with Fortune 500 companies to small startups and feels passionately that we can make our customer's world a better place through great product design & craftsmanship. More >>

Dan Parks

Dan has been a professional web application developer since 1999. The bulk of his experience is in web development but he’s very comfortable with any type of programming. For the majority of his career, he’s worked at 3 major insurance companies and was instrumental in the creation and maintenance of a claims system at one of those companies. Dan is most comfortable on an Agile team and is currently coaching developers as they transition to Agile. More >>

Deb Stahl

Deb is a multi-facted member of the team. Jumping in wherever needed to help get things done, she can be found helping with the books, making calls, working on marketing materials, or corralling the dogs. More >>

Diane Weaver

Diane is an avid agilist with strengths in Java and C#. In her 10 year career she has built software for the clean energy, manufacturing, retail, marketing, and healthcare industries. More >>

Eric Hankinson

Eric has been a professional software developer since 1999. He has primarily worked on web applications but also has experience in building desktop software for both Windows & Mac OS X. More >>

Glenn Johnson

Glenn Johnson is a Microsoft Certified Trainer, Developer, and Consultant specializing in .NET technologies. Glenn has authored and coauthored several ASP.NET and ADO.NET books. More >>

Jodi Hautala

Jodi Hautala-Carlson while still relatively new to the graphics and software industry has come a long way from her graduation skills. Graduating in 2008 from Mercyhurst College with a Bachelor degree in Graphic Design she then went on to earn a associates degree in Web Design. More >>

Joe Fiorini

Joe is a Web Developer with a focus on agile methods & technologies. More >>

Joel Helbling

A fanatic about business intelligence, data integration and information integrity, Joel has over 15 years experience in using, supporting and developing enterprise data systems, and the hardware and software systems upon which they are built. With deep roots in North East Ohio, Joel has worn many hats: project manager, software architect, team leader, process analyst, data architecture aficionado, troubleshooter, trainer, technical writer, public speaker, startup entrepreneur and last but most fundamentally, Dad. More >>

John Miller

An experienced agile developer with a diverse background, John is able to work in multiple languages. His current languages of choice are C# and Ruby. John makes a great addition to the LeanDog team. He's active in the local Ruby community and regularly attends Cleveland Ruby Brigade meetings. More >>

Joseph Leddy

More >>

Randy Eppinger

Randy Eppinger has been developing software for 17 years. Most of that time has been spent doing consulting for various industries including publishing, finance, education and manufacturing. More >>

Samantha Bolan

Samantha has been in the financial world for six years, with a focused attention on smaller companies and start-ups. After completing her Finance degree from Ohio University she traveled the country as an auditor. Since then she has been an accountant and assistant controller in a variety of fields including IT, restaurants, professional sports and online retailing. More >>

Stephan Schwab

Stephan is an International Software Technology Consultant living in Panama by choice who has broad and long-term experience of more than 20 years with a great number of technologies. More >>

Susan Gibson

Susan is an experienced client account executive with outstanding abilities in fostering client relationships, managing large IT programs and projects, coaching IT organizations in agile adoption, restructuring Program Management Offices (PMO) to be more lean, assembling and enabling high performing teams, and delivering lean business solutions with agility. More >>

Matt Barcomb

I'm passionate about the *entire* field of software development as well as making it a better place to work, play, and do business. More >>

Tim Conner

Tim has been in IT since 1995 and developing web applications since 2004. His primary strength is Java/JEE. More >>

Michael Lutton

Michael Lutton has been working as a software developer since graduating from DePauw University (Greencastle, Indiana) in 1997. More >>

Huey Petersen

Huey loves the software. He currently works in .NET but the relationship is not exclusive with experimentation in Ruby, Scala, and Haskell. More >>

Sarah "sadukie" Dutkiewicz

Sarah "sadukie" Dutkiewicz is a seasoned technology professional and has been working in a variety of technologies for over 8 years. Sarah's solid and well-rounded background includes roles in technical support, desktop support, database administrator, system administrator, and professional developer. Sarah's true passion comes from developing and writing code. More >>

Melissa Lewis

Apprentice

Melissa is a developer-in-training who enjoys learning and contributing to make the world a better place. More >>

Bill Holmes

Bill solves problems. His weapon of choice is C#. More >>

Angela Harms

I'm an explorer and an unschooler, and I'm madly in love with Agile. More >>

Adrian Wible

Levi Wilson

Levi has been developing software for 9 years, and loves nothing more than writing clean, maintainable and testable code. He is passionate about learning and sharing his experiences about both agile methodologies and software craftsmanship. More >>

Mike Crute

Mike Crute or simply "Crute" is a software craftsman currently working for LeanDog who loves programming languages and is passionate about agile software development practices. More >>

Zee Spencer

Zee is a maker of things that matter and a teacher of those who want to learn. He loves helping people along their path to craftsmanship, no matter where they are on that particular journey. More >>

David Shah

I’m a Software Engineer that’s gone from Devil Dog to Lean Dog.

More >>

Denise Leeson

I have been a software developer since 1990 and worked in the Banking, Insurance, Manufacturing, and Retail Industries across multiple platforms and languages. Over that span, I have developed web and client/server solutions using languages VB, VBA, C++, C# with the following technologies ASP, ASP .NET, AJAX, javascript, Jquery, VBA, VBS. Also along the way I dabbled in SSRS reporting, OCR recognition and edits, and serial communications. More >>

Gary Johnson

I'm a software developer of seven years who is passionate about user experience, user interface, and designer-developer workflow. More >>

Michael Lemley

After spending five years locked in a dark and gloomy cave at corprate America, I found the opportunity of a lifetime exploring agile software development here at LeanDog. More >>

Jason Felice

Oh, something wasn't right when I wrote my first little game at age eight. I was going to figure this computer thing out quick and move along as usual. More >>

Trevor Carlson

Friends We Practice With

Adam Goucher

Adam has been testing professionally for over 10 years; both with manual exploratory techniques and with the assistance of automation tools. As a member of the Context Driven school of testing, Adam will use which ever tools and/or techniques the testing mission requires. More >>

Chet Hendrickson

Chet Hendrickson specializes in assisting software organizations become more effective through the use of agile software techniques. More >>

Doug Craver

Douglas Craver is President of LaunchTribe, his 7th startup and holding company for several projects including StartupAgile, a collaboration with Jon Stahl and Jack Ricchuito. More >>

Jeff Patton

Jeff makes use of over 15 years experience with a wide variety of products from on-line aircraft parts ordering to electronic medical records to help organizations improve the way they work. Where many development processes focus on delivery speed and efficiency, Jeff balances those concerns with the need for building products that deliver exceptional value and marketplace success. More >>

Ron Jeffries

Ron Jeffries began working with Agile Software Development in 1996 and has been helping others with it since 1998. Ron is one of the authors of the Agile Manifesto, the document that helps provide the conceptual underpinning for Agile methods such as Scrum and Extreme Programming. He was also the onsite coach on the very first XP project, starting in 1996. More >>

Dog Kennel

Otis "LeanDog"

Chief Dog

Otis has been the LeanDog Software Studio mascot since the company was formed. He brings an interesting skill set to the team. His snoring during work hours, not only improves moral, it helps filter the air in the office. More >>

Sounder

Sounder came from Portland Oregon and has traveled all over the country with Sam. She now resides in Cleveland, which is great because she loves cold weather and especially snow! More >>

Pippin

Pre-Apprentice

Pippin is a Beagle-Terrier mix. He's young, happy, and isn't fully aware which items are appropriate for chewing and which are not. More >>

Michelangelo

Michelangelo, know as Mike to most of us, is a full bread Yorkie. He is 9 years old but has the agility and appetite of a young puppy. More >>

Buddy

When he is not protecting the house or sleeping he is enjoying one of his two favorite past-times: Playing tug-o-war with a rope and watching the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet. More >>

Koda

Koda is a true apprentice learning from his older brother Buddy. This is such tiering work that you will often find him sleeping on his bed in the corner of the family room. More >>

Iggy

More >>

Lacy

Lacy Lou is the younger of the two Holmes puppies; she lives in Euclid, Ohio. More >>

Frasier

Frasier is the oldest of the Holmes puppies; he lives in Euclid, Ohio and loves the snow. More >>

Herding Dogs

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Herding Dogs

Sporting Dogs

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Sporting Dogs

Eric Hankinson

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Eric has been a professional software developer since 1999. He has primarily worked on web applications but also has experience in building desktop software for both Windows & Mac OS X. He also has experience in multiple media such as video & animation, in industries such as banking, finance, restaurant & commercial building and was a Systems Administrator in a previous life. Eric is an avid agilest, he enjoys practicing his craft, and enjoys coaching teams in Agile practices as well as providing value to LeanDog’s customers.

When Eric isn’t coding or spending time with his family, he enjoys Woodworking, Landscaping, Hiking, Camping, Car Restoration and helping his friends with their own DIY projects. From time to time, he’s been known to relax a bit… but don’t tell anyone, he prefers to keep that a secret.

Joseph Leddy

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

joseph.leddy@leandog.com
Twitter: @apprentice
GitHub: @AgileDev

Matt Barcomb

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

- I am a Builder - I've always loved building, and improving things; from woodworking, to software development; from team building to continuous improvement. I enjoy taking good things and working to make them great. This applies to individuals, projects, or organizations. If I had to choose between working for a great team or working to make a team great, I would choose the latter.

- I am a Learner - I really enjoy the process of gaining knowledge and discovering new things. I'm not particularly picky and find most things interesting enough to spend at least a few hours discussing or reading about them. This has benefited me in areas such as business analysis, requirements gathering and consulting in general, but learning is the path that lead me to these things, not the other way around.

- I am a Connector - Working with people energizes me. Everyone has a story and I enjoy discovering it. I believe everyone has something to offer. I like helping people see what others have to bring to a team. I've also found that this quality has helped my public speaking, coaching, and allows me to work with anyone at any level of an organization.

- I am a Strategist - The bigger and fuzzier the problem, the more I enjoy finding solutions for it. I excel in roles that require vision, planning, and strategy. While I can operate alone at a tactical detail level if needed, I prefer to be part of a team that has these strengths and can benefit from mine.

- I am a Activator - I like to get things going. This is one of my strongest characteristics. It allows me to find gaps in an organization and taking steps to fill them. Strategy is good, but eventually results are needed. This perspective helps me get projects unstuck or make process changes. This trait helps me get value delivered and take decisive action when needed. Being a doer has lead me to a philosophy of "stop doing what doesn't make sense and start doing what does".

snippet not found: http://blog.risingtideharbor.com/feeds/posts/default

Tim Conner

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Tim has been in IT since 1995 and developing web applications since 2004. His primary strength is Java/JEE but he enjoys working with and learning a number of technologies, including .NET, Ruby and Grails. He has worked in the public and private sectors, for organizations of various sizes, but most enjoys working with a small team of enthusiastic and dedicated Agilists.

Michael Lutton

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Michael Lutton has been working as a software developer since graduating from DePauw University (Greencastle, Indiana) in 1997. Over that span, he's worked for or at a number of different well-known companies such as American Express, Abbott Nutrition, Century Insurance, Whittman-Hart, Sogeti (a division of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young), and Accenture. Michael has over a decade of experience working with the web and Microsoft technologies. He also has had exposure to a wide range of programming languages (C#, Visual Basic, Java, LISP, and Powerbuilder) and application types (web, client/server, and mobile). Michael is a strong advocate of the use of Agile and Lean in software development, S.O.L.I.D. principles, and software craftsmanship.

Outside of work, he loves to spend time with his family, travel to warm vacation spots, play video games, and read biographies.

Huey Petersen

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Huey loves the software. He currently works in .NET but the relationship is not exclusive with experimentation in Ruby, Scala, and Haskell. Scaling code in both organization and performance is an area of special interest to Huey. Outside of the software world you can find him following the Starcraft 2 scene and cheering for Zergs the world over.

Sarah "sadukie" Dutkiewicz

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Sarah is the owner of Cleveland Tech Consulting, LLC – a consulting firm focusing on IT automation, software development, and general technology decisions. Sarah is currently a Microsoft MVP in Visual C#, and is deeply passionate about the technical community. Sarah's many community activities include blogging, running a technical community website, planning events, and speaking at regional and national conferences.

When she's not doing her tech stuff, Sarah likes hanging out with her friends, going on road trips with her husband, and getting outside when the weather is nice.

Melissa Lewis

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Apprentice

Melissa is a developer-in-training who enjoys learning and contributing to make the world a better place.

Bill Holmes

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Bill solves problems. His weapon of choice is C#. Best know for his laugh, he lives by his motto: "If it's not fun, it's not worth doing." When not crafting creative solutions for life's coding issues he can be found spending time with his wife and kids. Bill spends his spare time as a mad scientist in training, working in his basement lab building small hobby robots.

Angela Harms

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

I'm an explorer and an unschooler, and I'm madly in love with Agile.

I love beautiful code that emerges from collaboration, and learning new ways to make it work. When not pairing on tests and the code they inspire, you can find me at conferences speaking about what I've learned (so far), or discussing puzzles and new ideas in open space. I've been delighted that my website, myAgileEducation.com, has invited lots of answers from practitioners and industry leaders.

Is it weird that while I value clean code, I might value cards & animated collaborations & retrospectives a little bit more? — me on twitter

In my free time, I'm a student of compassion, pushing the limits of what we know about love to discover what it can accomplish in the world. This means my central values are honestly, empathy, and care. I'm so happy to live in an amazing unintentional community, with four geekling boys and their father, where ideas and explorations and creativity fill the air.

Adrian Wible

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Adrian has been involved with software development for over 25 years. He spent his formative years as a kernel operating systems developer at IBM and then took on leadership and managerial roles at Dell. He returned to the technical ranks in 2005 when he joined ThoughtWorks as an agile software developer. He then migrated towards agile project/program management and coaching roles with ThoughtWorks, LeanDog, and Lab49. He has led teams ranging in size from 6 to 60 at over a dozen organizations in his roles as a consultant and director of software development. Adrian authored chapters in the books "97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know" and "97 Things Every Programmer Should Know" and speaks on agile topics at user groups and conferences. He's passionate about helping organizations to realize the benefits of agile and lean approaches to software development. He's a certified scrum practitioner with an undergraduate degree in computer science from Northeastern University in Boston and an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin.

Levi Wilson

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

When not coding or writing in the third person, Levi enjoys snowboarding, pretending he can still play basketball and most of all, spending time with his wife and two beautiful daughters.

Mike Crute

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Mike Crute or simply "Crute" is a software craftsman currently working for LeanDog who loves programming languages and is passionate about agile software development practices. A few years of working for a large e-commerce website has left him with a desire to solve complicated problems involving lots of machines and petabytes of data. Outside of software development Mike is an experienced systems administrator who wants to help development teams and operations teams work together more effectively.

Mike coordinates the Cleveland Python Interest group and contributes to "From Python Import Podcast." He occasionally blogs at mike.crute.org

When not working or coding Mike can be found inside playing Portal 2, outside jumping off mountains in the winter and pulling shenanigans all the time.

Zee Spencer

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Zee is a maker of things that matter and a teacher of those who want to learn. He loves helping people along their path to craftsmanship, no matter where they are on that particular journey.

He blends systems level thinking, outcome focused interaction design, and technical excellence to create his own unique style of software aikido.

David Shah

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

I’m a Software Engineer that’s gone from Devil Dog to Lean Dog.

While I'm strongest in Java / Java EE development, I try not be too coupled to any language or technology as I see all technologies as tools whose purpose should be focused on delivering quality and value fast and effectively.

Experience has taught me that some of the key ingredients to any successful project are clear communication, the right amount of technical tenacity and aptitude, and Esprit De Corps.

My passion and pragmatism for high quality, high value software have led me towards Agile practices and principles, and led me to LeanDog.

Denise Leeson

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

I have an insatiable appetite for improving technique and learning new technologies.

My interests other than everything development are: reading (mostly non-fiction), camping, horseback riding,fishing, hunting, target shooting, boating, and strategic game play.

My motto: "To be alive is to strive to be better than what you are and follow your passion".

Gary Johnson

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

I'm a software developer of seven years who is passionate about user experience, user interface, and designer-developer workflow. That obsession has led me to mobile development, which is where I currently reside.

Michael Lemley

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

After spending five years locked in a dark and gloomy cave at corprate America, I found the opportunity of a lifetime exploring agile software development here at LeanDog. My background and passion is technology. From back-end Python web development, to front-end Flex applications, and most recently, Android mobile applciations. I love technology and find that it helps fuel a desire to explore interesting new software strategies. My goals are to contunually developing my craft towards the light of agile and explore new languages to add to my toolbox. I love collaberating with my team to overcome tough challenges, as I love to pop in some head phones on and rock out. I feel that through code I can make a difference crafting tools and applications that users and buisness partners find value. Lookng forward any future challenges and hope to help innovate as we drive technology forward.

Jason Felice

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 07:32:00 GMT

Oh, something wasn't right when I wrote my first little game at age eight. I was going to figure this computer thing out quick and move along as usual. So many years later - eight spent in startups and eight in "real jobs" - I have to admit defeat on that "quick" part. But the next wave of programmers enters the arena, and I see them face some of the same problems (think, "Oh, man, don't do that again.") and many new and different ones ("Wow, that was cool!"), and I feel I can still do good in the world.

Trevor Carlson

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:15:00 GMT

Trevor Carlson is a recent graduate of Cleveland State University completing a degree in Human Resource and Labor Relations. Before starting at LeanDog he was a intern at a start up company in the Cleveland area. At LeanDog Trevor spends his day as the people person, recruiting new employees and placing them, when not working with people you can find him working on learning and development, developing new strategies for classes or organizing and implementing classes that are offered. Trevor is passionate about being a life long learner and while he is new to Agile he hopes to learn all of its practices working for LeanDog. In his spare time Trevor likes to play guitar and loves to spend his free time with his wife and cat.

Friends We Practice With

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Dog Kennel

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Throw them a bone.

Pippin

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Pre-Apprentice

Pippin is a Beagle-Terrier mix. He's young, happy, and isn't fully aware which items are appropriate for chewing and which are not. Pippin enjoys his squeaky soccer ball, puppy treats, and sitting in laps.

Lacy

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Lacy Lou is the younger of the two Holmes puppies; she lives in Euclid, Ohio. She enjoys Beggin Strips, getting her belly rubbed and having her head slobbered on by her brother, Frasier. Lacy is low to the ground so she works quite proficiently at cleaning up all crumbs off the floor. She hates heights but loves visiting the LeanDog boat.

Frasier

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Frasier is the oldest of the Holmes puppies; he lives in Euclid, Ohio and loves the snow. He especially likes digging holes so when his daddy Bill Holmes comes out to see him he falls down, placing him at the perfect level for excessive licking. Frasier’s hobbies include eating snow, digging holes, putting his sister Lacy’s head in his mouth and playing basketball.

Careers

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

If you would like to join the LeanDog team, send us an email at gigs@leandog.com. Please explain why you would want to join us and what motivates you. Please include your Twitter handle, LinkedIn address, Blog address, Github name and list of Tech or other groups you are active in. We may require a coding pre-test or simply have you come in and pair with us on actual work. We like to talk with Developers, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Testers, Web Designers, User-Experience types – those who are as passionate about their craft as we are!

Some of the Available Position are Listed Below:

Coaching Positions

IM/Scrum Master
QA/ATDD/Cucumber
Engineer/TDD
Engineer TDD Positions

Engineer TDD Positions

Python
JAVA
Ruby
C#
QA/ATDD/Cucumber

Positions available in Cleveland, Columbus, Erie, and Buffalo

Agile Coach

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 09:34:06 GMT

You have solid hands-on experience implementing agile. The agile manifesto is tattooed on your chest. You understand agile practices are valuable, but you know that the agile values are what really matters. And you want to share your passion with others.

Is this you? Maybe not the tattoo... But otherwise...

We want to talk to you. We've got a feeling you're going to look great in a fuzzy hat.

Our Apprenticeship Program

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 06:40:00 GMT

LeanDog is proud to announce the 1st iteration of our apprentice program.

We are currently accepting candidates who meet the following criteria:

Passion to learn Ruby on Rails, ATDD (acceptance test driven development), and agile software techniques
Start at $20 an hour with an escalating rate based on predefined acceptance criteria
Initially work as a subcontractor but willing to become an employee should the offer be presented
Home is Cleveland or Columbus Ohio
Willing to travel 30% of the time

How it works….

This is a six-month program with competency targets for every two months
Each apprentice chooses a mentor. The mentor accepts the apprentice.
Apprentices are responsible for their own learning and growth
Apprentices work on two projects; one assigned by the mentor and one selected by the apprentice
The entire program is run like an agile project

For more details, please visit the apprenticeship section of the LeanDog wiki:

Community

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

LeanDog is committed to the Cleveland Community and the Midwestern region.

Give Camps

A 72 hour camp-out where software developers, designers, and database administrators donate their time to create custom software for non-profit organizations. Tents are pitched indoors and out. We co-organize, sponsor, and host this event. To find out more about the Cleveland events, visit the Cleveland give camp site. For more info or to volunteer e-mail givecamp@leandog.com. If you are interested in sponsoring, be sure to read the GiveCamp sponsorship sheet.

Ignite Cleveland

A series of 5 minute "lightening speeches" given by local professionals on various topics. Ignite Cleveland is held quarterly. We sponsor, co-organize, and host this event. Visit the official Ignite Cleveland site.

Startup Weekend

An intense 54 hour event bringing together brilliant tech minds to create a company from concept to launch. Cleveland was voted to be the next city to host this event. We sponsor and co-organize this event. Visit the Cleveland Startup Weekend site or the official startup weekend site.

Code Retreats

After CodeMash 2009, several developers got together and started a new and unique event. At Code Retreat, programmers physically gather, code, learn, discuss, rinse, and repeat. We occasionally host, sponsor and co-organize this event. For more info on upcoming retreats, visit the Code Retreat site.

Cleveland Tech Events

Leandog is passionate about energizing and uniting the local Cleveland Tech Community. The LeanDog Boat plays host to several tech events every month. To find more about the events we host, visit our LeanDog calendar. Be sure to learn about all Cleveland events at the Cleveland Tech Events site.

Cleveland Ruby Brigade

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

LeanDog has been involved in the Cleveland Ruby Brigade for a number of years. We host many of the events and many of our team members are involved in organizing and running the group.

With over 200 members and an average attendance of over 30 people per event, CleRB is one of the most active technical communities in Cleveland. Come on down to the boat the first Thursday of the month or come participate in a Hackibou. This is a great group of people to hang around with.

Cleveland Agile Group

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

LeanDog wanted to be a part of a local agile user's group. After looking around, we realized our best option was to start one. So we did. CleAg launched in 2010 with 50 initial members. We now have over 125 members and growing.

Cleveland Agile Group brings together those who are passionate about their craft and believe in the Agile Manifesto. It focuses on promoting and sharing Agile practices to improve our profession and create opportunities for participants to learn more about Agile practices. The Group will share practices we have learned by studying well known methods such as Lean, Scrum, eXtreme Programming, Organizational Effectiveness, etc. but will also explore new thoughts. This group is run by the Agile community, so please contribute and help create a valuable experience. If you believe in upholding the Agile Manifesto, please join the group.

Cleveland Agile Group meets every month on the LeanDog boat. We are always open to new speakers, new ideas, and new faces. Regardless of your experience with agile; an original manifesto signer, or just investigating, we welcome you.

Pittsburgh Agile Group

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Pittsburgh Agile Group

We're On A Boat

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

That's right, we're on a boat, a large boat that is 20 years older than the Titanic. How many places have you worked that not only floated on Lake Erie, but had a full working kitchen (and bar)?

Yes, we take our work seriously. But we know how to have fun while working. There are two English Bulldogs on the boat almost every day. Visitors are welcome. We'd love to have you stop by for a day, a week, feel the vibe, get work done, and have fun.

In Cleveland

Our office is floating in downtown Cleveland right next to the U.S.S. Cod (a WWII Submarine). From our decks, you can see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Burke Lakefront Airport, Coast Guard and a perfect view of the downtown skyline. The boat, formerly a restaurant, offers open spaces that are perfect for practicing Agile. Our second story has a 50 seat bar area and a spacious deck providing great views of the skyline of the city. We share our office by hosting 12+ Tech meet-ups per month and co-organizing Cleveland GiveCamp, StartupWeekend, Ignite, and Code Retreats.

The Story of the Kearsarge

Designed by Washington Irving Babcock and built for the Interlake Transportation Company in 1892, the KEASARGE operated for her owners and on a part-time charter for the Western Transit Company until 1907. Then she was sold and, for roughly 30 years, became a part of the Canada-Atlantic Transit Company. From the late 1930’s until after World War II she lay dormant in Chicago. She was then partially scrapped and her hull was acquired by Sabadish Brothers Dredging Company and the stern was converted into barge 225.

1989 Barge 225 began the process of being converted into a restaurant by Pufferbelly Restaurants. On September 15, 1992, the 100th anniversary of the original christening, she was opened as the Hornblower’s Barge and Grill. Finally, in January of 2009, LeanDog moved in and the boat has become one of the most unique Agile studios anywhere. Talk about refactoring...;)

Events

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

LeanDog is committed to being involved with the Agile Community. We attend and speak at conferences, meet-up groups, community events, and corporate events. If you are interested in having LeanDog sponsor your next event, having someone from LeanDog speak, or just want us to come and hang out, send us an email at info@leandog.com.

Inc. 500 Awards

LeanDog will be added to the Inc. 500 list this year!
Where: Washington, DC
When: September 22-23, 2011
Check It Out: Inc. 500

Columbus Coach Camp

Agile Coach Camp is a not for profit conference where coaches come to network and develop ideas and practices for enhancing agile software development. It’s an Open Space, a self-organizing, highly participative conference for leaders and aspiring leaders in the industry. Agile Coach Camps have been held around the world since the first camp in Ann Arbor in 2008. This year’s theme is Get S’mores, a play on words for that favorite camping treat…Come have s’more fun. s’more learning, and s’more games!
Where: Columbus, OH
When: September 24-25, 2011
Check It Out: Columbus Coach Camp

COSE Conference

The sixth annual COSE Small Business Conference, is a two-day, first-class conference experience packed with educational workshops, national keynote speakers, a business-to-business tradeshow and effective networking opportunities.
Where: Cleveland, OH
When: October 19-20, 2011
Check It Out: COSE Conference

Grass-fed foam from Jersey

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Grass-fed foam from Jersey

Posted by Administrator on June 10, 2006|Comments

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New location opening tonight

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMT

New location opening tonight

Posted by Administrator on June 09, 2006|Comments

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The Finest grind

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:08:45 GMT

The Finest grind

Posted by Administrator on December 23, 2008|Comments

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Search

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

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What We Do

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

We make software better

Whether it is delivering a complete project for a customer, providing classes to help others learn and grow, mentoring others, working with the local technical community, or rolling up our sleeves and sitting down with customers to just get things done. We make software better. We make better software.

Agile & Lean Transformations

Software Delivery

Working with LeanDog

Training

Agile & Lean Transformations

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

We have been practicing Agile and Lean for nearly a decade. We have lead organizational transformations for clients ranging in IT size from 10 to 5,000. We have unique processes that we follow to understand your culture, constraints and value streams.

While spending time with your leadership team, we work together to craft a plan that makes sense, has many feedback loops, and progresses at a pace of change that you can absorb and sustain.

Many large Agile and Lean transformations struggle because the emphasis is only on delivery and standing up teams. We believe that a solid communication and cohesion plan with your customers and your entire department is essential for a successful and sustainable transformation.

A typical plan includes a communication and cohesion strategy, training, boot camps and coaches to launch your transformation. We have 2 planning practices:

Go Lean, Go Fast

Using our “Agile Buffet” and “Whole Team” charts, we meet with each member of the leadership team and interview them regarding their responsibilities, challenges, team compositions and understanding and concerns about going Agile/Lean. Based on the results of this meeting, we will quickly craft a plan together selecting the team, projects, coaching and training necessary to go forward.

Going Lean, Top Down

We typically work with the CIO and Sr. Leadership team to see the whole picture. To us this means bringing transparency by applying techniques that make managing everything from business partners, demand management from ideation to deployment, assets, competencies and leadership. We encourage transparency and emphasize techniques that support strong leadership, kaizen and a focus on eliminating waste.

Already Agile?

For organizations that are already going down the path of an agile/lean implementation, we offer consultation on the strategy, issues and challenge’s that your organization is facing. Our experience offers an outside view and new perspective that will help get you to the next level.

Agile From The Top Down

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 10:36:00 GMT

Organizations will have trouble sustaining a true Agile culture if the senior management team does not live the same way. IT Executives must practice what they preach. If they want teams to be transparent and agile, they need to lead by example.

We coach you on how to take some Agile & Lean techniques and apply them in a new way to help your organization understand your current state. Once we can all see things through the same lens, we can then develop a strategy to transparently carry forward your journey to becoming Agile.

We will cover topics such as customers, mission, vision, strategic initiatives, project backlog, application assets, people, leadership, financials and standard work.

We will also coach you and your management team on Agile practices such as:

Information Radiators
Stand-Up meetings
Retrospectives
Roadblock Boards with Escalation
A3 Strategy Workshops
Story Cards & Acceptance Criteria
Management Story Card Wall

Depending on the size of your organization, we will leverage two or more Agile Strategy coaches for this engagement. A typical engagement lasts 4 to 10 days with follow-up appointments as necessary. We have coached IT organizations with less than 20 people to organizations with over 25,000.

We feel that this practice is unique to LeanDog, we have created this concept and shared it openly with the Agile community. We don't just practice with LeanDogs, we seek out some of the brightest minds in the Agile Community to evolve and improve.

Strategists, Coaches, Practitioners

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 09:59:00 GMT

At LeanDog, all Agile Strategists have at least 7+ years Agile experience and 3 years Agile Organizational Transformation Management. Many of our strategists will also take longer term engagements as Master level Coaches.

We have three levels of Coaches:

Master Coach has at least 6+ years Agile experience, excellent facilitators, very comfortable teaching others, collaborates with senior management to solve difficult organizational challenges and has good perspective across various domains.

Journeyman Coach has at least 3+ years practicing Agile, comfortable teaching others and can influence change and drive best practices.

Apprentice Coach has at least 2+ years Agile experience using Agile practices, can pair and reinforce good practices.

We can also provide Practitioners that have 2 years or less on Agile teams, that are passionate about Agile, have had some training and will enthusiastically support the practices and culture change.

Agile Reviews

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 10:42:00 GMT

For those IT organizations currently using Agile, we offer Agile Reviews. LeanDog will assign two or more, depending on the size of the organization, senior Agile Strategists / Coaches to ensure that the assessments are complete and the recommendations are executable.

Interview with Management (IT and Product Owner)

Discuss expectations and understanding of Agile, including management's role. Current state of Agile and the desired future state. Look at program management process. What Agile practices are currently in place at the management level? How is Agile being supported from the top down?

Interviews with Iteration Managers / Scrum Masters (IM/SM)

Discuss expectations and understanding of Agile, including IM role. Discuss pros and cons of current Agile implementation. Look at project management process. Discuss story board and review backlog. What are the current challenges with the teams? What are the current challenges with management support? Discuss current business involvement. Assess critical pain points.

Interviews with Each Team Member (Business Analysts / Quality Assurance Analysts) (Engineers / Developers)

Discussion of BA/QA practices, Engineering practices, and day to day activities. Discuss challenges with agile practices. Discuss backlog, story board, and tasking. How does the team execute work? Assess critical pain points.

Technical Assessment

Assessment of code quality including coverage, cyclematic complexity, coupling/cohesion, and general maintainability. Assessment of TDD/ATDD/BDD processes. Look at tools and processes including development environment, source management, continuous integration, and migration procedures.

Deliverable (Assessment & Recommendations)

Within one week following the end of the interview and assessment process, LeanDog will deliver a document including an overall assessment of the state of Agile, assessments of each team, and specific recommendations for the overall program and individual teams.

Software Delivery

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Better Software Through a Better Approach

Collaborative

Itʼs your project; weʼre on your team. Your ongoing involvement ensures a successful product. We stay actively engaged with you from inception, where we help identify your users and goals, through face-to-face daily interaction, to regular delivery increments.

Transparent

We openly share the status of your project. From brief daily stand- up meetings, to concise status reports on delivery, quality, and issues, we want you to be informed. The better you understand the status and the better we understand the priority, the more successful we can be together.

Responsive

We focus on rapid delivery in small steps. This approach not only allows you to see your project take shape, but it allows us to quickly respond to change. Whether it be an adjustment to what is already done, a change to features not yet implemented, or a radical change in direction, we can accommodate your needs.

High Quality

The LeanDog studio is committed to producing quality. In our experience, a focus on quality work results in lower overall costs and faster delivery. This may seem counter-intuitive at first, but weʼd be happy to share our experiences with you and help you understand why we believe the surest way to go fast is to go well.

Working with LeanDog

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:56:00 GMT

Inception

Our aim during an inception is to identify the driving factors behind the project, garner a solid understanding of the product or need, identify the size and composition of the team, and to produce a high-level plan for execution.

Chartering

Purpose: We establish the purpose, benefits, goals and metrics for the project.

Strategy: We discuss our overall strategy for execution including timelines and team composition.

Tactics: We lay out a plan for execution including roles, working agreements, our regular meetings, and intended cadence.

Discovery

Comprehension: We quickly and collaboratively improve our understanding of the product context and the solution we intend to deliver.

Creation: Artifacts of discovery include product goals and metrics, lightweight personas, a user story map, a release roadmap, and wireframes.

Planning

Refinement: We delve into those deliverable items that will comprise the next few weeks of work, discussing details of the design and acceptance criteria.

Commitment: We discuss the work before us and commit to the scope of work we intend to deliver during the next work cycle.

Development Cycle

We develop software in short and regular cycles. This approach allows you to see the product functioning as it is under development. You are better able to adapt your vision and we are better able to respond to those changing needs.

Plan & Design

What will we construct during this cycle?
What benefit will we derive from this effort?

Perform

We focus on rapid delivery of high quality product.
We will communicate progress daily.

Evaluate

Did we meet our commitment?
Is this a quality product?
Will we realize the desired benefit?
Is our process working effectively?

Join us on the boat

Our office is floating in downtown Cleveland right next to the U.S.S. Cod (a WWII Submarine), the Burke Lakefront Airport, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We are located on a converted steamship, the Keasarge, that was formerly known as Hornblowerʼs Barge and Grill. The restaurant setting remains and offers open spaces that are perfect for practicing Agile. Our location gives a great view of the skyline of the city we support.

Training

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

LeanDog offers a variety of Agile focused training courses. Our courses are designed to offer each participant a hands-on experience in order to enhance their learning process. We are partners with many of the leading thinkers in the agile community and provide specialized courses. We also offer private sessions for companies interested in holding a course for their employees. For more information on our training, please contact us at training@leandog.com.

We've also partnered with Ron Jeffries and Chet Hendrickson to provide Agile Skills Training through the Agile Skills Network for complete course offerings that fill the requirements for becoming a Certified Scrum Developer (CSD).

We offer public courses or can arrange to have them conducted at your office. Our strategy is to pair with industry experts to ensure that we stay fresh and current on the latest thinking.

Most of our trainers have authored books. We respect that people have different learning styles and it’s nice to have a book for reference after the course.

Course Registration

Agile Management 3.0 by Jurgen Appelo

Agile management is an often overlooked part of Agile. There is much information available for Agile developers, testers, and project managers, but very little for development managers and team leaders. However, when organizations adopt Agile software development, not only developers, testers, and project managers need to learn new practices. Development managers and team leaders must also learn a new approach to leading and managing Agile organizations.

Agile Explained

The purpose of this course is to introduce the basics of Agile and explain how the management style changes with the conversion to Agile. The course begins with a review of the paradigms associated with Waterfall development and how they contrast with the Agile paradigms.

Acceptance Test Driven Development

Leading Lean Software Development

It's time to re-think our approach to software development processes, our perception of the people who create software, and our governance systems. This workshop presents an alternate framework for thinking about developing software-intensive systems - one based on Lean principles and the thinking of W. Edwards Deming.

A3 Strategy

This course begins with a review of the purpose of the A3 and a description of the fact-based culture that it creates.

Certified ScrumMaster

Instructed by Tom Mellor Over two days, we put theory into action through a variety of exercises. We cover the fundamental principles of Scrum, qualifying you as a Certified ScrumMaster. More important, we give you a jumpstart dealing with the obstacles that confront Scrum teams. You'll leave much better equipped to put Scrum in place and succeed with it.

Certified Scrum Product Owner

In this information packed course, expert agilista and experienced product manager, Jeff Patton, will provide you with the core concepts and skills to work effectively as a Scrum product owner.

Test Driven Development and Refactoring (.NET)

This course covers the fundamentals of Test Driven Development. With an emphasis on learning the skills and techniques necessary to perform this discipline in the real world, participants will begin with simple exercises and migrate to advanced techniques for building applications designed for testing using stubs and mocks. Participants will also learn the benefits of pair-programming practices. Additionally, participants will address issues working with legacy code.

Test Driven Development and Refactoring (JAVA)

Continuous Integration

We cover the fundamental principles of Build Tools, Continuous Integration Systems, and Advanced Continuous Integration Practices. We will use a series of workshops in order to put theory into action. We will also give you a jumpstart in dealing with obstacles to continuous integration.

Agile Developer Skills CSD

Agile Testing

This three day course explains how testers can become valued agile team members, how they contribute to delivering a continuous stream of business value, and ways to overcome common cultural and logistical obstacles in transitioning to an agile development process. It describes the values and principles that help testers adopt an agile testing mindset, and how the whole team contributes to the success of any testing practices, including automation.

TDD with Embedded C by James Grenning

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Instructed by James Grenning

Test Driven Development is a powerful technique for building embedded software. This hands-on course teaches the practice of Test Driven Development in the challenging environment of C. In this course you will learn how TDD helps overcome some of the challenges embedded developers face including: unpredictable schedules, poor quality, and the problems that follow. In addition, embedded software developers must conquer the realities of concurrent hardware/software development, scarce target hardware availability, long download times, high deployment costs, as well as the challenges of testing embedded C.

TDD leads to better designs, towards more object oriented approaches to C. In this call you will also learn some of the design principles that can help to guide engineers to better designs.

Most of you have existing legacy code. In this class you will learn valuable techniques for dealing with legacy code. You will see incremental approaches to getting control of the legacy code with tests making improvements to the design less risky.

Test-Driven Development, a key agile practice, helps software developers improve schedule predictability and product quality and can do the same for embedded developers. TDD is valuable even outside of agile development methods.

This course describes the problems addressed by TDD, as well as the additional challenges and benefits of applying it to embedded software. You will learn the test driven techniques as well as specific design approaches to make your C code to testable today, maintainable tomorrow, and ready for a long useful life.

This course will get you and your team well on the way to applying TDD for Embedded C in your development efforts.

Instructor

James Grenning, founder of Renaissance Software Consulting, trains, coaches and consults worldwide. With more than thirty years of software development experience, both technical and managerial, James brings a wealth of knowledge, skill, and creativity to software development teams and their management. As his professional roots are in embedded software, he is leading the way to introduce Agile development practices to that challenging world. He is currently writing a book on applying Test Driven Development to embedded software. See James' articles for applying Agile to embedded software development.

James was doing Agile before it was called Agile. He is one of the original authors of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. He is a seasoned extreme programming coach and trainer, coaching his first XP team in 1999. James has worked with Bob Martin, the author of many great books on software development, most of his professional career. They both share a passion for software and building it right. James learned from the guys that started it all: Kent Beck, Ron Jeffries, Martin Fowler, and Ken Schwaber.

James has made a significant contribution to Agile teams with his invention of Planning Poker. In a pragmatic moment, James restarted a stalled planning meeting. He had all the participants write their estimates secretly on a note card, cutting off seemingly endless debate and discussion. The meeting was no longer stalled. Soon, everyone around the table had a handful of cards and planning poker was born. That insight was the seed that has led to more fun, productive, and accurate planning sessions for Agile teams around the world. James can bring that kind of pragmatic action to your teams.

James has designed embedded applications for weather radar display, FAA control tower displays, distributed automatic testing systems, voice response systems, high-speed cut-sheet printing and communications systems. But, there is more to James than embedded software. Through his career he has worked in many domains and technologies. It positions him well to bring the knowledge and experience from main-stream software development back to his roots in embedded.

He has been training, coaching, and consulting since the mid-90s. His broad experience in design, requirements, management, planning, test automation, and process improvement makes him a well rounded resource for his clients adopting Agile techniques. His work has taken him to three continents.

Articles by James have been published in IEEE software, IEEE Test and Measurement, and C++ Report. James contributed a chapter to Robert Martin's newest book Clean Code. He also contributed a chapter to the upcoming book Beautiful Teams. He speaks regularly at Embedded Systems Conference and the Agile Development Conferences. He is one of the authors of CppUTest, an open source test harness for C and C++. Areas of interest are software process improvement, Object Oriented Design, programming, embedded systems, project management, Extreme Programming, Test Driven Development, test automation and Agile software development. James knows his way around Scrum, with Scrum Master and Product Owner certifications.

Course Specifics

Length

3 days

Audience

Embedded Software Developers
Technical team leaders
Managers that want to know the technology they manage

Prerequisites

Embedded C programming experience

Related Courses

Course Outline

Test Driven Development

Why Test Driven Development?
What is Test Driven Development?
The Microcycle
Exercise

Special Considerations for Embedded

Leveraging the Development System
Risks of Development System Unit Testing
Embedded TDD Cycle
Hardware/Platform Independence

Testing with Printed Output

Why is inspecting printed output manually is a loosing proposition?
Spying on the printed output
Using a dynamic spy
Exercise

Testable Designs

Object Oriented Principles Applied to C
TDD and Collaborating C Modules - testing the code in the middle

Test Fakes, Stubs, Doubles, Mocks

Spy
Link time fake
Exercise

Breaking dependencies dynamically

Dynamic fake
Exercise

Managing Hardware Dependencies

Self-Verifying Mock Objects
Exercise

Intro to Refactoring

Test Smells, Code Smells
Critical Skills
Incremental Improvement
Exercise

Object Oriented Design for Embedded Software

Why OO for Embedded Software?
Hardware Abstraction
OO Design Model
UML
Design Exercise

Agile Design

Rules of Simple Design
SOLID Design Principles
DRY Principle
Mind Your Own Business
Architectural Vision
The Big Picture
Vertical Slices
From Specific to General
Evolution

Exercise - Design Envisioning and Refinement

Working with Legacy C

Boy Scout Rule
Incremental Improvement
Legacy Change Algorithm
Seams
The first test, the next test
Sprouting
Convert Direct Function Call to Indirect Call
Library substitution
Generating Mocks
Encapsulate Data Structure; Exercise
Extract and Override; Exercise
Crash to Pass Algorithm
Learning Tests
Legacy Code Test Addition Strategy
TDD and Bug Fixes; Exercise

Wrap up Discussion

This course will get you and your team well on the way to applying TDD for Embedded C in your development efforts.

Agile Testing

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Instructed by Janet Gregory
www.janetgregory.ca

What Will You Get From This Course?

Students will be shown how to complete testing activities in short iterations, and how testers contribute on a daily basis during each iteration and release cycle. Through interactive exercises and group discussions, participants will discover good strategies for driving development with both executable and manual tests. The course is filled with real-life examples of the many ways agile testers add value. Understand how testers contribute on agile teams, how agile teams successfully cover all dimensions of software quality in short release cycles, and collaborate to deliver the "right" business value at frequent, consistent intervals.

Is This Course For You?

Understand how testers contribute on agile teams, how agile teams successfully cover all dimensions of software quality in short release cycles, and collaborate to deliver the "right" business value at frequent, consistent intervals.

Instructor

Instructed by Janet Gregory
www.janetgregory.ca
Janet Gregory is the co-author with Lisa Crispin, of Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Agile Testers and Teams (Addison-Wesley, 2009). Based in Calgary, Alberta, she specializes in helping teams build quality system, and her greatest passion is promoting agile quality processes. Over the past ten years, she has helped to introduce development agile practices into companies as tester or coach, and has successfully transitioned several traditional test teams into the agile world. Her focus is working with the business users and testers to understand their role in agile projects. She has partnered with developers on her agile teams to implement successful test automation solutions.
Janet is a frequent speaker at agile and testing software conferences in North America and Europe, She has written articles on agile testing and is a regular contributor to the North American agile testing community.

Price

Maximum # of students per class: 20, minimum 8.
Refreshments will be provided

Course Outline

Day One: Brief Intro into Agile and How Testing Fits In - Module 1

Overview of Agile terminology

Agile Principles - what does it mean to a tester
Intro to Scrum, XP, other agile processes

SDLC - Introduce Agile testing activities and approach

Adapting to Agile - Module 2

The whole-team approach

Ten Principles for Agile testers
Roles and responsibilities; collaboration

Overcoming common obstacles

Cultural issues; mini-waterfalls

Transitioning typical processes

Defect tracking
Quality models, traceability

Test Automation - How Testing "Keeps Up" with Short Agile Iterations

Using Automation So Testing "Keeps up"

Value of Automation
Barriers to Automation

Getting over the hump

Using the Test Automation Pyramid for maximum ROI

Using The Agile Testing Quadrants for automation
What should and shouldn't be automated

Developing an Agile Automation Strategy

What hurts most; multi-layered Approach
Applying agile principles
"Thin slice/steel thread" approach
Exercise - Breaking features/stories into thin slices

Summary: Key Factors to Making Automation Work

Day Two: Release Planning in Agile Projects - Module 4

Release Planning

Sizing your stories
Using an incremental approach

Roles and Responsibilities

Roles of PO, ScrumMaster, Dev
How testers contribute

Exercise: Release Planning Simulation

Test Planning in Agile Projects - Module 5

Using the Agile testing quadrants

Introduction: Vocabulary, Collaboration
Tests that guide development, foundation for quality

Developer tests
Business-facing

Tests to evaluate the product

Business-facing
Technology-facing

Plan to stay on track

Alternatives to test plans
Release-level test plan matrix

Exercise: Test Planning Simulation

An Iteration in the Life of a Tester - Module 6 (1:00 - 5:00)

Iteration Pre-planning

Going through stories
Distributed team communication

Iteration planning

Simplest thing first - steel thread
Acceptance Tests
How testers contribute in planning, estimating
Exercise - Write high-level test cases as a team

During the Iteration - Coding and Testing

Collaboration
Defect tracking
Expanding tests
Exploratory testing

The iteration demo
Retrospectives - improving your process
Celebrating success

Day Three:

Exercise: Iteration Simulation

Includes Iteration planning, code and test, automation, demo, retrospective
Debrief Iteration Simulation

The End Game Module 7

Successful delivery
The end game
Release retrospective

Key Success Factors and Wrap Up - Module 8

Seven Factors for Agile Testing Success
Wrap-Up; Discussion back to original problems that participants are experiencing.

Agile Developer Skills CSD

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

What is the ADS Course?

The purpose of this five day course is to prepare developers for work on Agile teams by providing them with the technical foundations and techniques necessary for unlocking the full potential of Agile Development. The course is intended to provide detailed guidance and experience on the necessary and desirable practices of Agile development.

After leaving this class, students will be able to sustain a Scrum/Agile Project with the technical skills which they have learned in class. Organizations that wish to gain even more value should consider having the development team attend the class together.

What skills do I come away with?

Practice Collaborative Development Techniques
Experience Pair Programming
Rehearse Sustainable Pace
Utilize Test-Driven Development
Practice Acceptance Testing
Implement Simple Design
Incorporate Refactoring
Leverage Continuous Integration
Apply Coding Standards

How is the course run?

This is an interactive, collaborative workshop using thoughtfully crafted simulations, lecture and discussion. The class is code intensive with requirements for both individual and group design and coding in class. All courses are run by master agile craftsmen with expensive agile development, coaching, and teaching experience.

How should I prepare?

Students should bring a laptop with Java and Eclipse installed for the pair programming exercises. (If you don’t have one, you will be paired with someone who does)

How does this benefit me?

Taught by some of the most prominent instructors in the Agile world
Learn techniques for exposing inadequate designs early in a project
Gain proof that you know more than just language syntax
Fulfills the technical training requirement for becoming a CSD
Learn to hone your XP-style technical practices
Covers the 5 five days of formal training required to earn a Certified Scrum Developer (CSD) credential.

Price

Continuous Integration

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

What Will You Get From This Couse?

You will leave this course better equipped to put Continuous Integration in place and succeed with it. You will have an understanding of the fundamental principles. You will also be prepared to handle some of the common obstacles to Continuous Integration.

Instructor

Paul applies, and mentors others on, nearly every Agile practice, from developer techniques to testing strategy to using adaptive project management approaches. His wide-ranging professional experience has seen him in nearly every software development role. He worked at ThoughtWorks prior to serving on the executive team at Stelligent. Paul recently founded Willowbark Consulting to enable clients in their Agile development endeavors. While at ThoughtWorks, Paul co-founded CruiseControl, an open source continuous integration server. Paul strives to unify the continuous integration community world-wide through CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference. To further CITCON's mission and help other similar conferences, Paul cofounded the Open Information Foundation, to help promote and fund activities that share information freely with everyone. See www.pauljulius.com for more information or feel free to email him at me@pauljulius.com. And Paul is one of the CI Guys, found at http://the.ci-guys.com.

Price

Minimum number of students: 13
Price: $1295 Early Bird: $1095, available until 1 month prior to the course start date.

Course Outline

Day 1

Focus: Build Tools

Workshop 1 - Running Builds
Workshop 2 - Creating a Basic Build
Workshop 3 - Unit Test Automation
Workshop 4 - Static Code Analysis
Workshop 5 - Independence
Workshop 6 - Repeatability
Workshop 7 - Portability
Workshop 8 - Portability

Day 2

Focus: Continuous Integration

Workshop 1 - What is Continuous Integration?
Workshop 2 - Configuring CI Builds
Workshop 3 - Adding New Builds
Workshop 4 - Installing A CI Server
Workshop 5 - Daily Builds vs. Checking Builds
Workshop 6 - Notification Mechanisms
Workshop 7 - Load Distribution
Workshop 8 - Load Distribution II

Daily Schedule

Each day consists of both classroom style lecture and hands-on workshops. Each workshop begins with a ten minute, introduction to the activities.

9:15-9:45 - Topic Presentation
9:45-10:00 - Workshop Session Setup
10:00-10:20 - Workshop 1s
10:20-10:30 - Break
10:30-11:00 - Workshop 2
11:00-11:30 - Workshop 3
11:30-12:00 - Workshop 4
12:00-13:00 - Lunch Break
13:00-13:15 - Morning Retrospective
13:15-13:30 - Afternoon Kickoff
13:30-14:00 - Workshop 5
14:00-14:30 - Workshop 6
14:30-14:40 - Break
14:40-15:10 - Workshop 7
15:10-15:40 - Workshop 8
15:40-16:00 - Afternoon Retrospective
16:00-16:15 - Final Recap

Upcoming Dates

We do not currently have any dates scheduled. Please contact us if you are interested.

Test Driven Development and Refactoring (JAVA)

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

What Will You Get From This Course?

This hands-on course will provide Java developers with a solid foundation for doing test driven development. This course will leave participants with the tools to begin to implement in their own development.

Instructor

Jeff Morgan has spent 23 years in the corporate IT, holding various roles including Senior Developer, Manager of Application and Enterprise Architect, Director of Technology and most recently Chief Technology Officer. He has been an evangelist for the Agile Software Development movement since 2003 and has spoken at several organizations, conferences, and technical events. He has taught numerous courses on technical practices designed to enable software developers to produce higher quality applications. He has also spoken internationally at conferences on topics related to open source software development. He is passionate about the Cleveland IT community and his company, LeanDog Software Studio, currently sponsors and hosts 6 technology group meetings each month in downtown Cleveland. His company also plans to sponsor GiveCamps to build and donate software to local non-profit organizations.

Price

Maximum # of students per class: 16, minimum 6

Attendees must bring their own laptop to this class.
Pre-requisite: For .Java C# Developers with at least 6 months relevant programming experience

Course Outline

Day One:

Introduction to TDD
Introduction to Refactoring
Introduction to Pair Programming

Day Two:

Design and Refactoring (SOLID Principles)
Dependency Management Using Stubs and Mocks

Day Three:

Dependency Management Using Stubs and Mocks (Continued)
Working With Legacy Code
TDD Tips and Tricks

Upcoming Classes

There are no upcoming classes. If you would like to schedule a class, please contact us.

Test Driven Development and Refactoring (.NET)

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

What Will You Get From This Course?

This hands-on course will provide C# developers with a solid foundation for doing test driven development. This course will leave participants with the tools to begin to implement in their own development.

Price

Maximum # of students per class: 16, minimum 6
$750 for a three (3) day course, seven (7) hours per day
No early bird price available
Pre-requisite: For .Net C# Developers with at least 6 months relevant programming experience. Attendees must bring their own laptop for this class.

Course Outline

Day One:

Introduction to TDD
Introduction to Refractoring
Introduction to Pair Programming

Day Two:

Design and Refactoring (SOLID Principles)
Dependency Manaagement Using Stubs and Mocks

Day Three:

Dependency Management Using Stubs and Mocks (Continued)
Working With Legacy Code
TDD Tips and Tricks

Upcoming Dates

There are no upcoming classes. If you would like to schedule a class, please contact us.

Certified Scrum Product Owner

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

In this information-packed course, you will learn the core concepts and skills to work effectively as a Scrum product owner. Moving beyond just learning the Scrum role responsibilities, you’ll be exposed to proven practices for effectively fulfilling your responsibilities within a Scrum process framework.

You’ll come away from this course learning how to work with your team and stakeholders to:

Identify the business benefits to priorities
Understand customers and users
Build a product backlog
Design the user interface

By leveraging the whole team, you’ll ease your workload, and help everyone else become active involved champions for a successful product – just like you are.

What Does This Course Cover?

Discovery process planning
Identifying MPGs: measurable product goals
Creating customer and organizational profiles
Creating lightweight pragmatic user personas
User interview basics
User Story Mapping to understand users and their use of your product
Incremental release planning
Design studio for collaborative user interface ideation
Paper prototyping and testing user interface
User story splitting and thinning
Tactical release planning and management
Release readiness assessment
Workshop planning and facilitation

What Will You Get From This Course?

Effectively collaborating with and managing stakeholders
Creating alignment with the team and stakeholders around common measurable product goals
Forming productive and collaborative customers and end-user relationships
Productive meeting and workshop facilitation
Planning and carrying out product discovery sessions to build a product backlog, envision and estimate the product, and plan incremental releases
Knowing what’s necessary to design and validate usable user interfaces
Planning the product construction sprint by sprint
Releasing on time by managing risks and maximizing learning while building software

Why This Course is Different

It’s about the product, not the process. Instead of focusing on filling process obligations, you’ll learn practices for identifying and steering the development of successful products. Scrum’s process obligations are relatively simple. Building confidence and clarity around product success simplifies meeting those obligations.

It’s about understanding product benefit, not just features. A product built on time with the required features doesn’t ensure success. You’ll see how to identify and steer product releases towards the desired benefit for your company, your customers, and your users.

It’s about customer experience. Product success is an outcome of a successful customer and user experience. You’ll learn practices for understanding and engaging your users and customers.

It’s about design thinking. You’ll see how great products don’t come from captured requirements, but from a deep understanding of the problems to be solved, and an effective approach to identifying and validating solutions. This is design thinking.

It’s about collaboration. The best products come from collaborative teams aligned around a common purpose. Effective collaboration doesn’t happen by accident. In this course, you’ll build the facilitation skills to get your entire team successfully collaborating with each other.

Who Should Take This Course

The stressed product owner: if you’re currently working as a product owner, or about to, this class will supply you with concepts and practice to help you confidently succeed.

The in-between team member: if you’re a business analyst or user experience person, your responsibilities may be a bit ambiguous. We’ll focus on your role as a product ownership team member handling day-to-day tactical product ownership.

The product inventor: if your passion is creating great products, then you’ll learn many valuable practices to help you do that inside a Scrum process framework.

The Scrum and agile coach: if you’re focused on helping product owners and teams succeed, you’ll learn a variety of practices to teach others, and use yourself.

This Course is Not For:

The portfolio manager: if you’re managing large portfolios of products, you’ll likely find this class a bit tactical for your tastes. While there’s useful information here, it won’t address your toughest problems.

The transient product owner: if you find yourself in a product owner role and trying to do a good job while waiting for a better opportunity, you may find the intense focus on product success and customer experience a bit tiring. This class is for the passionate product owner.

Before You Come

You should come with a basic understanding of Scrum and agile approaches. We won’t burn much time in the class getting participants up to speed here.

The new product development game. In preparation for this course you’ll receive a PDF of the Harvard Business Review article that helped motivate the creation of Scrum. It’ll help you to identify the style of product invention we’re striving for in Scrum.

Before the class you’ll be sent valuable information, which will help you to prepare. Information includes a short reading list that will include the Scrum Guide — a short 14-page primer on Scrum. This will give you the vocabulary you’ll need to launch head-first into effective product ownership practice.

Course Outline

Day 1: Understanding the Product You're Building

Scrum and product owner essentials
Identifying the benefit your product delivers
Understanding your users
Mapping your product backlog

Day 2: Guiding the product to successful delivery and beyond

Planning valuable product releases
Envisioning the customer experience
Guiding products to success sprint by sprint
Product ownership variations and scaling techniques

Certified ScrumMaster

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Who should attend

This course will focus on the ScrumMaster, the Product Owner, and the Team in a software development organization. However, the course is useful to everyone in a company using Scrum.There is a pattern that says the more an organization understands Scrum, the better the implementation will be.

Learning Outcomes

Gain hands-on experience with the basic principles of Scrum, including:

Product backlog
Sprint backlog
Daily scrum meetings
Sprint planning meetings
Burn charts

Practice dealing with the obstructions to high productivity on your Scrum team, such as:

Incomplete stories at sprint end
Endless revisions to supposedly completed backlog items
Trashing at the end of the Sprint
Obscure "technical" backlog items
"Scrummerfall" sprints with lengthy analysis, and time-consuming testing
Increasing technical debt slowing developments to a halt
Slow draggy sprints, furrowing into your soul, turning your existence into a distressing miasma

Learn practical approaches to increasing productivity while increasing Product Owner and management satisfaction. Explore techniques for applying Scrum to large and distributed teams.

There is a discount if this course is taken with the Agile Developer Skills course. *Contact us for in-house pricing.

A3 Strategy

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

A3 Strategy

The A3 is a proven, lean, problem-solving tool. It is a decisioning process which leads to better implementation of strategy at all levels of management. The course begins with a review of the purpose of the A3 and a description of the fact-based culture that it creates. The class includes remedies for problem-solving pitfalls, exercises to connect mission & vision to any problem throughout the organization, and practice creating measurements which prove the applicability of the countermeasures. We cover communication practices pull-based authority using the A3s techniques for strategy execution and problem-solving set-based decision-making Private classes are offered at a location of your choice, 1-day for $99. There is no early bird price available for this course. Call to schedule your class today!

Leading Lean Software Development

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Instructed by Mary and Tom Poppendieck
www.poppendieck.com

What Does This Course Cover?

Software is the heart and soul of a vast number of products and business processes; every year the ability to develop robust software systems quickly and reliably becomes more critical to the world economy. And yet, most companies use software development processes that were born when systems were coded in assembly language and computer hardware was more expensive than programmers' salaries.

Today we have pervasive internet, omnipresent social media, big data, and massively scalable hardware. These advances have flourished largely outside the realm of traditional software development practices, and they call into question the conventional wisdom of what it means to develop, scale, and maintain excellent software-intensive systems.

What Will You Get From This Course?

How to discover what customers really want.
How to look at your process from a customer's point of view and identify waste.
What's wrong with software testing and what you have to do to fix it.
How to engage people and stimulate focused innovation.
Scaling patterns that have proven successful - and their context.
How to frame risk and rethink scheduling to permit confident promise-dating and reliable delivery.
Tools for solving problems that everyone in the organization can use.
Leadership roles that work - from the perspective of followers.
How traditional governance systems can lead to sub-optimization and what to do about it

Learn first-hand from thought-leaders Mary and Tom Poppendieck how to reframe your software development process from the perspective of lean principles. Mary and Tom have pioneered the application of Lean Thinking to software development and documented their principles in three books, Leading Lean Software Development: Results are not the Point, Implementing Lean Software Development:From Concept to Cash, and Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit.

Instructor

Mary Poppendieck

Mary Poppendieck started her career as a process control programmer, moved on to manage the IT department of a manufacturing plant, and then ended up in product development, where she was both a product champion and department manager.

Mary considered retirement in 1998, but instead found herself managing a government software project where she first encountered the word “waterfall.” When Mary compared her experience in successful software and product development to the prevailing opinions about how to manage software projects, she decided the time had come for a new paradigm. She wrote the award-winning book Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit in 2003 to explain how the lean principles from manufacturing offer a better approach to software development.

Over the past six years, Mary has found retirement elusive as she lectures and teaches classes with her husband Tom. Based on their on-going learning, they wrote a second book, Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash in 2006. A popular writer and speaker, Mary continues to bring fresh perspectives to the world of software development.

Tom Poppendieck

Tom Poppendieck has 25 years of experience in computing including eight years of work with object technology. His modeling and mentoring skills are rooted in his experience as a physics professor. His early work was in IT infrastructure, product development, and manufacturing support, and evolved to consulting project assignments in healthcare, logistics, mortgage banking, and travel services.

Tom led the development of a world-class product data management practice for a major commercial avionics manufacturer that reduced design to production transition efforts from 6 months to 6 weeks. He also led the technical architecture team for very large national and international Baan and SAP implementations.

Tom Poppendieck is an enterprise analyst and architect, and an agile process mentor. He focuses on identifying real business value and enabling product teams to realize that value. Tom specializes in understanding customer processes and in effective collaboration of customer, development and support specialists to maximize development efficiency, system flexibility, and business value.

Tom is co-author of the book Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit, published in 2003, and its sequel, Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash, published in 2006.

Price

Maximum number of students: 35

Minimum number of students: 12

Acceptance Test Driven Development

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Who should attend

This course is for QA Professionals that want to fundamentally change the way they test software applications.

Learning Outcomes

The course introduces you to the concepts of Acceptance Test Driven Development, also called Specification Driven Development. You learn how Acceptance Test Driven Development changes the workflow of the whole team. Through a series of targeted workshops, this course introduces Cucumber and Ruby scripting and the techniques necessary to write tests that are robust and easy to maintain. The five-day course includes how to read and write data to a database for your tests, read and write XML files, and modify your scripts to handle the special needs of Ajax applications.

Course Preparation

This course assumes the attendee has no scripting or programming experience. We will introduce all of the scripting techniques necessary in order to write robust automation scripts. Therefore, there are no pre-requisites for this course.

Course Structure and Pricing

We offer a three and five day version of the course.

*Contact us for in-house pricing.

Instructor Credentials

Our instructors are coaches that have worked with teams helping them adopt the practices taught here. We have real-world experience implementing these practices on teams using varied technologies.

Why our course is the best choice

Most automation efforts fail because tests become brittle over time and hard to maintain. What really sets this course apart from other courses is the focus on creating tests that are easy to maintain. This course has a unique way of introducing engineering concepts in a non-threatening manner. These concepts are essential to ensure the longevity of your automation efforts.

Three-Day Course Agenda

Day 1

An Introduction to Acceptance Test Driven Development
Communications Exercises
An Introduction to Watir & Ruby

Our first web test
Using Web Development Tools
Writing and executing Watir scripts
Making our scripts low maintenance
Building reusable components

Day 2

Introducing Cucumber

The structure of a Cucumber project
Writing and executing Cucumber scripts
Reporting in Cucumber
Different types of Scenarios in Cucumber
Removing duplication in our scripts
Testing complex scenarios

Day 3

More Cucumber

Classes & Objects
Ruby data types
Using the PageObjects gem to simplify our tests
Introducing regular expressions
Page factories
Transformations
Creating high level tests
Default data

Workflow

Writing the tests before the application

Five-Day Course Agenda

The 5-Day course follows the same agenda as the 3-Day course for the first two days.

Day 3

More Cucumber

Classes & Objects
Ruby data types
Using the PageObjects gem to simplify our tests
Introducing regular expressions
Page factories
Transformations
Creating high level tests
Default data
Finding Nested Elements

Day 4

More Cucumber

Using modules for reusable page partials
RSpec custom matchers
Writing cukes for a non-existant workflow
Tags & Focus

Accessing Databases

Gemfile and Bundler
ActiveRecord
Cucumber and Databases
Factory Girl
Combine Web and DB
Keeping you database clean

Day 5

Reading and Searching in XML
Verifying XML Content
Creating XML Documents

Testing Web 2.0

Ajax - waiting for asynchronous events
Page level waiting
Element level waiting
Testing applications with a lot of ajax controls

Workflow

Writing the tests before the application
Pre-Sprint workflow
Sprint workflow
Gotchas to watch out for
ATDD Recap

Register

Agile Explained

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

We cover the fundamental principals of Agile development including a process framework for implementing them. Using hands on interactive exercises, participants learn the basics of:

Breaking large projects into a story card backlog
Running a release planning meeting
Working as a development team during an iteration
Running an iteration planning meeting

Price

Maximum # of students per class: 20

No Early Bird Price available

Pre-requisite: None

Benefits

Following successful completion of the course, each participant will be have a solid understanding of the core tenants of Agile and Scrum software development

Participants will be able to join existing Agile teams and immediately begin to work within the team’s development process

Participants will be prepared to tackle more complex, role specific Agile techniques either through self study or advanced Agile classes

Logistics

You'll receive bound and digital copies of the course materials, reference materials, and course slides.

Course Outline

Process Overview

Story Cards and Creating the Product Backlog

Estimation

Release Planning Meeting

Iteration Planning Meeting

Whole Team
Story Card Wall
Retrospectives

Process Chart

Agile Management 3.0 by Jurgen Appelo

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Instructed by Jurgen Appelo

www.jurgenappelo.com

What Will You Get From This Course?

Several studies indicate that “old-style” managers are the biggest obstacle in transitions to Agile software development. Development managers and team leaders need to learn what their new role is in Agile software development organizations. This course will help them.

Is This Course For You?

This course aims at leaders/managers who want to become Agile, and developers/testers/project managers who want to become great team leaders or line managers. (No practical experience with Agile methods is necessary, though some familiarity with Agile principles and practices is useful.)

Instructor

Jurgen Appelo is a writer, speaker, trainer, entrepreneur, illustrator, developer, manager, blogger, reader, dreamer, leader, freethinker, and… Dutch guy.

Since 2008 Jurgen writes a popular blog at www.noop.nl, which deals with development management, software engineering, business improvement, personal development, and complexity theory. He is the author of the book Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders, which describes the role of the manager in agile organizations. He is also a speaker, being regularly invited to talk at business seminars and conferences around the world.

After studying Software Engineering at the Delft University of Technology, and earning his Master’s degree in 1994, Jurgen Appelo has busied himself starting up and leading a variety of Dutch businesses, always in the position of team leader, manager, or executive. Jurgen has experience in leading a horde of 100 software developers, development managers, project managers, business consultants, quality managers, service managers, and kangaroos, some of which he hired accidentally.

Nowadays he works full-time developing innovative courseware, books, and other types of original content. But sometimes Jurgen puts it all aside to do some programming himself, or to spend time on his ever-growing collection of science fiction and fantasy literature, which he stacks in a self-designed book case. It is 4 meters high.

Jurgen lives in Rotterdam (The Netherlands)—and sometimes in Brussels (Belgium)—with his partner Raoul. He has two kids, and an imaginary hamster called George.

Price

Minimum # of students per class: 12

Maximum # of students per class: 35

Refreshments will be provided

Course Outline

Day One:

1. Agile and Lean software development are the new golden standards for software teams. You will learn about different Agile methods, popular best practices, the 7 dimensions of looking at software projects, challenges in Agile adoption around the world, and the contribution of the manager and team leader in Agile organizations;

2. People are the most important parts of an organization and managers must do all they can to keep people active, creative, and motivated. You will learn about the difference between extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation, the 10 intrinsic desires, and common techniques for understanding what is important to the people in your teams, such as one-on-one meetings, personal assessments, the 12 most important questions, and 360 degree meetings;

3. Teams are able to self-organize, and this requires empowerment, authorization, and trust from management. You will learn how to make self-organization work, how to distribute authorization in an organization, the challenges of empowerment, how to grow relationships of trust, and several techniques for distributed control, such as the 7 levels of delegation, and authority boards;

4. Self-organization can lead to anything, and it’s therefore necessary to protect people and shared resources, and to give people a clear purpose and defined goals. You will learn when to manage and when to lead, how to use different criteria to create useful goals, about the challenges around management by objectives, and how to protect people and shared resources from any bad effects of self-organization.

Day Two:

1. Complexity science and systems thinking are the cornerstones of an Agile mindset. You will learn about causal loop diagrams, what complexity theory is, how to think in terms of systems, about Black Swans and Jokers, about the difference between complex and complicated, and the 7 principles of complexity thinking;

2. Teams aren’t able to achieve their goals if team members aren’t capable enough, and managers must therefore contribute to the development of competence. You will learn about skill levels and discipline levels, how and when to apply the seven approaches of competence development, how to measure progress in a complex system, the effect of sub-optimization, and several tips for useful metrics;

3. Many teams operate within the context of a complex organization, and thus it is important to consider structures that enhance communication. You will learn how to grow an organizational structure as a fractal, how to balance specialization and generalization, how to choose between functional and cross-functional teams, about informal leadership and widening job titles, and about treating teams as value units in a value network;

4. People, teams, and organizations need to improve continuously, in order to defer failure for as long as possible. You will learn about approaches and strategies for continuous improvement, about the Red Queen’s Race, about the three drivers of improvement, about linear versus non-linear improvement, and how to perform an adaptive walk over a fitness landscape.

Games and Exercises

Each of the four topics includes at least one game or exercise where people put into practice the ideas of the course in groups of five. Sometimes the attendees play as different managers against each other. Sometimes they act together as one manager, sharing their thoughts while working on a problem.

Every social activity ends with a debrief and a discussion, so that people can relate what they’ve learned to their own situation, and bring up questions and experiences to be addressed by the whole group.

Prerequisites

What We Practice

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

These are some of the techniques we practice and teach. The chart demonstrates the concepts that apply to individual roles in the corners, while the center shows concepts that should be practiced by the team as a whole.

Agile is about being a team, being passionate about your craft, and eliminating waste to deliver the maximum business value. Going agile is a cultural transformation that builds on courage, communication, respect and fast feedback loops with your peers, your software and with your clients. Every organization and team is different, it is up to you to choose the practices that best apply to your situation. We use this chart at a starting point for a discussion about what your specific needs are and then develop a strategy together to accomplish your goals.

Agile Manifesto

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Agile Manfesto

eXtreme Programming (XP)

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Extreme Programming

Lean

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Lean

Scrum

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Scrum

What We Say

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

LeanDog Blogs

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Agile Reference Materials

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Over the years, we've amassed a collection of brochures, flyers, slide-shows, and videos. Here we share them with you.

Agile Buffet

Presentations

Whole Team

Reading List

Agile Buffet

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 07:55:00 GMT

Ask ten people what it means to be agile and you'll get ten different answers. At the heart of it, agile is a simple set of values. But how do you apply those values to your day to day work? How do you know you're being "agile"? LeanDog can help you figure that out. From what the roles are, to how you work with your customer, to how to get the solution pushed to production. Our agile buffet represents but a sample of the practices and processes we can help with.

LeanDog's Agile Buffet

Presentations

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

We present around the world at conferences and user groups, covering topics from agile from the top down to craftsmanship. The following are a few of our presentations.

Michael "Doc" Norton- "Take Control of Your Development Career"

| Get your Presentation Pack

Jon Stahl- "Agile From the Top Down: Executives & Leadership Living Agile"

Agile From the Top Down: Executives & Leadership Living Agile by Jon Stahl

View more presentations from LeanDog

Whole Team

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 07:54:44 GMT

A key value in agile is "Individuals and Interactions over Process and Tools". Agile teams work together crossing role boundaries to focus on the highest value items the team needs to complete. Using a whole team approach cuts delay and waste due to hand-offs and failed communication. According to Mary Poppendieck, the typical boundaries on a team increase the overall cost by 25%.

To be effective, the team needs to be empowered to make decisions and execute without waiting for approval from outside parties. So the right people need to be in the room; collaborating and communicating. The team is both empowered and accountable; requiring leadership as opposed to management.

While everyone crosses roles to help get the work done, specialists are still required. Teams are typically comprised of two business analysts, two quality analysts, and a single iteration manager for every four developers.

LeanDog's Whole Team PDF

Reading List

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 10:02:08 GMT

We have a number of books that we recommend to our clients. As we add more we'll keep this list updated.

Presentations

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 07:51:00 GMT

We present around the world at conferences and user groups, covering topics from agile from the top down to craftsmanship. The following are a few of our presentations.

Jon Stahl & Michael Norton

1. Agile & UX What changes & other C.R.A.P.

Are agile and user experience design compatible? Can they work together or is agile a square hole to the UX round peg? We contend that they are compatible. We help you recognize your company's UX appetite, regardless of software methodology. We then look at how agile changes things, discuss some of the UX practices developers need to understand (including CRAP), show how UX and developers can collaborate, and finally discuss agile and UX in the wild.

Agile & UX What changes and other C.R.A.P.

View more presentations from LeanDog

Jon Stahl

1. Agile From the Top Down: Executives & Leadership Living Agile

Agile is becoming mainstream. Grass root teams are not the only way that Agile is getting introduced. Senior Management wants to understand how to implement Agile/Lean from the top down. It’s important that they can “See the Whole” and start practicing the culture they wish to create. Those who are already on the journey need a more cohesive view and better feedback loops as to where they are and what challenges they are facing. This talk will share some Agile & Lean techniques, applied in a new way, to help organizations understand their constraints so they can transparently carry forward their journey to becoming Agile. “Seeing the Whole” includes customers, projects, applications, people, leadership, financials and Standard Work. We will propose some guiding principles for PMO’s to help support this journey that can be applied to both Agile & Waterfall approaches.

Agile From the Top Down: Executives & Leadership Living Agile by Jon Stahl

View more presentations from LeanDog

2. Agile Explained

We use this slide deck to explain the Agile practices that we teach. This is what we call our "Agile Buffet", you don't have to adopt all of these practices but you should understand them so that you can use them as necessary.

Agile Explained by LeanDog

View more presentations from LeanDog

3. Seeing Constraints, Kanban Explained

Seeing constraints, pulling value and eliminating waste is the goal of practicing kanban. This session is for those who are not familiar with this practice. In addition to understanding how to implement kanban, we will also discuss cross team signals, team signals & retrospective boards. I will use physical boards to illustrate the concepts.

Seeing Constraints, Kanban Explained by Jon Stahl

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Michael "Doc" Norton

1.Take Control of Your Development Career

As developers, we tend to spend a lot of time focused on languages, frameworks, and tools. But few of us spend time thinking about our careers or personal growth. Michael "Doc" Norton talks about simple things you can do today that pay off in a big way tomorrow. Take control of your Development Career. Be the developer you wanted to be. It is easier than you might think.

Take Control of Your Development Career - Michael "Doc" Norton

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2. The Technical Debt Trap

Technical Debt has become a catch-all phrase for any code that needs to be re-worked. Much like Refactoring has become a catch-all phrase for any activity that involves changing code. These fundamental misunderstandings and comfortable yet mis-applied metaphors have resulted in a plethora of poor decisions. What is technical debt? What is not technical debt? Why should we care? What is the cost of misunderstanding? What do we do about it? Doc discusses the origins of the metaphor, what it means today, and how we properly identify and manage technical debt.

The Technical Debt Trap Updated

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3. Introduction To Functional Programming with Scheme

Introduction To Functional Programming with Scheme - LeanDog Edition

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4. Training Software Professionals - Just What the Doctor Ordered

Training Software Professionals - Just What the Doctor Ordered

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LeanDog Boat Renovations

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:16:00 GMT