Agile Denver will meet in Boulder this month, October 27th. Our guest 
speaker is Mary Poppendieck who will present "Agile Software 
Development: Breakthrough or Passing Fad?"

Over the years there have been many fads in software development 
processes, and even more fads in improvement processes in general. In 
fact, improvement programs seem to go in cycles, with each new cycle 
lasting for about seven years before the next fad takes over. If you 
think about it, fads seem to last about the length of a management 
generation.

We are now heading into the early part of agile software development?s 
seven years as the favored process approach. Will it last, or will there 
be something new a few years from now?

There is no question that agile is on to something. If you look back to 
the way software used to be developed many years ago, agile practices 
are not so new after all, they revive all sorts of good things from the 
past. But agile development is bound to trip over the same stumbling 
blocks that have been around for decades: as time goes on, successful 
systems scale up, complexity compounds, and the systems become fragile. 
Unless and until agile approaches face this reality, they will fade just 
like other fads.

But this is not inevitable. In this talk, Mary Poppendieck will propose 
what the agile software development must include order for it to be 
sustainable.

As always, our monthly meetings are free to attend and open to local
software professionals, students and faculty. Feel free to pass this
announcement along to your colleagues.


AGENDA

5:30 - 6:30 PM  Refreshments, networking and announcements
6:30 - 8:00 PM  Mary Poppendieck Presentation


SPEAKER

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 product manager and 
department manager.  After Mary left the corporate world in 1998, she 
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? 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.?  A popular writer and speaker, 
Mary continues to bring fresh perspectives to the world of software 
development.


SPONSORS

The October 2008 sponsors are Rally Software and Silicon Flatirons.

Rally Software (https://rallydev.c...­) helps organizations perfect the art 
of software development through Agile and Lean practices. Agile 
development practices are quickly becoming a mainstream approach to 
software development because they shorten development cycles, minimize 
risk and help better prioritize features and customer requests. In fact, 
in a recent third-party study, Rally customer BMC Software was proven to 
have development cycles that were nearly three times faster than the 
industry average and one quarter the expected number of defects with 
double the team size.

Silicon Flatirons (https://www.silico...­) is a Center for 
Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado. 
Silicon Flatirons pursues three basic goals: to elevate the debate 
around technology policy issues; to facilitate networking, the 
development of "human capital" and the promotion of entrepreneurship in 
the Colorado technology community; and to inspire student interest in 
technology law and entrepreneurship. If you or your organization are 
interested in participating in this evolving venture, please contact the 
Program's Executive Director, Phil Weiser at [address removed]


DIRECTIONS

The October meeting will be held in the Wolf Law Building in room 204 
which seats 97. This building is located on the University of Colorado 
Boulder campus.

If you would like to map directions online, the building street address 
is: Kittredge Loop Dr, Boulder, CO 80309. There is free parking to the 
East and West of the Wolf Law Building. Also see:

https://www.colora...­


A G I L E  D E N V E R
www.agiledenver.org