Agenda
6:30 Pizza and Social (brought to you by Plaster Group)
7:00 Main Event - with Troy Frever
8:15 Retrospective

Blurb

A tiny startup (let’s say 4 -12 people) is the “sweet spot” for agile software development, where agile principles shine, practices are pure, and Life is Good. Yes! Except… sometimes, not so much. Okay, take two. A tiny startup is the most challenging place to practice agility, a pressure-cooker where no-one has time for lofty principles, high-discipline practices bow to wide-eyed panic on a daily basis, and success is more attributable to passion and hutzpah than to process of any kind. Yup, nailed it. Hmm. So how can both of these assertions be simultaneously true and false? We’ll explore this quantum-state paradox in “Agile for Tiny Startups: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” If you’ve ever been in a tiny startup, have dreamed about doing so, or just want to come and help make fun of those of us crazy enough to try to make a living at it, please join us. I’ve spent the better part of 35 years (yikes!) in startups and have plenty of strident opinions to harangue the audience with if things threaten to get dull. Of course, I also love disagreeing with myself frequently (obviously), so I’ll be bringing several different hats to help the audience keep track. Will we find out the One True Answer together? Good heavens, I surely hope not, but one never knows. See you there!

Bio

Troy Frever discovered XP in 1999, after two decades as a professional software developer. Since then he has been an Extreme Programmer and Coach for many companies in the Seattle area, including Active Voice, Cisco Systems, Quicksilver Technology, Aviarc Corporation, RealNetworks, Smilebox, Fanzo, and Ripl. He is currently exploring the life of an entrepreneur as co-founder and CTO of Blok24. When he’s not writing unit tests or refactoring mercilessly, Troy enjoys backpacking and skiing with his family and playing Ultimate Frisbee. Troy is also a former organizer of the Seattle Extreme Programming Users Group (SXPUG), a co-founder of the Beyond Agile user group in Seattle, and long-time member of the Agile Open Northwest (AONW) Board of Directors. AONW has organized Open Space conferences for the agile community in Portland and Seattle for over a decade.

This meeting is brought to you by Slalom Consulting and Plaster Group