By Rosalyn Charlton, September 2010

Go on, admit it!  Our user group gatherings just keep getting better and better.  During our September event we held part 2 of our Agile Showcase presentations, and what a showcase it was.  Much to our enjoyment the evening involved Oscar-award winning theatrical performances, virtual drives to the beach complete with ‘backseat tester’, audience incentives involving imported beer and an obligatory Star Trek reference.  I kid you not.

If you were there then you will probably have a little grin appearing at the corners of your mouth right now and you will be nodding your head ever so slightly in recollection.  If you weren’t there I can only urge you not to miss another event ever.  These things are truly fabulous on quite unexpected levels!

During the course of our evening we heard from Kim Johnston at SQS on the role of the tester in an agile process, and from Chris Tite at Agrista on their long and winding journey through many toils and tribulations to how their Agile team runs today.

SQS demonstrated in no uncertain terms the essential role of a tester in every facet of the Agile software development process giving us a clear view of the value to be gained from having a tester bring their specific and pragmatic perspective to the requirements gathering and user-story creations, through the development process, right to the declaration of “done”.   In the most entertaining of theatrical performances Kim and her team demonstrated how essential it was to retain a constant vital link between development and actual user needs, usually in the form of a tester who provides the ‘compass’ for the process.   This of course is the integral assistance that SQS and their teams provide to their clients in this exact role as testers in agile processes.

Not only did SQS make some very valid points, in the most imaginative of ways, they were also our very generous sponsor of all refreshments for the evening, so a very big thank you goes out to SQS for keeping us so well fed, watered and enlightened.

Chris Tite then took us through the Agrista Agile journey, and what a journey it has been.   Chris and his team have left no agile stone unturned in their search for the optimal methodology to meet their various needs.   Aside from some highly motivating imported beer prizes, he also provided a very reassuring view that trial and error is not a bad thing.  In fact it is rather agile, and far better than ‘settling’ uncomfortably with the first selected Agile option out of fear of change or unwillingness to do so.  There are pros and cons to all frameworks and methodologies and the underlying agile philosophy of “inspect and adapt” must be employed for greatest success on your agile journey.    Chris has also spent a lot of time investigating a plethora of tools to aid this agile path and you can ask him more about these at the next Agile event.  Out of interest has anyone else noticed a most curious link between tech tools and foreign-sounding groceries?  Balsamiq, Bamboo, Gherkin, Fisheye?  Most curious indeed. Chris covered many elements of agile at a high level, and the discussions which followed yielded many shared ideas and opened doors to further discussions on various topics at future events.

At this point it’s probably worth stepping back and taking a bird’s eye view of the last two events of showcases; at what our collective objective was when we chose to run these, how they unfolded, and ultimately what they afforded us as a user group.   To recap, what we as a group set out to do was to establish a solid understanding of the extent of the agile experience across our User Group so as to know best where our  respective expertise lies.  It also aimed to “break the ice” as it were, to get the group interacting and discussing freely, since we agreed that this is the corner stone to an effective user group and the basis for learning and knowledge sharing.

It seems to me that we can officially pronounce this a mission successfully accomplished, or should I say “DONE”.   I for one found both these events to be extremely informative and a tremendously effective means of sharing and learning by allowing open discussions to target the exact points at which learning and debate are needed.

But don’t take my word for it.  Here is what some of our user group think:

“The excitement to share experiences was equaled only by the value gained from asking questions.” Gary Daniell, SA Home Loans.

“What a great and involved audience – fantastic that Durban has such an active group of individuals who are prepared to give up personal time to learn, share experiences and help others to learn.”  Kim Johnston, SQS.

“Reflection and continuous improvement being fundamental to scrum, these showcases and follow-up discussions presented genuine opportunities for us to reflect on and debate issues and possible improvement mechanisms.”  Gennine Inggs, SA Home Loans

“It was valuable to share in the successes, experiences and lessons learnt from such a wide variety of companies in the Durban agile space.” Adriaan Prinsloo, Elzaris Technologies.

These showcases have provided a lively and informative forum for discussing Agile and its various techniques. The shared experiences of Scrum and Continuous Integration provide fascinating real-world illustrations of Agile client management, client requests, and product development. Paul Cluver,  Pilotfish Digital.

“It is fantastic to share an evening regularly with a group of Durban’s most passionate and accomplished agile minds.  The knowledge gained and given is tremendous.” me, again.  Just cant shut me up.

Our next event is to be held on Wednesday 17^th November.  Since it seems there are quite a few teams in our midst using or considering KANBAN, this will be the focus of this event.  We will have a guest speaker on the topic followed by our very effective open space discussions.  This will be our last event for 2010 so lots of time will be kept for networking and chatting to like-minded folk.  It’s set to be a great event and I look forward to seeing you there.