Exploration Through Example

Example-driven development, Agile testing, context-driven testing, Agile programming, Ruby, and other things of interest to Brian Marick

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Fri, 23 Feb 2007

Need product directors for London workshop

I'll be in London at the end of March. While I'm there, I'd like to have a little workshop for Scrum product owners, XP Customers, and product directors. These are the people who:

• take work estimates from teams and decide what stories (backlog items, chunks of work) should be tackled in the next sprint or iteration, and

• make that decision based on the business value of the stories.

I believe those people have the hardest job on Agile projects. They are also the most likely to be isolated: programmers talk with programmers, testers talk with testers, but these people often have no peers to talk to.

The dates will be on the 29th and 30th of March (total time one and a half days). There'll be some fee to cover expenses (not exceeding £50). We'll select people on the basis of one-page statements of the problem they had and solved.

People who are programmers, testers, and project managers can also come, but product directors will have precedence.

I'm sending this note to gauge interest and decide whether to book the room (at the Royal Statistical Society, 12 Errol Street, close to the Barbican centre). Please forward it on to likely candidates.

I'll decide on March 2, based on how many product director types send me mail saying they're interested.

Questions to me: marick@exampler.com.

The format.

• Volunteers describe their experience, most often the way they solved a problem. The presentation is informal (no Powerpoint). Attendees help them by asking clarifying questions.

• After the story has been told, there is a moderated discussion that concentrates on the solution: what drawbacks might it have? where is it applicable? what have other people done in similar situations?

• There is no time limit on presentations or discussion. The moderator will let it go on as long as there's energy around the topic. (That means that not everyone will get to present.)

Depending on interest, we may also have lightning talks or breakout sessions.

This format is a variant of the one used in the Los Altos Workshop on Software Testing.

## Posted at 08:39 in category /agile [permalink] [top]