Certified ScrumMaster Training

I'm returning today from the Agile 2005 Conference in Denver. Agile development is sweeping the planet and this years conference was large and exciting. Last year's big question was "What is Agile development?" This year was full of experience reports from companies doing Scrum and XP and the big question was, "We're doing it. It works! How can we get better?"

One way to get better is to join the over 2000 Certified ScrumMasters by attending a two day training and certification course. I have set up a number of them in Boston this fall. They will soon appear on the certication site. Meanwhile, they are as follows:

August 17-18 CSM rescheduled to Sep 22-23

Sep 22-23 Certified ScrumMaster Training - Boston

Sep 25-29 Keynote and Tutorial - JAOO Conference, Denmark

Oct 13-14 Advanced Scrum - Boston (see my Scrum II paper from the Agile 2005 conference)

Oct 27-28 Certified ScrumMaster Training - Boston (with Ken Schwaber)

Nov 10-11 Certified ScrumMaster Training - Boston

Nov 14-18 Advanced Scrum (Scrum Gathering) - Boulder, CO

Dec 8-9 Certified ScrumMaster Training - Boston

Jan 9-10 2006 Certified ScrumMaster Training - Hawaii (after HICSS conference)

Contact Jeff Sutherland at jeff.sutherland@computer.org to register.

Agile Declaration of Independence

National Treasures of Agile Development
Tue Jul 19 2005 02:34 PM
By Robert Cowham, Steve Berczuk and Brad Appleton

Introduction

Recent research has discovered a very interesting cache of papers about a little known Tribe called the Agile Developers. The first document is a draft dated July 4th (the year is illegible).

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(Document starts)

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for some developers to dissolve the bands which have connected them with others, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self evident,

• That all agile developers are created equal,
• That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,
• That among these are Work, Freedom from unnecessary bureaucracy and the pursuit of that Happiness resulting from frequent delivery of working software to the business.
• That to secure these rights methods are implemented by development teams deriving their just powers from the consent of the stakeholders
• That whenever any Form of Process becomes destructive of these needs, it is the Right of the Developer to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Processes, laying their foundation on such principles and organizing their powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Job Safety and Happiness. When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Process, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
• Such has been the patient sufferance of these Developers; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Processes.

The history of the present Formal High Priesthood is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these Projects. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world - read more ...

Scrum Influencers: Colin Angle, CEO of IRobot

Scrum origins include the work of Colin Angle. As an MIT student, he sublet space in 1990 at my Object Databases lab in Cambridge and had his early robots hunting me down in my office. I spent a lot of time understanding Rodney Brooks subsumption architecture and it affected the design of the first Scrum at Easel Corporation in 1993.

The leader of the robot pack

July 7, 2005, 4:00 AM PT
By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

ACM News Service summarizes the CNET News interview with Colin: IRobot CEO and co-founder Colin Angle admits that the robotics industry is still young, and cites a U.N. report's prediction that the robot population will expand by a factor of seven between 2004 and 2007. IRobot was spun off from MIT, but Angle believes the company's future competitors will likely base their own products on iRobot platforms such as the Roomba automated vacuum cleaner. He says most of iRobot's military contracts focus on "decreasing the battlefield fog," noting that the PackBot and other devices are allowing soldiers to carry out dangerous missions, such as exploring caves for weapons, with less risk. The company is also a participant in the Future Combat Systems program, whose goal is to develop a mobile military unit that can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world and access all of the data collected by any element, human or machine, through a network. IRobot is also investigating swarming robot technology, and has successfully demonstrated a fleet of robots that can furnish a physical plan of their location through coordinated reconnaissance and communication. Angle thinks humanoid robots, though a fascinating area of study, have limited commercial appeal beyond the entertainment industry. For one thing, non-humanoid robots such as the PackBot can perform tasks such as climbing stairs far more rapidly and efficiently than humanoid machines. Angle predicts that interest in using robots as physical avatars will rise, noting that a group in iRobot is looking into how the Roomba could be used for applications such as user-controlled remote surveillance.