Houston TechFest 2009 September 26, 2009 – 8am – 6pm TechFest's are about the community at large. They are meant to be a place for developers AND IT Professionals to come and learn from their peers. Topics are always based on community interest. Look for the APLNH members assisting with the Agile track. Going From Good to Great in the IT Project World by Dave Guerra To go from good to great in the IT project world is to go from IT project management to optimization. The powerful evidence of “Super Projects,” those projects whose outcomes far outperform their stakeholder expectations, demonstrate that there is something additional and nontechnical occurring in this category. The evidence points us to Deming’s famous call for as much project leadership as project management. Through real life case examples we will examine the category of measureable “Greatness” or “Superperformance,” its servant leadership link, and the urgent requirement for a new mindset about IT projects and their optimization in dynamical, complex adaptive environments. Maturing Your Organization’s Agile Adoption by Bryan Campbell and Robbie Mac Iver You’ve started down an agile adoption path; teams are working from prioritized product backlogs, iteration goals are being set and achieved, and working software is created every day.  Now what?  As more organizations adopt Agile practices, understanding how long it takes to develop these skills across an organization and how to lead the process of skills adoption becomes important. Using the Seven Stages of Expertise model developed by Meilir Page-Jones, this hands-on discussion uses lightweight tools to leverage a framework that will help you understand where you are, where you want to get to, and the leadership required to keep your teams progressing along the path.

Building the Business Case for IT Projects by Barbara Brown Sell your IT project by helping the organization identify their most critical processes and most challenging gaps. Plan sprints with short-term ROI in mind.  Assist managers in developing and implementing an action plan to ensure high priority design and readiness issues are resolved early, generating a quick payback.  Separate organizational issues from technical problems and direct efforts appropriately.  Even with complex organizational or work process issues involving integration of departments, sites and external partners, long project cycles can no longer be justified.  Learn to move beyond habitual project and change management methodologies to whole systems design processes and rapid deployments. What’s This Thing Called Agility? by Robbie Mac Iver More than ever, businesses face increasing uncertainty and rapid change that put increased pressure on technology organizations to deliver. Traditional project management methods that apply proven but inflexible plan driven practices are ill-equipped to address this uncertainty and as a result projects often fail to meet their anticipated business objectives.  Agile practices are becoming well established to address these issues in software development efforts and beyond. By focusing on business value, transparent collaboration and continuous improvement, agility provides alternative approaches and toolsets than can meet the challenge.  This presentation will provide an introductory look at how agility can be applied to deliver improved business results in ever evolving business environments, and the expectations placed on both agile teams and agile leadership. Association for Psychological Type - Houston November 21, 2009 – 9 am - noon Bilingual Education Institute, 3rd Sat. of the month