Welcome to APLN Houston

Please note that due to scheduling conflicts our April Meeting has moved to Wednesday April 21, 2010 - still at 6:00pm. If you have already registered for the meeting, your registration is still valid and we hope you can still attend the meeting at its new date. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, the May meeting will return to our regular schedule of the 3rd Thursday of the month.

Jim Highsmith re-sets the bar!

Speaking to our largest crowd yet Jim Highsmith wow'ed our January audience with an intriguing new look at measuring value. Helping us understand that there is "no more normal", Jim challenged us to be more focused on outcomes and work toward satisfying the Agile Triangle. We are very grateful to Jim for making time in his busy schedule to visit APLN Houston.

Winners! Congratulations to Ram Chada and Brent Walker on winning copies of Jim's latest book Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products. The book is also available to APLN Houston members at a 35% discount. Click here for details.

We also want to thank TEKsystems for their generousity in providing food and refreshments for the meeting.

Agile PMO? Thanks to Sanjiv Augustine for helping us all understand that PMO's can play a significant role in Agile enterprises. Focusing on throughput versus capacity, prioritizing and selecting only the most valuable projects, using resources in ways that respect the hard work we do in forming agile teams; these are just a few of the nuggets that Sanjiv shared with us. Then in a perfect wrap-up from an unexpected source we heard from "Steve the Contractor", who can probably do all the business in Houston he could ever want.

Don't miss the chance to hear more from Sanjiv in his upcoming Certified ScrumMaster and Ceritified Scrum Product Owner classes.

Winners Contratulations to Chen Sun and Philip Lorenzo on winning copies of Sanjiv's book Managing Agile Projects. This book is available to all APLN Houston members through the Pearson User Group Program.

Upcoming Meetings

Upcoming Training

Special Events

Agile Organizations

Growing APLN Houston in 2010

APLNH Leaders The APLN Houston Leadership team met in January to map out plans for 2010. Incorporating the feedback we have received from all of you over the last several months, the team put together an adaptable plan to continue growing APLN Houston. Our working session included discussions of member benefits, program formats, future expansion, operational efficiencies, and networking with other agile organizations.

APLNH Leaders APLN Houston membership has grown from around 100 in January 2009 to almost 600 today. In parallel, average attendance has blossomed from around 25 in January 2009 to over 60 today. To accommodate our future growth, APLN Houston will incorporate in 2010 as a not for profit corporation. Even with this incorporation however, we feel it important to keep our regular monthly meetings free or at very low cost to our members!

APLNH Leaders APLN Houston remains an all volunteer organization and as such our continued growth depends on our volunteers. We are grateful to those of you who have chosen to get involved and help. In 2010, we are committed to offering more varied and rewarding volunteer experiences.

APLNH Leaders Also in 2010 we are committed to start offering special workshop events that will help those new to agility come up to speed. In addition we plan to expand the reach of APLN Houston by initiating "APLN To Go" and seek out additional locations around Houston to host special events such as those conducted downtown at Waste Management in late 2009.

With your help and continued support we look forward to an active and vibrant 2010 for APLN Houston!

Welcome to APLN Houston

Bringing Agile Project Leaders Together

APLN Houston promotes the growth of agile practices by bringing together Houston’s agile leaders to share real-world experiences and by providing professional networking forum.

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Learn more about APLN Houston here.

Rescheduling Mike Cohn

Mike Cohn's visit to Houston is being rescheduled.

With great disappointment Mike Cohn has informed us of an unavoidable schedule change that won't allow him to be in Houston in April. He has promised an APLN Houston appearance later this year and we will keep you all up-to-date as details develop. Thanks for understanding our need to be flexible.

A Certified Scrum trainer, Mike Cohn is the founder of Mountain Goat Software, a process and project management consultancy and training firm. He is the author of newly published Succeeding with Agile (one of our November door prizes), Software Development using Scrum, Agile Estimating and Planning and User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development, as well as books on Java and C++ programming. With more than twenty years of experience, Mike has previously been a technology executive in companies of various sizes—from startup to Fortune 40. A frequent magazine contributor and conference speaker, Mike is a founding member of the Scrum Alliance and the Agile Alliance. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Also available from Mike are six recent, one-hour videos available for free download recorded at June's Norwegian Developer's Conference. Topics covered include user stories, estimating, planning, prioritizing, an introduction to Scrum, and leading a self-organizing team.

Meeting Logistics

Welcome to APLN Houston’s meeting venue at Sysco Corporation, 1390 Enclave Parkway.

Meetings are held the 3rd Thursday of each month unless otherwise noted on this site. Meeting format:

6:00pm - 6:20pm - Network with your fellow agile practitioners
6:20pm - 6:30pm - Announcements and Introductions
6:30pm - 7:30pm - Featured Program

Parking is available in front of both Sysco buildings (1370 & 1390 Enclave Parkway) with additional covered parking in the garage behind the 1390 Sysco building off Forkland Drive. When parking in the garage please press the call button for entry, park and come in through the back door from the garage (look for APLN poster/sign) or walk around the street to the front entrance of 1390 Enclave Parkway (if door is locked.) Parking on the street is not recommended.

Also please help us speed check-in by registering for the meeting
at least 24 hours in advance and your name will be on the pre-registered sign-in sheet along with a printed name tag (both are in first name, then last name sequence).

Where Will You Be in 2010?

Have you thought about what agile conferences you will attend in 2010? Now is the time.

The premier event will be Agile 2010 held this year at the Gayloard Opryland Resort in Nashville August 9-13, 2010. Stay tuned at agile2010.agilealliance.org for more details.

Better Software Conference Agile Development Practices Conference

Two great conferences from SQE are co-located at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas June 6-11, 2010. Register for one and attend both! See more details for all of SQE's 2010 conferences at sqe.com/conferences.

LSSC Conference

Join the Lean Software & Systems Consortium for their inaugural conference in Buckheade (Atlanta) April 21-23, 2010. This is the first formal community event of the broad based community forming around application of Lean Thinking to software development and systems engineering. For complete details visit: atlanta2010.leanssc.org

Don't Miss Out, Register for our Next Meeting Today!

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