Agile Leadership Network Houston

Building a 100 MPG Road Car in 3 Months

It would be easy to admire Joe Justice. He’s managed to be successful following his passion - and as a result - made his dreams true through his achievements following Agile Principles.
Joe is the CEO of Wikispeed, a company that has built a gasoline-powered vehicle (the SGT01) that exceeds 100 Miles per Gallon (MPG) in three months using Agile. Joe started with the ambitious idea of joining the Progressive Insurance Automotive competition in 2009 that offered a $10 million prize for the winner in building a vehicle that exceeds 100 MPG using UDDS federal standards (followed by all car manufacturers for selling in the United States.) While Joe’s constructed car reached 10th place out of 136 entrants, Wikispeed, grew from just one “above average” Joe to over 110 volunteers in seven countries and gained international recognition. Note - this isn’t a one man lightweight glider, but instead a car that can reach up to 194 MPH, has a five star crash test equivalency, sits up to four adults, has plenty of cargo room (with AC and a radio to boot!)
What made Joe Justice different from his competitors was that he didn’t follow the rules of big companies like Tesla, Ford and Chevrolet but instead employed modular, iterative Agile building practices such as Scrum, Kanban and Pomodoro. Joe’s “secret sauce” as he put it, is the ability to quickly modify and improve parts within a seven day release cycle instead of the typical 10 years old designs delivered by major automotive companies. He honed that ability through his “day job” as a computer developer / architect in an IT company that only employs Agile principles in their delivery. Wikispeed employs the intelligent and frugal use of tools such as a blog on Scrum retrospectives, YouTube videos, Facebook, Free Conference, Dropbox, GoogleDocs and many more.
By using interchangeable parts (and help through an online community that grew at a viral pace in helping Joe improve his designs), Wikispeed produced a vehicle that could have its chassis replaced in the time a tire is normally changed. This allows the team mechanics to switch from a car to a truck or a four seat car to a two seat car in minutes. Wikispeed took this concept to all the primary aspects of the car that have to do with efficiency, from door dye molds to power requirements and near zero friction brakes.
Wikispeed also used pairing and swarming to improve output. Joe adopted pairing from Extreme programming to have the mechanics always work in pairs. Swarming happens when a mechanic gets stuck and everyone available in the team coming to help until solved and perhaps surprisingly, it always gets solved. Joe purchased three of every tool to ensure no one has to ask for the tool to try something and have any awkwardness result from asking for a tool to try something. This kept team morale high as when one person fixed an issue, everyone felt like they won together!
Wikispeed’s international attention has resulted in being placed on the cover of Automobile magazine, being interviewed by Discovery channel http://youtu.be/9c_XWlVwdTc   and being showcased in car shows next to the major automotive companies. Joe also spoke as TEDxRainier http://youtu.be/MkmyKmQppq8 to a standing ovation! As Joe put it, the results of Wikispeed are like King Kong giving a high five to Jaws in front of a nuclear explosion! Nice!

Location

Sysco Corporation

1390 Enclave Parkway - Houston, Texas - 281-584-1390

Please park in front of either Sysco building (1370 & 1390 Enclave Parkway).

If front lots are full, park on the street along Forkland Drive and walk around to the front entrance of 1390.

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Sponsorship

Food and Refreshments

were provided by ALN Houston's family of sponsors

Contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it today!

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Please join us in thanking our sponsors for their generous support of
Agile Leadership Network Houston

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PMPs may file for 1 PDU under Continuing Certification Requirements’ “Category B: Other Providers."

Happy 3rd Anniversary APLN Houston!

    

Agile Leadership Network Houston celebrated its 3rd year, promoting and support Agile leaders in the Houston area.   Since its humble beginnings in 2008, this group started with a small band of folks interested in supporting Agile values .  And with the help of our many sponsors and volunteers the Agile Leadership Network community in Houston has now grown to support over 825 members.  Our focus has also grown beyond supporting Agile teams to promoting Agile leadership and Agile organizations.

Long-time supporter TEKsystems  kicked off our pre-meeting networking session by providing dinner which included an Anniversary Cake. We also experimented with our first ever open space event covering topics such as, Transitioning from PM to Scrum Master, Retrospectives and the Definition of Done.  With many different levels of Agile adoption going on in our community we want to give our members more opportunities to learn from each other.  

We continued our evening with a presentation by Barry Rogers, from Improving Enterprises, speaking on “Improving Team Dynamics on Agile Teams”. He shared with us some great information on DiSC personality profiles and how each personality style interacts as part of a team.     His insights bring a lot of value to team formation and interactions between working groups, and his exercise emphasizes the need for teams to work closely.

The evening ended with some great doors prizes from our great sponsors  ,  TEKsystems donated a Kindle,  Valtech donated two course vouchers ,  and Barry gave away several copies of his new book  titled “Individuals and Interactions, An Agile Guide”.

And there’s a lot more to come!   We are continuing to support the communication through quality speaker and training events.    We are also looking forward to working with our national organization to present our  first ever regional Agile Leadership event in Houston.
Thanks for continuing to support the Agile Leadership Network  Houston and the Agile Community!  

Improving Team Dynamics on Agile Teams

Presentation Available

Since Agile focuses on increasing communication effectiveness and the way teams work together, it is important for everyone on the team to understand how to best communicate with one another. In this session, you’ll leave with ways to unlock the true potential of your team through better and more productive communication. You will learn how to identify and capitalize on the diverse behaviors found on teams. An interactive and refreshing look at the human element with actionable techniques that target individuals and their interactions. Topics range from enhancing interpersonal communication to effectively leveraging the anatomy of your team.

Barry Rogers is President, Texas of Improving Enterprises. He is an accomplished Certified ScrumMaster and Certified Scrum Professional. Barry supports clients in both a hands-on and mentorship/coaching capacity supporting a variety of roles including ScrumMaster, Agile adoption mentor, and human dynamics coach. Barry is a published author and also facilitates leadership, agile, and project management training sessions.

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Location

Sysco Corporation

1390 Enclave Parkway - Houston, Texas - 281-584-1390       

Please park in front of either Sysco building (1370 & 1390 Enclave Parkway).

If front lots are full, park on the street along Forkland Drive and walk around to the front entrance of 1390.

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Sponsorship

  Food and Refreshments 

provided by TEKsystems

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Door Prizes

Win a copy of Barry Rogers' new book!

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 Win a complimentary voucher to any of Valtech's 2-Day agile training courses.
For more information contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it 832-278-5695

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 Stay tuned for even more great door prizes!

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Please join us in thanking our sponsors for their generous support of
Agile Leadership Network Houston

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PMPs may file for 1 PDU under Continuing Certification Requirements’ “Category 4: Other Providers."

Our thanks to Synerzip CEO Hemant Elhence and CTO Vinayak Joglekar for a great recap of the Agile2011 conference.Their top 10 takeaways gave us a great view of the latest trends in agile practices as reflected by the conference.

Their slides are available here, and for those interested in reviewing the presentations at Agile2011 please visit program2011.agilealliance.org -- click on the session of interest to see the details, a website will be listed if the speaker provided his/her presentation slides to the conference.

It is not too early to start your planning for the Agile2012 conference in Grapevine, Texas. Watch agile2012.agilealliance.org for details.

 Agile 2011 Conference - Top 10 Take-aways

Hemant Elhence and Vinayak Joglekar of Synerzip will be speaking on their impressions of the Agile 2011 Conference, giving their "Top 10" list of take-aways. If you are not able to go to Agile2011 here is a chance to learn about the conference.  If you are fortunate enough to go, here is way to here about some things you may have missed. Either way this should be an informative and insightful overview of the latest trends and advances from the Agile community that you shouldn't miss!

Hemant Elhence is the Founder & CEO of Synerzip, an Agile software product development company, based in Dallas, TX.  Synerzip helps venture-backed technology companies scale up their engineering operations in a capital efficient manner.  Hemant has deep expertise in software product management and development.

• Prior to launching Synerzip in  2004, Hemant was a founding executive of ECMi, an innovative software product start-up in Dallas, where he led the product vision and initial venture funding process.
• Product line Vice President at i2 Technologies, managing over a dozen core products, with a mix of onshore and offshore engineering teams.
• Manager at McKinsey & Company, where he helped numerous blue-chip clients with operations and business strategy issues.
• Senior consultant at TRG, a boutique strategy consulting firm serving venture-funded start-ups.
• Senior software engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation, leading product management and development for an innovative new software product.
• MBA from the University of Chicago, MSEE from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and BSEE from IIT Delhi.

Vinayak Joglekar is the Founder and CTO of Synerzip. He has deep expertise in building high-performance, Agile software development teams. 

• Prior to launching Synerzip, was a founding executive and Chief Technology Officer of ECMi, an innovative product start-up in Dallas, where he lead the product design and development from India.
• Has over 22 years of experience in software architecture design and product development with demonstrated success in leading teams to deliver products on time and from concept to release. 
• Has successfully delivered off-shore software projects for over 20 clients including large companies such as Alfa-Laval and First Guarantty, and early-stage companies like Cyberdrawer, One Network, Worksoft, etc. 
• Has built and mentored over 100 product development teams and has personally hired over 1000 software professionals. 
• MBA from IIM, Calcutta, and BSME from IIT Bombay.

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Location

Sysco Corporation

1390 Enclave Parkway - Houston, Texas - 281-584-1390       

Please park in front of either Sysco building (1370 & 1390 Enclave Parkway).

If front lots are full, park on the street along Forkland Drive and walk around to the front entrance of 1390.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sponsorship

 Would you like to sponsor Food and Refreshments for this meeting?

Contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Today!

-------------------------------------- 

Please join us in thanking our sponsors for their generous support of APLN Houston

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PMPs may file for 1 PDU under Continuing Certification Requirements’ “Category 4: Other Providers.”

Working Toward True Scrum Mastery

The market has embraced Scrum certification, and it has helped drive wide scale adoption of agile methods.  Now, Scrum adoption is helping springboard various hybrids that combine Scrum with XP, Lean, Crystal and even Kanban.  Is this cause for fear among Scrum practitioners, or is it an opportunity for continued improvement?   How can we continue to advance our learning and progression, and grow into true masters of Scrum?  

Sanjiv will lead a discussion on: 

• How Scrum certification has helped agile go mainstream 
• Organizational Scrum hybrids: customizing with XP, Lean, Kanban 
• Personal adoption of Scrum:  Scrum roots, community and true mastery 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

You will learn:

• How Scrum certification has helped drive agile adoption 
• How Scrum ties in with other methods like XP, Lean, Kanban, etc
• How each one of us can work towards personal improvement as agile practitioners.

Sanjiv Augustine is an industry-leading Scrum and lean expert, a Certified Scrum Trainer, and the President of LitheSpeed, an agile consulting, training and coaching company.  For over 10 years, Sanjiv has assisted several leading clients adopt Scrum including: The Chronicle of Higher Education, Kaplan Test Prep, Nationwide Insurance, Capital One, CNBC, NBC Universal, VIPS/General Dynamics, the Motley Fool and StreamSage/Comcast.  He is the author of the book Managing Agile Projects (Prentice Hall 2005) and several publications including Transitioning to Agile Project Management: A Roadmap for the Perplexed, The Lean-Agile PMO: Using Lean Thinking to Accelerate Agile Project Delivery; and the founder and moderator of the Yahoo! Agile Project Management discussion group.  Sanjiv is also a founder and advisory board member of the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN), and an organizing member of the Project Management Institute (PMI)’s Agile Community of Practice.  He presents regularly at several agile and PMI user groups and conferences worldwide; and project management conferences including Project World and Project Summit. As an in-the-trenches practitioner, he has personally managed agile projects varying in size from five to over one hundred people, trained thousands of agile practitioners via public classes and conference presentations, and coached numerous project teams.

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Location

Sysco Corporation

1390 Enclave Parkway - Houston, Texas - 281-584-1390       

Please park in front of either Sysco building (1370 & 1390 Enclave Parkway).

If front lots are full, park on the street along Forkland Drive and walk around to the front entrance of 1390.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sponsorship

 Would you like to donate Food and Refreshments for this meeting?

Contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it today! 

-------------------------------------- 

Please join us in thanking our sponsors for their generous support of APLN Houston

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PMPs may file for 1 PDU under Continuing Certification Requirements’ “Category 4: Other Providers.”