Sydney
25-26 March, Sydney Marriott Hotel
Sydney Marriott Hotel
36 College Street
Sydney 2010
T: +61 2 9361 8400
T: 1800 025 419
F: +61 2 9361 8599
Best Metro Train Stop:
Museum
Sydney SDC Conference 2010 Programme
Here's where you'll find details of the impressive line up of international and local speakers on offer at SDC 2010. Book now!
(Programme and timetable are subject to change).
Pre-conference workshop SDC 2010
Wednesday 24 March
| 9:00-5:00 |  | Software Architecture for the Business Analyst Philippe Kruchten Professor of Software Engineering, University of British Columbia and Founder, Kruchten Engineering Services (Canada) |
Day One SDC 2010
Thursday 25 March
| 9:00-10:10 |  | Managing Front End Risk - It's Always a Risky Business at the Start Tim Lister Principal, The Atlantic Systems Guild (USA) | |||
| 10:10-10:30 | Refreshment break | ||||
| 10:30-11:30 |  | When Good Agile Goes Bad: Avoiding the Common Pitfalls James King Agile Practice Lead, Software Education (Australia) | |||
| 11:30-12:30 | | What Colours are Your Backlog? Philippe Kruchten Professor of Software Engineering, University of British Columbia and Founder, Kruchten Engineering Services (Canada) | |||
| 12:30-1:30 | Lunch | ||||
1:30-4:50 (includes afternoon break) | |
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| 4:50-5:50 | Refreshments and networking |
| 6:15-9:30 |  | Conference Dinner Join us for a great evening of further networking. See below for details. Book your place at the conference dinner when you register for the conference. Places are limited. |
Day Two SDC 2010
Friday 26 March
| 9:00-10:10 |  | Clarity Rules!: Six Collaboration Skills Critical to Effective, Successful Teams Diana Larsen Chair Agile Alliance and Co-Founder FutureWorks Consulting (USA) | |||
| 10:10-10:30 | Refreshment break | ||||
| 10:30-11:30 |  | The Vanishing Analyst James Shore Founder Titanium IT (USA) | |||
| 11:45-1:00 | |
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| 1:00-2:00 | Lunch | ||||
| 2:00-3:45 | |
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| 4:05-4:50 |  | Where Have All The BA's Gone? |
Full session descriptions below: _________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Pre-conference Workshop
Wednesday 24 March 2010
9:00 - 5:00pm
Software Architecture for the Business Analyst
Philippe Kruchten
Professor of Software Engineering, University of British Columbia and Founder, Kruchten Engineering Services (Canada)
What would a business analyst need to know about software architecture? In this workshop we will present the key concepts behind software architecture: the motivations, the practices, the tools, etc. and we will explore how architecture both enables and constrains the work of the business analyst.
For non-trivial, large-scale, long-lived software-intensive products, requirement management and architectural design evolve in parallel and support each other. Traditionally handled by different individuals and teams, they use language and concepts that seem totally foreign to each other, though we’ve come to realise now that they share a lot of traits. Both deal with making delicate choices in a risky and uncertain environment. Both exploit tacit knowledge of the organisation, and rely on experience more than on precise recipes. Both drive the planning and implementation of the system. Like two different cultures, they are based on slightly different values, beliefs and mental models.
Product owners and product managers as well as business analysts will benefit from this workshop. You can book this one-day workshop separate from the conference. See the Fees and Packages page for details and book online at the conference registration page.
For even more detail go here.
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9:00 - 10:10
Opening Keynote, Thursday 25 March
Managing Front End Risk - It's Always a Risky Business at the Start
Tim Lister
Principal, The Atlantic Systems Guild (USA)
If you are one of those folks who talk about “gathering” requirements, what dream world do you live in? Very few requirements are gathered – harvested from stakeholders who can precisely and lucidly describe exactly what they want and need. Most requirements are discovered, invented or negotiated and then compromised, and if you are really good most of this happens when you are agreeing on requirements, not when you are testing, and not in operation.
Add to this that the requirements spec is a political document; a document that best fits a community of stakeholders, and cannot possibly meet everyone’s dearest wishes. Everybody can never be completely pleased.
Add to this that there is enormous pressure to commit to deadlines at the very beginning; deadlines that are cast into stone.
Managers and analysts need to recognise and court the risks inherent when trying to get a project off on the right foot. Tim Lister will discuss the dominant risks he sees when consulting at the early days of a project with his clients, and he will offer some proven risk mitigation strategies for you to use.
Being a good manager or analyst is hard; that is why those jobs are so much fun.
10:30 - 11:30
Keynote, Thursday 25 March
When Good Agile Goes Bad: Avoiding the Common Pitfalls
James King
Agile Practice Lead, Software Education (Australia)
Agile projects are a step forward in delivering early and consistent value to the customer. But even so, there are some common issues that arise when teams implement Agile projects. While these issues are not inevitable, they are easy pitfalls for the unwary. They include:
- Solving the wrong business problem.
- Lack of handover of the project team’s knowledge to the ongoing support and business teams.
- Working software that is not effectively integrated into business processes and culture.
After exploring each of these common pitfalls, James discusses potential solutions, in particular focusing on business integration, knowledge transfer and team transformation.
11:30 - 12:30
Keynote, Thursday 25 March
What Colours are Your Backlog?
Philippe Kruchten
Professor of Software Engineering, University of British Columbia and Founder, Kruchten Engineering Services (Canada)
What do we do next?
The product backlog popularised by scrum has become a key artifact in any software development project; the point where product owner, product managers, project managers, team leaders, business analysts, developers, testers and product support meet and converge. But what do you put in your backlog to balance the needs of all these parties? What colours are your backlog?
1:30 - 4:50
Thursday 25 March
Stream One, Workshop 1
Project Code Name "Blind Faith" - Software Risk Management Workshop
Tim Lister
Principal, The Atlantic Systems Guild (USA)
Most people seem to learn most comfortably by example, so this workshop will be a case study in risk management. It is a risk discovery and risk assessment workshop that follows on from Tim’s keynote, going deeper into the issue of risk in software projects.
Tim will describe the “Blind Faith” project in its early days and ask teams to nominate risks. With a class-built risk list in hand, we will decide on risk mitigation strategies, risk containment strategies, or decide to accept some of the risks (and pay the price if any become a real problem.)
Tim will then put the workshop in a time machine, patent pending, and bring you into the future to hear how the “Blind Faith” project is doing, to decide if the risk list should be modified and or added to and what immediate actions to recommend. Once again into the time machine to visit the “Blind Faith” project as it is about to deliver and to discuss the decisions and options about going live.
This workshop is open to anyone who has been on a project that was under stress, doubt and uncertainty, and therefore Tim assumes that this workshop is open to everyone.
1:30 - 4:50
Thursday 25 March
Stream Two, Workshop 2
Iteration and Release Planning
Philippe Kruchten
Professor of Software Engineering, University of British Columbia and Founder, Kruchten Engineering Services (Canada)
(This workshop expands on Philippe's keynote from this morning).
Iteration planning and release planning seem very simple: you pour features in a backlog, shake, prioritise, and implement based on priority until you run out of time and deliver. In reality, it is a tad more complicated.
In this workshop, we will examine the subtle differences between (business) value and (development) cost, between user-visible features and deep down architectural features, and their dependencies. We will look at technical debt in its various forms and its impact on the project, as well as at defects. We will examine various techniques that help project leaders plan and track iterations and releases in a chaotic environment.
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4:50 - 5:50
Thursday 25 March
Refreshments and Networking
Join us all for the networking hour.
6:15 - 9:30
Thursday 25 March
Conference Dinner
Come along to the conference dinner - a great way to continue networking with your peers and the conference speakers.
This dinner can be booked separately or inclusive with accommodation. See the Fees and Packages page for details and book online at the conference registration page.
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Day Two
Friday 26 March
9:00 - 10:10
Keynote, Friday 26 March
Clarity Rules!: Six Collaboration Skills Critical to Effective, Successful Teams
Diana Larsen
Chair, Agile Alliance and Co-Founder FutureWorks Consulting (USA)
We measure project success by the team's ability to efficiently and reliably deliver valuable, high quality software to the customer. Increase the prospect for project success by ensuring team members have the skills for effective collaboration and clear, unambiguous communication. This keynote will describe the six collaboration skills teams need and show techniques to get them active in your team.
10:30 - 11:30
Keynote, Friday 26 March
The Vanishing Analyst
James Shore
Founder Titanium IT (USA)
Agile literature says next to nothing about BAs, and goes so far as to recommend eliminating requirements documentation. Does Agile have a place for rigorous requirements management? Or do Agile projects careen from one idea to the next at the whim of caffeinated programmers and demanding customers?
It's time to take a closer look at the role of the business analyst in Agile projects. Agile changes that role, and seemingly devalues it, by focusing on direct communication between developers and business experts. But with that change comes opportunity. Agile depends on quality customer involvement more than ever before, and the business analyst has a crucial role to play.
11:45 - 1:00
followed by lunch and then continued
2:00 - 3:45
Friday 26 March
Stream One, Workshop 1
Beyond Story Cards: Agile Requirements Collaboration
James Shore
Founder Titanium IT (USA)
Story cards are a great tool for planning and a lousy tool for communicating requirements. If you've done much with Agile, you may have heard people say, "Story cards are a marker for future conversation." But what does that mean? Where do the story cards come from, and what do you do when you have them?
In this workshop, you will learn where requirements live in Agile, how various roles fit in, where stories come from, and what happens after they're created. Join James Shore for an in-depth look at how requirements work in Agile.
11:45 - 1:00
followed by lunch and then continued
2:00 - 3:45
Friday 26 March
Stream Two, Workshop 2
Creating a Climate for Project Team Success
Diana Larsen
Chair, Agile Alliance and Co-Founder FutureWorks Consulting (USA)
In this interactive workshop, participants will examine how they can create a work climate where Agile and traditional teams can accomplish "the job" for the organisation - delivering business value. Building on current practices, we'll explore ways to optimise four factors in the work climate: motivation, environment, support and trust.
Each participant will take away a personal action plan to transfer the learning from the workshop into next steps at work.
4:05 - 4:50
Closing Keynote, Friday 26 March
Where Have All The BA's Gone?
Nigel Dalton
General Manager of IT, Lonely Planet (Australia)
Nearly three years after Nigel Dalton took over the role of General Manager IT at Lonely Planet, Business Analysts are thin on the ground - with the majority having transformed themselves into Product Management team members. Agile practices have spread from website development to the global guidebook business, the legal team, software upgrade projects and ecommerce operations.
Practices range from basic SCRUM with a two-weekly sprint cycle, to Kanban/ Scrumban, and a number of new hybrids that suit non-IT teams. Successes have included managing Agile projects with international partners in China, where BA's with a flexible attitude to their role proved their mettle.
This session looks at the four main phases of change in the role of Business Analysts at Lonely Planet.
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We all look forward to seeing you at SDC 2010 in Sydney.
Fees and Packages details are at this page.
To register for SDC 2010, go to the registration page.
