Friday, June 06, 2008

APLN Summit: Erik Arnold Confirmed for Panel

I’m happy to announce that my former colleague Erik Arnold, VP of IT Services (and acting head of IT) for Corbis, has confirmed he will be one of our panelists for the APLN Agile Leadership Summit in Seattle, at the Edgewater Hotel on July 17-18. Don’t miss out! Register now!

Erik heads up one of the most effective agile IT shops in Seattle. They’ve demonstrated a solid reputation for releasing high quality software on a frequent basis and for building a highly collaborative trusting relationship with their business colleagues. Corbis is one of the few truly institutionalized enterprise scale agile organizations in the Seattle area, and consequently we’re delighted to have Erik on the panel to answer questions about how he is handling the challenge of sustaining a true high maturity agile organization. Technorati tag: APLN, Management, Leadership, Agile, Lean, Project+Management, Corbis

Thursday, June 05, 2008

APLN Summit: More sponsors announced

SolutionsIQ will be a Gold Sponsor for our event. SolutionsIQ have both Brent Barton and Lance Young taking part running our Scrum track. SolutionsIQ is a long time supporter of the agile community in Seattle. They host the APLN Redmond chapter and co-sponsor the Seattle Scrum Users Group. We’re glad to have them on-board.

In addition, NetObjectives have confirmed they will be a Silver Sponsor.

Thanks to both firms for supporting the agile community in Seattle and the APLN. Don’t miss out. Make sure you get to spend quality time with leaders in the agile community, Register now! Check out the agenda.Technorati tag: APLN, Management, Leadership, Agile, Lean, Project+Management, NetObjectives, SolutionsIQ

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Merrifield in Motion

I want to congratulate my friend Ric Merrifield on the publication of his article, “The Next Revolution in Productivity” in Harvard Business Review this month.

This management approach which looks at capabilities rather than process flows has been around a few years at Microsoft. They used to call it “Motion.” The article doesn’t mention that name so I don’t know whether they are still using it.

Ric tells me that there is a book just around the corner and that he’s really beginning to build momentum around the approach.

One of his co-authors Jack Calhoun has been a big fan of my book for several years. He used to pass out copies at Microsoft before he learned I was working there. One day, I was invited to a meeting with a few folks and Ric and Jack were both present. Jack didn’t put it together until I introduced myself, then I got one of those moments for me, “Ah, you are that David Anderson,” he proclaimed. I get that a lot The curse of a common name.

The Motion heat map approach is a very focused approach to improvement. At Modus Cooperandi, we specialize in focused approaches to change and performance improvement. This makes me think I need to go talk to Ric and figure out whether we should be offering Motion as part of our services. At the very least, we could do with analyzing how the Heat Map approach fits with our Lean, TOC, reduction of variability in the value stream approach. I also wonder if there is a mapping between Motion and CMMI and whether the two could play together nicely? I think I’ll give that one to Oksana to research Technorati tag:Ric+Merrifield, Jack+Calhoun, Microsoft, Harvard+Business+Review, HBR, Management

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

APLN Summit: VersionOne goes Gold

I’m delighted to announce that VersionOne are the first firm to confirm a Gold level sponsorship for the APLN Summit in Dallas. VersionOne has been a long time supporter of the APLN and we’re glad to have their continued support. With VersionOne it is more than just money. They are supplying the badges and lanyards. In addition, Paul Culling has been an invaluable help with marketing on for the summit. He’s helped us with pricing, strategy and awareness. Mike Cottmeyer of VersionOne, while an officer of the APLN, will be a speaker and facilitator and we’re delighted that Robert Holler, founder and CEO will also be present at the event.

I’ve known the VersionOne guys for many years now. They’ve been great supporters of the community and they are fun guys to hang out with. It’s great to have them in Seattle. Don’t miss out register now… (and save $100 until June 18th) Technorati tag: APLN, Management, Leadership, Agile, Lean, Project+Management