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Hi All,<br>
<br>
Rob Donkin has posted his slides and handouts from Tuesday's
AgileYorkshire on their site; see below.<br>
<br>
<br>
I missed the opening talk, alas, but enjoyed the Q&A. Given the
venue, I'd expected XP to be old hat but there were plenty of
questions and a pretty decent debate. A friendly crowd, too.<br>
<br>
The bulk of the evening was devoted to the Extreme Hour. The room
was split into four teams of about 7 (we had six) who each put
forward some Customers who went out for a briefing (see site). The
rest of us 'bonded' for a bit and read the Cheat Sheets (see site).
When the customers came back, they brought their ideas for their
businesses and we all got cracking!<br>
<br>
The pace was frantic, the crowd enthusiastic, and the atmosphere
comradely. Somehow, our team managed four iterations in the hour,
and satisfied all the customers' User Stories; mainly, I suspect, by
doing the bare minimum to meet the spec. It sounds harsh, but it's
very XP (YAGNI - You Ain't Gonna Need It) and of course it's fast -
meaning the client can easily extend the spec. Remember that we
managed four iterations: one team only managed one. <br>
<br>
Paper-prototyping was also lots of fun: A4 card for the monitor, A5?
paper for the content areas, post-it notes for the popup dialogues,
and lots of marker pens, glue, scissors and tape!<br>
<br>
<br>
PS: I whinged that Leeds was a long way away and Rob replied that a)
some of the LUGs also 'do' programming (so we could too), and b)
various people have been thinking of starting something in York, so
there's obviously some pent-up demand. What do you people reckon? If
I/we arrange an evening meeting for, say, March, <b>would you come?</b>
Say, 6x 10min talks on Agile, Software Craftsmanship, other Groups
in the area (and what they do). If it became a regular thing, we
could also do coding dojos, field trips, and simulations like this
Extreme Hour. AgileYorkshire have no problems getting visiting
speakers, apparently, so we'd have options there.<br>
<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.agileyorkshire.org/meetings/10thjanuaryanextremehour">http://www.agileyorkshire.org/meetings/10thjanuaryanextremehour</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Yours,
Steve Almond
Web Developer
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:steve@SilkAndSlug.com">steve@SilkAndSlug.com</a> | Skype: silkandslug
Tel: 07947 017 652 | 01904 466 833
SilkAndSlug.com : "Always Improving"
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