Partly Cloudy

Of all of the captivating talks I saw presented at this year’s Gnomedex, some of the most surprising and enjoyable were delivered in five-minute chunks by the ladies and gents of Ignite Seattle and Ignite Portland.

The Ignite community challenges you to answer the question:

If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds?

Ignite chapters have now begun in cities all across America.

My favorite of the Ignite presentations that we saw this weekend was delivered by Jason Grigsby and was entitled “Cup Noodle: Innovation, Inspiration, and Manga.”

If you view the video, you will see what made this presentation so amazing. The story of instant noodles in a styrofoam cup turns out to be a business legend that demonstrates some of the key themes of Agile development, and best of all it’s captured in a manga, a Japanese comic book.

• Have a compelling vision and lead passionately
• Accept the challenge and embrace the constraints
• Design with the user in mind
• Iterative, collaborative design and constant improvement
• Use diversity to your advantage to bring in new ideas
• Unbox your thinking and look for answers in unexpected places
• Understand your unique selling proposition
• Celebrate your victories along the way

A product that has nourished billions and even been used for disaster relief, and yet it still has things to teach. The Agile models we use today have their roots in Japanese post-war business and their drive for rapid, constant improvements.

So make yourself some instant noodles and kick it old school.

read more

Scott Menter, that is. Scott is a college buddy of mine and his new blog on People-Centered Leadership is worth reading. Check it out.

Go on, don’t make me tell you twice.

read more

Serena Software’s TAG Conference begins on September the 7th and attendees can take advantage of a special giveaway from Serena and Valtech: Free Agile Mastery training.

This two-day training course will immerse you into real-world learning scenarios where hands-on exercises and interactive discussions will dominate the class time. As Valtech’s core Agile course offering, Agile Mastery prepares team members for the realities of working on a project where daily stand-ups, burn downs, relative estimation, users stories and much more are the cornerstones of everyday life.

If you’ve looked into Agile training, then you know that a course like this usually costs $1,400 per person.

read more