Great software professionals build better software faster. Agile methods, continuous delivery and software craftsmanship helped speed up delivery from years to months or even weeks, but then what?
Some teams are able to deliver software at a speed of change like you have never seen before, delivering quality software in days or even hours, again and again. So what is keeping the rest of us from doing so? Now is the time to go from months to minutes, to rethink the way we organise and improve our software development and delivery process.
Software Faster is for people who believe it can be done, people who feel themselves limited by current Agile dogma, people who want to go back to basics and uncover new, simpler ways to deliver great software.
Are you a seasoned software developer who is frustrated at how slow your “hyper-performing” process feels? Are you suffering with an unwieldy feature backlog, the pantomime of estimation, the card wall where cards go to die, the efforts to automate where it obviously isn’t adding anything? Are you fed up with the artificial commitment of sprints and the unwelcome surprises that still seem to derail your projects?
Software Faster brings software delivery principles into the 21st century. You will learn new techniques that both enhance and replace existing agile practices, some of which are counter-intuitive and many which are completely counter to current “best practise”. Using a mixture of discussion, instruction and exploration you will start to think differently about design, architecture, development and testing, operations, automation and team dynamics, as well as working with legacy systems and integrating with third parties.
What you will learn
The class covers a handful of core patterns and then takes an attendee-led selection from a number of areas:
- Architecture and Design
- Development Practices
- Planning and Estimation
- Deployment and Operations
- Team Dynamics
- Testing
- Analysis and Discovery
- Working with Legacy Systems
- Complexity and Systems Thinking
The Software Faster material contains over 40 patterns and techniques, and a two-day class will typically cover around 8-10 of these across several topic areas, so there are literally millions of combinations of class. Sometimes it goes very technical, into architecture and design, other times it is more broad and covers topics like estimation and planning, or team dynamics. It depends what the attendees want to get out of the training.
Example topics
- How to challenge the received wisdom of established Agile methods
- How to design and architect for rapid and sustainable delivery
- Why understanding risk and embracing uncertainty are at the heart of faster delivery
- How to manage build, release and operations
- How systems thinking can help you plan effectively and estimate accurately
- How to identify and reduce gaps in your testing strategy
- How to engage with legacy systems and integrating with third parties
- How to manage different levels of skill and experience within a team
Praise for Software Faster
- “one of the best courses I have ever attended, if not the best!”
- “really interesting with good discussions and lots of relevant information”
- "[not using slides] made the course flow in a neat and agile way"