#xpman 85 – Lightning Talks

It’s time for our annual lightning talks!

We have a couple of spaces left for talks, so please get in touch if you want to speak. If you are new (or nervous) and want some support, tips or coaching, we would love to help out.

So far we have the following talks scheduled:

• Is ethics the only way?
• Coaching
• Using Data Science to Analyse Feedback
• Refactoring Fast and Slow

And more to be confirmed…

As usual, we’re hosted at Madlab

Doors open at 18:30 for a 7pm start.

Look forward to seeing you

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/xpmanchester-lightning-talks-tickets-35769937847

Lightning talks next month – volunteers please!

It’s become a xpmanchester tradition to host an evening of lightning talks in July, which means we’re looking for willing speakers to step up.

So far we have three sessions tentatively scheduled –

• Coaching
• Using Data Science to Analyse Feedback
• Refactoring Fast and Slow

Seasoned speaker or fresh faced newbie, all are welcome. If you’re nervous about speaking but want to give it a shot, we’re happy to help support you along the way. Your talk can be as short as 5 minutes. Send an email to markkirschstein -AT- gmail -DOT- com or tweet @xpmanchester

If you’re short of ideas, here’s a brief list of some sessions we’ve had in previous years –

• What we learnt form the mob
• Test Driven Novel Writing
• How we’re going about replacing a legacy system by understanding our Core Domain
• Economies of Scrum
• We said it would be simple, not easy
• Collaboration
• The Bug-Free Backlog
• Hidden Queues
• Micro services
• Haskell
• Clojure
• Erlang
• REST
• Pentagonal Architecture
• Continuous Integration (Where did it all go wrong?)
• Increasing Velocity

#xpman 84 – Strong and Stable Kata

You want your user group to be dependable, always there with a clear manifesto of what’s coming up. We believe we’re the usergroup that best shows that. We’re strong and stable, and we have proven that by not turning up on social media at all to promote ourselves this month, nor engage in debate about the agenda.

We hope we can count on your support on June 8th, at Madlab*, for a Strong and Stable Kata around 7pm. And undoubtedly, some cast iron bitching in the pub afterwards about how the country is going/has gone to shit.

*Unless of course, you forgot to register for a postal vote, and have more urgent matters to attend to that evening, we understand, really.

#xpman 83 – XP Unconference

This month we will be having an XP unconference discussing XP themes. Been to Agile Manchester during the day and want to share what you’ve learnt? Got something interesting to talk about or lead a discussion on? Just want to come along and see what it’s all about? Join us at Code Computerlove’s office from 6.30pm to start at 7pm.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/xp-manchester-83-xp-unconference-tickets-34231281685

#xpman 82 – Wooly Root Causes

Retrospectives and continuous improvement is regarded as one of the most important aspects of an agile team. It’s unfortunately usually only given a superficial consideration by organisations.

This is a session looking at collaborative root cause analysis and learning as a group, illustrated with sheep.

As usual we’re at Madlab

Thursday 13th April, 6:30 for a 7pm start
Grab a ticket

#xpman 80 – XPManchester TDDs Sudoku #1

Some years back, Ron Jefferies set out to TDD Sudoku in a number of blog posts and failed to deliver a working solution.

This should be a cautionary tale to us – TDD on its own will not save you. How do you know if TDD is offering you little value to you in your real projects?

For the next few months (we’ll see how each session goes before we call it a day), XPManchester will solving Sudoko the TDD way. Our aim is to become mindful of when TDD breaks down and trying to identify warning signs and anti patterns associated with it.

As for format, we’ll be working as one or two groups, Randori style.

Spaces for this session are limited, so please grab a ticket beforehand.

18:30 for 19:00 start at Madlab

#xpman 79.5 – 6 thinking modes for getting you unstuck, with @SalFreudenberg

We have special, extra xpmanchester session this month, a talk from Dr Sallyann Freudenberg, who happens to be up in Manchester on the 16th of January.

—

This talk is about “stuckness”. It all stemmed from a troubled team I was asked to visit a few years ago. They had great technical knowledge but some of them seemed to find solving problems tricky, and they rarely if ever thought about their own ways of thinking. As they never zoomed out to consider a change of approach, it took them a long time to come up with a solution. A really long time.

In this talk we will look at six different thinking modes that can help you to “go meta” on your problem solving. Once you know what they are you have a way of identifying your current approach and the option of picking a more suitable one for the problem you are working on.

—

Please note that this is NOT on our regular day of the second Thursday, and it is NOT at Madlab!

You will need a ticket to get in