Mary Poppendieck, November 13, 2007

The Role of Leadership in Software Development

Agile Denver will meet on Tuesday, November 13 at the Auraria Campus near Downtown Denver. This will be our last meeting for 2007 and we are pleased to host Mary Poppendieck who is in town for another event. Mary is the author of two books on Lean Software Development, and will explore the role of leadership in software development.

When you look around, there are a lot of leaders recommended for software development. We have the functional manager and the project manager, the scrum master and the black belt, the product owner and the customer-on-site, the technical leader and the architect, the product manager and the chief engineer.

Clearly that's too many leaders. So how many leaders should there be, what should they do, what shouldn't they do, and what skills do they need?

This will be a presentation and discussion of leadership roles in software development -- what works, what doesn't and why.

As always, our monthly meetings are free to attend and open to local software professionals, students and faculty. Feel free to pass this announcement along to your colleagues.

Speaker

Mary Poppendieck has been in the Information Technology industry for thirty years. She has managed solutions for companies in several disciplines, including supply chain management, manufacturing systems, and digital media. As a seasoned leader in both operations and new product development, she brings a practical, customer-focused approach to software development problems.

As Information Systems Manager in a video tape manufacturing plant, Mary first encountered the Toyota Production System, which later became known as Lean Production. She implemented one of the first Just-in-Time systems in 3M, resulting in dramatic improvements in the plant's performance.

Three times Mary has partnered with small companies, twice negotiating and funding a multi-million dollar equity investment. But understanding small companies from the investor point of view was not enough; so she joined one of the start-ups to lead its R&D effort.

A popular writer and speaker, Mary’s classes on managing software development offer a fresh perspective on project management. Her book Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit, was published in 2003 and won the Software Development Productivity Award in 2004. A sequel, Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash, was published in 2006.

For more information on Mary and her work see http://www.poppendieck.com

Location

The meeting will be held on the Auraria Campus, within walking distance of Downtown Denver via Larimer Street crossing Speer. Driving in from I-25 south take the Colfax exit. Coming from I-25 north, the Speer exit is most convenient.

CORRECTION: We will be meeting in the Plaza Building, Room PL 213. The Plaza building is due South of the Tivoli building, near the flagpole that marks the center of this campus. The Plaza building (PL) also houses the campus health center so you may see signs for that directing you to it. Please note that we originally listed a room in the King Center which was a mistake.

Please review or print out this parking map for reference.

Parking on site costs $4 to $5 to attendees of our event and there should be parking available in the lots and parking structures off of Auraria Parkway and Ninth or Seventh Street. The closest parking is in the Tivoli Lot or the Parking and Transportation Centre (PTC). Be sure to mention that you are attending an on campus event otherwise they might assume you are there for a sports event.

Sponsors

	Mountain Goat Software is a Colorado-based process and project management consultancy and training firm. Offering Certified ScrumMaster, agile estimating and planning, user story, Certified Scrum Product Owner, and other courses to help companies adopt and improve their use of agile processes and techniques in order to build extremely high performance development organizations.
	Our on campus sponsor for this event is the Department of Mathematical and Computer Sciences at Metropolitan State College of Denver.