A group close to my heart, Extreme Programming San Diego (XPSD), is looking for speakers to talk about their experiences applying Agile software development practices.  XPSD meets on the 1st Thursday of every month at The Linkery in North Park from 6 PM to 8 PM to network, share ideas and discuss trends in the Agile software development community.

XPSD is an excellent, knowledgeable community resource on the topic of Agile software development, Scrum and Extreme Programming in San Diego County.  I am consistently impressed with the experience and passion in our group.  I am very proud of how much XPSD has grown over the years and I am glad we have created a friendly space for great dialogue on Agile in San Diego.  We are seeking speakers in these three areas:

1. Experience reports on applying XP, Scrum or Agile techniques in your organization.
2. Explanations on the business and management side of using Scrum on projects or the enterprise.
3. Technical presentations on useful tools or the technical practices of XP or Agile software development (pair programming, iterative design, refactoring, TDD, testing, etc.) that enable agility.

We provide a variety of ways for our speakers to contribute (see below), so if you just want to share some ideas on how something might work or to talk about what your team did, please get in touch with our organizers – Carlton Nettleton (carlton@lookforwardconsulting.com) or June Clarke (joonspoon@yahoo.com) – for more details.

These are the formats we provide for our speakers:

• Roundtable: a casual discussion where we can examine one or two ideas from a variety of perspectives for about an 60 to 90 minutes. The roundtable “host” provides a 10 to 15 minute overview of the topic(s) in order to frame the conversation and then starts the discussion with a provocative question.  This is a great format to get a number of expert opinions on a difficult problem you’ve been facing.
• Lecture: in-depth discussion of one or two themes or ideas and is expected to be about 60 minutes, but no longer than 75 minutes. Great format for an experience report or sharing some results with a wider audience.  XPSD is an inquisitive group, so expect questions during your talk.
• Short topic: intended to explain a technical topic or highlight a new idea.  This new, short format (15 to 30 minutes) is provided by XPSD to help new speakers, ideas, perspectives and experiences get in front of the members.
• Workshop: illustrate a concept or technical skill primarily through audience participation and ideally should not exceed 90 minutes. Workshops are fun and members love them.