Bookstore shelves and training catalogs are stuffed with options for learning about the theory and principle behind Agile Software Development. In reading through a book or attending a Scrum certification class, the description of the process seems to flow like water. However, when enthusiasts attempt to make that flow a reality in the workplace, it becomes all to clear just how much tactical how-to was left out of the material. Attendees of this talk will see how to make the trickier bits of Scrum possible, including answers to questions like “Exactly how do I go about planning a sprint?” and “How do I get my team to start using story points?”, all distilled from Barry’s years in the field of making this happen in a range of corporate environments.
Barry has played various roles in his 17 years in the software industry, including lone developer, team lead, director, and Agile coach and mentor. Barry is one of the few native Atlantans, currently specializing in coaching and mentoring for Agile software development in addition to doing contract software development. Over the years, he has developed on multiple platforms, focusing primarily on Microsoft technologies and then Java from 2003 onward. He views technology as a set of tools, and embraces the use of dynamic as well as statically-typed languages, procedural, object-oriented, and functional programming, each having their own strengths in a given problem domain.
Prior to his career in software, Barry Hawkins spent 10 years designing, selling, and delivering turn-key industrial packaging and marking systems into manufacturing plants throughout the southeastern United States. He was responsible for the implementation, maintenance, and support of every system he sold, which was a formative experience that continues to influence his approach to consulting and coaching.
