http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php en jt@jtennent.co.uk Copyright 2009 2009-08-11T09:41:00+00:00 http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_to_present_with_nokia_at_munich_scrum_gathering/ http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_to_present_with_nokia_at_munich_scrum_gathering/#When:09:41:00Z RADTAC and Nokia are to do a joint presentation at the Scrum Gathering in Munich, Germany on 19 October Nokia Symbian Systems Software is the largest software house in the UK, and the Symbian Operating System is one of the most widely used pieces of software on the planet. In the last 10 years it has been shipped on more than 250 million mobile phones by 14 different manufacturers. In 2008 Symbian decided to adopt Scrum across its entire software development group, and selected RADTAC as its Agile consulting, coaching and training supplier. With over 1,000 technical staff in 100 teams across three continents this is probably the biggest implementation of agile ever attempted on a single product. Early in 2009 Symbian was acquired by Nokia. This introduced inevitable changes to the programme as it worked to align and integrate the Symbian and Nokia agile models against a background of organisational restructuring. This presentation will describe the enterprise agile approach created and employed by Nokia and tell the story of the Nokia agile programme to date. At this presentation delegates will learn: how the work of over 100 scrum teams can be co-ordinated through agile release management and product management; the impact of enterprise agile on Managers, Architects and other stakeholders outside the agile teams, and the key roles that they play in enterprise agile; how Scrum and XP-based technical practices can be used for development of a very large and highly complex low-level software product (in this case a mobile operating system) and its associated developer tools and documentation; how the Product Owner and other product management roles can operate successfully when there are many stakeholders to deal with and access to actual users and customers is very difficult; how to successfully design, implement and operate a multi-level agile training and coaching programme which meets the needs of all impacted stakeholders across different roles, organisations, geographies and cultures in order to create a lasting internal agile community and capability; how an agile organisational transformation approach can be employed to create large-scale, sustainable change to the structures, processes, behaviours and culture of an organisation in order to achieve greater agility. Download presentation pdf (1.4MB) here. 2009-08-11T09:41:00+00:00 http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_headline_agile_business_conference/ http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_headline_agile_business_conference/#When:13:28:00Z RADTAC is pleased to announce that it is the headline ‘platinum’ sponsor of this years’ Agile Business Conference in London on October 13th and 14th. http://www.agileconference.org/ The conference programme features three items from RADTAC. A joint presentation with Nokia about their Scrum-based enterprise Agile initiative - Nokia Case Study A joint presentation with CDL (the leading supplier of software solutions to the insurance industry) about thier use of DSDM Atern - CDL Case Study A workshop on Agile Maturity - The Agile Maturity Model 2009-06-10T13:28:00+00:00 http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_on_agile_at_bcs_spring_school/ http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_on_agile_at_bcs_spring_school/#When:12:59:00Z RADTAC are playing a key role in the British Computer Society Spring School on Agile Development at The Bristol Institute of Technology at the University of the West of England. David Hicks of RADTAC will kick-off the event organised by the Bristol Branch of the BCS with a presentation examining the rationale and benefits of Agile and a comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of the leading Agile approaches including eXtreme Programming, Scrum, Lean Software Development, DSDM Atern and the Open/Agile Unified Process. David is a Founder Member of the Agile Alliance and Managing Director of RADTAC. He has been working in Iterative/Agile methods for 20 years and his first paper on the subject was published by the BCS in 1998. David is a certified APLN Agile Leadership Practitioner and is certified in Scrum and DSDM as a practitioner and trainer. He has been responsible for many Agile project deliveries, several enterprise-wide Agile roll outs at large blue-chip organisations and is a regular speaker on the Agile conference circuit. The BCS Spring School on Agile Development is running on successive Monday evenings throughout March. Click here for more information and to book places. 2009-02-25T12:59:00+00:00 http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_sponsor_unicom_agile_event/ http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_sponsor_unicom_agile_event/#When:14:55:00Z RADTAC are sponsoring Unicom’s Agile Conference in London on 10th and 11th February Introduction to Agile (10th February): http://www.unicom.co.uk/product_detail.asp?prdid=1561 David Hicks and Barbara Roberts from RADTAC will be presenting overviews and analyses of the comparative strengths of Scrum and DSDM, demonstrating the depth and breadth of RADTAC’s expertise across the spectrum of Agile Methods.  Implementing Agile (11th February): http://www.unicom.co.uk/product_detail.asp?prdid=1476 David Hicks has been responsible for some of the worlds largest Agile implementations, using all of the leading Agile methods. David will set the scene for this conference by talking on the subject of ‘Initiating an Agile Implementation; RADTAC_-_Initiating_Agile.pdf Speaker Bios David Hicks David is a leading light in the field of Agile methods and a popular speaker at Agile Conferences and events. He is a founder member of the Agile Alliance, expert in all of the leading Agile approaches and also experienced in traditional project management approaches such as PRINCE2. Co-founder and Managing Director of RADTAC, the leading Agile services company; David has over 20 years experience of Iterative and Agile delivery. He works with RADTAC Clients providing top-level Consulting, Programme and Project Management especially around the integration of Agile into traditional and project management environments. Barbara Roberts A delivery-focused business change consultant and trainer/mentor, with some 20 years experience of introducing and supporting business change within both large and small organisations, Barbara has been an elected Director of the DSDM Consortium for many years and is a fully certified DSDM Coach, Consultant, Trainer, Examiner and Practitioner, as well as a Certified Professional Facilitator and Scrum Practitioner. An excellent trainer, communicator, facilitator and coach, well used to dealing with business, supplier and IT staff at all levels including top management, Barbara developed and piloted DSDM Atern training for over 150 people worldwide prior to the Atern public launch in April 2007. 2009-02-09T14:55:00+00:00 http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_in_china/ http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_in_china/#When:16:32:01Z RADTAC are delivering a major programme of Scrum-based Agile consulting, training and coaching to a leading global high-tech telecomms software organisation. With over 600 software engineers all essentially working on the same offering, this is probably the biggest single-product Scrum implementation of enterprise Agile in the world. The latest strand of this Agile enablement and transformation programme has been in Beijing, where RADTAC’s highly skilled trainers and coaches have bought their experience of implementing Agile into non-Western cultures to bear. David Hicks, MD of RADTAC said: “Agile in the fast moving technology hot-house of Beijing is incredibly exciting and poses some unique challenges around organisation, skills, language and culture. The Chinese teams we have been working with have risen to meet those challenges, and with help from RADTAC trainers and coaches are already having significant success with Agile” Further RADTAC support for Beijing is planned as part of this large Agile rollout, as well as in the UK and in Bangalore. 2008-10-20T16:32:01+00:00 http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_present_at_the_agile_business_conference_with_rolls_royce/ http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_present_at_the_agile_business_conference_with_rolls_royce/#When:12:00:00Z Once again RADTAC had a stand and were invited to deliver a presentation at the Agile Business Conference (ABC) 2008. ABC 2008 was well attended as usual.  It was great to see some of the old faces who appear to be there every year, but also good to meet some new people who had come along to the conference for the first time. RADTAC had some interesting discussions at the stand with organisations who were just commencing the Agile journey, and we were able to give them some hints and tips for how to drive forward effectively and miss some of the ‘bear traps’ that can be encountered. RADTAC presented with Rolls-Royce about how Agile has supported a major Rolls-Royce transformation programme. There was vast interest in this presentation as not only was it a great example of a world beating company implementing Agile; it was also an excellent example of Agile being used outside the normal Information Technology context. RADTAC had a good ABC 2008 and it was good to socialise with like minded Agile people.  We look forward to attending again next year with some more new messages and thought leadership within the Agile space. 2008-09-23T12:00:00+00:00 http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_at_the_public_sector_project_management_event/ http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_at_the_public_sector_project_management_event/#When:11:57:00Z RADTAC were present at the Public Sector Project Management event held in London and were invited to present on the subject of Agile. This event is mainly related to UK government project management and therefore RADTAC, with our ‘Everything Agile’ message were quite a new concept for some of the people attending. RADTAC delivered an extremely well-attended presentation titled ‘Agile Project Management’. The presentation overviewed how Agile can enable delivery of the right product, on time, and on cost, how Agile de-risks projects, how Agile can be integrated with Project Management frameworks (like Prince2) and some Agile statistics that made interesting reading. There was a great deal of interest around RADTAC’s stand and in RADTAC’s Agile message delivered at the event, some attendees highlighting that Agile appeared to deal with some of the major issues affecting UK government delivery today. 2008-09-10T11:57:00+00:00 http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_at_unicom_conference_in_london/ http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_at_unicom_conference_in_london/#When:11:49:00Z RADTAC were invited once again to present at the Unicom Conference held in London. This thought provoking two day event discussed ‘An Introduction to Agile’ on day one, and ‘Agile Transformation’ on day two. The first day of the two day conference was ‘An Introduction to Agile’; this presented an overview of the major Agile Frameworks within the UK (Scrum, XP and DSDM), their similarities and differences. RADTAC presented the Scrum and DSDM elements of the day. The presentations were well-received eliciting good feedback from the audience and initiating some interesting discussion during the break out sessions. The second day went on to consider how to transform a non Agile organisation into an Agile organisation. RADTAC presented how to successfully initiate an Agile transformation, using real world examples to prove the points being made. This presentation was also very well-received and initiated further interesting discussions. RADTAC went on to sit on the question/answer board and field questions from the conference attendees on multiple subjects relating to Agile. In synopsis, a good conference that gave attendees a solid ground in the basics of Agile and how to initiate an Agile transformation. 2008-07-08T11:49:00+00:00 http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_enables_npbs_to_recognise_the_combined_potential_for_agile_methods_a/ http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/radtac_enables_npbs_to_recognise_the_combined_potential_for_agile_methods_a/#When:17:17:00Z Norwich & Peterborough Building Society (N&P) is the UK’s thirteenth largest building society, with assets of more than £4.3bn. Formed by the merger of the Norwich and Peterborough Building Societies in 1986, it has over 50 branches mainly located in East Anglia, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire. N&P selected RADTAC to provide Consulting and Training Services to introduce Agile methods within their IT project lifecycle and processes. RADTAC Delivery Services RADTAC initially delivered a short “Agile Readiness Assessment” to N&P that identified, discussed and agreed the implications and the route to Agile at N&P. This enabled N&P to take a measured view when making their decision and to agree the way forward. RADTAC then provided experienced Agile Practitioners to work alongside N&P Business and IT personnel to provide Agile Training and Consulting and introduce Agile methods and new Microsoft technologies into the N&P delivery teams – enabling N&P to deliver additional benefit to the business. Moving from VB6 can be a challenge for any organisation and N&P addressed this by investing in Object-Oriented training for their developers, coupled with a further investment in the Microsoft .Net Framework. N&P also decided to employ RADTAC to introduce an Agile Project Delivery framework based on the Agile Unified Process (AUP), and RADTAC’s unique PragmaticAgileTM Services. Working together with RADTAC, N&P was able introduce Agile together with the new Microsoft tools and technologies and took the decision to standardise on the .Net3 framework for all new Agile developments. Microsoft .Net3 provides further improvements and many new frameworks, all designed to simplify the development process and further improve the speed of development. Agile methods enable consistent high quality delivery, on-time, to-spec and to-budget - and N&P recognised that applying these new frameworks would be a key factor in achieving their objective to migrate away from Visual Basic. Through a focussed engagement of tailored on-project training and workshops RADTAC introduced Agile methods appropriate to the N&P culture and business ethos. One of the key concepts introduced by RADTAC to N&P was the practice of Test Driven Development (TDD).  In this practice, requirements are defined as a series of tests that are agreed by the customer, the tester and the developer before coding is started. Microsoft’s .NET UI Automation framework provided the toolset that supported the introduction of TDD.  This powerful yet simple framework enabled the development of a Test Harness for N&P that was able to populate on-screen controls, press buttons and automate virtually any action that might be performed by a user. Summary Working closely together, RADTAC and N&P enabled N&P personnel to recognise the combined potential for Agile methods and Microsoft technologies, and enabled N&P personnel to swiftly become proficient and self-sufficient in their application. The pragmatic combination of RADTAC Agile Services and Training, alongside the Microsoft .NET3 framework has enabled N&P to build a firm foundation and introduce methods and technologies to further improve the quality of their applications delivery. N&P anticipates being able to further leverage the joint benefits of Agile with Microsoft technologies; and produce applications with rich, high quality, interactive user interfaces on-time, to-spec, within budget and of guaranteed quality. RADTAC Consulting Services: PragmaticAgile ~ Training and Workshops ~ AUP ~ TDD For further information please contact us at enquiries@radtac.co.uk 2008-05-02T17:17:00+00:00 http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/standing_room_only_for_radtac_agile_maturity_presentation_at_nec/ http://www.radtac.co.uk/index.php/about_us/article/standing_room_only_for_radtac_agile_maturity_presentation_at_nec/#When:16:59:00Z RADTAC supported the Project Challenge Conference at the NEC in March for the third year in succession. Peter Measey - Operations Director of RADTAC - presented on the subject of “Agile Maturity Model and RADTAC Maturity Audit Services”, and once again it was standing room only for the 130+ attendees, followed by a very animated Q&A session that continued into the afternoon at the RADTAC stand. Using examples of real-world statistics from RADTAC clients, Peter outlined services from RADTAC that enable companies to review, revise and realign their project delivery delivery framework, practices and methods. RADTAC Services are based on real-world experience and delivered by highly experienced practitioners. The RADTAC Agile Maturity Audit enables companies to establish a baseline of the maturity and effectiveness of their current practices, to plan the Audit, interview key IT and business personnel, analyse the results, report back to management and recommend a planned course of action. For further information on the Agile Maturity Model and of RADTAC Audit Services, please contact us at enquiries@radtac.co.uk 2008-04-06T16:59:00+00:00