Hi All –
Beantown .NET is going to be meeting Thursday, 1/6/2011. This month we have Richard Hale Shaw presenting “On Time and Under Budget: How to Stop Missing – and Start Meeting – Software Project Deadlines”.
As always, our meeting is open to everyone so bring your friends and co-workers – better yet, bring your boss. Please RSVP by email (beantown@benday.com) by 3pm on the day of the meeting to help speed your way through building security and to give us an idea how much pizza to order.
Future meetings:
- February 3 – Bob German, “SharePoint 2010 Development for .NET Developers”
- March 10 – Ben Day, TBA
- April 7 – Abby Fichtner, “Lean Startup: How Development Looks Different at a Startup”
- May 5 – TBA
When: Thursday, 1/6/2011, 6p – 8p
**Where:
**Microsoft NERD
1 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA
Directions: http://microsoftcambridge.com/About/Directions/tabid/89/Default.aspx
Parking: Paid parking is available in 1 Memorial Drive.
**Title:
**On Time and Under Budget: How to Stop Missing – and Start Meeting – Software Project Deadlines
**Abstract:
**What’s your biggest challenge as a software developer?
Maybe you think it’s learning and developing new skills, or keeping up with the latest technologies and tools? These can be tough – but an abundance of resources (such as books, training, and conferences – not to mention help from colleagues) is available. Or perhaps you’d say that requirements gathering and analysis is difficult? Granted, collecting, organizing and internalizing your understanding of users’ needs isn’t easy. But there are lots of great methodologies at hand that are designed to help you address just this issue.
So let me ask the question another way: if brought before a jury of your peers and accused of delivering your software projects on time, would there be enough evidence to convict you?
It’s likely that the answer is no – and that this may be your biggest challenge as a software developer.
Arguably the biggest problem facing every software developer – not to mention entire teams and perhaps the entire industry – is that of setting and meeting deadlines. The issue is a complex one: without deadlines projects would likely languish; but deadlines are often set by almost anyone other than the developer or team that’s responsible for meeting it. And while deadlines are supposed to be inflexible, product feature sets appear to be highly flexible – and completely out of our control.
In this highly interactive session, Richard will help you look at deadlines as contracts – where a contract is an agreement by both parties, and not open to change by one party without the other’s consent. We’ll talk about why deadlines are valuable – and to whom – when you should set them (or at least, agree to them) and when you shouldn’t. We’ll look at how deadlines are set, how they’re changed, who gets to change them – and why.
Finally, we’ll look at a number of strategic solutions and tactics that you can implement, turning deadlines from impossible tasks into achievable goals.
Bio:
Richard’s full bio is available at http://codewithconfidence.net/about/.
