Bio

Woody Zuill is an independent Agile Guide and Coach and has been programming computers for 35+ years. He is a pioneer of the Mob Programming approach to teamwork in software development, and is one of the founders of the "#NoEstimates" discussion on Twitter. His passion is to work with teams to create an environment where each one of us can excel in our work and in our life. He loves working with legacy code, and believes that code must be kept simple, clean, and easy to work on so we can work just as fast tomorrow as we can today.

---

Estimates or No Estimates, Let's explore the possibilities (Workshop)

Let’s explore the purpose and use of estimates in the management of software development efforts, and consider possible alternatives.

Why do we estimate and are we making estimates that are actually useful?  We say we depend on estimates to make important decisions, and yet we’re often disappointed by the results.

Why are we so challenged at estimation?  Are estimates for cost, time, or effort always needed? Is it possible there are other ways to approach our work?  If we didn’t estimate, how could we still be successful at making business decisions?

There are a number of things to explore and many questions to ask. For example, do we really need estimates for all the things we are currently using them? Are we getting a reasonable benefit from them? Is it possible to manage software development projects without these estimates, or at least with fewer estimates?  Is there a way to prove that estimates are helping us make good decisions?

In this session we’ll participate in some interactive information gathering exercises to see if we can gain a shared idea of our current understanding of the purpose and use of estimates. 

We will examine the nature of software development. Our exploration goal is to see if we can work together to come up with some ideas about eliminating or improving on the traditional approaches to using estimates.

---

Mob Programming (Workshop)

Mob Programming Workshop Description - Woody Zuill

Mob Programming: All the brilliant people working on the same thing, at the same time, in the same place, and on the same computer.

Mob Programming is a cost-effective, collaborative and fun way to get work done together. It's a whole-team approach to development, where coding, designing, testing, and working with the "customer" (partner, Product Owner, User, etc.) is all done as a team.

Participants in this workshop experience a day of learning and doing Mob Programming. We cover the mechanics of how to work together as a Mob as well as the techniques that make this form of development so effective.

We’ll learn how a Mob performs sample project work, including user stories, prioritization, test-driven development, refactoring, and retrospectives.

Designed and facilitated by Mob Programming pioneer Woody Zuill, this workshop provides a hands-on education in the art of mobbing and it's significant benefits for your teams.

Learning Goals
• How 5+ people can be effective working on just one thing
• Heuristics for team size
• Guidelines for successful collaboration
• Handling competing solutions and ideas to a coding problem
• Encouraging politeness and kindness of team members
• Reducing or eliminating harmful conflicts
• Mobbing Mechanics
• Tools for team coding
• Workspace setup
• How to "Amplify Learning" and take advantage of continual learning opportunities
• "Real-time" and continuous Retrospectives to reflect, tune, adjust
• The theory of why Mob Programming is effective.
• Test-Driven Development (TDD) as a team
• Working with Product Owners, Business Experts, Testers,
Designers as part of the team
• Refactoring as a team
Continuous feedback at all levels of granularity