I’m speaking @ the Lean Software and Systems Conference 2011.

The program is amazing!

I highly encourage attendance.

There’s an entire day in cooperation with the SEI with 3 unique tracks on it including a track on CMMI and Multi-Modal Processes (which I’m chairing).

Take a look at my talk… it’s from my upcoming book: High Performance Operations.

Register quickly and make your hotel reservations! Block rooms are nearly gone!

So today started out with a bus ride from the hotel to the Savannah International Trade and Convention Center rather than the expected ferry ride over the river.  A container ship in the port managed to get damaged and leaked fuel into the Savannah River on Sunday immediately closing the river to non-clean-up traffic, including the otherwise convenient cross-river ferry.

Be that as it may, the bus ride gave me an opportunity to connect with Michele Moss from Booz-Allen, Hamilton.  A kindred spirit in things related to "the future of process".  She and I had plans to meet anyway some time today to discuss ideas about "bringing ‘younger people’ into the field" and a related topic, addressing modern-day issues such as cyber, agile and value as these concerns are manifested in processes and process improvement.

First order of the day after registration was to co-create what I perceived as a rather successful (and well-attended) tutorial with Judah Mogilensky on a tailoring for SCAMPI appraisals that increases efficiency, collaboration, and reduces time and cost, we called "One-Stop Shopping".  Immediately following, Michele and I met with Bob Rosenstein, the events and conferences manager at SEI.  David Anderson, just arriving to the venue, was a very beneficial addition to the discussion, conveying his experience with creating communities and conferences specific to a community such as his LSSC.  Dana Hanzlik and Danny Pipitone from SEI’s PR group also sat in on the conversation.  About the only definitive expectation to come out of this meeting (other than our commitment to come to the retrospective with with data from the Peer-to-Peer), was that SEI will be open to more closely tying into other gatherings.  Not bad since we had no expectations going in, and, even if we had, it wouldn’t have been reasonable to have expected any commitments.

Much came up in just under an hour with Bob.  We’re planning to include bits of this topic in our end-of-conference committee retrospective on Thursday.  Part of what will feed into that retrospective will be a Peer-to-Peer session on Wednesday afternoon that Michele and I will be co-creating and was planned with David’s help.  Our Peer-to-Peer is being billed as, "Where do we go from here? Value, Agile, Cyber, and all things Future Processes."

The mind-map of the problem-space was really intriguing.  This will not be an easy matter.

After a conference lunch with David and Michele, we split up and I attended the invitation-only advanced overview of the changes to "high maturity" to CMMI v1.3.  Good stuff, really.  Way too geek for here.

After getting as much as I cared to get from the high maturity campfire (which coincided with the moment I sensed my lunch moved far enough down my digestive tract to make room (literally) for a run) I decided to go back to my hotel to squeeze a run in before the evening gorge-fest that includes the opening of the trade-show floor, a board meeting, and later, a surprise opportunity to attend a special reception, all of which were to include food (and in order of continually improving quality at that).

Before I could get back across the river, I nabbed an opportunity to comment on a frequent occurrence here, on the Savannah River:

Several lovely hours later of socializing (albeit, mostly work-related) I’m back at the room planning my day ahead.

I’ve created this (goofy?) promo at the request of the organizers for the 5th Central and Eastern European Software Engineering Conference in Russia.  It takes place the last week in October in Moscow.  I’ll be delivering a keynote and a workshop on AgileCMMI (of course, what else?).  In particular I’ll be pimping my idea that CMMI and Agile *need* each other.

As noted, the Webinar with the SEI will be on the same topic.  So far, nearly 400 people have signed up for that!  The direct registration link is: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/167857128.

A short list of confirmed upcoming events at which I’ll be speaking.
As I accumulate discount codes, I’ll pass them along.
I’m also including the (rather thematic) topics on which I’m speaking:

FedMarket – Entinex CMMI^® Crash Course. Bethesda, MD USA, and online, 15 October 2009.

SEI SPIN Webinar – CMMI & Agile Working Together. Online. 15 October 2009.

Scrum Gathering – Open Space on Agile & CMMI. Munich, Germany, 19-21 October.

Central and Eastern European Software Engineering Conference in Russia – Keynote & Workshop on CMMI & Agile Working Together. Moscow, Russia, 28-29 October, 2009.

Agile Development Practices – Love & Marriage: Why CMMI and Agile Need Each Other.  Orlando, FL, USA. 9-12 November.
>>> Use discount code: SPAD.  <<<

Click here for a chance to win 1 of 5 FREE full conference passes.

As you can guess, I’m rather keen on spreading the word that it’s not enough to merely acknowledge that Agile and CMMI can work together, it’s time to start actually doing something to actively implement them together.  In fact, I’m going so far as to say

due to their respective points of view, instead of beefing up either of them to account for things the other doesn’t do, we ought to be using *both*!

And, if you’re not using both, you’re going to be left behind, because those that successfully implement the benefits of both Agile *and* CMMI will be unstoppable.