Our own Bill Heitzeg and John Stout attended such a workshop at CodeMash earlier this year and developed a good relationship with Mary and Tom. It was this relationship that opened the door for the session.

With limited seating available Stout hosted a sold-out crowd of 50 business and software professionals who were treated to an in-depth discussion of lean computing concepts.

There was also a detailed exercise demonstrating the power of value-stream mapping in identifying organizational and process waste. It is the elimination of such waste that defines lean processes of all kinds.

Mary and Tom were good enough to stop in between engagements and conduct the workshop. All proceeds from ticket sales went to benefit the Ann Arbor Chapter of the Association for Women in Computing and their scholarship fund.

You can find more information about Mary and Tom’s work and travels at their website www.poppendieck.com.

Recently, Peg Bogema and I gave a presentation to the Ann Arbor Association of Women in Computing. The topic: Insider Tips on Resume Writing, Interviewing and More. The bad news is that we told attendees that our presentation would only last an hour at most. The good news is that most everyone was still there, taking notes, after more than 2 hours of stimulating discussion.

Feedback from the presentation has been very good, and we’ve had the opportunity to help several candidates implement some of the resume ideas that were discussed. Because of the positive response, we will likely be repeating this event. Stay tuned for where and when!

Three time author, speaker and trainer, Mary Poppendieck has a long career helping companies produce great software.  After retiring from 3M in 1998, Mary started helping software companies around the world adopt the lean patterns that have been so successfully applied in Manufacturing.  In 2003 she published her first of now three books on Lean: “Lean Software:  An Agile Toolkit.”  Focusing on the process of developing software, not necessarily on the code itself, Mary gives teams the tools and techniques to analyze, understand and continuously improve their software delivery.  In her third book “Leading Lean Software Development” (2010), Mary is teaching leaders how to continuously improve their organizations ability to consistently produce great software.

On Tuesday April 20th, Mary is going to lead a group of us in an interactive environment where we’ll work on real business problems.  She’ll help us learn, apply, and practice some of the important techniques that have helped so many other software organizations achieve software success.  If you’re involved in producing great software (and not necessarily a software developer), then please join us on April 20th from 2:30 – 5:30 pm.

When:  2:30 – 5:30 pm, April 20th, 2010.

Where: Marr Professional Development, 501 Avis Drive, Ann Arbor 48108

Who: Anyone who is involved in the software development process, from software executives to front line support.

Cost:  $25.00 (All Proceeds go to Ann Arbor Women in Computing)

Signup: AWC Event Page

Here’s some pictures of our great time at CodeMash 2010:

Yes, that smiling man is Stout’s own Brian P. Skory. Brian manned the booth at CodeMash 2010 almost all of the time (thanks Brian) while the rest of the team, John Stout and I, got to do the fun stuff.

One of the great things about CodeMash, and CodeMash 2010 was no exception, is how many fun tech conversations you can have. Here at our booth, Brian and I are talking with Jon Woodard of Inner Circle Media in Ann Arbor about an iPhone application we have been dreaming up.

Here I am getting in the way while Brian manages the crowd.

Here I’m getting ready to kick off the Stout Software Smackdown.  This was our first year putting on the Smackdown.  So many people at Stout worked overtime to put this together and it really paid off.  We had a lot of fun and now we’re excited to do it all again next year at CodeMash 2011.

A set of pictures from what was obviously our favorite event at CodeMash 2010—The Stout Software Smackdown—23 minutes of pulse pounding software development.  Action packed programming that has never been seen before.

And the winners of the Smackdown: Kevin Berridge, Benjamin Lee & Josh Schramm.

If you haven’t been to, or never heard of CodeMash, here’s the scoop: CodeMash is a software developer’s conference with sessions covering software architecture, desktop development, Web development, methodologies, mobility, languages and more. The upcoming event spans 3 days in January from the 7th to the 9th.

On the 8th and 9th there will be more than 45 sessions consisting of the above topics.

An optional “PreCompiler” event will be held on the 7th that consists of hands-on development workshops with full day tutorials on Ruby, Java, and .NET. There are also half-day workshops on Kanban, test driven development, and iPhone app development.

Stout Systems has sponsored this conference since its inception three years ago and is a proud Platinum Sponsor for 2009.

Certified Scrum Master and Stout Systems employee John Fohrman packed the house the November’s Great Lakes Area .NET User Group (GANG) Meeting in Microsoft’s Southfield, MI offices.

His Presentation about the Scrum software development process drew in the highest attendance ever in the 8-year history of GANG. Many members of the audience were unfamiliar with this methodology, and Mr. Fohrman made clear its advantages and applications.

Thanks to all that attended and to the Officers at GANG for their support.

Learn more about Scrum at www.controlchaos.com.