ThoughtWorks Australia Open House 2012

Our “Open House” event has already become a tradition. For the fourth time, we are inviting Agile Australia attendees and ThoughtWorks’ friends to our Melbourne home for an exciting night, which coincides with the Agile Australia 2012 conference.

The thought provoking and fun activities throughout the night will focus on the exciting topics: 'Continuous Design & Continuous Delivery'

We will also serve canapés, drinks and deserts from 5:45pm onwards.

Agenda:

5:45 PM - Doors Open
6:30pm - 6:45pm - Welcome address by Lindy Stephens Managing Director ThoughtWorks Australia
6:45pm - 8:15pm - Continuous Delivery Game: "Continuously invading invaders"
Continuous Design Game: "Play Doh" Zoo
8:15pm - 9:15pm - Data Analytics for Social Impact & Frugal Innovation
Presenters: ThoughtWorks CTO, Dr. Rebecca Parsons, and ThoughtWorks Chairman and Founder, Roy Singham
9:15pm - 11:00pm - Mingle

Session information:

"Play Doh Zoo" This Agile UX Game demonstrates the fundamental agile principles the methodology was built on in an entertaining and interactive way. It is specifically targeted at those who want to better understand the benefits of Agile, specifically experience designers. It illustrates how design activities can occur in an agile environment.  Some of the principles covered include: 

• Working Software – Why it is important to deliver value early
• Responding to change – How iterative development makes integrating change easier
• Communication and collaboration – Every team member contributes in a unified way
• Customer Feedback – Importance of regularly soliciting and integrating feedback
• Managing a project – Success built on meeting both business and customer needs
• Retrospectives – How continuous improvement is part of the process

“Continuously Invading Invaders” An interactive crash course focusing on fast feedback, test-driven development, incremental delivery, and automated deployment.

In this hands-on activity, Continuous Delivery will be demonstrated via a classic favourite, “Space Invaders”.

There is something for everybody!

• Technical participants will pair with ThoughtWorkers to incrementally fix, improve and customise the game; maintaining working, tested software as it evolves.
• Non-technical participants will shape features and confirm functionality, improving their understanding of Continuous Delivery and its implications on business.

Data Analytics for Social Impact & Frugal Innovation

Rebecca will open the session with the topic of ‘Data Analytics for Social Impact’, a survey of how Big Data can be harnessed to address social problems in innovative ways. Examples include the use of crowd-sourced data in crises - enabling emergency responders to better monitor and respond to critical needs. With the majority of data arriving via SMS, much-needed information can be effectively gathered from areas with even the most minimal infrastructure. Similarly, collecting and publishing crowd-sourced data in undeveloped countries can promote better services, increase accountability, and enable citizens to put the data to entrepreneurial uses. Her presentation will also touch upon our role as software professionals in guarding the integrity of the ever-increasing volume of data.

Roy will follow with a discussion on the merits of Frugal Innovation, looking to hotspots like China, India, and Brazil, and examining how these emerging economies have sparked growth by designing products with creativity and flexibility, defying traditional Western approaches to R&D. Frugal Innovation may represent the most promising merger of innovation with social value, but getting it right, will demand attention to appropriate design, distribution, education, and maintenance.

How to register?

Online registration will close on COB Monday 28th May. Additional 25 tickets will be offered at the ThoughtWorks booth at the Agile Australia Conference.

If you have further queries please contact Natalie Drucker on ndrucker@thoughtworks.com