AgilePalooza Minneapolis Speaker Bios

David Hussman - Software Anthropologist and Coach

David teaches and coaches agility as a delivery tool. He has spent the last 10 years teaching and learning better ways to produce products with companies of all sizes around the world. Sometimes he is pairing with developers and testers, while other times he is helping to plan and create product roadmaps. David often works with leadership groups learn to introduce and (pragmatically) use agile methods to foster innovation and competitive business advantage.

Prior to working as a fulltime coach, David spent years building software in a variety of domains: digital audio, digital biometrics, medical, financial, retail, and education to name a few. David now leads DevJam, a company composed of agile collaborators, mentors and practitioners. DevJam’s use of agility helps people and companies improve their software production skills as well as their understanding of who will be using and buying their product and why. DevJam provides seasoned leaders that strive to pragmatically match technology, people, and processes to create better products in more competitive cycles.

Along with teaching and coaching, David participates in conferences around the world and continuously publishes to a variety of sources. He has contributed to several books as well as helping to create agile curriculum for The University of Minnesota and Capella University.

For more information, check out the DevJam website www.devjam.com

Jeff Patton

Jeff Patton has designed and developed software for the past 12 years on a wide variety of projects from on-line aircraft parts ordering to electronic medical records. Jeff has focused on Agile approaches since working on an early Extreme Programming team in 2000. In particular Jeff has specialized in the application of user centered design techniques to improve Agile requirements, planning, and products. Some of his recent writing on the subject can be found at www.AgileProductDesign.com and Alistair Cockburn’s Crystal Clear. His forthcoming book to be released in Addison-Wesley’s Agile Development Series gives tactical advice to those seeking to deliver useful, usable, and valuable software.

Jeff works currently as an independent consultant, is founder and list moderator of the agile-usability Yahoo discussion group, a columnist with StickyMinds.com and IEEE Software, and a winner of the Agile Alliance’s 2007 Gordon Pask Award for contributions to Agile Development. 

Michael Nygard

Michael strives to raise the bar and ease the pain for developers across the country. He shares his passion and energy for improvement with everyone he meets, sometimes even with their permission. Michael has spent the better part of 20 years learning what it means to be a professional programmer who cares about art, quality, and craft. He's always ready to spend time with other developers who are fully engaged and devoted to their work--the "wide awake" developers. On the flip side, he cannot abide apathy or wasted potential.

Michael has been a professional programmer and architect for nearly 20 years. During that time, he has delivered running systems to the U. S. Government, the military, banking, finance, agriculture, and retail industries. More often than not, Michael has lived with the systems he built. This experience with the real world of operations changed his views about software architecture and development forever.

He worked through the birth and infancy of a Tier 1 retail site and has often served as "roving troubleshooter" for other online businesses. These experiences give him a unique perspective on building software for high performance and high reliability in the face of an actively hostile environment.

Most recently, Michael wrote "Release It! Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software", a book that realizes many of his thoughts about building software that does more than just pass QA, it survives the real world. Michael previously wrote numerous articles and editorials, spoke at Comdex, and co-authored one of the early Java books.

Chris Bartling

Christopher Bartling has been in the IT industry since 1995. He has served in the roles of application developer, mentor and agile coach and has experience in biometrics, healthcare, and legal/regulatory domains. Chris helps develop and deliver training for DevJam. Previous to his career in IT, Chris was involved in biomedical research and electrophysiology at the Mayo Clinic.

Steven Ropa

Steve has spent the last 17 years in the software development industry, first as a programmer and later as a development manager and director. He has been involved in the Agile development scene for the past 10 years, been an active contributor to the Agile Denver community and was on the organizing committee for Agile 2005. He has taught and led teams varying in size from small shops to large, distributed organizations in their transition to using agile methods. Steve is currently an Agile coach and product trainer for VersionOne.

Joel Tosi

Joel has served roles in development, management, and architecture throughout his 11 years in software with his most recent years spent overseeing an enterprise Agile transformation. Joel is currently an Agile coach and product SDK expert for VersionOne where he is currently working on creating a deeper and more vibrant, open development community.

Paul Culling

Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Paul is currently on the board of the Agile Alliance and has been on the board of his local user group, Agile Vancouver, for the past four years helping organize monthly Agile events and four successful conferences in the Vancouver area. Paul is a trained innovation games facilitator and experienced in open space facilitation. Paul has worked extensively with Agile community groups at local, regional and international levels and is the founder and editor of the Agile Chronicles newsletter for VersionOne. Paul is a technology marketing professional with 17 years experience in the development and marketing of both packaged and service based offerings. As part of his role as Director of Marketing at VersionOne, Paul also has been working as part of a team using the scrum framework outside of a development environment. Working from Vancouver, BC with the majority of the team in Atlanta, Georgia, Paul also has first-hand experience with distributed Agile practices.