Talks and workshops

Monkeys, Communication and Relationships (1 hour)

The talk looks at Robin Dunbar's theories around social groupings, the development of language, gossip and the monkey-sphere, before looking about what that can teach us about sustaining relationships, and applying it to the direct challenges that we see on our projects.

FF QA (30 minutes including build in discussion)

A story of how we hacked our automated tests to help get through the 'last mile' of manual testing. Given at London Developers in Test Meet-up.

A coaching toolkit for leading and guiding (1 hour)

A walk around some of techniques that I've used to help grow teams and lead and teach groups. We share some thoughts as a group as we walk through the tools.

Can be extended with a practical coaching statement add-on.

Using production data to drive testing (30 mins)

Testing in development environments using data from production systems gives you accurate feedback on the latest additions to your application, but how do you avoid breaking Data Security rules?

The Well Rounded Tech Lead - (20 mins. 1 hour with practical)

A look at my definition of a well rounded tech lead. We'll look briefly at the value of being well rounded and what's at the heart of being a tech lead. 

Evolving Cross functional Requirements (30 mins)

This talk looks at how we gather and use Cross Functional Requirements. It focuses on getting engagement and how to use them through the full project lifecycle to deliver stable and resilient software.

Drawing out your future (1.5 hours)

This workshop hopes to encourage people to visualise their thoughts on the next stops in their personal growth. We'll try to focus ourselves as visual thinkers then work to draw out our definitions of growth and perhaps leadership in our areas of expertise. It’s not me talking, it's people sharing. There no projector or slides be we use a big space.

There will be sharing, trying new thing, felt tips and quiet time. Shhhhh.

Using targeted feedback to grow and progress (1 hour)

This session introduces a planning and focused feedback process that helps people get then information they need to grow into who they want. It's a hands on session, with paper and sharpies. People should leave with a view of who they should be asking, and what they need to know to take their next steps towards their goals.

Micro-project: TDD hands on Intro (1.5 - 2 hours)

A hands on programming session focusing on core developer skills: Pairing, Test Driven Development, Refactoring. Delivered at Aberystwyth University.

Requires laptops or a programming lab.

A Taste of Continual Integration and Continual Delivery (1 hour) 

This practical talk uses the Marshmallow Challenge to introduce the concepts of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery. It needs space for people to work as groups.