JustaProgrammer who's interested in software process. Tired of seeing so much wasted effort, wasted money and wasted talent on software projects, I turned to ExtremeProgramming (out of desperation) and found to my pleasant surprise all the thousand LightweightMethodologies (now called AgileProcesses.)
I live in Utah Valley (south of SaltLakeCity?). I used to work at WordPerfectNovellCorel, developing WordPerfect, QuattroPro?, and Presentations in CeePlusPlus. Then I spent some time learning small company politics as well as how to build an enterprise information system in VisualBasic. Next, I established a software test team at an Internet hosting company, learning about testing (fun!), managing talented people (really fun!) and about company politics (not quite as fun, but still educational). I did some automated testing at a financial institution, followed by establishing another agile test team on a very large project. Currently I'm an independent consultant.
I'm thrilled by what I perceive as the Agile methods taking the distilled wisdom of many, many years of software practice. What this means to me is I can spend my time learning and practicing concepts and techniques that other people (whom I have confidence in) recommend, thus saving a lot of my time I would otherwise spend chasing down dead ends. (Kind of like an Editor's Choice for software development process...)
Mission: I aspire some day to be a SlowLearner.
Hobbies: ExtremeProgramming, Riding Dressage, ScienceFiction
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- Dressage is the training of the horse for strength, obedience and suppleness. It has been an Olympic sport since 1912, and the earliest known book on the subject is "On Horsemanship" (Xenophon, 350 BC), but I have only been doing it since 1996. I have a long way to go. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dressage
Highlights:
- Attended XpImmersionOne -- a great experience!
- I also enjoyed OopslaTwoThousand, especially the XP workshop.
- Competed in DressageAtIndio? where I got to see the Real Riders do their stuff as part of the Olympic selection process.
- Attended XpTwoThousandAndOne in Sardinia. I loved the LegoMindstorms workshop (who wouldn't?). Participated on a panel "How do you hire the right XP customer?" http://www.frankwestphal.de/xp2001/KayJohansen.html
- Attended XpUniverseTwoThousandOne in Raleigh where I presented my first conference paper (http://www.xpuniverse.com/2001/pdfs/XPU01.pdf).
- Have now started a user's group for XP in Utah. http://www.xputah.org
- Attended XpUniverseTwoThousandTwo in Chicago where I where I met JamesBach and BretPettichord, also participated in the ExtremeFishbowl and presented another paper, later selected as an example paper for Agile Development Conference 2004 (http://agile2007.com/2004/participate/examples/EstablisingAnAgileTeam.pdf).
- Had a blast with more upper level dressage (Third and Fourth levels, started Prix St Georges) thanks to my wonderful horse Pepe.
- Attended AgileDevelopmentConferenceTwoThousandThree. I liked the Agile conference even better than the XP conferences because of the great variety of experience and opinions.
- Attended AgileDevelopmentConferenceTwoThousandFour in SaltLakeCity? where I organized a peer-to-peer session "Teaching Agile Testing" (http://www.agiledevelopmentconference.com/wiki/TeachingAgileTesting).
- Attended XpAgileUniverseOhFour in Calgary.
- Attended AgileTwoThousandFive in Denver where I organized a workshop "Roadmap to Agile Testing."
- Competed in dressage at Prix St Georges level for the first time!
- Attended AgileTwoThousandSix? in Minneapolis where I organized a workshop "Agile Before You Know It" about agile adoption.
- Became independent (self-employed!) My company is called Bits and Connections.
- Attended AgileTwoThousandSeven? in Washington, D.C. where I presented a tutorial "Agile for New Managers."
- Attended AgileTwoThousandEight? in Toronto where I presented a tutorial "Automated Testing With a Purpose"
- Attended AgileTwoThousandNine? in Chicago where I presented with ZhonJohansen "Speed Up Your testing With Acceptance Criteria Conversations"
- Organized first AgileRoots? conference in Salt Lake City, June 15-16, 2009
- Attended AgileTwoThousandTen? in Orlando where I presented with ZhonJohansen "Testing When You're Not Automated (Yet)" and "Energize Your Agile Community with Roundtable"
- Organized second AgileRoots? conference in Salt Lake City, June 2010
- Attended AgileTwoThousandEleven? in my home town, Salt Lake City, where with KenjiHiranabe? I organized the Hands-On Track
- Made it to dressage 4th level (again) this time with my beloved Plato
- Organized third AgileRoots? conference in Salt Lake City, June 2012
- Attended AgileTwoThousandThirteen? in my birth town, Nashville, where I took a break and volunteered
- Currently Organizing fourth AgileRoots? conference in Salt Lake City, June 2014
- Getting lots of help from great coaches, working with my fantastically talented, but mentally challenging, mare, Nike
Leave me a note here
Hi Kay,
You said that at the end of the "XpDoesntSell?" project, the XP team was laid off because of perceptions they weren't working as hard as the other development team. How did the rest of the company go after that? A roaring success, or another DotBomb? -- BenAveling
Hi Ben, the company is no longer in business. And I am somewhat wiser for the experience. -- Kay
Hi Kay,
what level of dressage are you working at? ValerieWill?
Hi Valerie,
Currently, First. I am on a new horse. I have done up to St Georges on a lovely schoolmaster, sadly since passed away. And you?
-Kay
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Kay Johansen