Workshops | Web Directions USA

Workshops

Three great full day workshops to choose from

September 21 Workshops

• Esther Derby – Agile Retrospecitves

September 22 Workshops

• Juliette Melton – Developing effective UX research plans
• Jonathan Stark – Building Mobile Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

Agile Retrospectives

Presenter: Esther Derby

Venue: AMA Atlanta Executive Conference Center, 1170 Peachtree Street, 3rd Floor

Date: Tuesday September 21 2010, 9.00am to 5.00pm

Pricing: $350 conference attendees / $450 standalone

Register now!

Stoking the Improvement Engine

Effective retrospectives stoke the engine of team improvement. Retrospectives are the vital feedback loop the team uses to examine methods engineering practices, teamwork, and organizational relationships. But all too often, teams fail to act on their retrospective resolves.

This full-day interactive workshop will introduce you to a flexible five-stage framework for retrospectives. Participants will do a small project (no coding involved) and experience a retrospective on the project. We’ll examine how and why the retrospective works, how it leverages the way humans naturally process information, and how to increase the chances of getting traction on retrospective actions.

If you’ve been dissatisfied with your team’s retrospectives, are ready to take your retrospectives to the next level, or are just starting to use retrospectives on your team, come to this session to learn from on the the world experts on retrospectives.

What will be covered?

At the end of this very full hands on day you will have everything you need to get the most out of every retrospective:

• a five-stage flexible framework for effective retrospectives
• an understanding of the purpose of each stage, and how they fit together
• an appreciation of the perils of leaving out one of the stages
• the ability to select a focus for a retrospective
• tools for choosing activities for a retrospective
• ideas for managing group dynamics
• a list of common traps (and how to avoid them)

Who should attend?

Anyone currently using, or wanting to get more out of, agile methodologies should attend this workshop.

• team coaches
• team leads
• scrum masters
• team members
• people interested in continuous improvement at work

About Esther Derby

Esther Derby works with individuals, teams, and organizations to improve their ability to deliver valuable software. Esther is recognized as a leader in the human-side of software development, including management, organizational change, collaboration, building teams, and retrospectives.

She’s been a programmer, systems manager, project manager, and internal consultant. She currently runs her own consulting firm, Esther Derby Associates, Inc., in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Esther has an MA in Organizational Leadership, is the author of over 100 articles and co-author of Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great and Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management. At the moment, she’s working on a book about managing in team-based organizations.

She’s a founder of the AYE Conference and is serving her second term as a board member for the Agile Alliance.

Follow Esther on Twitter: @estherderby

Building Mobile Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

Presenter: Jonathan Stark

Venue: AMA Atlanta Executive Conference Center, 1170 Peachtree Street, 3rd Floor

Date: Wednesday September 22 2010, 9.00am to 5.00pm

Pricing: $350 conference attendees / $450 standalone

Register now!

Thanks to mobile phones, we have moved from virtually no one having access to information, to virtually everyone having access to all the vast resources of the web. This is arguably the most important achievement of our generation. Despite its overarching importance, the mobile web is in its infancy. Physical, technical, financial, and political forces have created platform fragmentation like never before, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Organizations that need to engage large groups are faced with a seemingly impossible challenge – “How do we implement our mobile vision in a way that is feasible, affordable, and reaches the greatest number of participants?” In many cases, the answer is web technologies. The combination of advances in HTML5 and mobile devices has created an environment where even novice developers can build mobile apps that improve – and in some cases, save – lives on a global scale.

The future of computing is mobile. The future of mobile is web. Why not get started today?

What will be covered?

• Interface guidelines for mobile devices
• Advanced styling with CSS3
• CSS3 transforms, tranistions, and animations
• Building offline web apps with HTML5
• Building native web apps with PhoneGap
• Mobile app architecture options

Who is this workshop for?

This workshop is designed for web designers and developers who are interested in creating mobile apps. A basic familiarity with standard HTML, CSS, and JavaScript would be very helpful but is not required.

About Jonathan Stark

Jonathan Stark is a mobile and web application consultant who the Wall Street Journal has called an expert on publishing desktop data to the web.

He is the author of O’Reilly’s Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, is a tech editor for both php|architect and Advisor magazines, and is often quoted in the media on internet and mobile lifestyle trends.

Jonathan began his programming career more than 20 years ago on a Tandy TRS-80 and still thinks Zork was a sweet game.

Follow Jonathan on Twitter: @jonathanstark

Know Your Users: Develop effective user experience research plans

Presenter: Juliette Melton

Venue: AMA Atlanta Executive Conference Center, 1170 Peachtree Street, 3rd Floor

Date: Wednesday September 22 2010, 9.00am to 5.00pm

Pricing: $350 conference attendees / $450 standalone

Register now!

You can dramatically improve your websites when you pay attention to how they are being used. Understanding user behavior can be challenging, but there lots of ways to get started. User testing doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive, and shouldn’t only happen at the end of the product development cycle. The best and most useful research is distributed throughout the product lifecycle and is done in a way that clicks with how your organization works.

At this workshop, Juliette Melton will show you how to build an effective user experience research program from scratch and how to keep it going over time.

Who is this workshop for?

This workshop is for those who want to understand how to learn about user experiences, including project/product managers, designers, and usability professionals.

What will you learn?

• A structured approach to building a user testing program
• Web analytics basics
• Writing effective surveys
• How to include coworkers in your research
• How to perform task analysis
• When to use remote research tools
• Tips for recruiting testing participants
• Best practices for sharing research findings

About Juliette Melton

Juliette Melton is a user experience researcher and design strategist based in San Francisco. Her background in web development and product management gives her a practical perspective on how to conduct effective user experience research. She advocates building products that delight users while supporting organizational realities.

Juliette holds a master’s in education from the Technology, Innovation, and Education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where she focused on developing models for innovative networked learning applications. She runs Deluxify, a boutique UX consultancy, writes about her various projects at juliemelton.com, and makes lots of terrariums.

Follow Juliette on Twitter: @j

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