August 20, 2004

Four Atomic Object staff members attended one of the largest XP conferences in the world.

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August 20, 2004

Grand Rapids, MI – The 2004 XP Agile Universe Conference was held on August 15 – 18 in Calgary, Alberta Canada. The conference was an ideal format to share and learn even more about agile development processes. Representing Atomic Object at this conference were Carl Erickson (President), Bill Bereza (Vice President), Shawn Anderson (Software Journeyman), and Michael Swieton (Software Apprentice).

Noticeable differences at this year’s event included an increase in the number of attendees and a change in the type of attendees: more business and IT managers were represented as opposed to primarily software developers. The manager presence is an indication that XP and agile processes are indeed spreading and changing the way software is developed.

AO attendees presented an interesting and informative overview of the sessions they attended to the rest of the AO staff. Speaker highlights included:

• Mary Popendieck, a leader in operations, new product development, and “lean production” in software development, discussed how best to use XP practices as a marketing tool.
• Brian Marick has a background in programming, team leadership, and testing, and was one of the original authors of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. He discussed various ways to implement and improve testing in XP projects, pointed out some ways that bugs can get through an XP process, and made suggestions on how to prevent them.
• Eric Evans, a specialist in domain-modeling and design in large business systems, illustrated how upfront modeling is a waste of time because at the beginning of a project everyone is so ignorant about the project. It is much more productive to model elements of a project throughout the short-cycle iterations and do so in a language both customer and developer can understand. His favorite modeling tool: a whiteboard.

Some of the key ideas that Atomic Object staff brought back to implement include:

• Definitive Exploratory Testing
• Formalization of the Planning Game practice
• Refinement of Test-driven Development
• XP Project Checklists

About Atomic Object LLC

Atomic Object designs, develops, and delivers custom software solutions. We form partnerships with the business experts of our clients, contributing our knowledge of modern computing technologies and our reliable software development process. Based on agile practices in general, and Extreme Programming in specific, the Atomic Object development process delivers tested, reliable, maintainable software, predictably on time and budget, while significantly reducing project risk. With experience in a wide range of domains and industries—including e-commerce and web apps, business process automation, database integration, kiosks, and manufacturing software—Atomic Object specializes in having a world-class software development process, rather than being specialists in a particular business niche.

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Atomic Object Contact:

Carl Erickson
+1 616 776 6020
CarlErickson@atomicobject.com