Monday Meetup to Apply Agile to Business

Software developers often debate, choose, and evangelize the tools and strategies they use with religious fervor. And one of the dominant religions among coders and the companies who employ them today is Agile development. (It even has a manifesto!) In short, it means working incrementally, adapting quickly, and collaborating openly across departments.

Of course, like any immensely popular software development philosophy, Agile has its detractors. But it has an almost evangelical following for a reason, and if you can filter out the hype, there are some solid benefits to the agile approach.

And if Agile practices can help organize and build complex software and systems, why can't it help at a higher level, improving the agility and efficiency of an entire business? That's the premise of a Monday meetup, "Using Agile Techniques to Manage Your New Business."

The presentation is being architected by Dan Tousignant (@ScrumDan) of Cape Project Management and Hawaii Agile Training, along with Chuck Liddell and Matt Chinnock from KapuHonu, a local web design and development firm.

Tousignant is a mentor at Blue Startups, and led a workshop on Agile as a lead-in to the most recent Startup Weekend Honolulu. His experience at Startup Weekend helped inspire his next project.

"I saw an opportunity to show how Agile can be applied to running a business, especially those with limited resources like startups," Tousignant writes. "I am in the process of developing a two-day training on this topic for a local accelerator and would like to share some of the key best practices I will be covering."

He says training goes beyond the "lean startup" methodology, which is similarly evangelized among entrepreneurs.

"Lean startup addresses the one facet of launching a business, but Agile techniques provide valuable tools for day-to-day execution against your product or company vision," Tousignant explains.

His co-presenters, Liddell and Chinnock, use Agile in their business as a way to manage their client projects.

"Definitely come check it out if you have an entrepreneurial spirit and would like to learn some tricks for staying organized and keeping on task," Liddell adds.

The meetup will be held on Monday, July 13, beginning at 6 p.m. at the Real Office Center in Honolulu (2 North Hotel St.). For more information, visit the event page on Meetup.com:

http://www.meetup.com/HawaiiAgile/events/223536831/