SD Best Practices Conference: An Inside View

Dr. Dobb's SD Best Practices 2006 is gearing up for a repeat appearance in Boston, September 11-14. The four-day conference offers more than 180 sessions in seven tracks, along with special events and an Expo.

On one of those rare days when we were both in the office, I had a chance to sit down with Conference Manager Tami Carter to find out more about the event. (She bought the coffee.)

Me: Tami, what's the difference between SD Best Practices and SD West?
TC: Well, SD Best Practices focuses more on process than technology. More and more companies are discovering that rock-star developers, cutting-edge tools, and the latest programming language aren't the only elements behind successful software. Often, success depends more on teams effectively and efficiently managing the entire software development lifecycle--at SD Best Practices, you'll find leading-edge information on team management, requirements gathering, methodologies and much, much more.

Me: What's new this year?
TC: We're offering more conference sessions, keynotes, networking opportunities and special events for attendees--186 sessions, to be exact, over four days. We also have three great panel discussions this year: "Use Cases: Uses and Abuses," "Tough Problems in Test-Driven Development" and "Selecting a Development Process."

Our full and half-day tutorials, on Monday, September 11, are filling up, mainly because of our stellar faculty. Alan Shalloway, Granville Miller, Joshua Kerievsky, Dan Saks, and Michael Bolton are just five of the 25 tutorial speakers scheduled for Monday. We're offering a range of essential and practical topics, including developing .NET software, UI design, managing distributed teams and agile estimating and planning.

Me: Who's keynoting?
TC: Well, you ought to know one of our keynoters--Rodney Brooks--since you recommended him.

Me: Oh sure, Rodney "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control" Brooks. Who else?
TC: Naomi Karten kicks off the keynotes on Monday, September 11, speaking on customer satisfaction--and how to obtain it. Also on Monday, your buddy Rodney Brooks, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence department, discusses the latest advances in the fields of Computer Science and AI.

Me: For the record Tami, I've never met Dr. Brooks but I really like the movie. Sorry to interrupt.
TC: On Wednesday evening, security guru Gary McGraw will speak on how to build security into your software--getting past theory and into practice.

Finally, Tom DeMarco's keynote "Quick or Dead: Organizational Velocity for an Impatient Age" is on Wednesday afternoon. Mr. DeMarco is a giant in the industry, having been honored as a Fellow of the Cutter Consortium and IEEE, and as a recipient of the Warnier Prize for his "lifetime of contribution to the information sciences." He's a dynamic speaker, and his past keynotes have always been crowd-pleasers.

Me: Who are the other standout speakers and courses?
TC: This year's faculty is outstanding. We have of the world's leading experts on requirements and analysis--Ellen Gottesdiener, Mary Gorman, Rebecca Wirfs-Brock--not to mention many of those behind the agile movement: Dr. Dobb's Senior Contributing Editor Scott Ambler, Mike Cohn, Robert Martin, and Dan Rawsthorne.

SD Best Practices isn't just about the soft-side of software, however: Amazon's Web Services Technical Program Manager Jeff Barr is speaking on best practices for reuse with Web 2.0 technology; Elliotte Rusty Harold's Human Factors in API Design class consistently gets high marks from attendees; and Joshua Kerievsky's classes on test-driven development and refactoring are always packed. There are also sessions on C++, AJAX, exploratory testing and Eclipse.

Me: Are there any other can't-miss events?
TC: Monday's "Fun with Feedback" event, led by Enthiosys Founder and CEO Luke Hohmann, will give attendees a chance to influence next year's event--while learning valuable skills that they can use to improve their own software projects. The Expo opens with a floor party on Tuesday evening, and then there's the VIP party on Wednesday night at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Me: What else?
TC: We have eight Birds-of-a-Feather gatherings this year. On Monday, Dave Astels continues his Ruby and rSpec tutorial with an after-hours discussion, Dave Abrahams hosts a BoF on the Boost C++ library, and Ellen Gottesdiener leads a conversation on project retrospectives. Mary Gorman's has BoF about the International Institute for Business Analysts.

Per Kroll's Tuesday-night discussion of the Eclipse Process Framework should be interesting. This BoF offers attendees a chance to influence the framework's development, as Kroll is leader of the EPF project.

Me: Free coffee?
TC: All week.

Me: Dunkin' Donuts coffee? None of that Starbuck's stuff?
TC: If that's what you want.

Me: See you there.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 07:01 PM  Permalink