Well, I just found out this week that I'll be going to Vegas. No, not to hit the tables and lose a million bucks, but to speak at the Better Software Conference at the end of June. I came across the conference via Joel Spolsky when he mentioned that he's a keynote.
My presentation is on “Managing Distributed Teams”. This will detail an overall strategy, the key concepts which support the strategy, and why the concepts are needed. I'll also note some basic tools to support these concepts… dotProject, anyone? To explain, support, and convince everyone of these concepts, I plan to focus on some of the successes and failures which I've had with my team here and teams on client sites. Unfortunately, I've found that you learn quite a bit more from screwing it up the first time. If everything goes smoothly, people get sloppy/lazy/optimistic and all hell break loose. Names will be changed to protect the guilty and the innocent.
Whether you're working on an Open Source project, managing a distributed team, or working with an outsourcing operation (offshore or not), there will be something there for you.
A bit about the conference itself…
At the Better Software Conference & EXPO you’ll become a better, more informed software professional with an outward, customer-focused view of development. Learn about the latest tools, trends, and issues regarding Agile development approaches, plan-driven development methods, and process improvement programs. Discover effective software management techniques to better manage your projects and teams. Find out what others are doing to build security and reliability into their software and ways to integrate testing throughout the process to reduce risks and lower overall costs.
For anyone attending, feel free to drop me a note (keith at caseysoftware) and we'll see if a meetup will work. If you have books you'd like for me to sign, I'd be happy to. Though, since I've never written a book, it would be a little odd.