Scaled Agile Planning Presentation + Visual Kanban Tour

Join us on Tuesday, September 18 for a can't-miss meeting that is full of good content. We don't have parking and walk-to-meeting room details yet but expect to get that information from our hosts soon.

SEPT 14 UPDATE:  

1.) DIRECTIONS - details including Parking and Building Entry

This link to a PDF with this information was sent in an email on September 13, but for convenience you can also find it here.

2.) AGENDA UPDATE

The meeting has the same content but the original schedule has changed to accommodate our Tour Leaders who cannot stay as late as we had them scheduled. There will be three Tours so we can separate out the attendees in groups small enough to hear from the group's assigned Tour Leader. The following schedule will be followed: 

• 6:30 – 7:00 pm: Pharmacy tour – Group 1
  
• 6:40 – 7:10 pm: Pharmacy tour – Group 2
  
• 6:50 – 7:20 pm: Pharmacy tour – Group 3
  

See other schedule details in the full revised Agenda below.

Our featured presentation: SCALED AGILE PLANNING (OVERVIEW):

Our presenter, Miles Faulkner, is co-CEO of Blended Perspectives out of Toronto, Canada. Miles has a PMP certification and is a Certified Scrum Master, on top of his business education (Bachelor's degree and MBA) from universities in Sydney and London, respectively. These various backgrounds, in addition to running a successful company focused on Atlassian products and solutions, give Miles a great foundation to deliver this presentation. Here's an bulleted overview:

• Out-of-the-box JIRA supports Agile plus Kanban and of course Portfolio enables scaled Agile planning. In most large organizations though, there are many teams using MS Project and Sharepoint and other planning tools such as Clarity. Yet every team should plan together! This session will introduce participants in ways to support other planning approaches such as pure waterfall and a hybrid approach “Scrum-Fall”. Add-ons such as Big Picture, Traffic Lights, and Tempo will be introduced/discussed.
  
  
• We will also be providing tips and tricks to help traditional PMs and PMOs embrace JIRA and Confluence. So invite your PMO colleagues to come and see how every team can plan together!
  

AUTOMATED PHARMACY TOUR FEATURES

And as they say, "And that's not all!" The other key part of this evening's event is a tour of Express Scripts's automated pharmacy. It's adjacent to the conference room we will be meeting in, so we won't be going far. This comes highly recommended and will cap off our evening.

What happens on the tour?

The tour is guided visit through Express Scripts' automated pharmacy.  We will walk a path around the pharmacy floor, which dispenses, checks, packages, and ships pharmaceuticals to a large part of the country.  The guide will describe the nearly automated fashion that things are happenings on the floor below. What you're actually seeing is a kanban system in live action, complete with buffers and queues, processing stations, and so on. I'm told it is really a fascinating thing to witness. 

SHORT MEETING OPENER: HIPCHAT AND STRIDE ARE GOING AWAY - WHAT OPTIONS DO CUSTOMERS HAVE?

If you're a customer who uses either of these Atlassian tools, you've probably heard that Atlassian and Slack have decided to partner, and part of the deal struck is that Atlassian will provide the IP (intellectual property) from HIpchat and Stride to Slack and in return, there will be some investment back to Atlassian coming from Slack. Hipchat and Stride will be phased out with published dates for these phase outs that you may have seen but we'll share during the meeting as well.

There is a significant discount for Atlassian chat tool customers who choose to go to Slack, and there may be some advantages to that assuming Slack incorporates more Atlassian integrations, but what are other details of this deal, and what options are available to help make these moves, or what other tools are options besides Slack. We have some answers and some audience members may have their own experiences to share.  This is a short open discussion that will be capped at about 10 minutes, beginning with some information Atlassian sent over that may be helpful to some of you.

FREE SCHTUFF?  FOOD, BEVERAGES, SWAG AND MORE? SWEEET! 

As always FREE is the key word at Atlassian User Group meetings:

• Free Food (pizza usually, though not always)
  
• Free Beverages (always soda and water, PLUS beer and wine usually.  Our host for this meeting, understandably, has guidelines that prohibit alcohol on their campus and we respect that)
  
• Free Atlassian and sometimes partner Swag
  
• Free Meetings (no meeting or annual dues)
  
• And we think you also get great information with all this free stuff. Our meetings are usually in the evenings but we have had lunch meetings and would consider a coffee meetup in the future. It's all based on your interest and feedback. 
  

Invite your colleagues to this one!  Thanks for being a St. Louis AUG Member! 

UPDATE: PARKING and DIRECTIONS TO MEETING ROOM (ADDED AUGUST 27)

(Closer to meeting time, I'll try to get more clarity on these instructions as the address is on Hanley but we are asked to enter a gate on Evans). 

Instructions received from ESI:

You'll enter through agate on Evans Road. HQ4 is at 8640 Evans, on the right side, and HQ3, where the tour is, is on the left side when turning from N Hanley. From the gate, you'll have to buzz the guard, who will open the gate to allow your car to enter.

Drive to the left, around to the front of the building and park near the front door. The guard will buzz you in. Once inside, you'll have to show ID, get your pre-printed badge if you pre-registered, or have the guard create a badge for you if you did not.  USers will then be escorted to the conference room, which is up the stairs and towards the back.

Any questions? Contact me