Bristol Branch

Venue: University of Bristol , Room 1.11, Merchant Venturers Building

Speakers: Ben Reed & Gemma Coles

This is the first talk in the Mobile App Development Spring school. See the main article for the complete school program. Booking and payment is required.

An introduction to the whole ecosystem surrounding mobile phone application development, marketing, selling, etc.

Ben’s talk will cover:

• Developer tools & techniques
• Native apps, web applications and cross platform frameworks
• Testing methodologies
• Integration with complex back end systems

Gemma's talk will cover:

• The growth of the app industry & what's next
• Commercial AND compelling
• Making your app a success

Please register for this Event via Eventbright

This event is aimed at children, though adults are welcome as well.

The BCS is collaborating with @Bristol and the University of Bristol to bring you the Raspberry Pi Bootcamp. This day will involve a range of activities to help the beginner to get going and the expert to share ideas with others. The day is sponsored by ARM.

Details of the workshops will follow soon but you will need to register for the day (for free) to access the free workshops and tutorials

Both BCS Members and Non Members are welcome.

If you require any more information please contact me at simon.thorp@bcs.org

Speaker: Peter Taylor

Venue: University of Bristol , Room 1.11, Merchant Venturers Building

Please register for this event here. This event is free to members and non-members.

7:00pm Refreshments, 7:30pm Main Talk

We aren’t born to be professional level presenters but through this entertaining presentation the ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ of good presentations are explored along with a ‘how to prepare’ for that all important event.

With a few simple lessons taught through the very medium of ‘presentation’ the audience will take away some great ideas for improving their own technique and ‘death by PowerPoint’ is definitely not the outcome.

Speakers: Darren Wilmshurst, Peter Morgan and Tim Cardinal

Venue: University of Bristol , Room 1.06, Merchant Venturers Building

Please register for this event here. This event is free to members and non-members. This will be preceded by the Branch AGM.

6:30AGM, 7:00pm Refreshments, 7:30pm Main Talk

The speakers provide insight into their experienced of using Agile in real world projects.

Testing is challenging in any environment – but especially so in an Agile development environment. Peter Morgan descries some of the testing learning points from his time at a multinational utility company in the electricity generation and supply industry in the vicinity of Gloucester – not many prizes for guessing the company. Agile methodologies present opportunities that not only benefit the Agile community, but also can be applied to more ‘traditional’ [some would say ‘clumsy’] life-cycle models. This presentation, therefore, could be of benefit to anyone in software and project management disciplines.

Adopting the best parts of Agile for non-IT projects

Over the past six months, Tim Cardinal has been leading a team to develop the new BCS Agile Certification Programme. In this talk, Tim will outline how he used different elements of Agile throughout the project, outlining the benefits but also the challenges of adopting a new approach for BCS.

Agile is Easy, Transformation ain’t (a personal journey)

Darren Wilmshurst will draw on his 28-year experience (no – he doesn’t look that old!) in the corporate world having worked with some world-class organisations. His first Agile Transformation was 8 years ago when he was Head of IT with a major ferry company. Now as a Director of Radtac and Head of Consultancy, he reflects on that (and other) Agile transformation; what went well and what didn’t and more importantly what he would have done differently.

Speaker: Professor Tony Pipe

Venue: Bristol Robotics Laboratory,
T Block, University of the West of England
See Venues for directions and maps

Please register for this event here.

This is a Joint event with the IET Bristol Branch

5.45pm - 6.00pm - Arrival / refreshments
6.00pm - 7.00pm - BRL open lab / networking
7.00pm - 7.45pm - Talk by Prof Tony Pipe
7.45pm - 8.00pm - Questions
8.00pm - close

Venue: Watershed, 1 Canon's Road, Harbourside, BS1 5TX Bristol

Speakers: Greville Commins & Matt Hatch

BEN, The Watershed, South West Founders, IET & BCS

Booking is required

Do you have any customers out there?

"Entrepreneurs often spend far too long perfecting their product and not enough time testing it with the market" – so says James Caan. He believes that instead of only spending 10% of the development time talking to customers, it should be more like 50%. By speaking to the market, businesses could solve problems sooner, assess whether the product will actually sell in quantity and maximise the profit potential. This will enhance their chance of raising finance, and being successful when they do launch.

This networking event aims to explore the journey faced by innovative businesses when identifying the optimum market segment for new products or services.

Our speakers will look at how to measure the size, and assess the growth potential,of your chosen market, even when your product/service is unique. So, when you next pitch your idea, you will be able to answer the questions – "How many potential customers are out there? What evidence have I got to support this? How can I find this information?"

Venue: University of Bristol , Room 1.06, Merchant Venturers Building

Booking is required.

Speaker: Dr Stuart Reid FBCS CITP

In May 2007 ISO formed a working group to develop new standards on software testing – a new area for ISO – these standards will start being published in mid-2013. This initiative is closely-supported by IEEE and BSI, both of which have donated existing standards as source documents to the project (these standards will be retired when the new standards are published).

There are currently six new software testing standards in development:

• Concepts and Terminology (ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-1)
• Test Processes (ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-2
• Test Documentation (ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-3)
• Test Techniques (ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-4)
• Keyword-Driven Testing (ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-5)
• Test Assessment (ISO/IEC 33063)

This presentation describes the content of the standards, their development and the difficulties encountered in creating standards that are applicable to all organizations (from the smallest to the largest) and all types of project (from agile to traditional safety-critical). The challenge of creating new testing standards when quite disparate parts of the industry (e.g. some context-driven testers and parts of the defence industry) oppose the concept is also covered.

ISO 29119 has already been released in draft form for review (and subsequently been updated based on literally thousands of comments) and is already being used within a number of multi-national organizations. These organizations are already seeing the benefits of reusing the well-defined processes and documentation provided by a standard reflecting current industry best practices.

Speaker: Kevin Murrell

Venue: City of Bristol College

Please register for this event here.

7:00pm Refreshments, 7:30pm Main Talk

The recently restored Harwell Dekatron Computer is a typical project conducted by the Computer Conservation Society. Starting with the author's vague memories of the machine being a museum display in the early 1970s, and a chance observation in 2006, the CCS began a project to find the remains of the computer and determine whether it might be restored.

A combination of luck, perseverance and vintage-technology know-how made the project possible, and this 1950s relay and valve computer has now been restored to full working order. It is now on public display and shown working, and is being used again in education with a new generation of programmers.

Kevin Murrell has been a member of the Computer Conservation Society for many years, initially as chair of the DEC working group and now as society secretary. Kevin divides his time between his own business supplying systems to the health service, acting as a trustee to The National Museum of Computing, and in his spare time, still tinkering with his collection of PDP8 mini-computers.

The BCS are collaborating with Bristol University to teach our next generation of engineers how to develop a mobile application in one week. The event is organised by the YRS – see http://youngrewiredstate.org

During the week of August 5th 2012 we will be holding a week of mobile application development. We are looking for:

• Young Engineers who want to learn how to develop a new mobile phone application from scratch
• Older engineers who are able to mentor the younger engineers (you will need to agree to a CRB check)

Please keep the week free if you are interested and register your interest.

Main Speaker: Jose Casal

Venue: City of Bristol College

Booking is required. Please see Main Article for how to book.

Scrum is the most successful Agile method in the market. Conceptually, it is extremely simple to understand and its official guide is only 16 pages long. So, why is it that many companies fail to successfully implement and sustain their Agile adoptions?

In this presentation, Jose will cover many reasons why companies find that their Agile is, effectively, Fragile and suggest a number of tips and suggestions that will help run successful Agile adoptions that will be sustainable and withstand the challenges companies face in their journey to Agility.

Case Study: Scrum Is Only a Beginning
In this session Giovanni will talk about his real world experiences of helping teams with their agile efforts, and will highlight what worked, what din't, and what you should do to ensure the success of your Agile implementation.