EXTREME CHANGE HOW TO BUILD SOFTWARE IN A WORLD OF ACCELERATING CHANGE

Samuel Mikel Bowles Pivotal Labs, San Francisco

ABSTRACT

Too many large organizations have been making the same software engineering mistakes for decades. They start by asking users exactly what the want. Then programmers design and build software with those features. Done. But not so fast. Users change their minds, business stakeholders have new ideas, and the market shifts beneath us. So what does done look like? And how do we make sure the software we’re building is valuable?

This is where Agile software development comes in. At Pivotal we practice a particular type of Agile called Extreme Programming or XP. Rather than planning, analyzing, and designing whole systems before they’re built, we work diligently to reduce the cost of change and build them one small step at a time.

BIOGRAPHY

Samuel Mikel Bowles is a Director for Pivotal Labs in San Francisco. In this role, he has helped train companies, from small startups like Eero to large enterprises like GE, Intel, and Chevron, to establish high-functioning software teams. He has lead teams in delivering over a hundred software products which are used by thousands of businesses and millions of users.

Prior to joining Pivotal Labs, Samuel held a number of senior leadership and design positions both nationally and internationally. Most recently he served as the Vice President of the software consultancy Mutually Human. He has also served as a board member and Director of Operations for the Information Architecture Institute and has an investment in Chicago-based health-care startup Human Practice.

Samuel speaks internationally on how Agile and Lean can be applied to the practice of software design and development. During a seven year period between 2003 and 2010, he lived in Spain and put his experience to work for a non-profit organization providing communication services to North African aid organizations.

Registration

Teams will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis as space permits. Each team must complete the contest application form and return it no later than Wednesday, March 28th 2018. Applications will be acknowledged via email. Note: Team members must also register for the PACISE Conference; this requires a separate registration form which can be found on the conference web site.

Information and Rules

Team Composition

All team members, including faculty and alternates, must be registered for the conference using the conference registration form. Any team with one or more members unregistered for the conference will be disqualified.

Each team is comprised solely of undergraduate students currently registered at that school. There will be two or three undergraduate students per team, plus alternates.

Location and Hardware

The programming contest location is in the Math/Computer Technologies building. All machines will be running Linux with the following configuration:

• Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS
• XFCE Desktop Environment
• ACM Competition guidelines will be used to define network access restrictions.
• Open JDK 8 (java version “1.8.0_151”
• gcc version 5.4.0 (Ubuntu 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.5)
• Eclipse (Oxygen Edition)
• CodeBlocks
• JetBrains IntelliiJ IDEA
• Plus standard text editors including vim, emacs, gedit and leafpad

Each team will be assigned its own account for the practice run and a different account for the competition.

A printer will be available to the teams during both the practice run and the competition.

We will be using PC^2 Contest software for managing the competition. It has not yet been determined whether we will use automated or manual judging.

All programs must be written in C, C++, or Java using installed compilers stated above.

Each team will be allocated one computer.

Contest Time

There will be a practice session which begins Friday evening at 7:30 PM for the purpose of familiarizing participants with the computing environment. Teams will given directions on using our machines and the PC2, followed by a practice session with one sample problem. This practice session ends at 9:30.

The contest will officially run on Saturday April 7th from 7:45 AM until 11:45 AM. A group of 5 problems will be given to solve in this time period.

Contest Procedures, Rules and Restrictions

No internet access will be allowed.

Students can bring text books and printouts, but no electronic tools (flash drives, cell phones, electronic watches, calculators, etc.).

All decisions of the judges and/or the contest chair regarding permissible references are final.

Team advisors coaches, and alternates are NOT permitted to help (or hinder) teams solve problems during the contest.

The conference organizers cannot be responsible for the security of unattended electronic devices.

Refreshments

Refreshments will be available.

Rule Violations

Violations of the rules may result in team penalties or disqualification.

All decisions of the contest judges and/or contest chair are final.

Questions

Please forward any questions to Dr. Chen Huo, Chair, Programming contest.

Registration

Teams will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis as space permits. Each team must complete the contest application form provided here: Robotics contest application form and return it no later than Wednesday, March 28th. Applications will be acknowledged via email. Note: Team members must also register for the PACISE Conference; a separate registration form is required.  This form can be found on the conference web site.

Information and Rules

Team Composition

All team members, including faculty and alternates, must be registered for the conference using the conference registration form found on the conference web site. Any team with one or more members unregistered for the conference will be disqualified.

Each team is comprised solely of undergraduate students currently registered at that school. There will be two or three undergraduate students per team, plus alternates.

Location and Hardware

The robotics contest will take place in the Math/Computer Technologies building third floor lobby. All teams must use a Lego EV3 Robotics kit.  Sensors are limited to those that come with the kit:

• 1 EV3 color sensor
• 1 EV3 color sensor
• 1 EV3 color sensor

Teams must supply their own robots, laptops and other required components to modify their robots at the competition.

A room will be provided for setup and testing.

Contest Description

The contest specifications can be found here: Contest Specifications

Contest Time

There will be a practice session which begins Friday evening at 7:30 PM for the purpose of familiarizing participants with the computing environment. This practice session ends at 9:30. 

The contest will officially run on Saturday April 7th from 7:45 AM until 11:45 AM. Contest courses, different from the sample course will be revealed at this time. The sample courses will be available for debugging purposes throughout the contest.

 Contest Procedures, Rules and Restrictions

• All decisions of the judges and/or the contest chair regarding permissible references are final.
• Team advisors, coaches, and alternates are NOT permitted to help (or hinder) teams during the contest.
•  The conference organizers cannot be responsible for the security of unattended electronic devices.

Rule Violations

• Violations of the rules may result in team penalties or disqualification.
• All decisions of the contest judges and/or contest chair are final.

Refreshments

Refreshments will be available.