On-line registration is now closed.  Walk-in registration will be available at the event.  The member price for this event is $50, the non-member price is $120.

Rapid Development & Deployment:

Stories from the Trenches to Help Build it Better, Faster

 When: Thursday, Dec 15, 2011 9:00am-1:00pm
Where:  Microsoft NERD, Cambridge

Tweet it out! @MassTLC #RapidDev

Here is your chance to uncover emerging trends and learn from your peers their successes and possibly a mistake or two to power your business forward.  What does it take to get your software project off the ground?  Join us to hear best practices for success, the processes and tools that have enabled high-powered development teams and share a story or two of your own that helps ensure a high-quality product, on-time. 

Confirmed Panelists:

Julia Austin, VP of Innovation Programs, VMware

Amy Brar, Senior Director, Product Line, Kronos

Greg Kunkel, Co-founder, Next Jump

Craig Gibbons, Director of Software Development, Brainshark

Barry Jaspan, Senior Architect, Acquia

Eric Malafeew, Director of Technology, Harmonix

Cameron McLeod, Director of HW & SW Engineering, CYBEX

Bill O'Donnell, SVP Chief Architect & GM Mobile Products, KAYAK 

Gareth Ouelette, Director of Product Management, Advertising Decision Solutions, Akamai

Andrew Phillips, PMC Member, jclouds

Stefan Piesche, CTO, Constant Contact

David Skok, General Partner, Matrix Partners

Michael Skok, Partner, North Bridge Venture Partners

Susan Rossnick, VP of Engineering , Kronos

Michael Rowley, CTO,  Active Endpoints

Jon Stevenson, SVP Product Strategy, Veracode

Perry Stoll, Director of Engineering and Analytics, Advertising Decision Solutions, Akamai

Cliff Utstein, VP, Accurev

Sanjay Vakil, Technical Manager, Apps, TripAdvisor

Peter Wiley-Cordone, Director of Development, GSN

 
9:00-10:15am

The morning will begin with keynote speaker David Skok, General Partner at Matrix Partners, who will present on “Software Development: a world being rocked by major forces. How Cloud computing, PaaS, Mobile, HTML 5, Open Source, and other new technologies are impacting software development.

Next, Bill O'Donnell, SVP Chief Architect & GM of Mobile Products, KAYAK, will share an in depth case study on their success, the development challenges and opportunities.

Break-out sessions will follow and explore important topics such as:

• Anatomy of a team – building a culture of success
• Aligning strategy and development in a rapid environment
• Maintaining quality standards when moving so fast
• Leveraging the Cloud in a Development Environment

1st Session: 10:45-11:45am

Break-out 1A: Aligning Strategy with Development

In a rapid development environment knowing what you want to deliver to the market and understanding the key technical challenges up front are critical to creating an effective team that can deliver in the rapid fashion you require.  But how do you ensure development stays on track and produces a product that your customers want? How do you keep the business stakeholders informed so you have validation in the marketplace?  And how do you keep your people motivated and valued as you move from sprint to sprint?  Join us for a deep dive discussion on aligning product management with engineering when development is moving so fast. 

Break-out 1B: Anatomy of a team

Your ability to assemble the right teams is often the most critical factor in successful software development projects.  Do you have a high performance team?  Are you targeting the right mix of skills to compliment your environment?  Have you created an environment that promotes the right skills and behaviors?  Come join us for a lively discussion focused on strategic assembly of teams across a range of business models and environments.  Panel participants and audience members will share their goals, approaches to talent acquisition and techniques for getting new hires engaged quickly.  Learn how to build and maintain teams that understand your strategic vision, work towards common goals and collaborate effectively as a unit.

Session 2: 12:00-1:00pm

Break-out 2A: Maintaining quality standards in a rapid development environment

Agile methods coupled with Cloud and Mobile technologies promise rapid development and deployment of new functionality to meet the ever-increasing demands of the marketplace. Unfortunately, frequent releases of software bring increased risk of breaking functionality that “used to work”. As a development leader, how can you strike the right balance between quality controls and time to market? In this session, we’ll explore several tools and techniques that can minimize the amount of lost sleep in the days leading up to, and more importantly, following a release.

Break-out 2B:  Leveraging the Cloud in the Development Environment

We all know that Cloud Computing is changing the development landscape for start-ups, large and mid-size enterprises. During this session we will discuss:

- how to leverage the cloud platform for application development;
- cloud application delivery trends;
- challenges and opportunities of/for supporting cloud applications; and
- how the cloud enables success and its effect on new application solutions. 

Join our panelists to hear the challenges they faced, the problems solved, lessons learned and what they may do differently if they did it all over again.

Thank you to our Cluster Sponsors:

 Thank you to our Event Sponsor:

Cancellation Policy:

Payment is non-refundable. Credit toward another MassTLC event will be issued if cancellation is 5 days prior to the event