D. André Dhondt

Since 1999, I've been working on improving my Agile Developer Skills, mostly by practicing Extreme Programming. I had a great awakening in maybe 2005 when I went on a job interview at another agile shop that was interpreting the practices in a much more extreme way than I... and so I started reading more books and got involved in the Agile Philly community. A slightly longer bio is on my blog: http://dhondtsayitsagile.blogspot.com/

With this series of quests, I request your opinions on where I might be :

[pre-agile, 1992-1998 working on improving maintainability of code, passed MCSD certifications, programmed in BASIC, C++, Java, ASP]

Dec 1998 - Self Improvement - Read a Book: Rapid Application Development

Oct 1999 - Read Don Well's site on Extreme Programming; started practicing Test-Driven Development, effectively test infected, using vbUnit and later NUnit

Jan 2002 - new job: sought executive sponsorship to do Agile (XP). Started practicing the following: Story Estimation, Story Picking, Story Splitting, Story Writing, Peer-to-Peer Feedback, Self-Managing, Reaching Done, Using Version Control, Direct Customer Interaction, Evolutionary Design, Communication, Refactoring, Test Driven Development (TDD), Practice, Speak Your Truth, Take Care of Yourself

Jan 2003 new role: manager of team of 4-6 developers doing XP, programming in VB.NET, C#.NET, ASP, PHP. Started practicing the following: Collective Ownership, Leadership, Pair Programming, Stand Up Meetings, Continuous Integration

Aug 2004 university degree: M.S.I.S., Drexel University

Oct 2005 Read a Book: Extreme Programming Explained, 2nd Edition; started working better with colleagues using all the XP practices, and pushed 'simplest thing that could possibly work' to the extreme.

Nov 2005 Read a Book: Refactoring, started breathing new life into legacy code!

Jan 2006 Read a Book: Working Effectively With Legacy Code, learned even better how to get things under test harness.

Mar 2006 Volunteered to help Organize a Learning group -- www.AgilePhilly.com. Started practicing Connect With Experts

May 2006 Read a Book: Design Patterns; met weekly with our own gang of four to discuss, try to apply, and better factor our code. Didn't often apply the patterns, but instead learned how to think in a more object-oriented way (by managing dependencies, seeking low coupling). We also identified examples in our own code base that were implementations of the patterns--and considered the opposing forces identified by the GoF.

Aug 2006 Read a Book: and published review on Agility and Discipline Made Easy. This helped me reconcile some of the differences between my Master's degree training (CMMI thinking) and the low-ceremony work we were now doing with XP.

Aug 2006 Attend a Formal Practice Event: Refactoring Fest -- www.AgilePhilly.com

Oct 2006 Wrote Scathing Review for: Practices of an Agile Developer. This book mostly served to fill in gaps about aspects of practices that I hadn't yet considered, but I found the advice to be self-contradictory in places and wouldn't recommend it.

10/27/2006 Conference Talk: Simple Design and Testing Conference. Great exposure to how other practitioners are dealing with problems, and more practice at Connect With Experts.

May 2007 Read a Book & Published Review: The Enterprise and Scrum. Since I was doing XP, the main interest here was to see what was different. I'd been facilitating lots of Agile Philly discussions, and knew lots of the terminology, but it was nice to see it all in the full context.

Oct 2007 Attend a Formal Practice Event: J.B. Rainsberger's Greatest Misses -- www.AgilePhilly.com. This was interesting to see other work contexts, but the main skill improvement was Connect With Experts.

11/30/2007 Conference Talk: Simple Design and Testing Conference. Again, Connect With Experts.

Nov 2007 XP Day Manhattan. Again, Connect With Experts.

Dec 2007 new job (NY): Coaching company doing XP with 40 developers, programming in C#.NET, Java, Python. Lots of practice with Story Estimation, Story Picking, Story Splitting, Story Writing, Peer-to-Peer Feedback, Reaching Done, Using Version Control, Direct Customer Interaction, Evolutionary Design, Communication, Test Driven Development (TDD), Speak Your Truth, Take Care of Yourself, Collective Ownership, Leadership, Pair Programming, Stand Up Meetings, Continuous Integration

- 5/6/2008 Attend a Formal Practice Event: Wade Lee on Agile Contracts -- www.AgilePhilly.com. Eye-opening presentation on win-win customer relationships. Not a lot to apply to my daily work, but definitely interesting.

Sept 2008 new job (France): Coaching for team of 15 developers, programming in Java

Oct 2008 Conference Talk: Agile Tour, Besançon

Feb 2009 Organizer of Learning Group: English liaison for the Agile Tour

Feb 2009 Organizer of Learning Group: volunteered on the Gordon Pask committee of the Agile Alliance

Mar 2009 Read a Book: Agile Retrospectives, reaction: http://dhondtsayitsagile.blogspot.com/2009/06/my-favorite-lines-from-derbylarsens.html

Mar 2009 Conference Attendee: XP Day Suisse

Apr 2009 Conference Attendee: XP Day France

Jun 2009 Read a Book: The Pomodoro Technique Illustrated, reaction; http://dhondtsayitsagile.blogspot.com/2009/08/pomodoro-technique-illustrated-by.html

July 2009 Read a Book: Domain-Driven Design , reaction http://dhondtsayitsagile.blogspot.com/2009/11/domain-driven-design.html

Aug 2009 new role: Product Owner for team of 10 developers

July 2009: Read a Book: Implementing Lean Software Development http://dhondtsayitsagile.blogspot.com/2009/08/favorite-ideas-from-poppendiecks.html

Aug 2009 Read a Book: Clean Code