Upcoming Events

Daniels College of Business
Digital Marketing Graduate Course, Marketing Department
Invited Presentation: "Golden Rules of Web Design"
Denver, Colorado
September 27, 2010

Rocky Mountain PDMA (Product Development and Management Association) Invited Presentation: "Agile - When Theory Meets Reality" Longmont, Colorado September 16, 2010 - Event Description

Theo Mandel and Larry Marine present “Agile – When Theory Meets Reality" at the Rocky Mountain PDMA monthly meeting on September 16, 2010. Larry Marine, NPDP, is President at Intuitive Design Group and member of RM PDMA. The Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) is the premier global advocate for product development and management professionals. Our mission is to improve the effectiveness of individuals and organizations in product development and management. This is accomplished by providing resources for professional development, information, collaboration and promotion of new product development and management. Session Summary:

Agile is not the proverbial Silver Bullet. In fact, the common misperceptions about Agile processes doom many a project. In this presentation, Larry and Theo will discuss some of the common mistakes witnessed in the real world and how to avoid them.

Agile processes are development processes, not design processes. Designing products iteratively, while you develop provides rather poorly designed products. This might be great for engineers, but is not so attractive or useable by the customers.

In essence, you cannot achieve revolutionary designs with an evolutionary process. Iterative design is an evolutionary design method that incrementally improves an initial design. If the initial concept is flawed all you end up doing is designing the wrong thing, very well. Larry and Theo will discuss how accurately prioritizing what tasks your product should support for the end user helps eliminate unnecessary "features" that steal time from your project, thus ensuring you have the time to do it right.

The reality is that you need to design first, and build later. If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there. You would not let your carpenters design your building, would you? Larry and Theo will discuss how Agile processes also benefit from a clearly defined set of blueprints, and they will also go over how they used their knowledge of Agile to identify a gaping hole in Hollander's product offering by integrating their design efforts with their new Scrum processes.Join us for a clarifying look at Agile processes and learn tools to improve your success developing new products.

The Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) is the premier global advocate for product development and management professionals. Our mission is to improve the effectiveness of individuals and organizations in product development and management. This is accomplished by providing resources for professional development, information, collaboration and promotion of new product development and management.

Past Events

World Usability Day 2009
Phoenix UPA Chapter Event - Invited Presentation
User eXperience Russia 2009 Experience and "The (New) Golden Rules of Web Design"
November 12, 2009
WUD Event Poster
  

The kickoff event for World Usability Day 2007 is hosted at the UPA conference. The focus of WUD 2007 is on healthcare usability. Dr. Mandel is a member of the advisory committee for WUD 2007 and will present at the kickoff event.

The goal of World Usability Day is to promote the fields of usability engineering and user-centered design. UPA professionals aim to do this by encouraging, organizing, and sponsoring activities at the local level around the globe, all occurring on the same day.

World Usability Day 2007 Kickoff Links:
- Press Release (PDF)
- World Usability Day Website
- Mandel's Kickoff Presentation - Introduction and Case Study
 

Previous Events

2002
ASME Workshop - Dr. Mandel presents workshop in Washington, D.C. to American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) with Cia Romano, Interface Guru
Seybold Seminars 2002, New York, February 2002

2001
Seybold Seminars 2001, San Francisco, September 2001
WEB2001, San Francisco, September 2001
Seybold Seminars, Boston, April 2001
Invited Presentation - Association of Internet Professionals, Austin TX:
"Usability in Austin Technology Companies: Where We are, Where We Are Going"

2000
WEB2000, San Francisco, October 2000
Seybold Seminars, San Francisco, August 2000
Seybold Seminars, Boston, February 2000
WEB2000 - New York, February 2000

1999
WEB99 - Boston, December 1999
Software Development '99, Washington, DC, November 1999
WEB99 - Austin, October 1999
Seybold Seminars, San Francisco, September 1999
Web 99 - San Francisco, June 1999
Software Development '99, San Francisco, May 1999
Austin Software Council Panel on Usability Engineering

1998
Borders Internet Authors Roundtable, Austin, TX
IBM Technical Interchange '98, Orlando, FL, May 1998
NetWorld+Interop 98, Las Vegas, May 1998
Software Development '98, San Francisco, February 1998

1997
Software Development 97/Web97, Washington, DC, October 1997
NetWorld+Interop 97, Washington, DC, October 1997