International SOA Symposium (Rotterdam, Netherlands. October 2009)

International SOA Symposium, World Trade Center, Rotterdam. (www.soasymposium.com) On October 22 and 23, 2009 the second international SOA Symposium will take place at the World Trade Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Just coming out of a highly successful agile SAP service oriented project (likely the first in it’s type in the Netherlands or even a wider area), Twan van den […]

October 22, 2009. Talk. “Mission impossible? Applying Agile to the World of SOA and ERP”

International SOA Symposium, World Trade Center, Rotterdam. (www.soasymposium.com) On October 22 and 23, 2009 the second international SOA Symposium will take place at the World Trade Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Just coming out of a highly successful agile SAP service oriented project (likely the first in it’s type in the Netherlands or even a wider area), Twan van den […]

SDC (Arnhem, Netherlands. October 2009)

Shaping service oriented projects using smart use cases SDC Conference, Papendal, Arnhem (www.sdc.nl) Next week the annual SDC conference will take place at Papendal, Arnhem. As usual the organising SDN community has put together a long list of international appraised speakers, and challenging subjects on the matter of software development and software architecture. A bit to my surprise, this year […]

Antwerp, Belgium. October 8-9, 2009. Workshop pragmatic modeling using UML and beyond (IT Works)

IT Works, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Antwerp, Belgium I will present an intense two day workshop in the Crowne Plaza in Antwerp. During this workshop I follow the pragmatic modeling approach presented in my book with the same title. During this highly interactive workshop participants will learn how the various modeling techniques from UML and beyond connect. Learn everything about (smart) […]

Apeldoorn, The Netherlands. October 5, 2009. Pragmatic model driven development (Capgemini)

Capgemini BAS, Faustlaan, Apeldoorn. With Capgemini BAS joining Capgemini in 2009, some new initiatiaves in model driven development opened up, more particularly, hoping I’ve interpreted it correctly, based on naterual language. I discussed this initiative in June with Freek Bosch, manager of the unit where this natueral langauge based approach originated. During the same inspriing conversation I illustrated the pragmaitc […]

Writing better software faster

Published in my Interesting Things column in SDN Magazine, November 2009. Looking back on twenty years of software development, I must have spent most of that time trying to improve the quality and productivity of software development. Ever since I started to write small applications in Turbo Pascal in 1988 I got infected with the writing-better-software-faster virus. Right after I […]

Hilversum, The Netherlands. September 30 – October 1, 2009. Workshop pragmatic modelling with UML (Array Seminars)

Array Seminars, Amrâth Hotel Lapershoek, Hilversum I will present an intense two day workshop in Hilversum that follows the pragmatic modeling approach presented in my book with the same title. During this highly interactive workshop participants will learn how the various modeling techniques from UML and beyond connect. Learn everything about (smart) use cases and start working directly with UML […]

TestNet (Nieuwegein, The Netherlands. September 2009. Workshop)

Najaarsevent TestNet, NBC Nieuwegein (www.testnet.org) And now for something completely different. I will be doing a talk – or rather a short workshop at a test event, the TestNet najaarsevent in Nieuwegein. Many organizations rely on the concept of use cases to model and describe functional requirements. However, there are many different ways of identifying and modeling use cases. Use […]

Pragmatic model driven development. Part II. A pragmatic approach

  Note. This series of posts is also published as a Capgemini group white paper and published in Software Release Magazine (in Dutch, in two parts). In projects that are executed using the Accelerated Delivery Platform, Capgemini’s open knowledge platform for agile software development, a lightweight, pragmatic approach to model driven development is used. This approach can be expressed in […]

Utrecht, The Netherlands. August 13, 2009. Smart use cases versus user stories (Nederlandse Spoorwegen)

Web team, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Utrecht. A growing number of organization slowly migrate towards more agile approaches of their software development. When starting with agile, Scrum is still the most popular process around, with user stories as the preferred requirements technique. Although Scrum and user stories apply well to many web projects, when it comes to handling large, service-oriented projects, in […]

Implementing smart use cases in agile projects

Guest lecture Hogeschool Utrecht, January 13, 2009 When asked who to invite for presenting a guest lecture, the students of the Hogeschool specifically requested for Sander. My lecture will be titled Implementing smart use cases in agile projects. Process, techniques, architecture and patterns. During this very interactive lecture Sander will speed through a wide variety of subjects, such as agile […]

Checking for reusable services using smart use cases

In any project, and especially in projects that run under a tight schedule – as most projects do these days, it is helpful to list all elements that can possibly be (re)used to crank up your project, such as guidelines, documentation templates, existing components, (web) services, frameworks. This can best be done early on in the project, traditional or agile. […]

The days are just packed. My talks in May and June 2009

The months May and June are notorious for the number of talks – as Rick van der Lans describes: May and June are speaker’s season. Just to remind me not to forget any of my upcoming talks, here’s a list: May 12. Project estimation with smart use cases. At Capgemini, Utrecht. Presentation at internal software estimation seminar for Community of […]

Measuring agile progress in smart use case points

Smart use cases serve as a very good unit of work in agile projects. The agile process Smart relies on smart use cases, from start to end. Moreover, the progress in Smart projects is measured and managed using these use cases, and the associated straightforward estimation technique smart estimation. First cut smart use cases A first cut smart use case […]

Delivering products in agile (Smart) projects

In most cases where a form of agile software development is applied, projects are challenged with difficult issues, such as a swaggering scope, unclear and incomplete requirements, unstable software architecture, are quickly approaching dead lines. Within these strict boundaries projects try to deliver high quality software at high productivity – or velocity. This is not an easy challenge. Delivering just […]

Implementing smart use cases. Guest lecture at Hogeschool Arnhem Nijmegen

In the second half of last year, I did a guest lecture at the Hogeschool Arnhem Nijmegen (HAN) in Arnhem on an invitation by lecturer Rody Middelkoop. I’m sorry but I can’t remember the exact date – only that I had an upcoming flue. Although if was a Friday afternoon, the audience was good, about 60-70 lecturers and students. I […]

Slide deck on Pragmatic model driven development at J-Spring

Model driven development has a promise of high productivity. However, many approaches fail to deliver. Sander Hoogendoorn (Capgemini) and Rody Middelkoop (Avisi) will present a very pragmatic approach to model driven development, based on modeling smart use cases and domain models in UML. The speakers elaborate enthusiastically on this approach and the techniques used, and they will model and generate […]

J-Spring (Bussum, Netherlands. April 2009)

Today Rody Middelkoop, senior technology consultant at Avisi and lecturer at the HAN and I will do an amusing talk at the J-Spring Conference in Bussum on model driven development, using a highly pragmatic approach. Talk includes a live demo where we will build a Java web application on stage in a few minutes (the build process will likely take […]

Mission impossible? Applying agile to the world of SAP enterprise resource planning

Early in March Twan van den Broek, SAP solution architect at TopForce, got in touch with me if I would be interested to coach an agile SAP project at a very large logistics organization. We have been using accelerators from our agile Accelerated Delivery Platform in SAP project before, including smart use cases, smart estimation and Tobago MDA, our model […]

Software estimation. Do I apply user stories or smart use cases?

The process of creating a sound estimate for your project will take some time in any agile project. You will have to define what work to do in the project. In general this work can be split up into two parts: Project related work. There’s project related work, such as creating a project proposal or setting up your development environment. […]

Trojan rigidity. Agile anti-patterns (I)

One of the characteristics of most traditional – linear, waterfall – styled organizations is the extremely rigid execution of their software development projects . “Our handbook says we need to fill in this form, so that’s what we do guys.” People is these projects live by the blind assumption that whoever invented or wrote down their software development process knew […]

Outline for new pragmatic book on smart use cases

We (my team and I and a lot of people that contributed from projects) have been working on the concept of smart use cases on and off over the last ten years. I think it was back in 1998 that we coincidentally started modeling use cases at bit different than was custom, in a workflow oriented project. We not only […]

Nice feedback on workshop Pragmatic modeling using UML [in Dutch]

Sometimes when you work hard, you’re rewarded with nice feedback. Did a two-day workshop in Antwerp, Belgium two weeks ago, and received the following feedback from one of the participant. Really heart-warming. Sander Hoogendoorn is een zeer vlotte spreker met een zeer brede kennis in zowel agile als traditionele software ontwikkelmethodieken, software architectuur, design patterns, modelering, UML, model driven software […]

Identifying, modeling and testing smart use cases

This morning I proposed a second talk for the EuroSTAR 2009 Conference in Stockholm. Sounds ok, doesn’t it? See EuroSTAR Conference 2009. Many organizations rely on the concept of use cases to model and describe functional requirements. However, there are many different ways of identifying and modeling use cases. Use case documents range from a mere two-pager up to book-length. […]

Application migration using smart use cases and a model driven development approach

Application migration is the process of migrating older applications (often referred to as legacy) to application that have more of less similar functionality, but are developed in newer technology. Application migration has proven to be a crucial but very hard part of software development over the years. Key to such projects is: Automated migration is hardly ever possible. It is […]

Project management in agile Smart projects

Projects that are run using the agile methodology Smart are split up into short iterations. There are a different types of iterations defined in Smart. These are Propose, Scope, Realize, Finalize and Manage, guiding a project from the first proposal to application management. Each of these iteration types follow a straightforward iteration cycle: plan the activities (Plan), perform the activities […]

So much to write, so little time

It’s too bad there’s only 24 hours in a day. There are so many ideas in my head that I still have to write down, that I have to make a (short) list now to keep my head from exploding. So here it is: White paper on how to do agile SAP projects using smart use cases. Article on applying […]

Smart software estimation. How does it work?

The general idea around (Smart) estimation is to be able to express project effort at any given time before or during a project. Doing so, you should be aware of something which is called the Cone of Uncertainty. This simple but valuable graph demonstrates that estimates will get better as the project progresses, but also that when estimating a project […]

Guest lecture Hogeschool Utrecht on implementing smart use cases in agile projects

On January 13 from 14:30 – 16:00 the Hogeschool Utrecht organizes a guest lecture by Sander Hoogendoorn, Principal Technology Officer at Capgemini. When asked who to invite for presenting a guest lecture, the students of the Hogeschool specifically requested for Sander. His lecture will be titled Implementing smart use cases in agile projects. Process, techniques, architecture and patterns. During this […]

Sander Hoogendoorn at the DevDays 2008

Finally, after some experimenting we’ve got it. My team managed to put out the broadcast of my talk on everything and the kitchen sink on YouTube, and moreover, link from that. See the results here. Introduction The introduction part with some jokes in it. Software architecture, design patterns and smart use cases in code A brief introduction into software architecture […]

Talk on DevDays 2008 combining smart use cases, model driven development, software architecture, Silverlight and WCF

At the last Microsoft DevDays Conference (2008) in Amsterdam I did a talk (sorry, it’s in Dutch) that covered a lot of subjects, including software architecture, agile software development, dependency injection, domain modeling, smart use cases, Silverlight, WCF, model driven development, Tobago MDA, our Accelerated Delivery Platform and a lot of other stuff that I can’t remember (getting old). In […]

Why software estimation is an ongoing process

Maybe you recognize the following situation: you are asked to estimate a new project. So you dive into the – often incomplete and unclear – specifications. After trying to understand the specifications and hopefully having a lot of meetings with the customer and end users you create an neat Excel spread sheet with a work breakdown structure, and some formulas […]

Smart Use Case Conference (Utrecht, Netherlands. May 2008)

On May 28th, Capgemini organizes a free conference on the topic of smart use cases at Capgemini’s Conference Building in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Smart use cases represent a far more structured and equal-granular technique for modeling requirements than “regular” use cases do, based on Alistair Cockburn’s model of levels of use cases. In this model smart use cases comprise the […]

Naming use cases smart

While modeling use cases, and in particular smart use cases, clear naming conventions can emphasis the meaning of your use cases more clearly. In general In general you might say that a use case expresses a particular action that is executed by one or more actors. Therefore it is considered good practice to name your use case after the action […]