PORTLAND, OR., June 8, 2009 - The Agile Alliance, (www.agilealliance.org) a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the concepts of Agile software development, today announced Alistair Cockburn and Jared Spool as keynote speakers for its Agile 2009 Conference, set for August 24 - 28 in Chicago (http://agile2009.agilealliance.org/). In its eighth year, the Agile Conference is the premiere event for the growing Agile community, providing software professionals with the latest knowledge and shared experiences to help foster successful Agile development programs.

"The Agile 2009 planning committee is delighted to welcome these distinguished technology and business leaders as our keynote speakers this year," said Johanna Rothman, Agile 2009 conference chair. "Each has provided inspiration and vision to our industry throughout their successful careers in technology and business."

Dr. Alistair Cockburn's keynote, "I Come To Bury Agile, Not to Praise It," will focus on the evolution of Agile software development and is scheduled for Tuesday, August 25 at 9:00 a.m. Central. He will discuss how initially Agile software development was defined from small, co-located projects in the 1990s and its evolution to its current state today. His talk will argue that since Agile has spread to large, distributed, commercial projects around the world, affecting the IEEE, the PMI, the SEI and the Department of Defense, the discipline now sits in a larger landscape and needs to be viewed accordingly. In this keynote, Agile Manifesto co-author Dr. Cockburn paints the picture of the larger Agile landscape, so that it is clearer how classical Agile development fits in, and what constitutes effective development outside that narrow area.

Jared Spool will explain on Thursday, August 27 at an evening reception beginning at 7:30 p.m. Central, why experience design is no longer a luxury for organizations in his keynote presentation, "The Dawning of the Age of Experience." He will argue that Experience Design is a centerpiece of boardroom discussions and is quickly becoming a key performance indicator for many businesses. Spool will discuss what it takes to build a design team that meets today's diverse business demands. He will draw on parallels between the methods executives think about experience design and how the Agile community approaches the design process, offering language that will both resonate in the boardroom and the team's war room.

Speaker Biographies
Dr. Alistair Cockburn is an internationally renowned IT strategist, best known for describing software development as a Cooperative Game, helping craft the Agile development Manifesto, define use cases and develop the initial response technique relaxation/massage form.

Jared Spool
Jared M. Spool is the founder of User Interface Engineering, the largest usability research organization of its kind in the world. He's been working in the field of usability and design since 1978, before the term "usability" was ever associated with computers. Spool spends his time working with research teams at leading companies and helping clients understand how to solve design problems. He is a top-rated speaker at more than 20 conferences every year, is on the faculty of the Tufts University Gordon Institute and is author of the book, Web Usability: A Designer's Guide.

This year's conference will feature more than 300 sessions presented by 329 leading Agile experts and practitioners, based on more than 1,500 speaking submissions gathered during the past six months. To review the latest schedule of Agile 2009 sessions, encompassing all levels of experience, please visit (http://agile2009.agilealliance.org/) and to register for the conference, visit http://www.agileregistration.org.

About the Agile Alliance
The Agile Alliance is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the concepts of Agile software development, as outlined in the (http://www.agilemanifesto.org/). With nearly 6,000 members located around the globe, the Agile Alliance is driven by the principles of Agile methodologies and the value they deliver to developers, organizations and end users. The Agile Alliance organizes the annual Agile Conference, the industry's leading event that attracts practitioners, academia, business and vendor-partner community members from around the globe. The Agile 2009 conference (http://agile2009.agilealliance.org) is set for August 24-28 in Chicago. For more information about the organization, visit http://www.agilealliance.org/

Agile Alliance Media Contact:
Catapult PR-IR
Christie Denniston
Office: 303-581-7760 ext. 13
Cell: 303-827-5164
cdenniston@catapultpr-ir.com

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