IT
Welcome
This is the homepage of Rieke and Jan Behrens. We live and work in the lifestyle city of Christchurch, New Zealand. This page is a first attempt at a central information source for friends & family as well as business and research partners. We know that this is a bit of a broad focus, but nevertheless we thought it worth while to at least do one web presence right - instead of having multiple out of date ones.
AUG upcoming events
Planned topics for upcoming Agile User Group meetings. Feedback, other ideas or topics are most welcome! Please note that as of January 2009, meetings will usually take place at the Canterbury innovation cluster (Cii), 200 Armagh Street, ChCh. Hope to see you there!
| Title | Comment | Planned date |
| User stories | This will be an interactive session with time for a discussion afterwards on user stories, how to use them, experiences using them, limitiations... | Wednesday, 28/01/2009 |
| Lean principles |
About
A little bit on who we are and what we do.
Jan started his career in logistics before moving into computer science and project management. After receiving his BSc of Science from Oldenburg University (http://www.uni-oldenburg.de/en/) he worked for a R&D consultancy (http://www.offis.de/) as a consultant and project manager. This is where he got interested in agile principles. He moved to Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2007 where he worked as a project manager and Scrum Master at House of Travel (http://www.hot.co.nz) - and later as acting solution architect and Java Application Development Manager. He has fostered the introduction of agile principles into the organisation and lead the first full time Scrum team at HOT. Jan's interests include software engineering best practices & principles, XP, coding in Java, team building, the problems around self organisation and acceptance of responsibility, and ways to scale Scrum (e.g. Scrum of Scrums).
Java
Java (formerly known as Oak) is my 'favourite' language. I took a couple of turns in my career, so it took till 2001 that I got started at University and immediately realised that I did like to write code. By the end of the second term I was of the ground and away. That was in 2001 and since then things have changed in the Java world (and in mine) and - amongst many other things - I have moved from the Netbeans to the Eclipse camp along the way ;).
What fascinated me from the start where the possibilities (and limitations) of Rich Internet Applications (or RIAs) and so that has been one focus of my development world. I also found the possibilities of Open Source Software and free software quite frankly fantastic. Both RIA and OSS to me have a strong anchor in the Java world.
Agile Users Group
Please note that the AUG has ceased to exist due to lack of time on my behalf (I am a Dad now). Below is left for historical reasons only...
In early 2008 the idea formed to create an informal gathering for all those interested in Agile to get together, share experiences and help each other. The first meeting took place in April 2008 at the Pomeroys Pub with a good turnout and a general interested to keep going.
