Jim Highsmith, Leader of the Agile Movement, to Keynote Carnegie Mellon SEI SATURN 2010 Conference

Jim Highsmith, Leader of the Agile Movement, to Keynote Carnegie Mellon SEI
SATURN 2010 Conference

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Acclaimed author and leader of the Agile
movement Jim Highsmith has been announced as a keynote speaker for the
Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Architecture Technology
User Network Conference (SATURN 2010), May 17-21, 2010, in Minneapolis, Minn.

Building on the conference's theme of Architecting for Change, Highsmith's
keynote will be titled Architects: Anchors or Accelerators for Organizational
Agility. The keynote will focus on how architects can help accelerate agility
in their organizations.

"The SEI has long been recognized as a leader in software architecture and has
encouraged individuals and teams to transform their organizations by
challenging conventional thinking about software development," Highsmith said.
"My work has focused on transforming organizations to become more agile.
Architecture and agile are compatible, and architects can help organizations
to achieve agility."

Highsmith is coauthor of the Agile Manifesto, a founding member of the Agile
Alliance, coauthor of the Declaration of Interdependence for project leaders,
and co-founder and first president of the Agile Project Leadership Network. In
his 1999 groundbreaking book Adaptive Software Development, which received the
prestigious Jolt Award in 2000, Highsmith stated that "rules can be barriers
to hide behind or guidelines for the wise to consider and break when the
circumstances justify it."

"Agility and the ability to respond to change have become key architectural
drivers across the software industry," said Ipek Ozkaya, SATURN 2010
conference chair. "At the same time, the agile software development community
has increasingly been addressing how to scale agile development techniques for
large-scale, multi-year projects. For this year's SATURN Conference, we wanted
a keynote speaker who could take an integrative view of these forces.
Therefore we are excited to have Jim Highsmith as an addition to our program."

Highsmith currently serves as director of Cutter Consortium's Agile consulting
practice. He has more than 30 years of experience as an IT manager, product
manager, project manager, consultant, and software developer. He has written
several books including his most recent Agile Project Management: Creating
Innovative Products (Addison-Wesley 2009). Highsmith is the recipient of the
2005 International Stevens Award for outstanding contributions to systems
development.

Highsmith has served as a consultant to IT and product-development
organizations and software companies around the world. He has held technical
and management positions with software, computer hardware, banking, and energy
companies.

About SATURN 2010
Each year, the SEI Architecture Technology User Network (SATURN) Conference
brings together experts from around the world to exchange best
architecture-centric practices in developing, acquiring, and maintaining
software-reliant systems. Architects at all levels meet to share ideas and
lessons learned, network, and learn about new and existing technologies. The
SATURN 2010 committee is accepting presentation proposals through Monday,
November 9, 2009. This year's SATURN 2010 Conference is being held in
collaboration with IEEE Software magazine, which will publish selected papers
from the conference. For more information go to
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/saturn/2010/.

About the Software Engineering Institute
The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is a U.S. Department of Defense
federally funded research and development center operated by Carnegie Mellon
University. The SEI helps organizations make measured improvements in their
software engineering capabilities by providing technical leadership to advance
the practice of software engineering. For more information, visit the SEI
website at http://www.sei.cmu.edu.

SOURCE Software Engineering Institute

Kelly Kimberland, APR, SEI Media Relations, +1-412-268-4793,
public-relations@sei.cmu.edu