Not long ago the notion of a tool that hides more of the system than it shows sounded crazy. To some it still does. But hundreds of thousands of Mylyn users have made next big evolution of the IDE clear. Stories and tasks are more central than source code, focus is more important than features, and integration with the agile workflow is the biggest productivity boost since code completion. This talk will demonstrate the concepts of the task-focused interface and look ahead at how we are redefining the “I” of the IDE by personalizing the user experience around the agile process.

As Agile practitioners, a great deal of our time is focused on having targeted, directed impact. But sometimes we miss opportunities to repurpose our efforts into syngergistic, many-pronged effects. Not multi-tasking — multi-EFFECTing, from one piece of effort. This talk will explore this topic, both in theory and in practice. We will examine a particular client case-study, where two disparate 6-person developer teams, with minimal pairing and TDD experience, were developed into highly-productive “gelled” teams, through “Group Pair Programming” — 6 individuals, 1 workstation.