I'm Brian Button, and I own Agile Solutions Group. My 30-second elevator speech goes something like, "Agile Solutions Group works with small to medium size business and teams that creates software as part of their business, but not as their primary business function. I can show them how to build better, faster, stronger software using less time and fewer people, and creating the software with higher quality than anyone else in their industry. I can get their product to market faster, with higher quality than anyone else around." I know, kind of lame, but I'm still working on it.
The speech above was my original business goal, but circumstances seem to have guided me somewhere else. Over the last 18 months or so, I've spent a lot of my time teaching Test Driven Development to well over 100 students, developing real-time C++ software for an embedded control system, and worked in the Patterns and Practices group at Microsoft. While I've enjoyed all of it, my time at P&P has been my favorite. I've always been a Linux bigot, but my opinion of the people working at MS has changed completely. I can honestly say that every single person I've met has been a pleasure to work with. They are, without fail, brilliant, and they get software.
In my 8 months there, I have had the pleasure of being solely responsible for the implementation of one of their great Application Blocks, the Smart-Client block. I learned a lot about the development culture in Patterns and Practices while building that block, and I hope also affected it towards a more agile culture at the same time. I do know that TDD is becoming a lot more acceptable and frequent in that group, and I'd like to think I had some part in that. Now I'm working on another block-related project that's hush-hush, but I'm test-infecting them as well!
You can see more details about me on my web site, including my resume.
If you've actually read this, please drop me a note. I'd like to know that I'm not talking to myself...
-- bab