Community Outreach

Each year, Rick visits Naperville Central High School to speak to their Software Engineering students about Agility.

Rick started this in 2017, when he was invited by the head of the AP Software Engineering department.  Their department, and that of a sister High School (Naperville North), teach their students self-management techniques for use when tackling large school projects.  They had known for quite a while that Rick lived in the area, and that he teaches Scrum.  It took an entire school year to work out some dates that were good for both Rick and the high school, but they finally had their first session.

In the last several years, Rick taught the students a brief history of Agile and Scrum,  a quick overview of the Agile Values and Principles, and the Scrum Values, the Scrum Framework, eXtreme Programming practices (Test Driven Development, Paired Programming, and the importance of continuous testing, integration, and deployment).  He’s even had a class where the students participated in the Marshmallow Challenge!

Unfortunately, during the 2020-21 school year, the class was taught virtually.  But, as you can see, that didn’t stop anyone – these kids are amazing!