Dear All
In his own words, Alistair Cockburn wanted to create a “four day conversation”. He succeeded and received two standing ovations at the end of “conversation” banquet.
I have never been in such a highly charged learning environment in my life. The energy and raw intellectual power at the Agile Development Conference was astounding. Any idea tossed into mellee was understood, stripped down, and made better before your eyes.
It was a truly Agile Culture and Organisation. There were no ‘stars’ and everybody participated freely. Software greats entered into discussions with anyone in the hallways and sessions. Everyone had a chance to put forward ideas and there were no barriers to entry other than a desire to explore ‘Agile’.
There were tutorials, technical exchanges, experience reports and research reports. However, the most interesting sessions were the “Open Spaces” where the conference participants created their own discussion groups. I created one on Business Value which suffered from my lack of facilitation skills. The conference was organised around skill levels – tutorial style for level one, workshop style for level 2, open spaces for level 3 (people take the conference where they want).
A common expectation was that you would meet a couple of people that you would want to keep in touch with. As it turned out, most people said they wanted to keep in touch with most of people they met.
ThoughtWorks are highly regarded in the Agile community. We missed a huge opportunity to show what we can do. We could have attracted more new clients and potential co-workers if we had had a better prescence. For the last two days I was the only ThoughtWorker present. How scary is that ;-)
Anyway, a run down of my activities. I suspect everyone attending could tell a similar story, although I definitely benefited from Andy Pols’ introductions. Andy is one of the Alistair Cockburn Associates working at BP.
Tuesday:
Arrived too late to see the Belly dancers but got to meet, Alistair’s wife Deana and son Cameron, of Dandelion Story fame. I met up with Bill Caputo and Mike Royle before heading down to the bar with Alistair Cockburn with a crowd of Agilists. I met Jeff Patton of Tomax (See Later), and Tracy, Jeff and Russ of the California Patterns Group (CPG). CPG have been heavily involved in Agile and XP since the early days. They review articles and books on Agile, including Gregor’s EAI Patterns book. We talked about everything Agile and I introduced the Business Value concept. I stayed up until the early hours in an attempt to fight off jet lag…..
Wednesday:
And failed ! I got two hours sleep, so felt pretty groggy most of Wednesday.
My first session was a Golfish Bowl discussing Customer Collaboration. The conversation was fast and furious and a few common themes emerged. There is a need for a Business Coach / Bridge role between the Business and IT. Trusted Relationships are vital for effective communication. Linda Rising had already identified these on her patterns web site that will soon be published as a book. Participants included Brian Marick, John Danials, Ellen Goettesdiener and Alistair Cockburn. Some of us agreed to define the skill set of the role in an email group.
Next up was Bill Caputo and Mike Royles’ session on Continuous Integration. Four groups brain-stormed their biggest issues and possible solutions. The results will be posted on the conference site.
Lunch was spent talking to John Nolan about all things Agile. Alistair officially opened the conference. He introduced the concept of a “4 Day Conversation”. Gerry Weinberg then gave an entertaining keynote speech identifying the qualities of a true Software Professional. A number of the Agile principles have been followed by professionals since the days of paper cards (Two elastic bands for configuration management). Gerry used videos of Dog Training as a metaphor to describe the behaviours of a successful professional. These included focus on Others, Self and (Oops, I cannot remember because I lost my notes).
Seven of us had dinner with Gerry and I discussed XP and Business Value with Zhon of Semantec where part of the company is XP and the rest is Waterfall.
Andy Pols (Next year’s Experience Report Chair), Ben Hogan, who both work with TW at BP, and myself joined Pollyana Pixton and Todd Little (Next Year’s Agile Development Conference Chairman) in Pollyana’s Garden. We drank fine wine and discussed Agile Philosophy and Culture.
Thursday
Jeff Patton of Tomax (remember Tuesday) introduces me to Eric Olafson, his CEO, to discuss Business Value. Jim Highsmith agrees to publish an article in Cutter on Business Value. Not bad for the first ten minutes of the day. J
We then watched Roy give a presentation at the Executive Summit. There is a lot of interest in addressing the issues that Roy said he raises with prospective clients. Unfortunately for Roy, he was followed by the most amazing presentation of CGI software. Kevin Tate works for Alias who produce Maya, the software used by all of the film industry on films like Lord of the Rings and The Phantom Menace. Kevin told the story of Alias’s journey to Agile. The most exciting thing was a drawing package that his company created in a few weeks. It allows you to draw on a tablet PC. They are developing the ability to record sound and then we will have the dream tool of the Agile Business Coach. I fell in love and joining the Beta Test program.
The executive summit broke into groups to Brainstorm the things you wanted answering about Agile. I worked with Todd Little, Jim Highsmith and Scott Ambler. We identified Agile Metrics, Project Management, Culture, and Fuzzy Vs Hard (A concept raised by Kevin Tate).
A group of us had lunch with Kevin and Scott. Scott agreed to co-write an article on “Why UML is bad!”
After lunch, Eric Olafson gave Roy, Alistair and I a tour of Tomax’s offices. The office is a warehouse conversion with bare brick and lots of glass. The office has a wonderful airy feel and the CEO had a meeting room containing easy chairs that he shared with his management team. Tomax are a Retail Software product company who are interested in setting up an operation in Bangalore. Jim Mattecheck (SVP) and Virgil Fernandez (CTO) joined us for the meeting. Roy discussed issues setting up in Bangalore and other matters. Feedback from Jeff indicated it went well.
At five, I held the Open Space on Business Value. The conversation wandered and we did not manage to get a definition. We had some interesting discussion on which stakeholder group should be the dominant beneficiary of business value. Pete McBreen chucked in a few hand grenades setting things up for a later meeting.
At seven, Pollyanna Pixton arranged an Open Space on Agile Project Management. About 15 people attended including Jim Highsmith, Tom and Mary Poppendieck and Sanjeev Augustine, convenor of the Agile PM Yahoo Group. Pollyanna is writing up the notes but as an early indication, the name suggested for the role was an “Agile Behavoural Coach”.
Andy, Ben and I went for a beer with Todd Little at Squater’s, a bar a block away from the hotel. Alistair hit me with a meme and it was time to hit the sack. My brain was starting to fry.
Friday
I went to a tutorial on Retrospectives run by Linda Rising, Mary Ann and Diana Larson (She says Hi to Tim Mckinnen and Owen Rogers). I know of project in desperate need of a retrospective. They recommended a book by Kerth as the bible of retrospectives that they said is an excellent start but needs adapting to Agile.
I finished the morning in the Executive Summit answering our questions from the previous day. My group focused on Agile Metrics which provided some interesting insights. Finally, we had to come up with a single statement for a CEO. Our’s was “We Value the Agile Principles over the Agile Practices.” Which we had refactored at the last minute. Others included “Trust First” and “Its Cultural” although the group with Alistair and Gerry failed to come up with one. David Spann, MBA director of Westminster College, is writing up the session.
By now my brain was fried. I spent a very relaxing afternoon in Pollyanna Pixton’s garden eating Fine Ham, Cheese and Bread with Mary and Tom Poppendieck. Mary told us about their Tricycle journeys in Sardinia and the Dolomites. (Check out the cover of the book.) Tom explained the scientific method and why it was central to Agile. We had a very chilled out discussion about Agile cultures, organisations and projects. Pollyanna explained how I should “Take the Fun out of Dysfunctional” when dealing with difficult people.
Friday evening ended in Squater’s with the XTC crowd. Alistair and Luke Hohmann joined us. Alistair told us that there was a lively discussion going on back at the hotel about “What is XP”. I believe Ron Jeffries and Ward Cunningham were involved in the open discussion in the lobby of the hotel. I didn’t speak to either during the conference, although I did watch Ward pair programming with a couple of people.
Saturday
My brain was utterly fried by now. The morning spent in experence report sessions. I had a breakthrough explaining the “zero” documentation analysis using a model-view-controller metaphor with Hugh Robinson, Open University, Sanjeev and Russell Hill. This set me up nicely for another “fail fast, win early” in the afternoon.
Pete McBreen ran a technical exchange on requirements documentation. This gave me an opportunity for revenge. ;-) I tried explaining the “zero” documentation analysis approach using the Model-View-controller metaphor. Nods all around the table apart from one woman who said “I have no idea what you are talking about.”. She worked in a company that produced software for the construction industry, so I used a different metaphor based on a system for building houses. I had an “Aha!” moment. Metaphors should be created based on the person you are talking to. You should not attempt to create a single metaphor for everyone. i.e. Using the M-V-C metaphor, you have a single model with multiple metaphors to explain it. Anyone care to refactor XP’s use of metaphors? ;-).
The final event of the conference was the Banquet on Saturday evening. Todd Little handed out prizes and toasted Alistair. Alistair deservedly received two standing ovations and then the music started. Lives were lost on the dance floor as people let rip after four days of intensive brain work. About 20 people continued in Alistair’s room when the disco ended. Security eventually asked us to end the party because of the noise. Lots of talk about patterns and refactoring had caused people to lose sleep ;-).
Sunday (Today)
I woke up this morning feeling tired but satisfied. I’m now flying over the atlantic back to England after one of the most fun weeks I’ve ever had. I realise that the above are just the highlights. The real richness of the conference was due to all the 5 minute conversations stolen in the hallways and over dinner. I now have a stack of about 50 business cards for people I want to continue the conversation with. Alistair should have said “We have four days to get the conversation started”.
Good night. :-)