“Agile AND a beach party? Sounds like my kind of thing” was my response when a colleague asked me if I was interested in going to Agile on the Beach 2013. And it didn’t disappoint.
Agile on the Beach 2013 – a photo montage including (clockwise from top left) Dan North, Gabriel Steinhardt and Rich Quick, Steve Freeman, the 2013 speakers, Steve Parks, Rachel Davies, and Allan Kelly
Nearly 200 people converged on the university at Falmouth, UK, for 2 days of agile-based presentations and workshops, split into three tracks (Business, Teams and Software Craftmanship). I mostly went to the Business sessions – on topics ranging from the Art of Slicing and Dicing User Stories to Selling Agile to Enterprise Customers – but also attended a few others (I have to admit that Steve Freeman’s session on Fractal TDD flummoxed me).
As well as my own session (on how NET-A-PORTER is using Kanban), there were some excellent sessions. Fortunately, for those who didn’t attend the conference, many are available online. Here’s a few of my favourites:
- Dan North’s keynote speech – part 1 and part 2.
- Allan Kelly “Do it right, then do the right thing” – an alternative, possibly more Agile, view of the world which argued that doing things right is essential if you are to do the right thing.
- Steve Parks “Introducing Sceptical Managers to Agile” – Steve introduced an idea of explaining agile concepts to management and clients by relating them back to health concepts.
- Rachel Davies “The Art of Slicing and Dicing User Stories” – techniques for uncovering useful user stories and how to slice them in a way to deliver value in small increments.
The beach party was a “ripper” too: you can’t go wrong with a hog roast, live band and ping-pong on the beach front.
They’re already planning Agile on the Beach 2014 and I can’t wait. I just need to think of a suitable topic now …