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marick
Brian Marick
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![[*]](./images/grass/default_icon.gif) posted on 21 May 07 at 12:07 AM |
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Proposal: add small conferences targeted to improving the practice
At http://www.exampler.com/blog/2007/05/20/help-me-stir-things-up/, I proposed the following:
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The Alliance will fund small conferences, run by volunteers, targeted toward experienced practitioners, dedicated (in part) to advancing the practice.
These conferences are expected to lose money. We hope to fund at least five conferences a year, in at least three continents. The Agile Alliance will
choose conferences to fund based on bids by groups of volunteers. In addition to funding, it will provide logistical support.
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Comments on this proposal?
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RyanMartens
Ryan Martens
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| posted on 22 May 07 at 11:42 AM |
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What are the best examples of small conferences that are working?
Why do they work?
For whom do they work?
How should we choose proposal, based on what criteria?
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RyanMartens
Ryan Martens
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| posted on 22 May 07 at 11:53 AM |
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What is the AA role of large A200X conferences in the world of Agile Alliance 2.0?
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marick
Brian Marick
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| posted on 22 May 07 at 01:22 PM |
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Small conferences that work
These are ones I've personally attended.
Continuous Integration and Test
Simple Design and Testing
Austin Workshop on Test Automation
XP Day North America
Agile Open Northwest
OOPSLA workshops played this role in the early days of Agile, I think.
Except for Agile Open, which I'm pretty sure was somewhere over 100, all of these were less than 50 people.
Why do they work? One reason is that they tend to gather a more concentrated core of enthusiasts, who sometimes pay their own way. (AWTA and XP Day
are held on the weekend which allows enthusiasts to come w/o permission, and also tends to push away the tepid. AWTA requires position papers.)
Enthusiasm is correlated to active involvement, somewhat correlated to experience. A smaller size also helps.
For whom do they work? The above. I note that I get more useful long-term contacts from the small conferences than from the big ones, but that may be
just me.
Selection criteria: I'd want to see two things. First, evidence of logistical competence. Have they priced meeting spaces? Do they have an estimate
for per-attendee cost? Do they have some set of people who have agreed to come? Do they know their intended audience? Have they determined what kind
of conference this will be? (Talks + discussion, like RubyConf? Stories wth unbounded questioning, like AWTA? Open Space? Writers' Workshop style,
like PLoP?)
Second, do they have a topic that, um, "beckons toward excellence" - something people are interested in learning about and improving. Is it
something that will attract the experienced?
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marick
Brian Marick
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| posted on 22 May 07 at 01:38 PM |
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Agile 200X
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What is the AA role of large A200X conferences in the world of Agile Alliance 2.0?
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I expect there will continue to be a large Agile200X conference. It should make money. I expect the smaller conferences will tend to drain away
non-novices, perhaps even faster than has been happening now.
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mheusser
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| posted on 22 May 07 at 04:23 PM |
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I run a small conference, and support several others.
They are run by volunteers.
They are targeted toward experienced practitioners, dedicated (in part) to advancing the practice.
THESE CONFERENCES MAKES MONEY.
As of now, I do not think that is an unreasonable expectation, but I have an open mind. We should talk!
I would be happy to help, as a volunteer, to work to set up such conferences and to have them be self-sustaining.
--heusser
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steve.freeman
Steve Freeman
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| posted on 22 May 07 at 04:42 PM |
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The European XpDays have been doing very well. London is aiming for about 180 this year, Benelux I think a little over 100. Both have attendees coming
from many countries. Germany and France are now non-English which limits their range, but I believe they're doing well. In all cases, these are
primarily local events run by a community.
Personally, I've had excellent experiences at small focussed events like CITCON and intend to do more next year.
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mfeathers
Michael Feathers
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| posted on 22 May 07 at 08:47 PM |
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I think this proposal makes sense, but we have to recognize that this space doesn't seem to require much instigation. Little conferences are
cropping up all over the place.
So if the AA is going to push for anything, I think it should push in areas that are not receiving the interest that they should.
The thing that I would like to see is an emphasis on novice outreach. The dirty secret about conferences is that they become incestuous after a
while. I have to admit that my favorite conferences are ones that I go to to see friends, people who've had years and years of experience. When you
look around, you discover that everyone is in their 30s to 40s and no one is in their 20s. After a while, everyone is in their 40s to 50s and no one
is in their 30s.
I think we need to outreach. To the extent that it can happen in small conferences, it should, but it does seem that most conferences in the agile
space are rather schizophrenic on this point. They don't know whether they are for novices or experienced practitioners. The smaller the
conference, the harder it make be to multi-track it.
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marick
Brian Marick
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| posted on 22 May 07 at 09:20 PM |
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Mike: good point. Little conferences are popping up. I'd like to see them focused a bit more on pushing the state of the practice - something more
like the Mastitis Research Workers workshops my wife goes to. Those are small gatherings of people working on the same disease. The purpose of the
workshop is to help people sharpen their research programs, get advice from others, and share early results.
But maybe nothing more is necessary than letting small conferences bloom. What say people who've dreamed of running a conference?
One thing about novices that I think we've concluded from Agile2006 is that they don't really want a whole lot of personalized outreach. They want
something more structured, more how-to, more like a conventional lecture+lab format. (Maybe I'm being too sweeping in that "we".) Agile200X is
well-placed to offer that.
It's true that conferences in that format do tend to turn into an incestuous gathering of old-time instructors who huddle together when not
lecturing. I'm not sure that's avoidable.
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mfeathers
Michael Feathers
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| posted on 22 May 07 at 09:43 PM |
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| Quote: | Originally posted by marick
...One thing about novices that I think we've concluded from Agile2006 is that they don't really want a whole lot of personalized outreach. They
want something more structured, more how-to, more like a conventional lecture+lab format. (Maybe I'm being too sweeping in that "we".) Agile200X is
well-placed to offer that. |
Yes, maybe "outreach" was the wrong word. I was thinking along the same lines. That maybe Agile200x should keep the conventional formats and
always (or for a time at least) have a session on TDD, a session on refactoring, planning game, continuous integration etc. There is still a great
need for the basics as bridge.. a path to the rest of the community.
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nashjain
Naresh Jain
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| posted on 22 May 07 at 09:55 PM |
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I know a lot of people who are really pushing the "tricks and tools" envelope happen to work for companies where they don't find enough people to
bounce ideas off. They find it difficult to take specific problems and discuss potential solutions.
Where do they turn to?
Based on my observations:
1. Mailing list: We see quite a bit of this happening on the mailing list, but we all know about the lack of communication bandwidth of emails and
mailing list.
2. Local User Group: Excellent forum for exchanging notes. But sometimes and in some places you don't get the kind of passionate people you are
looking for.
3. Small conferences with a clear focus: Having organized a few small conferences including SDTConf and Agile India, I think the small scale and tight
focus of the conference, tends to act as a filtering criteria to get the really motivated and passionate people to come in. These seem to be a perfect
platform for people to bounce ideas off.
4. Large conferences: Great to introduce someone to a concept and create hype about it.
IMHO, it is very import for us to focus on local user groups and small conference to foster innovation and share knowledge.
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RyanMartens
Ryan Martens
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| posted on 23 May 07 at 01:20 AM |
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I am heavily influenced by Kathy Seirra's learning curve. See http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/03/how_to_be_an_ex.html
Clearly their are different techniques, places and promotions to get over the sucks line than to are needed to get over the Kick Ass line.
The line I worry most about and the line that I think Brian is talking about is the amateur line. This is as much a failure line as the drop-out
line.
I think Agile 200X can follow a split format to help address each of these lines. (As you proposed in Portland - Brian)
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simonbaker
Simon Baker
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| posted on 23 May 07 at 06:23 AM |
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Personally, I don't see a lot of new content at the larger conferences these days. Sure there's some but not a lot. There's a lot of the same old
stuff (which I guess needs to re-run if novices are attending) and what's left are mash-ups. I also think the larger a conference becomes the less
focus it has, the more diluted it becomes, and the less energy and enthusiasm it creates.
I want to see sessions that engage with executives, senior managers, business leaders and decision makers with the aim of educating and ultimately
gaining support for agile methods within organisations, from the top-down. You can't get these people to large conferences to attend one or two
sessions. I'm currently pursuing the idea of a cafe style one-day session, inviting about 10 such people to come and talk to one or two seasoned
agile practitioners, over coffee and cakes. The atmosphere would be very casual and informal, open and honest. These people would have the opportunity
to ask whatever questions they wanted or say what's on their minds. Their organisations would not be known, giving them some anonymity. We'd discuss
potential problems and obstacles they foresee with agility in their company, and we'd try to formulate ideas together. No agenda. Just people in a
room having a frank conversation.
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DaveNicolette
Dave Nicolette
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| posted on 23 May 07 at 09:38 AM |
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I agree with Simon on both points.
WRT executives, etc., I think we might have a better chance to engage them by submitting agile presentations to business/management conferences than
by trying to attract them to agile development conferences.
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duncan_pierce
Duncan Pierce
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| posted on 23 May 07 at 11:41 AM |
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Are volunteers the bottleneck here?
I've been involved in the XPDay London conference since it started and I've watched conferences with similar models spring up all over the place.
For me, these smaller conferences serve their audiences better than the big conference route Agile 200X has gone down. So, I think it's right to
consider a change of direction. The question is: how would things be different if the AA were following the small conference route?
From my own experience, it's not too hard to get a small conference off the ground financially. A little seed funding helps a lot first time, but
it's not too hard to reach a self-funding position. XPDay London was able to pay back its loan in year 1 and since then it's been primarily
self-funded (thanks also to the AA and sponsors for their support over the years though).
I think the big constraint is volunteers. Not many people have the energy and experience to get a conference off the ground -- even a small one. It
can eat up a lot of your time and it doesn't pay. It can be hard to constrain your level of commitment to the time you have available. While it can
be very rewarding, it can also be very tough.
To make something of this, I think you'd need to answer the question of how to create a larger volunteer pool or get more leverage from the pool you
have. I can suggest 2 options the AA could help with. There may be others.
1. Invest in bringing people who've started conferences together with people who want to start conferences to transfer knowledge, network, mentor,
etc. I imagine a face-to-face event.
2. Provide whatever infrastructure can take the strain off the small pool of founders of a conference. Examples include: taking payments, organizing
accounts, issuing invoices, organizing contracts with the venue, caterers, covering the legal side, etc.
Duncan
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debhart
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| posted on 27 May 07 at 09:44 PM |
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Why expect to lose money?
I've attended or been involved in organizing a number of the smaller events mentioned. I think they should (eventually) be for-profit events for a
couple of reasons:
a) they should deliver value which people are willing to pay. Whether they do pay can be part of our evaluation of the event.
b) when I work on these as a volunteer, I have to do them "off the edge of my desk" while concentrating on other things to pay the bills. I think I
could do a better job if I were free to put in the proper effort to make a great event. It also would lead to better quality of life (less stress)
which is something we preach but are bad at practicing :-\
That being said, it's not easy to reach this state right off. What if the Agile Alliance provided funding contingent on receiving the results of a
post-event retrospective and plans for improvements next time, including plans to improve profitability. The hope would be to need less and less AA
funding, and develop enough value to be self-sustaining.
To this end, the AA could support people to write on how to get from conceptin to execution - maybe not even original material, but aggregating
existing resources and making them available, on planning, facilitation, financial and marketing aspects. (How to get sponsors, how to get the word
out, how to create a good atmosphere, etc.)
This actually sounds like hard work for the AA... but perhaps there are those who love doing this who would take on a salaried job as a kind of
"gardener", helping organizers grow smaller, high quality conferences, and also helping them with evaluating and planning for better events ongoing.
An events support person, whose time can be booked by members, and who is paid to compile resources.
Perhaps the phrase "fostering local sustainability" sums it up. There must be lots written about this in other domains... but I wouldn't know, as
I've been up to my #$$ in creating events, lol.
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debhart
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| posted on 27 May 07 at 09:47 PM |
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CampCamp
Ah, I see the previous poster was on a similar track...
I heard the same thing come up yesterday at BarCamp - teaching others how to create a BarCamp. Someone called it CampCamp, lol.
The Open Space world has these, too. They call them OSonOS (Open Space on Open Space).
So, AA sponsored events (or people) to teach people how to create events. :-)
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debhart
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| posted on 27 May 07 at 09:49 PM |
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| Quote: | Originally posted by duncan_pierce
Provide whatever infrastructure can take the strain off the small pool of founders of a conference. Examples include: taking payments, organizing
accounts, issuing invoices, organizing contracts with the venue, caterers, covering the legal side, etc. |
This sounds like what Agile University is proposing to do for people running training courses. I like it. Then we could focus on the parts that are
unique and local about our event. Taking money and giving receipts isa pretty generic and repeatable kind of activity, I'd think.
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marick
Brian Marick
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| posted on 28 May 07 at 02:51 PM |
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taking payments, organizing accounts, issuing invoices, organizing contracts with the venue, caterers, covering the legal side, etc.
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A board member has independently proposed this, and I think it's likely to happen.
---
For the smaller conferences, making money is OK. Let's say that we don't want conferences to lose money because of sloppy execution. But it's OK to
have an idea for a conference the best organized conference group in the world couldn't make money on.
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ChrisMatts
Chris Matts
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| posted on 30 May 07 at 08:32 AM |
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Brian
Quite often I'll have an idea and discuss it with a member of AA only to discover that the idea has been discussed and green lighted, or rejected.
Is there anyway we could get the AA initiatives into a public forum... Perhaps this one? The wider community could then discuss them.
Chris
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marick
Brian Marick
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| posted on 01 Jun 07 at 07:21 AM |
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Chris: I would like that, but I'm not good enough at distributed communication to have a sensible suggestion. In the case of the conference support,
it was a suggestion by a board member in an email thread about something related. The suggestion will linger in our minds, and be acted on when and if
we launch into heavy small conference advocacy.
We could make the email list open, but there's a lot of noise to signal (noise like trying to coordinate meetings around Agile2007). The meeting
minutes are available (I think), but they're missing about one hour of spoken context. So the information could be available, but it would not be
useful.
I think it would require someone fanatically dedicated to summarizing and publicizing.
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ehendrickson
Elisabeth Hendrickson
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| posted on 01 Jun 07 at 10:44 AM |
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What if we had a place where new, unfunded, unapproved, but board-member sponsored, proposed initiatives could be listed and discussed? So we could
have a page for "Provide a turnkey infrastructure service for small Agile conferences."
The community at large could then ask questions and make comments and suggestions. In addition to being a great way to get feedback on the idea, the
level of energy expressed in that collaborative space could inform future funding/prioritization decisions.
This discussion board is serving that purpose to some extent at the moment, but I'm thinking that it would be easier if we had a good collaboration
platform in place to help organize the discussion.
(And that collaborative platform is another initiative being worked on by other AA board members. As a distributed organization, the AA board has
realized that having our collaborative work scattered between email, Google's Writely, Basecamp, a wiki, and the Yahoo! group is causing severe
pain.)
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ChrisMatts
Chris Matts
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| posted on 03 Jun 07 at 07:01 PM |
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Why would they have to be board-member sponsored? Are they gate keepers or filters of some kind.
A place where any idea could be discussed... If it is popular, then the AA could take it up and ensure it was funded appropriately.
I get the impression that there are a LOT of ideas out there. Filtering through the board might burn the board out or create a serious constraint to
the number of ideas pushed forward.
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marick
Brian Marick
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| posted on 04 Jun 07 at 10:03 AM |
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Two proposed small conferences
I describe two small conferences here. If there's
interest, I'll do work setting them up.
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debhart
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| posted on 07 Jun 07 at 11:42 PM |
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AA sponsored collaboration environment
> collaborative platform is another initiative being worked on by other AA board members.
This is good news. I find myself often collaborating with others in the agile leadership space, all across the planet. I have often wished AA would
provide a place for us to "virtually" work together.
Tools I use:
- cross-time-zone meeting planner
- visual whiteboard (I just found Thinature, but have not tried it yet)
- various brands of chat
- skype phone
- shared google spreadsheets
- shared goodle docs
- shared editgrid spreadsheet with graphs
- private wiki (often, work-in-progress should stay private, or sometimes our collaboration includes customer data)
- email, of course (terrible way to collaborate, imo)
- phone
This kind of work has become much easier thanks to Google, now :-)
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