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CVu Journal Vol 17, #6 - Dec 2005
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Title: Conference Report - AgileNorth

Author: 

Date: 06 December 2005 05:00:00 +00:00 or Tue, 06 December 2005 05:00:00 +00:00

Summary: 

Body: 

The First AgileNorth.org.uk conference was the first that I have been involved in organising, for nearly a decade. Frankly, I couldn't have wished for a better day, I couldn't have wished for more attendees, I couldn't have hoped for a more enthusiastic set of delegates, and I couldn't have got a better set of speakers. Oh and the generous sponsorship of UCLAN, The DSDM Consortium, BCS SPA, the Agile Alliance, Exoftware, and Rutherford Software helped to keep the admission price very low!

AgileNorth and the conference are for local technical and business staff who wish to learn and share their experiences of becoming and being agile. If you are not from the North we can still give you something and I am certain you can give use something. Please come to our monthly meetings detail of which are on our website www.AgileNorth.org.uk but be aware that Internet Service provider is changing so the web site is unreliable at the moment.

The sessions covered a wide range of Agile related topics: What is Agile, Agile in Large Organisations, XP Teamwork, Fitting Agile into non Agile organizations, Managing Agile projects, Test Driven Development, Planning, Refactoring and Experience reports.

Kevin Rutherford of Rutherford Software introduced agile development using the techniques of agile development. This was a fascinating. Kevin asked us what our key requirements where. This took the form of a list of questions of what we wanted to know about Agile software development. We then had several 10 minute iterations in which:

  1. We, the audience, prioritized the requirements.

  2. Kevin, implemented the requirements by answering the high priority questions.

  3. Performed acceptance tests - the person who had asked the question stated whether the question was answered.

  4. Raised new requirements - which were new questions people had.

Three parallel sessions then ran:

  1. Steve Ash OOTAC (Object Orientated Training and Consultancy) outlined and discussed the philosophy, principles and process of Enterprise XP. Many people are drawn to Agile practices but many managers, at all levels, are wary of the lack of robust project governance and management (perceived in some cases). The practices have been proved to be advantageous for the day-to-day project activities but what is seen to be needed is a repeatable, higher level of visibility of the direction and progress of the project. EnterpriseXP is a 'work-in-progress' that has taken appropriate elements of PRINCE II and DSDM to add governance to XP projects initially.

  2. Charles Weir of Penrillian discussed the interaction of external roles of XP teams. This session was a gold fish bowl. In golf fish bowls session the chairs are arranged in a circle. In the center of the circle are four more chairs. At any one time three of these central chairs are occupied. Only those in the central chair can speak. If you want to speak you sit in the fourth chair at which point one of the other three must leave. This format encouraged varied, interesting and informative debate.

  3. Lindsay McEwan and Gavin Hope of Nonlinear Dynamics gave an experience report of their successes and failures on their road to becoming and being agile.

Lunch at the conference center was simply delicious and was accompanied by animated debate of the sessions so far. The first afternoon session was again split into three.

  1. Jim Sutton - exchanged experiences of managing agile projects.

  2. Sean Heally of Exoftware explained, demonstrated, and led a discussion on how to do Test Driven Development (TDD).

  3. Isobel Nicholson and Peggy Gregory of the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) led a session looking at what we can (or should) do if we do not have an ideal environment but still want to be (more) Agile. For example, where senior management is still doubtful about the agile approach or where you are not empowered to make decisions?

The final session was split into two:

  1. Rachel Davies of the Agile Experience introduced XP using the XP Game. This is a playful way to familiarize people with some of the more difficult concepts of the XP Planning Game, like velocity, story estimation, yesterday's weather and the XP lifecycle. This session was created by the XP Belgium group and more info can be found at http://www.xp.be/xpgame/.

  2. Ivan Moore and Duncan Pierce who led an interaction session demonstrating how to refactor your code.

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