Last year I had the pleasure of attending Agile On The Beach 2013. My first Agile Conference and first Tech Conference in Cornwall. As a relatively new team to Agile it was a great launch pad, with lots of great ideas and takeaways to try with my team:
- Agile should always focus on removing barriers from productivity
- Iterative Improvement – continually look to improve
- Automate – Automate as much as you can to free up as much productive time in a sprint as possible
- Context is key – Everything works better if context is established upfront and people know WHY
The event was a real credit to the organisers. All of the talks were thought provoking and to a very high standard. It was also a great opportunity to network with other attendees. Attendees from a diverse variety of companies, everything from huge (IBM huge) to one person outfits, spanning lots of industries and from worldwide locations.
Naturally I am biased and view Cornwall as THE place to hold anything but it appears I wasn’t alone in this thought. Many attendees were visiting Cornwall for the first time. Drawn by the world class speakers and then impressed by the location. Lots were suggesting coming back with family and friends for holidays. Answering ‘Where are you from?’ became my favourite activity at break times. Usually responded to by ‘You live here!’ and then a series of questions to understand how that was possible: Agile, Superfast Broadband, Lotus Connections, Geographically Diverse Teams, Video Conferencing, Rational Tools, lots of planning, hard work, a supportive manager and a sprinkling of luck.
Last year I made the mistake of taking too many notes. Furiously scribbling my particular brand of chicken scrawl, look like a 10 year old wrote it symbols, on lined A4 paper. Largely the notes sat gathering dust thanks to the talks being replayable online. This year I plan to only write ideas and actionable todos. Those were the real value for my team from last year, not the pages and pages of notes.
AOTB 2013’s talks – http://agileonthebeach.com/2013-programme/2013-videos-and-presentations/
My favourites:
Dan North @tastapod – Software Craftmanship KEYNOTE: Jackstones – Journey To Mastery – 2 parts, see the above link
Sarah Fairbairn, Sullivan Cuff Software – Playing Games – http://youtu.be/yBOXJX6HdDw
Wouter Lagerweij & Ciarán O’Neill – The “Just Do It” approach to Change Management – http://youtu.be/OYdalj0kvss
Marcin Floryan – The Art of Feedback – http://youtu.be/ukNnceHf4uw
Agile On the Beach 2014 is next week and I’m excited. My business case was in the minute I got back from 2013 and with eager anticipation I awaited the first batch of Early Bird tickets. The final schedule was recently published here: http://agileonthebeach.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/2014-CONFERENCE-SCHEDULE-FINAL.pdf and I’m trying to work out how to get the most out of the two days. This year my focus will be on the team element. This helps navigate both days. Knowing the talks will be uploaded and replayable is a great backup and takes some of the pressure off choosing when talks clash.
This year is doubly exciting because IBM has chosen to be a sponsor of the event! IBM’s Jon Tilt will be presenting – An Agile Journey – Making the Elephant Dance. A team of IBMers will be manning a display throughout the two days, promoting BlueMix, Rational Tooling and the Jazz community.
2014’s AOTB is already sold out but the talks will be available online and I expect the #AOTB tag to start generating a lot of discussion on twitter. If you’d like to come to the 2015 event be mindful to book early. You can register your interest here: http://agileonthebeach.us5.list-manage2.com/subscribe?u=df92726ddfd2ad327f4fd0c99&id=76f054ec4a
Olly Brand 
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