Agile by Example (in Warsaw, Poland) is a great conference. On the 1st day there are workshops, on the 2nd and 3rd day the meeting takes place in a cinema!

There are great presentations on a giant screen and comfortable chairs to sit in. One could say that there’s a greater distance between the speaker and the audience, but for me, the experience was superior 🙂 Moreover, the speakers were hanging around after their session, so you could go and speak with them ask some questions.

The talks have been recorded, and videos will be published on the Agile By Example channel.

 

Day 1

Workshop on management 3.0 workout techniques (by Daniel Skowroński @_skowronski)

We’ve created our map and played the moving motivators.

Day 2

Beyond Budgeting (by Bjarte Bogsnes @bbogsnes)

 

Evo Planning (by Niels Malotaux @nielsmx)

Niels talked about “evolutionary planning.”

Make Impact Not Software (by Gojko Adzic @gojkoadzic)

Gojko presented a great talk. Gojko presents on high tempo, telling a story, nicely visualized and in-depth.

Be on a par during Sprint Retrospective (by Izabela Kowalik @izabela_kowalik)

Proposal on an alternative way to hold retrospective (instead of the usual Glad, Sad, Mad) FYI, here’s a site about different retrospective formats.

Silent Sort Estimating (by Tomasz Wykowski, @twykowski)

Technique for estimating (alternative to planning poker)

My Lean Spectacles (by Tobbe Gyllebring, @drunkcod)

Great talk by Tobbe. What I surely remember:

FAIL = “First Attempt In Learning.”

Lean = LeaRn

Day 3

Limit WIP or DIE (by Jim Benson @ourfounder )

I had the pleasure to dine & wine with Jim Benson and some other great agile people. Jim Benson’s talk was spot on: too many organizations struggle with too much WIP (Work in Progress) and fail to see that this prevents them from moving on to “real” flow.

Examples how to move towards Zero Defects (by Niels Malotaux @nielsmx)

Strategy Deployment: The Secret Sauce for Enterprise Agility (by Karl Scotland @kjscotland)

No estimates: how you can predict the release date of your project without estimating (by Vasco Duarte)

Vasco published his book on #NoEstimates. Besides being a widely discussed topic (like on Twitter) with many people saying nonsense, Vasco’s talk was amusing and enlightening. His book is on my reading list. FYI also Yves (Hanoulle) @YvesHanoulle facilitated a discussion on the #NoEstimates topic at ACB (Agile Consortium Belgium)

Product development is an experiment (by Jim Benson)

It’s one of my favourite talks. I am a massive advocate of approaching any product/service/software development as an experiment (hence my interest in Lean UX, Lean Startup, Discovery Kanban). Build/measure/learn is the basic cycle for any product development. Moreover, Jim explained that creative product development is a team sport: a collaborative approach.

Taking Back Agile (by Tim Ottinger @tottinge)

Great closing by Tim about going back to agile’s root values and principles.

Panel discussions and possibilities to talk with the experts were also happening.

I had the opportunity to wine & dine with great people:

Agile by Example, I’ll return.