Did you miss out on XP Days 2013 because the conference was sold out? Or the date didn’t suit you? Did you want to see some sessions again that you missed? Or perhaps you like to refer your colleagues and friends to attend that great session you experienced?
Mini XP Day is your second chance.
The conference takes place on 16 May 2014 in Kapellerput in Heeze near Eindhoven, The Netherlands.We’ve reserved 20 hotel rooms at Kapellerput the night before the conference. Contact Kapellerput in time if you want to book one of the rooms.
Register now for the conference to profit from the early bird savings and to avoid missing out, because the conference usually sells out.
Would you like to present a session at the next XP Days?
The 12th edition of XP Days Benelux will take place on 27-28 November 2014 in the same location as Mini XP Day. Watch this space or register on the XP Days Benelux mailing list (by contacting us by email) to be alerted when the call for sessions for the conference opens.
The purpose of Agile Tour Brussels is to gather in one place Agile practitioners and people wanting to know more about Agile. At Agile Tour Brussels you will meet a mix of attendees who are completely new to Agile, experienced or experts.
DotNetHubThe fourth edition of the “Journée Agile” / Agile Tour in wallonia will be held on October 31st 2013 at EPHEC Louvain-la-Neuve. The conference is organised by the DotNetHub agile/.NET usergroup.
We’re looking for sessions on any subject related to agility. Sessions can use nay format you like, but session length should be no longer than 1 hour, except for workshops, simulations or games.
Agile Tour Louvain-la-Neuve 2013 appel aux orateurs
En 2010, l’association DotNetHub / AgileHub organisait la première édition de la journée agile : pour la première fois en Belgique, une journée consacrée à l’agilité, et ce, en Français. Ce fut pour nous une très bonne expérience et d’après les participants ce fut aussi le cas pour bon nombre d’entre eux.
Suite au beau succès des éditions précédentes (Charleroi, Bruxelles puis Namur en 2012 avec 150 participants), nous ré-éditons l’évènement cette année : La Journée Agile 2013 – Louvain-La-Neuve !
En quelques mots, La Journée Agile 2013, ça sera :
Le jeudi 31 Octobre à Louvain-La-Neuve (tout près de Bruxelles)
Une keynote assurée par un des membres clés de Pyxis
3 ou 4 tracks ouverts en parallèle, avec donc une quinzaine de sessions techniques, théoriques, des ateliers et jeux, des retours d’expérience, …
Une journée complète (9h-17h)
Environ 150 participants (dont environ 25% d’étudiants)
Mais pour que cette édition 2013 voit le jour, nous avons besoin de vous ! C’est vous qui ferez de cette journée un succès avec vos présentations, atelier, retours d’expérience… Nous ne mettons qu’une seule contrainte, votre session doit traiter de l’agilité, mais pour le reste, nous aimons nous amuser alors… soyez inventifs, innovateurs ou totalement décalés !
Nous vous invitons à nous communiquer vos propositions de sessions pour ce 10/09/2013au plus tard. Si vous êtes intéressés à participer, mais que cette échéance est trop courte pour vous, contactez-nous simplement par mail.
Comme nous sommes dans un processus d’amélioration continue, en plus de vos propositions de conférences, n’hésitez pas à nous communiquer vos idées quant à l’organisation de l’évènement.
Comment ? Rien de plus simple, télécharger notre formulaire(ou envoyez nous simplement un mail) et renvoyez-le à speaker[AT]journeeagile[DOT]be.
Vous pouvez aussi passer par la page de l’Agile Tour : http://www.agiletour.org/fr/callForSpeaker.html et sélectionner la ville Louvain-La-Neuve.
Nous espérons, cette année encore, être submergés par vos propositions !
L’équipe organisatrice Norman Deschauwer & Pierre-Emmanuel Dautreppe
XP Days Benelux is an international conference where we learn to bring software to life and grow mature systems that support business needs.
It provides an excellent environment for exchanging ideas, hands-on exercises and extreme experiences.
The best way to learn is to facilitate a session. We like sessions where you explore ideas as well as questions.
The conference will be held on 28 and 29 November, 2013 in Mechelen, Belgium.
The best way to learn is to facilitate a session at XP Days!
We’re looking for sessions where you explore ideas as well as questions. Sessions that dig deeper, going beyond the basic techniques and practices. We really want to find out why/how things work or don’t work. We invite you to propose:
hands on coding/design/architecture sessions;
discovery sessions – open ended workshops that explore new topics, common problems, promising techniques, or burning questions;
experiential learning sessions; get people learning by doing & reflecting; for example games or simulations.
We’re not only interested in agile and software related topics but we also want to explore boundaries and cross borders. What can we learn from other disciplines or sciences?
Available timeslots are 75 and 150 minutes.
We also welcome short experience reports (30 minutes) that focus on what didn’t work and why.
Do you have an interesting story, idea or question?
For one thing, we constantly try to apply XP, agile, lean, systems thinking, theory of constraints and all the other stuff we talk about. It wouldn’t be an agile conference if it wasn’t organised by using agile values, principles and techniques.
The Agile Belgium Community is calling for speakers for the Agile Conference: Agile Tour Brussels 2013. This event will take place on the 27th of September in Brussels Belgium.
Deadline for submission: 20th of June 2013
What’s Agile Tour Brussels?
It’s the 2nd edition of the conference Agile Tour Brussels. Last year we gathered attendees and speakers from Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland to share our passion for Agile. The purpose of this conference is to gather in one place Agile practitioners and people wanting to know more about Agile.
At Agile Tour Brussels you will speak to a mix of attendees who are either completely new to Agile, experienced or experts.
We are looking for any kind of sessions (Lecture, interactive talk, workshop, technical,…) on any topics like Scrum, XP, KanBan, Lean, Devops, Leadership, Lean Startup, Coaching, System thinking, Product Aspect, Agile Games,…
We are looking for different levels of sessions, sessions for beginner, advanced and expert. We are also looking for new and experienced speakers.
Marc explained previously how the UCL computer science departmentruns their student project as an agile project: teams of 4 students develop an Android application of their own choosing. Professor Yves Deville acted as the customer of the team, Marc Lainez provided agile coaching and the teaching assistants acted as onsite coaches.
Shortly before the final release of the projects, the university invited Agile Belgium to attend the Show & Tell of the teams.
The project
Professor Deville explained the context, objectives and challenges of the project: this is a one semester project for 60 students in 15 4-person teams. The students are expected to apply cross-disciplinary skills required to design, build and deliver an application. The project is a practical introduction to both mobile computing and agile, which are new to most of the students. Agile is new for the teaching staff too, they’ve only had a few introductory sessions about agile.
The coaches
Marc Lainez, who had presented agile sessions before at the university, and Agilar helped the teaching team to devise a simple agile process. Every team used the same process and constraints. Octo Technology provided their Appaloosa private app store so that students could publish application updates for their customer, coaches and beta users.
Running this project in the university with little agile experience entailed accepting some compromises:
Automated testing was recommended but not mandatory. Very few teams had any automated tests, which could pose a problem when the applications are developed further
Pair programming was recommended, not mandatory. In their retrospectives the students gave feedback on when they would and wouldn’t use pair programming
Because the project didn’t have a dedicated room for kanban boards and other information radiators, the teams used an online tool to track progress and collaborate
Although the students came up with the ideas for the products, the professor acted as their customer.
Because neither students nor teaching staff worked on the products full time, coaching and retrospective time was limited. For example, there were only 30 minutes per team to perform an iteration retrospective and getting ready for the next iteration.
The teams and their product
The first team presented CheckMyBeer, a beer guide and rating application. They liked pair programming and Trello for collaboration and communication and were very motivated as they worked on an application they had chosen. The regular sprints helped them to deliver and avoid “student syndrome”
The second team developed the “Bouboule” game. They also found the project very motivating and liked the prioritisation, estimation techniques and opportunities to change course that agile gave them.
A third team developed “LLNCampus” a friendlier and more integrated view on the existing data on the campus website. This has the potential to become the premier way that students get information about courses, lecture rooms and facilities on the campus.
The next team developed “Safe Area“, a tool that provides different techniques to keep confidential information on the phone (like keys, codes and passwords) safe. Special mention to the value of regular and fast feedback from your clients and users.
The final team presented “Treasure Hunt”, an application that allows you to script small “adventures” so that you can create treasure hunts, touristic information or travelogues. Again, the value of rapid customer feedback allowed them to refine their original idea and take their product into unexpected directions. We often discover what an application is (also) useful for by using it. You may discover a whole new market and then “pivot“, as the cool kids say nowadays.
All the teams have been able to develop and publish an application, using a new methodology and new technology while having only a limited amount of time. There’s never enough time, you discover what your customer needs as you go along, there’s technology churn, tools don’t work as expected, there are team issues… It’s just like real life. 🙂
Overall, teachers and students seemed happy with the agile approach:
Regular customer feedback made it possible to focus on those few features that really add value, instead of trying to force in all the features you’d imagined needing at the start of the project
The customer and coach roles took a lot of time from the teaching staff, but that investment provided value in steering the project and resolving issues. Having a bit more time for retrospectives and sprint preparation would have been useful. One customer, two onsite coaches and one meta-coach all working part-time on the project is not a lot to follow up 15 product teams.
Despite the effort required by the process, the structure in two-week sprints clearly helped to focus teams and even out the workload. No more last minute late night hacking sessions. Well… a lot less than usual 🙂
Teams experimented with agile practices. Some teams fully applied pair programming, others only used it in some circumstances. Some teams liked standup meetings, others didn’t need them as they paired and collaborated so much already. The important thing is to know what the techniques are, how they work and why you would use them so that you can decide what to use in your context
The teams managed to get a product from scratch into the Android marketplace in a few weeks of part-time work. Impressive.
This is a great initiative by the UCL. I wish more schools and universities allowed their students to experience an agile project. I can only dream of students entering the workplace with a successful agile project under their belt and who think this is the “normal” way of creating products. Professor Deville and Marc Lainez will publish their experiences in a paper so that other universities can learn from the experience. We’ll let you know when the paper is available.
If any other universities or schools want to know more about agile, the Agile Belgium community is here to help. Contact us.
Ruud Wijnands and Dirk Devriendt kick off the day.
Selling your session (part 1: morning)
At the start of the morning and afternoon sessions the presenters get 30 seconds to pitch their session to the audience. This allows the participants to decide at the latest responsible moment which session they’ll attend. And it allows our presenters to express their creativity.
Ron Eringa and Martijn Dehing asked who wanted Agile to spread like an epidemic in their organisation, by reaching the Tipping Point. A lot of people seemed to like the agile virus.
Lunch and warmup sessions
Elewijt Center served an excellent lunch. Olivier Costa and Thien Que Nguyen provided a relaxing Aikido and yoga session to help with digesting all the ideas and food.
How’s the food, Olivier? Mmmmm….
Afternoon sessions, more selling
Erwin van der Koogh invited us to his Storytelling in Business session by telling a story. Due to the 30 second limit he couldn’t finish his story. Only participants to his workshop could hear the ending. Cunning…
Wing Yu Chong and Remi-Armand Collaris make Agile Contracting fun by turning it into a game. You can’t change the rules during the game. Unless your name is Calvin.
Pierluigi Pugliese presents Congruent Leadership. Can we send Darth Vader to this session to teach him that killing participants is not a great leadership technique?
Bruno Sbille and Martin Mahaux presented a perfectly prepared and rehearsed sketch to introduce their session on how to use improvisation techniques to better understand customers and users.
All presenters get a bottle of the local Carolus beer as a thank you from the organisers. Every participant could choose a gift that they could use in their work.
Don’t forget the Call for Sessions for XP Days 2013
The Call for Session for XP Days 2013 on 28-29 November 2013 in Mechelen will open at the end of May.
YOU CAN BE A PRESENTER TOO! Even if you’ve never presented a session before, the organisers and other presenters collaborate to get the best out of each session. Remember: the best way to learn at a conference is to present a session.
Invite your colleagues, friends and family to present at XP Days where the agile community meets to collaborate, share, learn and have fun.
Watch the XP Days site for full details about the call for session.
Goodbye! Until next time
At Mini XP Day participants share their stories, ideas and experiences. The discussions continued in the bar.
See you again at XP Days Benelux 2013!
Photos by Thien Que Nguyen and Pascal Van Cauwenberghe
What participants said
Not all sessions were directly related to Agile/XP
4 inspiring talks
Nice location, good food
To improve: too much quality content. It’s too difficult to choose between sessions
I need a session to learn how to sketch => can someone propose a sketching session for XP Days 2013?
I’ll be back!
Broad spectrum of tracks and sessions
Fresh way to give 30 second intros to talks
To improve: more sessions, shorter breaks => we like to keep breaks relatively long to maintain a sustainable pace, an XP practice we often forget when we’re having fun
To improve: more international speakers => if you’re international, please consider submitting a session proposal for XP Days 2013. If you’re local, please submit a proposal too.
InfoQ was at XP Days 2012
Ben Linders from InfoQ wrote articles about sessions and interviewed presenters at XP Days 2012. You can find these on the InfoQ site:
For the 3rd time, the Lean & Kanban Belgium conference takes place in Antwerp on June 14-15. After 2 successful editions with an average of 250 attendees, we felt it was time to rethink the concept.
That’s why we are happy to announce DARE 2013. It is a conference for those brave souls who want to change the ordinary and take changes. A mix of inspiring talks and workshops will help you to get fresh ideas how to turn your business into a success.
Major topics are Lean thinking, Kanban, innovation, Agility, Visualization, Leadership and Teamwork.
We have selected a unique set of international and local speakers, all experts in their field.
As keynote speakers, we are proud to announce:
Jim Benson – Creator of Personal Kanban and a pioneer in the field of Lean Management.
Dean Leffingwell – Author and expert on scaling agility in the organization.
Stefan Haas – Expert in using a hacker’s attitude for business culture changing.
You have the chance to learn about some unique case studies, for example how Spotify managed to scale rapidly but still remain agile.
The conference will take place at the Stuurboord Hangar, a beautifully renovated warehouse at the shore of the river Scheldt.
More information and tickets can be found on the website.
Join us for 2 days of inspiration and learn about the latest trends in modern management.
As you may know, every month, the Agile Belgium Community organizes Drinkups, See here for more details. During the drinkups of February, several participants told us they would like to have an evening with an agenda, preferably on the topic of Agile Games.
In March we decided to relaunch the Agile Belgium User Groups by organizing a first Agile Games Night @ Touring Insurance. You can have a look at this past event here.
We are happy to announce you that we will organize a second User Group on the same theme: The Agile Games Night II on 06/06/2013.
Practical Informations:
What’s that event concretely ?
An Agile user group is a group of people who enjoy using Agile methods (Scrum, XP, KanBan,…) who meet regularly to discuss the use of those methods, share knowledge and experience, hear from peers and hold other related activities. They may host special interest workgroups, often focusing on one particular aspect of Agile. This User group will be focussed on Agile Games, we will also briefly discuss the Agile Belgium Community’s events.
What are Agile Games about ?
Agile Games are…games we usually use to teach about Agile. They can be very general e.g. experience what is Scrum through a game. Or they can be focussed on one topic e.g. planning. It’s a fun and powerful way of learning.
If you want to know more about Agile Games you can check the links at the end of the post.
When is this user group ?
Agile Games Night I
6 of June 2013, Welcome begin at 17.30 and we finish at 21.00.
Food and drinks will be provided by our host.
How much does it cost?
It’s free, but for security and organizational reasons it’s mandatory to register in advance!
How do I register?
Follow this link. You will have to register to www.meetup.com, it’s easy and quick.
Where is it?
The host of our User Group will be the Company Ogone.
You have free parking facilities between Ogone and the China embassy. It’s a 10′ walk from the metro station Rodebeek.
Do we have an agenda ? Which games will we play ?
Agenda will be published later, for those of you that were present at Touring, we will play different games and set the agenda based on games you asked.
May I facilitate a Game ?
For some games, we often use Lego bricks
You know a great Game and you would like to facilitate it during the Agile Games night II ? No problem! Send me an email: bruno.sbille@gmail.com
Please note that we will be dependant on the number of attendees.
You are a company and you would like to welcome one of our next User Groups ?
Thanks for your support! Send me an email: bruno.sbille@gmail.com and we will discuss practical matters.
Some participants at the Agile Belgium Drinkup wanted to try out some Agile Games they had been talking about. As a pub is not the best place to play most of the games, Touring Assurances gracefully offered the use of their remarkable office in Brussels.
We started the evening by listing agile games we knew and dot voting to see which games interested participants most. Unfortunately, we couldn’t play many of the favourite games because they take too long or require props that we didn’t have available.
Play!
The best way to learn about Agile Games is to play them and debrief afterwards. This evening we played three games:
Alan Cyment’s Multitasking Game to show the detrimental effects of task switching (facilitated by Yves)
A version of the Matchstick Game (with pennies instead of matches because no one smokes any more) to illustrate the idea of bottlenecks and dependencies (facilitated by Pascal)
Non-musical chairs to show team-organisation and improvement with retrospectives (facilitated by Bruno)
Participants were very serious and committed to play the Multitasking Game but soon broke down in laughter.
Looking back. Looking Forward.
The evening ended with a short retrospective to gather “What did you like?” and “What can we improve?”
There will certainly be a followup session where we can play some of the larger games. Watch this space, the Meetup group or subscribe to the mailing list.
What is ‘Mini’ XP Days Benelux?
