This is the second time I’ve attended the Agile Alliance conference, and it will not be the last. It was great to (re)connect with so many great people and hear about their experiences. The sharing and openness of this community is what drew me to it around 5 years ago. This conference certainly re-affirmed why. I love the openness and sharing of this community and how everyone is open to chatting. The thought leaders always seem to want to hear my thoughts as much as I want to hear there’s. But I love talking with those new to the community as they have so much to contribute to our future.
This year I attended as a speaker and was pleased to pair with Al Shalloway to run his dot game. I’ve used this game a couple dozen times and no two have been the same. This was no exception. I learned a lot from the people in the room, but also from this opportunity to work with Al. The feedback I heard in the hallways was positive but my hope is everyone took something away (I know I did).
As always there were numerous talks on enterprise level adoption and the one which stands out for me is Mike Cottmeyer’s “Why Agile is failing in large enterprises” . I think this has been one of the most pragmatic views of what it means to take a large enterprise through transformation. No silver bullets but more about understanding the type of organization you are today and taking steps acknowledging all the dependencies, politics, etc of a large enterprise.
I am always amazed when I hear how speakers and attendees believe they have the one right answer to everyone’s problems. If only this world was so simple. Perhaps all presentations should be run from the perspective of being an experience report. In other words, share something that worked for you and let your audience decide what will/won’t work in their environment.
One of the highlights of my week was meeting so many people from The LeadershipgiftTM community. I have been in this community for over a year now and it’s certainly been a great community to learn and grow with. Now that I’ve met and spent time with so many of them this connection is stronger than ever. We even had a little time for mastery work as we continue on our own journeys.
Finally I would like to extend my thanks to everyone who made this conference a success. In particular everyone who freely gave up their time to help make it a success! The organizing communities did a great job of pulling something so large together. The reviewers … I can’t imagine the scope of the job given the number of papers you need to review. Thanks wouldn’t be complete if not for all the purple shirts running around keeping all of us heading in the right direction! I know I’ve missed groups of people … so please accept my gratitude too!
I’m looking forward to Agile 2015!
