The conversations in between sessions are always great at the Agile conferences, but this year, I think these conversations were the main highlights for me. I met lots of new people who I’d only previously known online, as well as re-acquainting myself with people who I usually only see once a year. My top 3 highlights were:

1. Discussing team maturity and explicit and implicit Kanban WIP limits with Alistair Cockburn.
2. Splitting hairs on the finer points of Lean (Kanban) and Theory of Constraints (Drum Buffer Rope) with Mike Cottmeyer (apparently it was a highlight for Mike as well)
3. Debating all sorts of ideas around Kanban with Arlo Belshee and Bonnie Aumann – including drawing on beer mats and using beer glasses and other implements to aid visual representation.

As far as scheduled sessions went, Mary Poppendieck gave a good talk on Workflow and Scheduling in which she nicely transitioned from a time-boxed schedule to a kanban work-flow using a form of cumulative flow diagram. Jon Dahl also gave a thought provoking talk on Aristotle and the Art of Software Development, which for me tied in nicely with Alistair Cockburn’s keynote, and some other thoughts I’ve recently had. I’m planning on blogging more on both these topics more when I get back off holiday. See you then…

I’m also really pleased to have been invited to speak at the Scan-Agile conference in Helsinki, where I’ll be talking about Five Steps to Kanban. Here’s the abstract.

A Kanban System for Software Development provides an alternative means of creating an Agile Development process using Lean Thinking. Creating a Kanban System is not as simple as adopting a previously defined process as a starting point. Instead, a team needs to come up a model of its own process which will form the basis for further continuous improvement. This talk will introduce 5 steps that a team can use to create their own Agile process using a Kanban System for Software Development.

David Anderson has written an open letter to the conference committee proposing an Agile Fringe stage which will encompass both these areas.  The intent will be to allow an explicit means for the Agile community to encourage innovation and be open to new, different or rediscovered ideas and thinking so that we can continue to learn and improve in new directions.

If you agree with these sentiments, please go and read the letter on David’s blog, and show your support by signing the letter with a comment.

http://agilemanagement.net/Articles/Weblog/TheCaseforanAgileFringe.html

Update: I should also say that I have both privately and publicly supported Johanna and the conference committee.  You can also show support for the conference committee on Johanna’s blog.

http://jrothman.com/blog/mpd/2008/12/im-disappointing-already.html