Developing Code, Connecting Industry

Day one at the Agile 2009 conference in Chicago has more or less wrapped up. Sessions did not start until late in the morning so it gave the Point2 crew a bit of time to go out for breakfast, and to figure out where each of us had to be.

My first session was Developing Agile Leaders and Teams: A Developmental & Transformational Path as presented by fellow Canuck Gilles Brouillette. He spoke about the psychological theory behind the evolution of leaders in our society. It was interesting to see how 90% of the population hits a leadership ceiling, while only 10% are able to break through it.

After lunch I had the pleasure of seeing Robert C. Martin speak about Craftsmanship in software development. This guy is a pro and it was nice to see that Point2 is already doing most of what he is preaching.  An interesting moment was when he asked people to raise their hands based on how many unit tests their team had.  Mine stayed up until the “over 4000″ mark, and one guy kept his up stating they had 20,000.  Martin thought that was awesome, then asked how long they took to run.  The guy responded, “all day.”

Giving and Receiving Effective Feedback by Elizabeth Keogh was acceptable, but I think Point2 is further ahead on some of the feedback work we’ve been practicing internally. I personally think that the feedback session proposal we made to Agile 2009 would have been stronger.

My final session for the day was 10 Temptations of an Agile Coach (new or experienced). Stevie Borne did a nice job of exposing many pitfalls that Agile leaders can succumb to, while providing many tips to help recover from, and avoid them.

The day wrapped up with an Ice Breaker event which included a few minor events, company booths, munchies, and “beverages”. I had the opportunity to speak to a few people in the crowd, and it was interesting to see people in different stages of Agile adoption. It was also pretty cool to be asked for advice on how they could make the transition easier, and what types of processes they should embrace. Seems like we’re doing the right things back at home.

By Hemant J. Naidu