DevTeach Recap: Agile is About Community
- "So, have you been to Jeremy's talk?"
- "Yeah, it was packed full. Again. Probably means he's a good speaker."
- "Well, have you noticed that all the other speakers come to his talks? That's a good sign too."
-- Lunch conversation at DevTeach 2007.
I think what I liked most about the sessions I took in DevTeach -- at least those in the Agile track -- is that feeling of community. Formally, every session had one speaker; but that didn't stop the others from joining in and contributing from their experience. I asked Dave Laribee about splitting user stories to tasks during one of his talks, and found myself in the middle of a debate between him, Jeremy Miller and Ayende. I got three answers out of that question, all of which by people who actually practiced what they preached.
It really felt like the agile track was built upon real folks doing real development with an agile attitude, and coming out of the trenches to talk about it. The distinction between speaker and listener was very vague, and it always felt like the guy currently doing the talking was still "one of us".
This was especially true during one session which was built as a fishbowl-style Q&A, where Dave only guided the discussion taking place between a rotating panel of folks from the audience. We threw onto the notepad everything we wanted to talk about, then prioritized it by votes and started talking about it. As agile as you get. The only things Dave (as the appointed speaker) did in that talk, were counting the votes, sorting the list, asking the audience if they wanted to move on to a different topic, and accommodating selfish requests from bastards like myself. It was wonderful.
In essence, it felt like we were all peers in there, with the ones further along the way sharing their experience to help the less-advanced ones keep up. I loved that. That was what I was after.
I could've gone and listened to someone talk about an exciting new technology from Microsoft for 75 minutes, but there would have been nothing in there that I couldn't have gotten from the presentation alone, or from the internet. I didn't fly for 17 hours to hear someone teach me how to use some new feature in SQL Server 2008; I could've done that talk myself, given some time with Books Online. I was there to meet and hear real people who can share something that I could use, and that no MSDN subscription would get me. I was there for the experience of the community.
During the last day of the conference, when the agile track had already ended, I did attend some of the other tracks. They felt pretty much how I thought they would: like a cross between a John Bryce course and a marketing talk. I now know that ESQL exists and that the lead developer is excited about it, but also that he is indifferent, if not ignorant, of HQL. I also know how to use Grouping Sets and MERGE statements in SQL Server 2008, which means I don't have to spend the half-hour to learn it myself. Yay.
I'm not saying that the other tracks had nothing but bad sessions; it's just that to me, they had far less value than most of the sessions in the agile track, because they were mostly one-way: speaker to audience. I can imitate this one-way flow of information myself using the internet. It's far harder to imitate a discussion.
- "Yeah, it was packed full. Again. Probably means he's a good speaker."
- "Well, have you noticed that all the other speakers come to his talks? That's a good sign too."
-- Lunch conversation at DevTeach 2007.
I think what I liked most about the sessions I took in DevTeach -- at least those in the Agile track -- is that feeling of community. Formally, every session had one speaker; but that didn't stop the others from joining in and contributing from their experience. I asked Dave Laribee about splitting user stories to tasks during one of his talks, and found myself in the middle of a debate between him, Jeremy Miller and Ayende. I got three answers out of that question, all of which by people who actually practiced what they preached.
It really felt like the agile track was built upon real folks doing real development with an agile attitude, and coming out of the trenches to talk about it. The distinction between speaker and listener was very vague, and it always felt like the guy currently doing the talking was still "one of us".
This was especially true during one session which was built as a fishbowl-style Q&A, where Dave only guided the discussion taking place between a rotating panel of folks from the audience. We threw onto the notepad everything we wanted to talk about, then prioritized it by votes and started talking about it. As agile as you get. The only things Dave (as the appointed speaker) did in that talk, were counting the votes, sorting the list, asking the audience if they wanted to move on to a different topic, and accommodating selfish requests from bastards like myself. It was wonderful.
In essence, it felt like we were all peers in there, with the ones further along the way sharing their experience to help the less-advanced ones keep up. I loved that. That was what I was after.
I could've gone and listened to someone talk about an exciting new technology from Microsoft for 75 minutes, but there would have been nothing in there that I couldn't have gotten from the presentation alone, or from the internet. I didn't fly for 17 hours to hear someone teach me how to use some new feature in SQL Server 2008; I could've done that talk myself, given some time with Books Online. I was there to meet and hear real people who can share something that I could use, and that no MSDN subscription would get me. I was there for the experience of the community.
During the last day of the conference, when the agile track had already ended, I did attend some of the other tracks. They felt pretty much how I thought they would: like a cross between a John Bryce course and a marketing talk. I now know that ESQL exists and that the lead developer is excited about it, but also that he is indifferent, if not ignorant, of HQL. I also know how to use Grouping Sets and MERGE statements in SQL Server 2008, which means I don't have to spend the half-hour to learn it myself. Yay.
I'm not saying that the other tracks had nothing but bad sessions; it's just that to me, they had far less value than most of the sessions in the agile track, because they were mostly one-way: speaker to audience. I can imitate this one-way flow of information myself using the internet. It's far harder to imitate a discussion.