Here we are, now entertain us
The Mini XP Day Benelux 2013 conference on April 26th in Mechelen re-ran 12 (actually 13) of the favourite sessions of XP Days Benelux 2012.
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.
Presenters getting ready to pitch their session.
Merlijn van Minderhout and Martijn Sanders help troubled testers by explaining how they used SpecFlow to test an embedded device.
Frederieke Ubels and Feike Groen how bol.com does Agile Innovation Planning.
Bruno Sbille used Star Wars characters to illustrate leadership styles. The session hadn’t even started and Darth Vader had already killed one of our participants.
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.
Marc Lainez introduces a game to make the hard choices we face with technical debt explicit.
Closing
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
- Please share the presentations => see the Mini XP Day program page
- Helpful, practical and fun again!!
- 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:
- The first day of the conference
- The second day of the conference
- Bridging the Management Gap by Tiago Garcez
- Self-organizing organisation for real by Emmanuel Gaillot
- Interview with Bruno Sbille on leadership styles and agile coaching
- Interview with Yves Hanoulle on the Agile and Lean Mindset
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