XP Day Switzerland 2009 – A Retrospective (version anglaise)
Thursday, 2 April 2009
What Went Well
- The organisers were really warm and welcoming
- The organisers set a good example as an Agile team – working to help one another
- The participants were enthusiastic
- The candid conversations about the Agile Values and our personal agility
- The range of session subject matter
- 60 out of 96 participants attended Pascal‘s and my session: Les cinq premiers pas pour devenir vraiment agile
- We had lots of fun together
- We all had a good laugh
- Vincent Raemy made a great conference chair
- The dinner in the dungeons at Les Armures where we dined on fondue like real hedonists
- We even played the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves card game with adventurous participants
What Went Wrong
- We didn’t expect to have 60 participants in our session – the session was designed for between 20 – 30 people
- There wasn’t enough room to network comfortably during lunch
- One day is too short for such a great conference!
- There weren’t enough interactive sessions
- We didn’t do a dry-run of our session with volunteer participants
Puzzles
- Where will next year’s XP Day Switzerland be held?
Lessons Learnt
- Set a maximum limit to our sessions
- Our personal agility is better judged by others than by ourselves because it’s usually difficult to evaluate ourselves objectively
- The Agile Values are just as important for beginner-Agilistas as they are for expert-Agilistas
- We become agile by always living the Agile Values
- Hedonism means finding what you love to do and doing it such as egalitarianism, community and friendship
- Being agile means knowing we don’t know it all
- Suisse fondue is made with three cheeses (Gruyère, Vacherin and ?). Now I have an excuse to return to Switzerland to find the answer!
This entry is also available in French!
No. 1 — April 2nd, 2009 at 7:32 pm
[…] Present a session in French with Portia. […]
No. 2 — January 3rd, 2010 at 6:03 pm
[…] welcome from the organisers and participants at a myriad of Agile conferences such as Agile 2009, XPDay Switzerland, Integrating Agile, ScanAgile and of course XP Days […]
No. 3 — March 28th, 2010 at 9:47 pm
[…] le monde! After a most enjoyable experience with the participants at XP Day Suisse 2009, Pascal and I are back in Geneva to co-present at XP Day Suisse 2010 this […]