XP Day Switzerland 2009 – A Retrospective (version anglaise)

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!