Another day eventful day has come to a close here in Vegas. For those that have missed out I’ll give you a summary of a day here at the Better Software Conference & Expo.
The morning begins at 7:30 with a light breakfast that one of the lovely hosts refers to as, “crumbs and juice.” Quite good and they had my favourite, blackberries! Then time enough to go to the wifi lounge to check email.
The day’s festivities begin with a keynote address by Tim Lister discussing Some Not-So-Crazy Ways to Do More with Less. A thoughtful dissertation about learning to make do has the tendency to create some innovative
solutions to problems. Disruption can cause turmoil, but in the end we often tend to be better off – check out the Satir Change Model.
My first lecture of the day was a provocative discussion In Defense of Waterfall by Ken Katz. This was a very lively debate where Ken was actually a proponent of the Agile Manifesto but warned that there is no panacea. It is up to us to find what works best, and then improve upon it; heh, sounds very Lean to me:)
By this point in the day it is time for lunch and networking. Lunch is a fantastic Mexican-ish buffet. In the same space is a small exposition so an hour for lunch is nowhere near enough time to talk to our peers and all of the vendors. In fact, I lost track of time and missed my next presentation, oops, oh well I had a great chat with the folks from ThoughtWorks.
I then ran off to the Agile PMP: Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks. I’ve done some courses based on the PMBOK but never carried through completion on attaining the PMP certification – I wasn’t sure that “best practises” would remain relevent in the software world. Michael Cottmeyer did a good job of showing how an AgilePMP is relevent.
The highlight of my day was learning Andy Kaufman’s Dirty Little Secret of Business. You want the secret, too? Relationships, nothing scandalous (what happens in Vegas, does not stay in Vegas), just that building relationships is extremely important – even for those of us who would prefer to spend quality time with our favourite Mac.
17:30, the day is done and I am drained… but wait, there’s more. There’s a reception, I am tired but the talk of free snacks and beer lures me in. And it gives me a chance to talk to Andy Kaufman a bit (BTW, I did not talk to Latka, I didn’t drink that much). Thanks for the pep talk, Andy. All right, now I’m ready to network.
As for Dave; I haven’t seen him since he entered into the high stakes poker tournement. I guess he’s networking, too.
By: Kevin Bitinsky
