Contents
1. Upcoming courses
2. Looking back and ahead: Temperature Reading
3. QWAN workshops at XP Days Benelux
4. XP Days London even better with Open Space and Lightning Talks
5. QWAN back at the SPA conference
6. Around the World in four Agile Opens
7. Software Craftsmanship conference is looking for sessions
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1. Upcoming courses
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2009:
9 January, Introduction to Lean Software Development
16 January, Workshop Test Driven Development
16 January, Workshop Mock Objects
28-29 January, Remaniement Continu in Paris, France
6 February, Refactoring Legacy Software
4-6 March, eXperience Agile
Courses will take place in Tilburg (The Netherlands), unless indicated
otherwise. We also deliver our workshops and courses at other
locations (depending on where most participants come from) and in-
house.
Brochure: www.qwan.it/doc/courses_and_workshops_2008_en.pdf
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2. Looking back and ahead: Temperature Reading
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2008 is almost is almost done. So it’s time again to look back on the
past year while enjoying a good glass of wine or beer, and to make
plans for the new year.
Tip: instead of doing the usual resolutions, try a ‘Temperature
Reading’ with your department, your team, your partner, or on your
own. The temperature reading is a technique designed by Virginia
Satir, to reflect with your team or your partner in a constructive,
balanced, proactive way, on how things are going, to discuss the stuff
that normally remains undiscussed, and to give space for emotions.
A temperature reading consists of five parts:
* Appreciations
What went well? What do you appreciate in the people you worked with?
Let them know your appreciations (and don’t wait with that until the
end of the year!)
* Complaints with Recommendations
What didn’t go well? What are the things you are dissatisfied about?
In every complaint there is a seed for a solution. So for every
complaint, formulate a recommendation how it could be changed.
* New Information
What did you learn in the past period? What new things did you
encounter, things that others might not know yet?
* Puzzles
What questions do you have? What is not clear to you?
* Hopes and Wishes
What are your thoughts for the future? What are your wishes, your
dreams? What are you hoping for in the next year?
This choreography goes from the past (appreciations, complaints with
recommendations) via the present (new information, puzzles) to the
future (hopes and wishes). This is often a convenient order. Once you
have some experience doing it in this sequence, you can start varying
the order, depending on the situation.
You can use temperature readings as part of a sprint retrospective or
as a regular ‘time out’ in a team, to ensure everyone knows what’s
going on. It provides space for everyone to express emotions and
prevents frictions in the teams from escalating.
You can do them briefly or extensively. Temperature readings work
particularly well when you apply them frequently. If you feel that a
temperature reading lasts too long, it is an indication that you
should do them more often.
We have performed one retrospecting on a year of QWAN:
me.andering.com/2008/12/19/a-qwan-year/
We are curious about your reflections on the past year. If you want to
try the temperature reading and apply it on the past year, would you
like to share the outcome with us? We will publish an (anonymous)
summary in the next newsletter.
If you’d like to know more:
www.chacocanyon.com/pointlookout/010829.shtml
www.satirworkshops.com/files/SatirTemperatureReading.pdf
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3. QWAN workshops at XP Days Benelux
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XP Days Benelux sold out quickly this year, with a record number of
150 participants. Like previous years, the conference was intensive
and interactive, with high quality sessions and participants. There
were sessions about Scrum, Lean, systems thinking, agile in practice,
coaching, coping with resistance, and more.
Rob and Marc ran the “Responsibility Driven Design with Mock Objects”
session, about using mock objects as a design technique. The session
was an eye opener for a number of participants and a reason to
investigate the topic further.
Together with Tjakko Kleinhuis, Rob facilitated the “Dirty Jobs”
workshop. With some improvements based on feedback from the first run
at the JFall conference, the workshop was again a success. The
participants produced quite different solutions, as many of them have
already been “test-infected” for quite a few years. Apparantly,
working test-driven on a daily basis and participating in coders dojos
makes it a lot easier to come up with creative refactoring and testing
solutions.
Willem and Rob also gave a demonstration of “Executable Story
Specifications with RSpec”, about automating functional tests – a
field that is currently evolving rapidly. We have demonstrated the use
of test scenarios and creating your own domain specific language for
domain objects and (web)integration tests with Selenium. There was a
critical and constructive audience with experience in the field.
You can read the evaluation results of the conference on:
www.xpday.net/Xpday2008/Retrospective.html
One of the things we noticed is a demand for Open Space. Maybe
something to try next year, following XP Days London?
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4. XP Days London even better with Open Space and Lightning Talks
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Willem and Rob participated in the XP Days conference in London on 11
and 12 December. This year, the organizers experimented with reducing
the number of participants (to about 150) with the aim of improving
interaction – bigger is not necessarily better. This allowed for some
experiments with the format as well. The number of preprogrammed
sessions was limited, to provide space for Open Space and Lightning
Talks (Lightning Talks are spontaneous 5 minute presentations, without
projector). The lightning talks worked well – the audience contained a
number of engaging speakers.
The Open Space was quite lively; not only the ‘usual suspects’
organized sessions. Willem has assisted Rachel Davies in facilitating
the Open Space. Rob has run the “Dirty Jobs” session as a coders dojo.
It gave us a puzzle for next open space events: how can we motivate
more people to use formats like games, simulations, coders dojos, and
other active processes for their sessions, instead of the ususal
discussion circle?
Rob Bowley and Yves Hanoulle have written about the event:
blog.robbowley.net/2008/12/14/xpday200-round-up/
paircoaching.wordpress.com/2008/12/13/xp-day-london-in-retrospect/
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5. QWAN back at the SPA conference
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Two of our workshops have been accepted for the program of the SPA
conference, which will be held on 5-8 April in London (UK).
SPA (formerly OT) stands for “Software Practice Advancement” and is an
intensive four day conference with mainly workshops and other (inter)
active sessions. The program is broad, with a good mix of topics on
technical stuff, process, and the human factor. We highly recommend
this conference, especially for more advanced IT practitioners who are
getting tired of standard conferences.
The conference will be held for the 17th time. QWAN has frequently
done sessions at past instances of the SPA conference. This time, Rob
and Willem will host the “Sea Stories and Fairy Tales” workshop, on
automated functional testing.
www.spaconference.org/spa2009/sessions/session222.html
Willem and Marc will facilitate a workshop called “Consulting without
Secrets”, about marketing and sales of coaching, consultancy, and
other creative, non-standard services.
www.spaconference.org/spa2009/sessions/session216.html
You can find the program and other information on the SPA website.
Registration for the early bird rate is possible until 31 January.
www.spaconference.org/spa2009/index.php
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6. Around the world in four Agile Opens
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In the beginning of next year, there are no less than four Agile Open
conferences around the world:
- On 21-23 January, Agile Open France is organized for the 2nd time.
- On 10 and 11 February, the third Agile Open Northwest will take
place in Portland, Oregon (USA).
- On 20-21 February, there will be an Agile Open in Gent (Belgium).
- In March, the first South American Agile Open will be organized in
Buenos Aires (Argentinia).
The Agile Open conferences are run according to Open Space principles.
Agile Open is the place for anyone who is actively involved in agile
software development and provides a space to share experiences, get to
know new stuff and new people, and to hear and try new wild ideas.
Agile Open pushes the boundaries of agile and is the place to
experience the latest developments in the field of Lean, Scrum, etc.
Since 2005, nine Agile Opens have been organized in The Netherlands,
Belgium, France and the United States.
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7. Software Craftsmanship conference is looking for sessions
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Jason Gorman organizes the Software Craftsmanship conference on 26
February in London (UK). The theme of this conference is the “hard
skills” that teams and individual programmers need to deliver quality
software – this is a conference about building it right.
The conference has almost sold out. It is however still possible to
send in session proposals before January 1st and participate if your
proposal gets accepted.
www.softwarecraftsmanship.org.uk
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