[TIP] Announcing: Deep Agile 2010: Empowering Teams with Agile Games

[Bob Clancy]

SAVE THE DATE, May 15 and 16 , for a weekend of learning and fun at
the fourth annual Deep Agile conference to be held at Microsoft's
New England Research and Development facility in Cambridge!

As teams embrace Agile, they require new skills and capabilities.
There are numerous discussions about technical skills required to
consistently deliver iterative and incremental work, but what about
the soft skills? How do teams self-organize, collaborate and reflect
on their own activities effectively? As Demarco and Lister famously
observed, projects don't fail because of technology problems, but
rather people problems. With this in mind, the Agile Bazaar invites
you to their next Deep Agile event focused on the use of  games,
exercises & simulations to support Agile teams. Participants will
have several tracks to not only see games used to learn concepts,
improve behavior, and do work, but to experience it in a series of
interactive sessions.

Come Join Tobias Mayer, Lyssa Adkins, Portia Tung, Michael McCullough,
and Don McGreal as they take you through a two-day deep dive into
using collaborative and interactive games to enable Agile teams.
Consistent with the theme of this event, sessions will be
predominantly experiential, offering participants a chance to see
exactly how powerful these tools really are in organizing and
supporting Agile teams. This conference will feature three tracks
and participants will be free to float between all three based on
their interests.

   * Games to Learn: this track is focused on using games and
     exercises to educate and demonstrate concepts. Attendees will
     simulate a series of prints playing the XP game and learn about
     the theory of constraints by identifying and exploiting
     bottlenecks.

     These exercises are appropriate for people seeking to learn
     more about Agile concepts, as well as practitioners looking for
     tools to use with their own teams.

   * Games to Improve: these games are more open ended and focused
     on retrospection, reflection and change on an individual or
     team level. People will work a process to improve their
     throughput, reflect on difficult situations and even practice
     improvisational techniques.

     These exercises are appropriate for Agile practitioners and
     will be focused on retrospection, reflection and improvement
     in order to take their Agile practice to the next level.

   * Games to Do Work: games can not only be used to learn and
     reflect, but also to do the work of a team. Many Agile teams
     are already familiar with techniques like planning poker to
     size their work. Participants will explore other games and
     exercises to prioritize features, refine a product vision and
     plan releases and in general do the work of a team.

     These exercises will be appropriate for Agile teams and
     individuals looking for more collaborative techniques to
     interact and execute.


Event Details

     When: May 15th - 16th, 2010
     Where: Microsoft New England Research & Development Center

     See http://games.agilebazaar.org for more details.

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      If you want to pass this message along to others, please
      contact publicity at agilebazaar.org so we can send you future
      messages in advance.  (Thank you.)

  For information or inquiries about this event, please contact:
     deepagile2010 at agilebazaar.org

-- 
Bob Clancy
9 Lives Software Engineering
Website:
  http://agiletester.net
Blog:
  http://AgileTesterDotNet.wordpress.com