Call for Sessions XP Day Benelux

15 & 16 November 2007
Mechelen,  Belgium

http://www.xpday.net

XP Day Benelux is a two day international conference about agile software development, intended for software development and business people from all walks of life. It provides a good opportunity for exchanging ideas and sharing experiences and is suited for both experienced participants and novices. The focus of this conference is on practical knowledge and real-world experience.

Organizing a session is the best way to learn from a conference. It provides an opportunity to share your experiences, to get feedback on your ideas, and to try new session formats. We value interaction and audience participation over presentations and papers. Tutorials, workshops, simulations, and games have been successful at several earlier XP Days.

Sessions will be organized into four tracks over two days. Each session may be 60, 90, or 120 minutes in duration.

Topics

Possible session topics include, but are not limited to:

  •    Agile project management
  •    Continuous process improvement
  •    Agile processes from the perspective of the customer, manager or developer
  •    Transitioning to an agile process
  •    Beyond agile
  •    Responding to change vs. long term planning
  •    The economics of agile software development
  •    Contracts for agile software projects
  •    Thinking tools, e.g. systems thinking, Cynefin, theory of constraints, lean development
  •    Changing yourself and your organization
  •    Agile requirements management
  •    Tools and technology


Review and acceptance process

The process is open in the sense that session proposers are invited to play a PerfectionGame on the session proposals with the aim of improving candidate sessions.  The perfection game is a simple protocol to give positive feedback that was devised by Jim & Michele McCarthy in their book “Software for your Head”. Accordingly, feedback consists of

  • A score out of 10. 
    The number itself doesn’t have a lot of meaning, we use the number to see if we get closer to perfection (10/10) in each iteration.
  • What the proposer did to earn those points.
    It’s important to let the proposer know this, so that they keep or reinforce their strong points.
  • What the proposer should do to earn 10/10.
    This has to be clear, actionable advice.

We ask each session proposer to provide perfection game feedback to 3 proposals, so that we get 3 reviews per proposal. Everyone can choose which session they review, first come, first served. We have (at least) 2 iterations of feedback-improvement-feedback.

The Program Committee will take into consideration the feedback received in the PerfectionGame as well as how the issues raised have been addressed by the authors. However, the final selection remains the sole responsibility of the Program Committee. We want to create a program that provides material ranging from introductory to advanced, and we will select the topics accordingly.

See the review criteria for details.

For a session proposal, the following information is required (you may
provide more information if you feel that's appropriate):

   1. Title
   2. Objectives
   3. Contents
   4. Process & timetable
   5. Session Format
        e.g. simulation, game, workshop, interactive presentation or demo, case study, goldfish bowl
   6. Intended audience & required experience level
        e.g. apprentice, journeyman, master
   7. Benefits of participating
   8. Benefits of organizing - what does the organizer expect to learn?
   9. Duration: 60, 90, 120 minutes
   10. Materials needed from the conference organizers
        e.g. flip charts, beamer
   11. Organizer bio and contact information

If accepted, session organizers will be asked to provide a session description for the conference's public web site. Many authors reuse the proposal for this. However, this is not always appropriate as a session may be designed to surprise participants. This should be discussed and refined during the PerfectionGame and may require logistical support from the organizers and hence the session proposal should be frank about the intentions. Session participants, on the other hand, should clearly not be alerted. 

Session proposals should be sent in before June 30th 2007 to sessions, using the template above. The Perfection Game will be played in July and August. You will be notified of acceptance by mid-September.

Session organizers will get a free admission to the conference.

Program committee

  • Vera Peeters (Tryx)
  • Pascal Van Cauwenberghe (Nayima)
  • Rob Westgeest (Westgeest Consultancy)


Organization and contact info

The XP Day Benelux conference is organized by AgileSystems v.z.w., a non-profit organisation with the aim to collect and disseminate knowledge and experience about agile software development and systems thinking - http://www.agilesystems.org

For more information, contact us at info