Ugh… woke up today with a nasty headache… so i went back to sleep. Got up later, and found Mike Feathers as I wandered into the restaurant for breakfast. Mike & I had a good chat catching up.

Following that I grabbed a coffee and took some time to get up to date with my blogging I camped out in the bar area, and was soon joined by Rick Mugridge. Rick & I chatted for a while about Fit before being joined for a bit by Bob Martin.

Rally and DigitalFocus threw a party Monday night. Not bad.. mexican food, drinks, and a decent but far too loud band. The quiet band at the ice breaker was far more appropriate IMHO. You could actually talk (or rather hear) comfortably there. With this band we actually had to leave the room and camp out in the exhibit area to have a discussion.

After having some food & drink.. that’s just what we did. Brian Marick, David Chelimsky, Andy Tinkham and I had a good discussion. We touched on various topics, including what I’m doing with Behaviour Driven Development & RSpec (more on that later). We were joined later by Bob Payne.

Bob & I wandered back into the party after a while, found more food and had the treat of watching (& listening to) Bob Martin joining the band on drums for a song.

I spent the afternoon in Rick Mugridge’s “Representing Business Rules in Fit” tutorial. Having a fair bit of experience with Fit, I did find it (as Rick had warned me) quite introductory.. but informational none the less. If you ever have the chance to hear someone speak about what they’ve “written the book on”.. do so. They always have something new & interesting to share. Rick is no exception. I picked up several nuggets .. mostly relating to FitLibrary.. the details of which were new to me. I got about half way through the Fit Book on the flight here.. and now I’m eager to finish it up. Based on conversations with Bob Martin and Rick, fit is just beginning.. there’s lots of interesting ideas floating around.

The last half of the tutorial was hands on (on paper) creating tests for some sample stories. We had a blast.

Brian talked about fusion.. the community, the methodologies, the conferences. He went on to talk about the British cyberneticists of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. How they did really cool stuff… but nothing came of it. What was interesting is why:

• no institutionalized home (i.e. no university department of cybernetics)
• no common core set of techniques/practices
• no grooming of successors

He went on to liken the Agile community to those cyberneticists… do we face the risk of being considered a fad or a “lost art” in the not to distant future?

What about a home for Agile. We have a virtual home in the Agile Alliance.. but what about something more substantial.. Brian suggests taking over a university CS department.

Brian pointed out that if you hire a physicist you pretty much know what you’re getting. You know that they have a certain set of core skills. But what about hiring an Agile developer? Do they know TDD, do they know about CI? It’s hard to tell.. there is no clearly defined minimal definition of what it means to be an “agile developer”. There is hope, however, as the agile field is merging to some extent… might we someday soon have that core set of competencies defined?

Brian seemed especially concerned by the last point, and described how the Agile Alliance has set up an award for up & coming Agile thought leaders based on their contribution in the last year. Two awards or $5000 each. The first awards will be made Thursday morning.

Also, Bob Martin’s focus on Software Craftsmanship is an important move toward a sustainable way to groom successors to ensure that we don’t die off.

Before handing the microphone over to Bob Martin, Brian invited Jim Highsmith to talk about the new Agile Project Leadership Network. I think this is a very promising development.

A busy but enjoyable day, starting with breakfast where I shared a table with Miroslav Novak, Scott Ambler, and Dave Anderson. Miroslav I know from way back when we were neighbors in Calgary, but haven’t seen since last year at XPAU in Calgary. I tend to run into Scott more frequently at the SD conferences.

The morning was spent in the keynote and Openspace kickoff. The keynote was paired.. the two BMs: Brian Marick and Bob Martin.