After Agile DC 2011 ended, we quickly turned our attention to the Agile Development Practices East conference in Orlando, where we launched a skeleton of our new product, Sensei.
But before the moment passes into history, I’d like to share a few reflections with our community. For me, Agile DC turned out to be what is termed in some religious circles as a mountaintop experience. I’d put some very special effort into the keynote talk, and it all seemed to come together effortlessly in the end. It was definitely Csikszentmihalyi’s flow at work. (For those who weren’t there, you can learn more by downloading my presentation here.) But the real strength of the experience lay in being able to connect with so many from the agile community here and leave with a deep sense of appreciation and gratitude.
In that compressed period of time, so many folks were part of the experience, that the names are almost too many to list:
- The organizers and volunteers, lead by George Dinwiddie, Manoj Vadakkan, Jolly Rajan and our very own Bob Payne;
- The generous sponsors, including our partners VersionOne and LeanKit Kanban;
- The amazing speakers including Ken Schwaber, Jon Terry, Siraj Sirajuddin, David Bland, Sudhir Frederick and Montra Ellis, Paul Boos, Ahmed Sidky, Jay Flowers, Peter Saddington and our own David Bulkin and Derek Huether;
- The fantastic Twitter conversation on #agiledc, with my new friends @Sprezzatura, @donmullens, @livlab and @daverooneyca;
- Our old friend and colleague Roland Cuellar who happened to be at the conference; and
- Our faithful LitheSpeed team, including Karen Falk, Colin Agnew, CJ Huether and Lindsay Hicks who got a thousand things together to set up our table and man it for the duration of the conference.
The special sense of auspiciousness was captured by a lady who won both an iPad 2 and a book in the raffle. She said, and though I paraphrase from a leaky memory, it truly captured the moment for me, “It’s diwali, and today is certainly my lucky day.”
In parting, all of us here at LitheSpeed would like to leave you with a big thank you for Agile DC, and share some gifts of our own with you. You can download all the presentations below here.
- Derek Huether’s, When PMI Introduced the Elephant in the Room
- David Bulkin’s, Agile Teams – From Good to Great
- Sanjiv Augustine’s, The Promise of Agile Methods
If you’re interested in hearing more about our new PMI Agile Certified Professional (ACP) class, check it out here. Also, if you’re interested in learning more about our new continuous improvement tool, Sensei, check it out here: https://www.senseitool.com.
Happy weekend to everyone!
