Title: Agile Software Development: A Lero Industry Event - Programme

Venue: Enterprise Ireland, The Plaza, East Point Business Park, Dublin 3.

Date: 23rd November 2009

Time: 9am

The Presenters: Ger Hartnett (coClarity), Xiaofeng Wang (Lero), Minna Pikkarainen (VTT and Lero)

Lero’s industry events have been victims of the weather before. Back in 2008, its Global Software Development event was nearly cancelled because it coincided with a severe weather alert in Dublin.

Similarly the 2009 Agile event fell foul of the weather when the planned first speaker, Dr Kieran Conboy, had his house flooded thanks to the torrential rains that fell in Galway. Ironically, Kieran contacted Dr Xiaofeng Wang, the events second speaker, to break the news. Xiao’s presentation was entitled "To the Edge of Chaos" and that is precisely where this news brought the whole project.

Fortunately, Dr Minna Pikkarainen, Finnish researcher and longtime Lero associate, was attending the event. Despite only being asked at 10pm the previous night, Minna proved her Agile credentials by becoming the event’s first speaker.

The event itself was introduced by Michael Hughes of Enterprise Ireland and Dr Jack Downey followed with a brief overview of Lero. Then Minna did a splendid job with her hastily assembled "Agile Principles" slides which led to several probing questions from the audience.

The second academic speaker was Xiao who introduced complexity theory with several engaging animations. A particularly interesting one was that of an ant colony. The ants were driven by three rules: (1) if you haven’t found a breadcrumb, look for one; (2) if you meet another ant, ask if s/he found something. If s/he has, go where the other ant was; otherwise take the opposite direction and (3) if you find a breadcrumb take it straight home.

The first animation worked as expected. The initial random wanderings turning into orderly marches once bread was found. However, Xiao revisited this simulation towards the end of her presentation and this time all the ants ended up huddled in one corner of the screen - an apt warning that self-organizing teams may require assistance every so often.

After the break, coClarity founder, Ger Hartnett, presented the industry keynote address. In a very polished performance, Ger introduced the basis for Agile methods and pointed out the adaptations used in various projects he participated in. This was a very interactive presentation, with lots of questions and observations coming from the floor.

The general impression given by the 36 attendees was that the event was both useful and enjoyable. Certainly it was more of a relief than a triumph for the organizers, as it certainly came close indeed to the edge of chaos.

Ger Hartnett fielding questions even before his presentation!

Xiaofeng Wang enjoying a well-earned cup of tea after her talk.

Part of the good turnout at the Agile event

Lero’s John Hichey (second from right) networking at the Agile Event