Agile Portugal

Conference Resources

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 23:38:04 +0000

And here they are, some more resources of this year’s Agile Portugal.

Slides
Some are still missing, but we’ve been publishing session slides as they become available. Find them on the summary page for each session.

Open-space report
We are also now making available a open-space report, with details of the amazing sessions that took place throughout the two days, and the main conclusions that were taken there.

Also, stay tunned to our twitter, facebook and google group, as we know our community is promoting some local activities in the coming weeks.

Closing up the 2011 edition

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 13:37:46 +0000

After another great conference, again our deepest appreciation to you for being a part of it!

Changes to the Schedule

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 09:42:40 +0000

The program schedule has been “refactored”, to respond to some changes in speaker’s availability. Check the new and improved version, or the erratum with all the changes.

Namely, for reasons that go beyond our and his control, Dave Thomas won’t be able to join us at this year’s edition of Agile Portugal. The time where his talk on Lean would be, will accommodate another session, facilitated by Joe Yoder.

Gil Nhamias’s talk on Scrum won’t be happening too. Gil had an unexpected impediment that made it impossible to attend the conference.

Conference Dinner

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:09:35 +0000

We’ve been setting up an excellent social event for the end of the second day of the conference — 21st June. Don’t miss it, as it will be a great time to network, meet with the other participants and speakers, or simply have fun.

The dinner will be right next to the conference venue, and will have a cost of 19 Euro. It includes several specialties of the Portuguese cuisine, and will conclude with the serving of the finest Port wine.

Please fill in the dinner registration form if you wish to attend, so that we can estimate the number of participants, and make sure there will be enough places.

Registration Deadline

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 14:10:25 +0000

Some people have asked us to delay the registration deadline. Although we have to ensure there is enough time to print all the conference materials, we found a way to do it after the 17th June, so you can count on the registration system to remain open until then.

Final Program

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 17:23:27 +0000

Well, almost final. We have been completing the schedule with more info, and it is now nearly complete. Only a couple of sessions need a bit more detail.

The length of the sessions has increased to provide enough time for questions and lighten the time constraints to which speakers should obey. Each Talk will be up to 30min (+10min questions) and each Lightning-Talk will be up to 7min.

We have speakers from 8 different countries, with 4 Tutorials, 2 Keynotes, 14 Talks and 4 slots completely devoted to Open Space sessions, where all sort of topics can emerge.

One week to go. Are you ready?

Interview: Rebecca Wirfs-Brock

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:14:58 +0000

Rebecca is an internationally recognized leader in the development of object design methodologies. She is the lead author of two design books, and she invented the set of development practices known as responsibility-driven design. Rebecca is also an innovator of techniques for simply expressing complex requirements and effectively designing and communicating software architecture. She frequently helps product engineering, IT, and startup organizations with the technical bits, as well as with effective teamwork and agile development practices.

Hi Rebecca! We are very pleased to have you in Agile Portugal 2011. Thank you for taking the time to talk with us.

Thank you. I am very pleased to be able to attend Agile Portugal. This is my first visit to Portugal.

You are recognised as a design guru. How have you developed your interest in simplifying complex requirements expression, effective design and software architecture communication?

Although I am an object design “guru”, I have always been interested in the way requirements shape my design thinking. The two are deeply interrelated. I often need to find what the real problem is before I can create a good design solution. I may need to rearrange and/or simplify how requirements are stated in order to create a good design and find reasonable abstractions. So simplifying how complex requirements are written has been an obsession of mine. That is why I like the values in agile development, favoring conversations over comprehensive documentation. It makes it easier to find design abstractions if I can talk about the real issues with a domain expert.

To preserve good design ideas you need to communicate them effectively. So my interest in effectively communicating software architecture has been a natural progression of my ideas and interests.

You’ll be giving a tutorial with Joseph Yoder with the title “Rulemakers and Toolmakers”. Can you tell us and our readers a couple of reason why we really shouldn’t miss it? :)

First, we present an architecture style that enables domain experts to extend the system without programmer intervention. How to achieve that kind of flexibility is very interesting to learn about.

Second, we show you that you can build this kind of adaptive system incrementally, adding flexibility when and where you need it. So we think this incremental development of an adaptive system fits very well with agile values.

Despite Adaptive Object-Model being an architectural pattern, there is a strong philosophy underlying it. Do you see the division of labor as one of its strongest benefits?

I do. With this architecture, domain experts have ability to change and extend their domain objects. This gives them a lot of power and control. But it also places a burden on the developers to create the appropriate tools, to do this safely.

How do you reconcile the agile practices of test-first/test-driven with the model-driven philosophy of AOMs?

OK, I’ll say this very clearly: Just because you are agile doesn’t mean that you can never build frameworks or create extensible architectures. But you should do so for justifiable reasons. I wouldn’t create an adaptive object model architecture unless there is a need. And, I have to do it for concrete reasons and real needs.

Do you recognize any impact of such a model in the way projects are managed?

AOM systems are typically built by really good designers working in small teams. And still, the best way to develop such a system is incrementally. It won’t work if you spend a lot of time building AOM architectures and tools for domain experts and then give them to the end-users to try out after the architecture is “complete”. So, you need to be agile about this. It also is the case that domain experts get much more involved and engaged. So rather than feeding developers yet another user story, they may be implementing that story themselves by adding/extending the domain model.

I see some companies here in Portugal struggling with the introduction of agile practices. Without revealing too much about your talk on “agile adoption”, do you have any advice on how they can ease that path?

First, they should recognize that no one does agile exactly by the book . You also don’t have to throw out every good practice you are doing now in order to become agile. But you do have to develop a rhythm of working and delivering results in small increments. That is new to many people. So it takes practice and commitment to change.

The agile manifesto was created ten years ago, and our industry came a long way since then. Do you think it applies to our industry today as well as it did back in 2001?

Yes, and no. I think the agile manifesto was a reaction by a very smart group of thought leaders to perceived waste, inertia, and lack of attention on the software and the code itself. It was a rallying cry that spurred many to revisit how they develop software. But as agile adoption has spread, we have to have new ideas and innovations. We also need to consider that there are many more people involved and impacted by our software. So while the values of the agile manifesto are good, this is a new decade. So let’s use this 10 year anniversary as an opportunity to re-imagine how we should be developing software in this complex world and how can we can continue to do a better job.

Thank you for your time! We are looking forward to attend the tutorial on the 20th of June.

Thank you.

Winners for the Golden Ticket Contest

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:52:59 +0000

The Golden Ticket Contest is over. To enter this year’s contest you had to submit a photo through twitter or facebook. We had few participants but the quality of the submissions was pretty good.

And so, it’s our pleasure to announce…

DRI as the winner of the twitter-flavored Golden Ticket!

and…

Daniel Rodrigues as the winner of the facebook-flavored Golden Ticket!

(click the pictures to zoom in)

Both winners will get a Conference Days ticket, with access to the conference on the 21^st and 22^nd of June.

New Tutorial Prices

Tue, 31 May 2011 10:47:54 +0000

We really want the tutorials on the 20th June to be accessible to everyone, so we have been working with our sponsors and tutorial speakers in order to lower the prices.

Therefore we are very excited to offer the tutorials for €200 if you register for the conference, or €300 if you register for the tutorial day only. Check out our exciting tutorial topics!

Preliminary Program Schedule

Tue, 24 May 2011 23:08:22 +0000

Just to let you know that yesterday we have upgraded the program and published a (very) preliminary schedule. As usual, it will be further completed and improved during the next few days, so keep checking back.

Some of the recently published talks are specially worth highlighting, namely, Eduardo Guerra’s talk on refactoring test code, Dave Thoma’s talk on lean, and Alexandru Bolboaca’s talk on software craftmanship.

2010 is behind us, 2011 ahead

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 16:14:34 +0000

With the 2010 edition of Agile Portugal dimming into the past, and the 2011 edition approaching, there is something we would like to say to all of you, who have become part of this community during this last year:

PS: You may check flickr for the 2010 conference photos.

XP Game Prize

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:20:45 +0000

We’ve just learned that tomorrow’s XP Game tutorial will feature a prize of 6 Microsoft Arc Mouses.

Teams will have 4 to 6 persons, and all the participants should attend the XP Game talk that will happen before it, and in which the rules will be explained.

Agile Portugal 2010 Official Pocket Guide is now available!

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:18:27 +0000

The official Agile Portugal 2010 Pocket Guide is now available for download. Just check the sidebar!

This portable guide contains all you need to know about the event, program, keynotes, talks, venue and how get around.

If you are attending Agile Portugal 2010, a printed copy of the pocket guide will be supplied to you.

Schedule & related events available as iCal

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 02:57:17 +0000

We are maintaining two iCal calendars, that we will keep constantly updated. We leave you the URLs, in case you’d like to subscribe to any of them:

The conference schedule including all the sessions except the Open Space ones, which will be put together by the participants themselves.

A set of related events, which will happen close to Porto around the same time as Agile Portugal. You may read more about them on the venue page.

Program and Pre-conference Workshops

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 04:27:27 +0000

The program schedule is now as final as it will ever be in an agile conference! :-)

We expect to open the Open Space wiki really soon, where you will be able to organize your own Open Space sessions, and where the Lightning-Talks schedule will take form.

We have also to announce that, by request of some participants, Joseph Yoder and Lachlan Heasman, in collaboration with Agile Portugal 2010, are offering a last-minute set of half-day and one-day workshops, to individuals or companies willing to have an intensive training session on specific topics.

W1. Ultimate Agility: Users Do Your Work!
W2. Introduction to Estimating and Planning
W3. Retrospectives

If you are interested on attending these pre-conference workshops, please contact us!

We are offering special discounts for Agile Portugal 2010 participants and groups.

Get prepared for a great conference!

See you soon!

Registration deadline extension

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 01:22:18 +0000

We have extended the registration deadline until the 23rd of June. This means you still have a couple of days to register for the very first edition of Agile Portugal! At this moment, there is less than a dozen tickets left at the box office.

Interview: Nicolai Josuttis

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:13:24 +0000

Nicolai Josuttis is an independent system architect, technical manager, author, and consultant. He designs mid-sized and large software systems for the telecommunication, traffic, finance, and manufacturing industries.

He is well known both in the SOA and C++ Community and to attendees at various conferences. He not only speaks and writes with authority (being the author of “SOA in Practice”, “The C++ Standard Library” and “C++ Templates”) but is also an innovative presenter.

Together with Jutta Eckstein he is a partner of IT-communication.com, two world-leading experts for the successful realization of large and distributed IT projects in practice.

Greetings, Nicolai. Thank you for taking some time to answer our questions. We are eager to hear about your experiences and lessons learned with SOA and coping with the agile way. We were hoping you could lift the veil a little bit just to tease the audience…

1. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). It has been a hot-topic for some time now. In your view, has the trend become a full-fledged adopted solution or will it be just another “slowly fading away” fad?

Well, there is some disillusionment right now, so that a lot of people are disappointed about SOA. One reason is, that there is no clear definition of SOA and that a lot of people and companies just used the term because it sells well. So, I am not sure about the term, but I am pretty sure that the concept behind the term (at least according to my understanding) will remain. It will remain because the principles of SOA deal with the requirements of globalization in IT. We are moving from system development to the maintenance of system landscapes, where system development is only a part of. SOA provides principles for this need. For example, SOA accepts heterogeneity instead of fighting for harmonization. Harmonization is good, but in a global world requiring harmonization (common platforms, common data models, etc.) is not an option.

2. SOAP or REST?

The REST community claims that RESTful HTTP is a better approach for the utilization of HTTP. And yes, the fact that the native HTTP calls GET, PUT, and DELETE are idempotent so that in the Internet some caching and retry mechanisms are possible, is utilized with REST but not with SOAP (which uses only HTTP POST). On the other hand, as far as I know significant requirements of a sophisticated SOA landscape are not provided with REST. For example, we still have a variety of payload formats and there is no support for end-to-end security. So, REST might be better, but this is just a minor technical detail in system landscapes where you want to realize distributed business processes. I’d still prefer Web Services, if interoperability is the goal, but for specific connections REST might be a better option. And I see a significant risk of technical-driven interfaces, when people only care for REST. Something, which is definitely the opposite of the idea of SOA.

3. “Agile embraces change, SOA embraces heterogeneous systems”. Is this the strongest parallel between the two or are there others?

It is one analogy that might explain why SOA is to some extend as revolutionary as agility. Too long we thought we have to fight against these constantly changing requirements until we (or at least some smart guys) accepted that changes even during development are natural. And too long some people claimed that it is a good approach to have one model, one platform, one programming language, one ESB, etc. But that doesn’t scale. There will be a system size where all these “one fits all”-concepts are not an option. Period. End of discussion.But there are more common things in agility and SOA. In the SOA manifesto you will find a lot of agile requirements. For example, you can only introduce a service-oriented approach step-by-step (iteratively).

4. Can SOA and Agility co-exist?

They can and they have to. The agile value system is necessary for the establishment and realization of SOA, because to some extend, SOA uses agile principles in a more complex context. You have multiple projects running at the same time, with different virtual teams and multiple product owners involved. Without agile principles you are lost in SOA.

5. In your talk at Agile Portugal, you will address the organizational structure and culture suitable for distributed development. How is the readiness of companies when adopting SOA?

The biggest problem is that almost nobody has a clue, what SOA really is about and what a fundamental strategic approach this is. SOA is sold by technical people, who prefer Web Services or REST, or it is sold by vendors, who want to benefit from the hype, but almost nobody has a clue about the real business case of SOA. We talk about a concept that handles the problem of distribution. But distribution is very very expensive. One key element is collaboration. To realize a solution in multiple systems and teams, you have to work together. From the beginning (design) to the end (common distributed test data). That’s really hard and you might find out that in your enterprise culture you are not able to work together. You will give SOA the fault, but your problem is that you are not able to see the big picture of a problem and collaborate with others. Now, decide on your own: Is your company ready for SOA?

6. From your experience with large distributed systems, what was the hardest agile principle to uphold?

This is a tough question. Going through the principles I tend to give different answers:

Of course, due to the distribution of system landscapes you have the usual problems with face-to-face communication and trust (Jutta Eckstein is the better expert here).
Then, early delivery is hard to reach in a distributed system. The first business process using an SOA approach might take 3 to 6 months.
But may be my final answer is simplicity. There are so many good ideas for a sophistic versioning of interfaces that you don’t see the easy simple way: Each change of a service in production is a new version (independent from its backward compatibility). There are so many tools available that make things more complex. There are so many strange ideas of what an enterprise service bus should be. People don’t start simple and don’t take their time to start simple. In the long term, a lack of simplicity is usually a recipe for a disaster.

7. Can you give us a glimpse on how will things evolve regarding SOA in the near future?

Because we can’t stop globalization, the principles will remain.But due to wrong and broken promises the name “SOA” might be a problem. So, the term might fade away but the concepts will stay. A typical request to me as a consultant these days is: ”We need help, but please don’t call it SOA, because we are not allowed to use this term any longer.” The common term right now is “integration architecture”. And, by the way, neither cloud computing nor event-driven architecture are a new or better SOA. The concept of a service is in both ideas, but in very different contexts.

Nicolai, thank you again for your time. See you on June 25th!

The Golden Ticket Contest

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:43:10 +0000

Help us spread the word about how awesome Agile Portugal will be, and win a (golden) full two-day ticket!

How does it work?

Add a like to our post about the contest on Facebook, or re-tweet the similar post on Twitter. By June 19th we will randomly draw the big winner!

Can I add a like to the post on Facebook AND re-tweet it on Twitter?

Sure, and you’ll be doubling your chances to win.

But, I’ve already registered!

If that’s the case, you’ll be entitled to a reimbursement if you win.

Something is still not clear to me

If you have any doubts, please contact us at chairs@agilept.org.

Deadlines approaching

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 09:10:24 +0000

June 5th is approaching! This means you still have a day left to submit your Session Proposal or get the Early Registration fee.

Registrations are now open

Fri, 28 May 2010 16:16:38 +0000

Registration for Agile Portugal 2010 is now open. Please remind there’s an early registration discount of 20% valid until 5th June. We hope to meet you in Porto.