Agile2011 Day 3

I just can't get it in my head this was Wednesday.  I'm very tired.  I'm an introvert, you know, and we draw energy from alone time or time with a small number of close friends.  Being in rooms with hundreds of people most of the time is really work.  On the other hand, I get energy from my work, and spent a lot of time talking about work.

I spent the morning with Michelle from NavTeq, talking about people, processes, transitions, and strategies for making other people more successful. I'd re-met a fellow from NavTeq after my talk on pairing yesterday, so it's cool that I'm seeing so many of my Chicago cousins. I'm hoping to see more of them in the future.

I attended a tool demo later, but I didn't realize it was a testing tool for C#. I thought it was going to be a talk on how to bring testers and coders closer together and blur the lines between them. I left disappointed, but on the way out met a nice fellow who is a new scrum master. We chatted until time for lunch.

Lunch I had with a number of my Deere friends (heh). Deere sent a lot of delegates to this conference, which really speaks to their level of management support. Thanks to the John Deere executives who made it possible for all these good people to come, absorb, learn, and converse with the constellation of Agile dignitaries here. May they pay you back tenfold in fresh learning and new techniques.

After lunch I went to GeePaw Hill's talk on geek leadership. I learned some useful techniques that I will put into practice in the near future. It's good to have smart friends.

Later I ended up mostly hanging out, populating coaches' corner, and eating food. I saw a lot of good people. I met people who have been following my blogs (always a kick for a blogger) and showed off the card deck. I also had some good responses to my talk yesterday "will pair programming ruin my company."

Today there was an announcement that Industrial Logic and Version One have a strategic agreement. Announcements focus on V1 market our eLearning as part of their offerings. I have new brothers.

Tomorrow Jeff Langr and I will be pushing the limits of acceptable behavior in our individual talks. He has a talk on "the only agile tools you really need" (a must-see, controversy-stirring feast of common sense) and I will present "the fundamental agile apologetic."  Actually,  I only hope it will be a fundamental apologetic, but I have decided to allow the talk to go in new directions if need be.  Teaching, learning -- I'll be doing at least one of the two.

It's hard to say what tomorrow will bring, but it should be interesting at least.