Agile2007 Conference Program Announced

The Agile community's annual North American conference, Agile2007, is almost sold out. Having completed the long peer-review process, presenters have been chosen and the conference program was announced today, to entice those still on the fence about attending this year's event from August 13 to 17 in Washington, D.C.

From the beginners program to the experience reports and hands-on sessions, this year’s conference promises a wide array of educational opportunities for those just getting started with Agile to experts who are invited to lead sessions in the conference-within-a- conference. Agile 2007 attendees can choose from more than 615 highly interactive sessions.
-- Mary Lynn Manns, Agile 2007 Conference Chair

So many sessions, so little time. Participants will be kept busy: similar to last year, there will be up to 16 parallel events in each time slot. These are listed on the schedule, yet again, by presentation style rather than content (which would be more helpful for making choices). The categories are:

Discovery Sessions		Leadership Symposium
Beginners Program		Research Papers
Educators Symposium		Research In Progress
Experience Reports		Talking Heads
Hands-On Sessions		Vendor Talks
Keynote		Tutorials

The Leadership Symposium will once again be organized by the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN).

Only two keynotes have been announced thus far. Erich Gamma and John Wiegand, distinguished engineers with IBM Rational, will address participants on Scaling-up Agility to Globally Distributed Teams The Eclipse Way. Susan Ershler, co-author of: TOGETHER ON TOP OF THE WORLD: The remarkable story of the first couple to climb the fabled Seven Summits will reflect on Reaching New Heights: Learning to Adapt is Essential.

Other notable lectures include:

• Mike Cohn, “Succeeding with Agile: A Guide to Transitioning”
• Jim Highsmith, “Adaptive Performance Management for Agile Enterprises”
• Ken Schwaber, “The Enterprise and Scrum”
• Jean Tabaka, “I Don’t Like Mondays --- Improving Agile Process Team Events”

On the Wednesday evening there will be a meeting of Agile Alliance members, which should be interesting given the changes under consideration on the AgileSoftwareDevelopment forum, encouraged by chairperson Brian Marick.  

This year’s conference brings two new elements to participants:

The inaugural international Research-in-Progress Workshop on Agile Software Engineering (RWASE). RWASE is a one-day workshop that is focused on the research of the Agile perspective of software engineering. It aims to establish a forum for researchers to share ideas, collaborate, network and shape the state-of-the-art in this field. RWASE includes position paper presentations, guided work groups and open discussions.

And, in response to requests from more seasoned practitioners after last year's conference, the new Conference-with-in-a-Conference (CWAC), will be a place of community for all participants, beginners and experts, to seek conversation, share software innovations and techniques, and push emerging Agile practices and ideas. Anyone can convene a session at the Conference-within-a-Conference, so participants are encouraged to bring their crucial issues and ideas, passion and commitment to create the agenda for this part of the conference once they arrive. The CWAC will take place in four themed "corners":

Speaker's Corner Stop by to ask questions, join the dialog, and hear the latest thinking from leaders in the field as they hold “office hours” after their session.	Open Source See how others are using both open source and commercial tools to support programming, testing, collaboration, communication (and more!) in Agile development.
Peer Consulting Sit with others to share questions, quandaries, ideas, and answers around adopting Agile methods and practices. Bring your real life experiences in testing, planning, programming, coaching, and other practices you use or want to use.	The Edge Come brainstorm and share ideas about what is emerging at the edge of Agile methods: what movements do you see emerging; what new practices do you think will replace others; what tuning is already taking place?

Agile2007, now in its fifth year, is organized by the Agile Alliance, and is the largest conference dedicated to promoting the benefits of Agile software development.  It brings together corporate development teams, software consultants and vendors to swap stories and learn from Agile experts how to increase the success of their Agile implementations. 

The Agile Alliance is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the concepts of Agile software development and helping organizations adopt those concepts, as outlined in the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. For more information about the organization, visit www.agilealliance.com.

Related news: to get a feel for the quality of presentations at this event, use the Agile2006 tag to view some of last year's presentations and talks, available only on InfoQ.