March 19 - 21, agile coaches will gather for Agile Coach Camp in Durham, North Carolina to share, learn, and improve their skills. Registration for this event costs no money, but each participant must write a position paper in order to qualify. The event will have no preset agenda of sessions. Instead, the Open Space approach will be used, and participants will create the agenda at the event itself. This event is the successor to the original Agile Coach Camp held in 2008.
According to the rationale behind the conference, Agile Coach Camp was created to provide a place for master coaches to share stories and practices. It was also conceived as an opportunity to explore the future direction of the discipline. The first conference was organized by Deborah Hartman Preuss and Naresh Jain , with help from a number of other practitioners, including Ron Jeffries and Chet Hendrickson. More details about the original event can be found in the article Agile Coaches Attend First AgileCoachCamp.
According to the invitation letter, this year's conference seeks to grow a community of practice for agile coaches.
Agile Coach Camp is about creating a network of practitioners who are striving to push the limits in guiding software development teams, while staying true to the values and principles at the core of the Agile movement. We've invited practitioners who, like you, are passionate about their work, active in the field and willing to share what they've learned. It's a great chance to form relationships that can last a lifetime (and act as a lifeline).
The conference organizers decided to require a position paper from each participant because they feel that this leads to richer discussions at the conference. It also helps make it clear that this is a participation event, as opposed to a sit-back-and-listen event. The position paper that each attendee is required to submit, must answer the following questions:
- What's your experience coaching teams toward being Agile?
- What do you plan to learn /explore at this conference?
- How do you plan to contribute?
The position papers currently listed on the Agile Coach Camp Wiki include:
- Transforming the PMO from Score Keeper to Agile Transformation Partner
- Scrum Fatigue
- Understanding Agile Values and Principles
- Paircoaching as a model for on the job learning
- Why Spock has difficulty influencing people
- An Agile Player/Coach
- Distributed Agile in a Multicultural World
- Instilling trust between the business and technical team and management stakeholders
The event will begin on Friday evening with registration, lightning talks, and a social outing. Saturday the Open Space will be formally opened and the agenda created. The day will be filled with sessions created, hosted, and scheduled by the participants themselves. There will be more sessions Sunday morning, and then the Open Space will be formally closed Sunday afternoon. Participants are invited to stay for the conference retrospective or simply to hang around, finish up conversations or start new ones.