I just returned from AgileOpen France, an Open Space Technology conference organized by Bernard Notarianni, Raphaël Pierquin and Emmanuel Gaillot, in the footsteps of AgileOpen Europe.
All in all, it has been a good conference.
First some regrets: there were only 16 participants, while I was hoping for 30 or so. Of course, “whoever shows up is the right person” and all that, but I still feel that this can be improved upon. Maybe a little more publicity next year would do it.
Though the crowd was certainly very knowledgeable, maybe a few more leaders of the French agile community would have been welcomed. That was to be expected. After all, prominent figures of the Agile community rarely come to such events, probably because they are already overwhelmed with requests and work. Also, I suppose they have less to learn than us mere mortals.
Maybe that was not really a bad thing, after all. No doubt they would have taken over almost any discussion taking place.
The organizers had planned for 10 one-hour slots, for 3 simultaneous talks, a total of 30 sessions in theory. In practice, maybe 20 were used. I personally suggested 8, but many thankfully never got started.
Many sessions were interesting. I think the most fascinating ones have been:
- Playing Politics
- GreenPepper vs Fitnesse
- Should Agilists Regroup?
- A4 Reports
I’ll talk more about them in a later post. In the meantime, check out all my pictures from the event.
