The STeP 2010 is a small conference on software technologies, software engineering and processes that was held in the small town of Furtwangen in the Black Forrest (Germany). The conference is organized every second year by the faculty of computer science.
We decided to join the industry track and give a presentation on how to combine agile processes with nearshoring delivery model. Our presentation was held in German as most of the audience was from Germany.
We were fine tuning the presentation while being at the conference (bad habit).
One of the speakers was not able to come to the conference as all flights from Ireland were cancelled due to volcanic ash. However the session (A Discussion of Three Visualisation Approaches to Providing Cognitive Support in Variability Management) was no cancelled but given using a simple Skype (video) connection. This – of course – was a good reference point during our presentation.
The Talk
Our presentation was the last one in the industry track and we struggled to keep our schedule. We were able to attract quite a lot of interest. After the presentation and later while having lunch we had a lot of very interesting discussions. As we were openly talking about all the risks and complexity that comes with distributed teams and sourcing in general we got very positive feedback that we did not just place a sales pitch but provided real insight how to cope with the complexity. This openness then helped us to talk intensively about the positive effects of using agile methods when working with a distributed team.
During the presentation (Stanislav doing the work, me doing some cross word puzzles).
Picture provided by the faculty of computer science.
The Slides
The presentation (German only) is available for download (see below). We will make available a English version of the presentation in the next weeks.
Click on the image to download the presentation.
Summary
We had a lot of interesting discussion and were able to identify some opportunities for partnerships and potential clients. From our perspective the STeP 2010 was a huge success!