AOS 2017
Last week I attended the AOS 2017. It was my sixth AOS, I’ve been to Zaragoza, Pamplona, Valladolid, Gijón, Santiago, and Segovia :D
Someone asked me in the event why I kept coming. In past years I’ll have answered because of the community right away. But this time, I kept loving the community, and also extracted quite useful conversations in the discussions.
Agile in Universities
I proposed a talk about Agile in Universities based on the conversation Vicenç started in the Agile Spain mailing list.
Even at times, it seemed more a help group than a discussion (all attendees had the same problems connecting with the students) I received some interesting suggestions. I think the more important ones are:
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Change the dates of the events.
We organize several events with the University of Valladolid. But they are usually held in May-June when the CyLicon Valley machine is working full time, instead of October when we are usually still in summer holidays mode.
February, May or June are really bad dates because of the university exams. We should use October instead!
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Offer direct collaboration
There are several subjects that mention agile methodologies but from the point of view of a teacher who has not worked in the industry in a while.
We can offer ourselves to give the content of those classes. The University of Segovia is doing something similar in other subjects and they are interested in doing it with agile methodologies and technical practices.
I think it is a win-win scenario, the teacher doesn’t have to prepare content that he is not very well versed with, and we can infuse them with passion in continuous improvement.
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Focus on career development
These past years we’ve given several talks at the University focused on agile practices or methodologies. But students don’t value those topics, they haven’t experienced waterfall or lived how a company organizes.
We should focus instead on career development, how to build a successful career, which types of companies are out there, how to be competent… those topics are better aligned with their interests right now.
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Find a technical subject and teach technical practices
We should offer ourselves to teach technical practices: testing, continuous delivery, git, functional programming… in subjects that touch those areas.
We don’t need to create experts, just knowing that those practices exist, when to apply them and why they are useful is enough. I didn’t know CVS/SVN when I left the university and it would have simplified my life enormously!
We mentioned more ideas that I wrote down in the trello. But those are the ones I want to apply this year. Let’s see how it goes :D
Other sessions
I attended several other sessions about:
- Parallel Change, on how to make big changes to a software architecture using small steps
- MakeMeHappyAtWork, on how to create a good atmosphere in a company, work-life balance, diversity…
- Remotamente ágiles, on how to be agile being remote
And community of practice in a company, proposed by Modesto, a really great discussion about how to organize a community of practice in a company but, most importantly how to engage the people to participate.
People mentioned guilds, book clubs, streaming talks, creativity time…
We noticed that all companies have the same problems and I left with several ideas and a lot of people to contact and find new solutions :D
Agile Spain Assembly
We also held a meeting of the Agile Spain assembly where we talked about how to choose the next board and the place for the next AOS and CAS (1 proposal for each right now!).
And we chose civitana.org as the voting platform for next assemblies :D
I’m excited to see the new board candidatures and to help the new event organizers. I have to close the AOS budget though.
Final words
It was a really nice AOS, had lots of fun talking to people and learned a lot.
Here are the pictures of the retrospective:
If you haven’t come to an Agile Open Spain before… see you next year!
