I've recently received an email from the organisers of the Agile Business Conference 2010 in London. For those that aren't on their mailing list, I've copied their message below for you.

They're asking for suggestions for the topics of the various breakout sessions. If you're planning to go, I strongly encourage you to put your ideas forward!

I've been asked if I might like to speak at the conference this year. I don't think I'm going to do that; that's not really my thing! Although I'm flattered and tempted. I might run one of the breakout sessions though. If you think I should, then please let me know in the comments of this post what you think I should do it on?

Kelly.

London, 5^th- 6^th October 2010
The Naked Truth

The Agile Business Conference 2010 will be held in London on 5th and 6th October. The purpose of this Newsletter is to provide an update on our plans for ABC 2010.

We have taken note of the trends from sponsors’ and attendees’ feedback from past ABC events, and we have included these and taken action so that the Agile Business Conference 2010 will have a new and refreshing format:

• We want to move away from the standard “three streams” within the Conference and to provide a broader, relevant, interactive event so that attendees can navigate their own way through a variety of sessions.
• To ensure a broad, vibrant and interactive agenda; instead of the usual Call for Papers and Presentations we are inviting you to contact us if you would like to run a session or even if you just have an idea of a topic you would like to see covered by a session. As the “people in the front line” we are sure that your everyday experiences will create an agenda that is pertinent, interesting and interactive.
• We are seeking sessions of 40 minutes that address a broad spectrum of Agile topics. Rather than just having presentations, we are looking for a mixture of sessions that cover a wide variety of Agile topics and include interactive sessions, workshops and open space gatherings alongside some more formal experiential presentations.
• We will have some of the best keynotes from the world of Agile – with presentations based on their practical, real-world experience – and we will be extending the programme to incorporate a wider selection of sessions for delegates.

Our theme for 2010 is centred on the detail and the practicalities of evaluating, enabling and making Agile work for you and your organisation - regardless of your sector, start point or history.
For example:

• A CxO may want the opportunity to build confidence that a move towards an investment in Agile is valid, beneficial and practical.
• A Project Manager may be interested in managing risk, driving predictability of project outcomes and understanding how progress towards the agreed goal can be observed and reported.
• A Resource Manager may be interested in understanding how Agile practices can impact and improve on how resources are managed and how the capabilities of their resources need to be built and assessed.
• A Quality Manager may want to understand the impact an Agile approach will have on an existing Quality Management System and how to deal with that.
• A Software Developer may be interested in how a combination of technical Agile practices genuinely leads to significant improvements in software quality.

The potential list of topics is endless - the actual list will be up to you.

Agile has now matured and become well established in many organisations.

• What are these organisations doing differently today?
• What have they learnt along the journey?
• What would they do differently if they could turn back the clock?

We would like to explore The Naked Truth about Agile evaluation, enablement and adoption, and to discover and discuss the realities at both organisational and project level.
So, if you have a story to tell in which you can unwrap Agile and allow a clear insight into your experience, or you have some real expertise in some aspect of Agile, or you have an idea for a session that you would like to run or simply just participate in, please take a look at the outline for the ABC 2010 event below and contact me at
Again, based on feedback from previous events we are planning 6 tracks running in parallel this year:

• Education: An introduction to Scrum, XP, DSDM Atern, Lean, Kanban, AUP etc.
• Corporate Strength Agile: These sessions will have an emphasis on the ‘how to…..’ make Agile work in large or complex organisations or environments.
• Public Sector: Experiences of how Agile has been introduced, the benefits, how is it different for the Public Sector.
• Technical: Sessions that concentrate on quality, testing and delivery.
• Business and Organisational Change: What does Agile have to offer? What are the routes to take and the pitfalls to avoid when introducing and implementing change?
• Troubleshooting Agile: Free format, flexible sessions.

All submissions will go through two reviewing processes; a double-blind and Conference Committee (non-blind).

If you are interested in running a session, or want simply to suggest a session that you would like to participate in, please download and complete the form attached here and submit it to by 15 March 2010.

A win-win for everybody would be to match real answers from real experts to real questions from real delegates.

Successful proposals will be notified by 23 April.

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Photo by liz noise