Impressions – Lean Agile Scrum Conference in Zürich

It really happened! 140 people from the USA, Europe and mostly from Switzerland got together to learn and share information about all facets of lean and agile. When I started talking about Scrum in the fall of 2006, I was pretty alone.

Low Points

• Confusion about the starting time – We planned a block of 2 hours for the Scrum Breakfast, starting at 8. The talk was planned to begin at 8.35  But the block “Registration and Coffee” didn’t make it on to the program the way it should have. Mea Culpa!
• Speaker changes – we had a couple of last minute changes in the program – “excitement” for the organizers, potential disappointment for the participants. But people stepped up to fill the gap with great, well recieved presentations.
• Delay on one of the tracks caused timing problems.

High Points:

• Ken Schwaber – I had the priveledge of attending and co-teaching at Ken’s CSM Course. Very different from every other Scrum Course I have attended. The emphasis on ethics, honesty and professionalism. Simplicity and elegance. 20 years of doing Scrum really makes a
• Zurich is the birthplace of Extreme Programming(!). Joseph Pelrine told us stories of his brainstorming with Kent Beck about why XP worked at Chrysler but not here.
• Self Organization – not just talking about it, but seeing it in action. Beautiful to watch!
• Good talks, differing opinions
• Lean, Agile & Scrum belong together. Scrum and XP really are fusing.  I have always believed strongly in a ying/yang relationship between Scrum and XP: agile management is a pre-requisite for agile engineering. Once you have agile management, you have to have agile engineering. Without agile managment, agile engineers beat their heads against lethargic walls.

Special thanks to:

• Anton Schultschick, Head of the ISG Group at the ETH, who made the venue possible
• Manuela Weber, Carol Lechner and Ruth Zimmerli – for the smoothest organization I have ever experienced. Food, registration, room preparation, marking the signs
• François Bachmann and Mark Hediger for stepping up at the last minute to give interesting and well received talks.
• Hans-Peter Korn for publicizing the event on all the community channels
• Patrick Baumgartner for bringing us on to twitter.

If you publish any photos on flickr, remember to tag them laszh – I am starting to upload as we speak…