Press Release DECEMBER 2008
On 5th December 2008, AgileMalta held their second conference which attracted a varied crowd with equal interest from managerial and technical attendees from Maltese companies. Although only a few people at the conference had agile experience, all attendees had a better knowledge of agile than the first conference. This conference had a first with the attendance of foreign attendees currently on business in Malta.
As with all Agile gatherings, the conference served as a meeting place for people with similar interests to talk and discuss ideas and issues about Agile.
The theme of the conference was on Improving Software Production for which Joakim Ohlrogge, a Swedish Agile expert from Agical (Sweden) gave the well-received opening key note. His talk focused on shifting our idea of projects towards the idea of product centred development as a bid to improve productivity and reduce development costs.
Two speakers from AgileMalta also gave talks. Dave Sammut from Goldfish Ltd talked about his experience on the use of Domain Driven Design to bridge the gap between the business and technical people. Dave also spoke about the importance of clarity and re-iteration for both technical and business parties to ensure they are all speaking the same language. Aldo Cauchi Savona from MediaCatalyst (Malta) gave a talk on his observation on individuality as being one of the main, natural cause for team dysfunction. Coupled with personal experiences from over two years as a Agile process facilitator, Aldo showed how focusing on one goal can help overcome team dysfunction.
The slides along with blog posts on their talks can be found online at the AgileMalta web site at http://www.agilemalta.com.
The conference was concluded with a discussion where Swedish consultant Jelena Vencl Ohlrogge showed her skills at facilitation. The majority of the discussion was mainly focused on the questions that the talks stirred up although there was still time to provide answers to questions attendees already had. The questions along with their answers can also be found on the AgileMalta web site.
This conference was possible thanks to the main sponsors, Uniblue and Credit Europe Bank as well as BCS Malta Section, Catalogue Solutions, Compleet-IS and MediaCatalyst.
AgileMalta is a non-profit organisation created with the aim to promote, sustain and support Agile Development practices on the Maltese Islands in a bid to improve the competitiveness of the local market. Their scope is to create an online community for local Agile practitioners, talks and conferences as well as provide consultation on Agile processes.
The AgileMalta team have already started to work on the next conference which is planned for early spring and are looking for partners to help fund the next conference as well as speakers to share their experiences of using Agile.
To find out more on how you can help, you can contact AgileMalta on info@agilemalta.com.