Agile Singapore conferences 2013–2016
I finally decided to write this down before my memories fade. This is a story of Agile Singapore conference for the year 2013, 2014 and 2016 and attributions to the kind souls who supported in the journey.
Beginnings
It all started in CITCON Singapore 2012 when Bas Vodde initiated a topic, calling for people to organise the conference together. Several people from different companies attended the session and signed up their interest which later didn’t work out due to many factors. My ex-colleague, Stuart Turner convened a new core organising team (Slawek, Randi, John and Edwardcher) in one of the Open Space meetups and I rejoined in April 2013 for the conference in November. The direction was to create an Agile conference similar to the one organised by Agile Alliance in North America which is recognised internationally since 2003 after the birth of the Agile manifesto. We’re organising it without an event company and it would be a volunteering work.
As it’s difficult to start a non-profit organisation in a short time, Stuart and I started a private entity called Agile SG Pte Ltd and a bank account to facilitate sponsorships, tickets and purchases etc. The other purpose is to support a committee to run community events separately from commercial entities and away from commercial gains.
As inexperienced conference organisers, we discovered many risks and hard decisions to make. Where do we get the money for venue deposit? How do we find sponsors? How to make financial projections? How do we sell tickets and promote? How we make decisions? In retrospect, most of the challenges come from our unknown which usually cause surprises and missed opportunities. The antidote was learning through seeking advice or failing. A few early learnings:
- Inviting speakers one year in advance is not long (especially famous ones).
- When a company says they will register X number of people, do not put all your stakes on it until it is paid.
- Content i.e. the programme is required for most people to decide to buy, so get the content out early.
- Most people are unfamiliar with renowned speakers in agile development realm unless they read related books/articles.
One of the key features in the conference was the invited speakers. It consisted of agile manifesto signatories and/or key contributors like Kent Beck (of TDD and XP), Tom Glib, Rachel Davis (author of Agile Coaching) and Martin Fowler. The purpose is to provide opportunities for attendees to connect with them
Year 2013 and 2014
2013 and 2014 conferences were held in Marina Bay Sands and it attracted over 400 attendees. With the excellent support from the volunteers running the show, I was able to be a full-time conference photographer. =)
Spring up
After the 2014 conference, we (the core organising team) parted our ways. It was an amazing journey we came this far with most of the members volunteering on top of their regular full-time job and families. I could recall the feeling of strive and togetherness in the last few months before the conference. However, it might be too much for us. I left with the decision of not leading another conference unless someone else is going to.
In 2015, many people asked if there’s going to be a conference and a few companies even offered to help. It was until later of the year that Naresh Jain offered to help out. Naresh has been organising Agile India and many other conferences since 2005. He received Gorden Pask award in 2007, founded a few communities and startups, develops software and consults/mentor companies on Agile and Lean. It is easy to wonder how he makes his time elastic to do all these.
Year 2016
I learned a lot from him. I was impressed with his knowledge, experience and connections at organising conferences and he was part of the reason I decided to organise 2016 conference. After we began I invited Kiat Lim and Thye to help. Kiat is experienced in organising events and conferences and Thye has been helping on designs since the first Agile conference. Clement Tay joined later too. Though the challenges didn’t change, it was enjoyable for me to work on this team as most of us are experienced which increased the quality of decisions and work.
The line-up of 2016 conference was impossible without Naresh’s help. We got Mary Poppendieck, Gojko Adzic, Pramod Sadalage, Joshua Kerievsky, Fred George and more. Another special mention is John Turnbull from ThoughtWorks who offered help in one of the regular meetups to get Martin Fowler. We’ve tried unsuccessfully a few times before but he made it possible.
The 2016 conference was at Hotel Fort Canning and it attracted more than 400 attendees from more than 100 companies. Of the attendees, more than 100 flew in for the conference. Instead of a photographer, this time I I spent most of my time being a barista making specialty coffee. Photography was covered by two volunteers, Ritesh Mehrotra and Badari who are avid photographers and also community members.
Being a host of the conference and also a barista was an interesting experience. There were a few moments when an attendee thought I’m a hotel staff and another attendee besides him noticed I was speaking at the stage earlier. =)
Another beginning?
This wraps up my journey in leading the Agile conference. Upon reflection, it is not something I want to do for a long time. If someone in the Agile Singapore organising group wants to lead it, I could provide support from behind. The present group members are Amol Pradhan, Bryan Long, Farid Baharuddin, Marcelo, Neal Ang, Riju Kansal, Rohit Arora, Sergey L. Sergey Shishkin, Sharan Mangalore, Steven Koh and myself.
To fill the gap of not having an Agile conference, Agile SG has been partnering with YOW! Conference for the past two years. YOW! is a well-established conference organised by Dave Thomas and he is well connected in the software development industry and to many of the early Agile development pioneers.
For now, I’ll continue to support the regular meetups and organise once-in-a-blue-moon workshops here. Some of the past workshops are: Michael Feathers on Working Effectively with Legacy Code, Janet Geogory on Agile Testing and Woody Zuill on Mob Programming.
Once again, I’d like to thank everyone who has helped the conference directly or indirectly. You made it possible and part of history!
(*) Photos from Ritesh and Badari
Links to the past conferences and workshops
http://agilesingapore.org
Photos of past conferences and workshops
https://www.facebook.com/pg/AgileSingapore/photos/?tab=albums
Recorded sessions of 2013, 2014 and 2016 conferences
https://www.infoq.com/agile-singapore-2013
https://www.infoq.com/agile-singapore-2014
https://engineers.sg/conference/agile-singapore-2016
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