Legend |
Technology and Technique |
Customer and Planning |
Team and Individual |
Process and Improvement |
Other |
Session descriptions
max 12 Rise and ShineSink down your mind and wash away old habits Olivier Costa | |
In this workshop you 'll get introduced to ancient Japanese techniques for modern-day challenges: They help you with: | |
Goal of the session: | Prepare your body & mind for Full Throttle energy and more! |
Intended audience: | anyone can attend |
Expected experience: | no experience required |
Session Type: | 75 min experiential learning session |
In this workshop you 'll get introduced to ancient Japanese techniques for modern-day challenges: They help you with: | |
max 40 ![]() Red, Green, … what now?! Marc Evers | |
When refactoring, we let us be guided by code smells, a vocabulary for what is (or could be) wrong in our code. In this hands on discovery session, we will explore concept of 'connascence', a metric for different degrees of coupling in code. We want to investigate how the levels of connascence can be beneficial in deciding what to refactor and where to refactor to. | |
Goal of the session: | Learn a different, more precise way of looking at coupling in code, and how this helps refactoring |
Intended audience: | Jan, Marieke, Leo, Bram, Philippe, Hank |
Expected experience: | some experience with TDD & refactoring |
Session Type: | 150 min discovery session |
We're test-driven development addicts. We love the write a test – make it fail – make it work – refactor cycle. When doing merciless refactoring, we let ourselves be guided by code smells, a vocabulary of things that are plain wrong or not completely right in our code (depending on context). In this hands on discovery session, we will dive into the concept of 'connascence'. Connascence is a software quality metric and it is a taxonomy for different degrees of coupling in code. Higher degrees of coupling are more nasty. We want to explore how the levels of connascence can be beneficial in deciding what to refactor and where to refactor to. Connascence is a concept that was originaly coined in the early 90s by Meilir Page-Jones, then was forgotten after the OO hype was gone. Some background links: | |
Mob Mob Mob ProgrammingHow to make squids dance, pile rabbits up and learn JavaScript in the world of Minecraft Emmanuel Gaillot | |
During a great pedagogical session with high added value, we'll show how to mix poetry, scientific curiosity and wild moves in a virtual world (namely: Minecraft). We'll program mobs, mobs of mobs – with a mob of coders. We'll take the opportunity to review fundamentals of JavaScript programming and Minecrat physics. And to reflect on how to interest kids (and adults) in programming. One should not exclude the possibility of a listening to Marylin Manson's mOBSCENE. | |
Goal of the session: | Attendees will have the opportunity:- to ponder on how to catch kids' and adults' interest about programming- to discover how to justify spending time on Minecraft during work hours- to have a good laugh |
Intended audience: | Jan, Bram, Hank |
Expected experience: | Some knowledge about JavaScript will be helpful, although not mandatory. |
Session Type: | 75 min discovery session |
You may already know the technique called "mob programming," that is programming as a group (a.k.a. "the mob") on a single computer. Which, as some would say, is a way as good as another to further the joke about how many guitar players it take to change a light bulb. But have you ever tried "mob programming," that is, the programming of animals/robots/monsters/NPC (a.k.a. "mobs") in a video game? During a great pedagogical session with high added value, we'll show how to mix poetry, scientific curiosity and wild moves in a virtual world (namely: Minecraft). We'll program mobs, mobs of mobs – with a mob of coders. We'll take the opportunity to review fundamentals of JavaScript programming and Minecrat physics. And to reflect on how to interest kids (and adults) in programming. One should not exclude the possibility of a listening to Marylin Manson's mOBSCENE. | |
max 40 Real Time CoachingBoost your coaching effectiveness Dajo Breddels | |
Using insights from Neuro-Science in combination with techniques from NLP to facilitate change in coachees | |
Goal of the session: | To learn new techniques to make them far more effective coaches |
Intended audience: | ellen, bram |
Expected experience: | preferable Agile Coaching or Scrum Master experience |
Session Type: | 150 min hands on coding/design/architecture session |
Combining insights of Neuro-Science and the techniques of NLP to quadruple the effectiveness of your coaching. If you want to improve your coaching skills and become more effective in this, join us in this session. | |
I don't want to implement the Spotify-model Ralph van Roosmalen | |
Spotify is cool. In the last month I heard three (serious) organizations saying they want to implement or copy the Spotify-model and I know some organizations are working on implementing it as we speak. But is this really a good idea? I will explain why in general I don't want to implement a succes model from another company using guidelines to deal with complexity. Let's see if I am right… and convince you also not to implement the Spotify-model or can you convince me I am wrong… | |
Intended audience: | Leo, Bram, Georges, Vicent, Joke, Hank, Ellen |
Session Type: | 30 min discovery session |
I will explain why in general I don't want to implement a succes model from another company using guidelines to deal with complexity. There are eight guidelines that you can use to deal with complexity. Three of them make it clear why you can't just copy a model from another organization. I will talk about those three guidelines and explain them. Let's see if I am right… and convince you also not to implement the Spotify-model or can you convince me I am wrong…Let's have some discussions 😉 | |
max 100 One small step for man, a giant leap for Agility & AutonomyFrom component teams to autonomous feature teams – an ING story Nienke Alma | |
Feature teams are a hot topic. Organizations aiming to reach true Agility in the market better transform their component teams to feature teams soon. But how? ING is aiming to align business and IT in their road to feature teams. In this presentation they will explain what approach they have followed and share their experiences. | |
Goal of the session: | This session is intended to inspire people on how to make their business and IT more aligned and maximize customer value and provides practical examples for a transformation to feature teams. |
Intended audience: | Jan, Leo, Bram, Georges, Vincent, Joke, Hank, Ellen |
Expected experience: | Advanced |
Session Type: | 30 min short experience report (30 min) |
A lot has been written and said about the added value of feature teams. Feature teams reduce the complexity and waste of external dependencies, have more focus on delivering real customer value and bring more autonomy to the people involved in the delivery of the product every single day at work. Organizations aiming to reach true Agility in the market better transform their component teams to feature teams soon! It’s all easier said than done though; especially for the organizations that were around way before the Agile era. ING Bank is one of those organizations where most teams were built around components for many years. But ING Bank is also an organization that understands the necessity of being able to respond fast to the demands of the customer and has therefore progressed in the transformation of their old way of working to an Agile way of working. Forming feature teams, including business and IT, is an important challenge and step in this transformation. Where do you start if you would like to transform existing component teams into effective feature teams while keeping the ship afloat? What steps do you need to take and who do you involve at specific parts in this process? Do we actually see improvements in the current status yet? Maurice van Wijk and Nienke Alma, Agile Coaches at ING Bank, have been closely involved in a challenging, but also inspiring journey from component teams to feature teams. The road from preparations, how to get all parties on board, the needed steps and sessions ending in self-selections and kick-off of newly rising feature teams. In this presentation they will explain what approach they have followed and share their experiences. You will explore together with them what worked well and may work for you, what could be done differently in the next journey, and their next steps. | |
Business AgilityHow to gain from constant change Jan De Baere | |
We live in a VUCA world where agility from a business perspective becomes more and more a necessity. The traditional models of organisation setup do not work as well anymore in a world that is complexifying constantly. Organisations need to become antifragile, not just robust. For that to happen, organisations need to become agile (Fast, flexible, focused and forward thinking) and antifragile. | |
Goal of the session: | Explore the definition of Business Agility in a complex world. |
Intended audience: | Personas : Leo, Vincent, Ellen |
Expected experience: | no |
Session Type: | 30 min discovery session |
We live in a VUCA world where agility from a business perspective becomes more and more a necessity. The traditional models of organisation setup do not work as well anymore in a world that is complexifying constantly. Organisations need to become antifragile, not just robust. For that to happen, organisations need to become agile (Fast, flexible, focused and forward thinking) and antifragile. | |
Stretching AgileHow to remain Agile while offshoring software development Xavier Rene-Corail | |
We often hear that Agile is impossible to apply in some contexts, and we are told to adapt them, or to get rid of some practices. We end up with a 'soft' Agile practice which doesn't bring the full expected value.
| |
Goal of the session: | Even if you are not in my context of offshore development, you will learn that in a not Agile-friendly context, the only choice you have is to be more Agile, instead of giving up. You will also learn about John Boyd's OODA loops. |
Intended audience: | Ellen, Joke, Vincent, Jan, Marieke, Leo, Bram, Philippe, Georges, Hank |
Session Type: | 30 min discovery session |
This talk is a return on experience after building and running from Paris, an offshore software factory in Bucharest, Romania, and Minsk, Belarus. Different languages, cultures, methods, … in fact 3 different companies with different goals and strategies! How to remain Agile in this context?
Your context is certainly different, but perhaps you are also in a context in which people say Agile cannot work. In this case, this talk will tell you that you shouldn't give up on Agile. At the contrary, you'll need to be even more Agile. Like us, you'll have to stretch Agile … across borders, whatever they are. | |
max 25 Own my companyDon't get paid to work, own it! Stephan Van Rooden | |
The Company of Owner. An idea of what the future company will look like. Nobody will be on the payroll, everybody will be an owner of the company exposed to the same risks and benefits of running your own business. | |
Goal of the session: | Learn about and experience a completely new way of earning a living with your talents. A sneak preview of the future of companies. |
Intended audience: | Leo, Bram, Vincent, Joke, Hank, Ellen |
Expected experience: | None |
Session Type: | 75 min discovery session |
In a few years from now, you will no longer work for a company. You will own it or already do own one! I bet you will more likely own over 20 companies! Some you might have even worked at for a couple of minutes, but still you own it! So will everybody else who contributed! It's inevitable, over the last decades the number of companies has grown significantly, where in the ‘old’ days people worked at a company their entire life. And the ‘1%’ of the population owned that company. This is shifting dramatically toward people on average having 7 jobs throughout their professional career and many people being self-employed. People no longer just work for their paychecks, they work because they want to create something, to fulfill a certain purpose or because they like to be in a creative environment. A great quote from David E. Weekly, a product manager at Google, states that “Google is looking for entrepreneurial nerds. People with great knowledge and a passion for building stuff. As a side effect, or byproduct something valuable comes out of it.“ Why not crowdsource your ideas, not by asking for money, but by asking for knowledge and skills? All combined in a company of owners. Where people with an idea and other willing to contribute their knowledge gather and spend the time they are willing to spend. In return they do not receive a paycheck but they become a co-owner of the company. If the product or service provided is valuable everybody benefits. If not, no harm done you just spent a few hours on it anyway and you probably have already moved on. In this session, I want to explore this concept and together look for opportunities, flaws or blind spots and in return you might become a co-owner of the company! | |
max 30 50 ideas for Graphical facilitationPowerpoint died years ago – have you moved on… Per Beining | |
During the session you will get through my collection of tips, trixs and strategies for how to do Graphical facilitation including: Prior experience with Graphical Facilitation is not needed. | |
Goal of the session: | Not being scared of using Graphical facilitation as part of their facilitation toolbox |
Expected experience: | Prior experience with Graphical Facilitation is not needed – but is also not a hinderance. |
Session Type: | 75 min experiential learning session |
50 Ideas to get the most out of your graphical facilitation. During the session you will get through my collection of tips, trixs and strategies for how to do Graphical facilitation including: Prior experience with Graphical Facilitation is not needed. |
max 24 Agile Self-Assessment Game Ben Linders | |
Agile is a journey, not a destination. Sure, but how to travel the journey, and where to go next? There isn't a silver bullet or standard route to become agile, you have to find your own way. Come play the Agile Self-Assessment game in teams to discover how agile you are and what you can do to increase your agility. | |
Goal of the session: | Learn how agile self-assessments help teams to travel their agile journey |
Intended audience: | Marieke, Leo, Bram, Philippe, Georges, Vincent, Joke, Hank, Ellen |
Expected experience: | All levels |
Session Type: | 75 min experiential learning session |
Becoming agile is a journey, which can be difficult to travel. Assuming that you know why you want to become agile (a first but crucial step) you start looking for ways how to get there. Questions like "what do you want to keep from your current way of working" and "what would you like to change" will come up. Then the next question is "what are ways to do this". There isn't a silver bullet or standard route to become agile, you have to find your own way. A fixed route description won't help you. You need an "agile map" that inspires you with ideas and suggestions on where to go on your journey. The Agile Self-Assessment game is here for you to travel your agile journey. Come play the Agile Self-Assessment game in teams to discover how agile you are and what you can do to increase your agility. Players will receive a link to download the card game so that they can play it in their own organization (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 License). | |
![]() Hands-on react-native Lars Vonk | |
Create native mobile apps running on IOS, Android and even Windows using a single code base. Is this madness even possible? Yes! Come and join us in creating a react-native app in the most favourite language of all time: Javascript. | |
Goal of the session: | Fun and experience with react-native! |
Intended audience: | jan, bram, hank |
Expected experience: | Javascript language |
Session Type: | 150 min hands on coding/design/architecture session |
Create native mobile apps running on IOS, Android and even Windows using a single code base. Is this madness even possible? Yes! Come and join us in creating a react-native app in the most favourite language of all time: Javascript. No knowledge needed about IOS or android ( okay maybe a little tiny bit ). During this session we will: 1) give a high level overview of react-native, just enough to get started coding yourself Preparation: Follow the Install guide. If participants have setup their laptops prior to the session we can focus on coding rather than installing. You can choose the run your app on android or on ios (or both of course). Second presenter Kirsten Ruys | |
max 24 Lean Startup board gameBuild your product, invest in your company, experiment and sell to the market! The team to conquer the early majority of customers first wins the game! Frederik Vannieuwenhuyse | |
The number one reason why products fails: We simply build something nobody wants. Do you know the Lean Startup? The Lean Startup isn't just about how to create a more successful entrepreneurial business. It's about what we can learn from those businesses to improve virtually everything we do. It's ultimately an answer to the question: How can we learn more quickly what works, and discard what doesn't? We will play a Lean Startup board game (Playing Lean), the gameplay will be interwoven with learning. Who can conquer the mass market first? | |
Goal of the session: | Learn about lean startup: build-measure-learn cycle, innovation accounting, customer discovery, experimenting. The game drives itself forward. We make sure during the game-play that we illustrate the principles and experiments with examples. The retrospective is about the game-play and we map the lean startup principles to the game experience. Info about Lean startup and photos of the board game Playing Lean can be found here: https://value-first.be/category/lean/lean-startup/ |
Expected experience: | no |
Session Type: | 150 min discovery session |
We will play a board game that teaches you the principles of Lean Startup! You will need to conduct experiments, build your product, invest in your company and sell your product. Do you get product-market fit? Who will conquer the mass market first? If you are new to Lean Startup, join and play the game to learn. If you know about Lean Startup, join and practice your skills and share experiences. This session will be highly interactive and fast-paced. You need to decide (with your teammates) upon your strategy and adapt that strategy while gaining insight. No prerequisite knowledge required! We will shortly illustrate and explain experiments with examples in-between. |
max 30 Feeling the SystemVisualise a system to learn the dynamics of its behaviour Pierluigi Pugliese | |
There are various techniques to analyse a system. Most of them are based on rational analysis. This, instead, is about learning to "feel" the system. In this session we will have a look at how systemic structural constellations can be used to understand better a systems of humans working together. The participants will be active explorers of the most typical scenarios we find in companies and they might bring their case studies too! | |
Goal of the session: | Learn the basics of the prototypical systemic structural constellations and be able to use them in their work with teams and organisations |
Intended audience: | Marieke, Leo, Bram, Vincent, Joke, Ellen |
Expected experience: | None |
Session Type: | 75 min experiential learning session |
There are various techniques to analyse a system. Most of them are based on rational analysis. This, instead, is about learning to "feel" the system. In this session we will have a look at how systemic structural constellations can be used to understand better a systems of humans working together. The participants will be active explorers of the most typical scenarios we find in companies and they might bring their case studies too! | |
max 40 Play overload: Innovation Games® Meets Lego® Serious Play®With these powers combined, I am captain planet. Euh, I mean you will experience more serious playfulness than you can handle. Erik Talboom | |
Activating Fun Through Work!! Innovation Games® gives you a set of tools you can use to tackle your organization’s challenges in such areas as corporate strategy, market research, product innovation and much more. Lego Serious Play® is a facilitation technique that uses a carefully selected set of lego bricks specifically designed for to stimulate creativity and co-creation. In this session, we will combine the power of game design techniques from innovation games with the co-creation and 3D experience of Lego Serious Play. How could you not like this session? | |
Goal of the session: | Experience the combined power of 3D modelling with Lego® and the game design juice of Innovation Games®. Spark new ideas in participants to start modding their games as well. |
Intended audience: | Jan, Marieke, Leo, Bram, Philippe, Georges, Vincent, Joke, Hank, Ellen |
Expected experience: | No experience needed |
Session Type: | 150 min experiential learning session |
This session is a beginner session on how to use Innovation Games® combined with Lego® Serious Play®. You will get to experience the combined power of both in a fun way while playing these games. You will be able to taste different games that were modded in a 3D version. There is another session proposal which is a more in-depth session on one technique, called 3D Speed Boat. Why are games so good to use?
But they also
Why is Lego® so powerful?
We will introduce the participants several Innovation Games® which we specifically modded for use with Lego® Serious Play®. Participants can choose between:
We might add more options by the time XPDays is there, but for now these are the 2 games we have modded so far. | |
max 20 Awesome Reviews – Foster CollaborationBoost the value of your Sprint Review! Nienke Alma | |
Curiously, Sprint Reviews get little attention during conferences although there’s still a lot of room for improvement. To what extent does your Sprint Review actually support your agility and results? In this workshop you will explore how you could make your Sprint Review an awesome Sprint Review. | |
Goal of the session: | In this session participants will get an evaluation of the true added value of their current Sprint Reviews and receive inspiration from the presenter and other participants on how to improve them. |
Intended audience: | Marieke, Georges, Joke, Hank, Ellen |
Expected experience: | Participants are expected to have at least some experience with Sprint Reviews. |
Session Type: | 75 min discovery session |
Most of the key aspects of the Scrum framework are regularly discussed during Agile conferences. For good reasons. There’s indeed much to say about effective Retrospectives, dos and don’ts of the Sprint Planning or the good practices of backlog refinement. Although the Scrum Framework has been introduced many years ago and organizations use the framework for a long time, we realize that we should continue learning in order to understand the essence of it. The Sprint Review seems to be an exception. During conferences this event usually gets less attention than for instance the Sprint Retrospectives. Has the Sprint Review become such a routine in most organizations that we don’t need to talk about it anymore? Or do we consider this event as less important, resulting in a shifted focus to other subjects? To be honest: none of the statements seem to be true. The events of the Scrum framework all have their own specific purposes, but they are equally important to achieve optimal results. There are still many organizations where we see suboptimal interpretations of the Sprint Review. We should not stop learning about Sprint Reviews. It’s about time to put the subject back on the radar! In this workshop Nienke Alma will explore the subject together with you. Let's come up with a "definition of awesome" for Sprint Reviews and compare this definition with the reality of the Sprint Reviews currently done by your Scrum Teams. How do your Sprint Reviews score? What can you do tomorrow to close the gap? Don't expect any slides. This interactive workshop will encourage continuous sharing of experiences and a good discussion. | |
max 30 The 4 levels of the skill matrixHow to turn a skill matrix into an exciting tool for growth and learning! Annelies De Meyere | |
Do you want to find out wether your team really is cross-functional? Are you looking for a clear way to identify knowledge gaps and a tool to help you get those action plans together so your teams can get as much value from working and learning together as possible? Then join our session on how to create different kinds of skill matrices and how to analyse the data they hold, bringing your teams and organisation to the next level! | |
Goal of the session: | Practical use of a skill matrix in a number of different ways within a team or organisation. |
Intended audience: | Marieke, Leo, Bram, George, Vincent, Joke, Hank, Ellen, Philippe |
Expected experience: | 0 |
Session Type: | 75 min discovery session |
Lately I've been seeing the classic skill matrix used more and more in companies in order to create teams and identify knowledge gaps. This matrix-style overview maps team members to the skills needed for a cross-functional team to be able to deliver increments of potentially shippable product and it makes it very transparent where knowledge gaps may exist and need to be handled in order to allow the team to produce their best work. The tool as such is excellent for that, but I've started working with modifications on the technique that make it so much more powerful. These modifications take into account voluntary learning, skill levels, peer to peer evaluation and team dynamics. 4 levels of insights into your team's knowledge levels and perceived knowledge levels that can be the basis for extreme cross-skill learning! This session wil be 3/4 hands-on learning how to build the different "levels" of skill matrices for and with teams, how to go about it, and finally gives tips & tricks on how you can even use this technique in team building exercises for long-living teams. Breaking through the walls of storming into actual norming and truly performing teams! | |
The Secret of Appreciative InterviewsExperiment AI and some other Liberating Structures Frederic Vandaele | |
When we are looking for improvement, we generally start by looking at what's going wrong. This 'fix it' approach has some weakness even though it could produce some results. In addition, this approach doesn't drive any motivation nor positive energy for people that are participating to this exercise. Appreciative Interviews, as one of the liberating Structure, is based on a paradigm shift. The idea is that instead of focusing on what's going wrong, we choose to focus on what's already good about the individual, team or organisation and seek out how to amplify it. | |
Goal of the session: | Learn AI and other LS and how to use it |
Intended audience: | everyone |
Expected experience: | no experience needed |
Session Type: | 75 min experiential learning session |
In general, when you are looking for improvement in an organisation, you start by looking at what's going wrong. Where are the blocking points, the bottlenecks, bigger pains and bad processes. This 'fix it' approach has some weakness even though it could produce some results. Firstly, things – especially in IT – are changing rapidly and you don't know if a problem that appears in the last six months is still the same today. Secondly, this approach doesn't drive any motivation nor positive energy for people that are participating to this exercise. Appreciative Interview is based on a paradigm shift. The idea is that instead of focusing on what's going wrong, we choose to focus on what's already good about the individual, team or organisation and seek out how to amplify it. The main difference here is in the questions asked. So instead of asking "What can we do to minimize Team resistance to XP Agile method ?", in an AI process, we will rephrase it this way "When have our Agile Team been most pleased after a sprint and what can we learn and apply from those moments of success ?". Appreciative Interview is one of the 33 Liberating Structures. To find out more on LS, visit http://www.liberatingstructures.com | |
Presenters
Olivier Costa
Website: http://www.aegisoft.be
Olivier Costa
is a member of Ken Gyu dojo where he learns Aikido from Frank sensei and his teacher Tomita Shihan a Japanese grand-master and student of the founder of Aikido: Morihei Ueshiba.
www.WareNatuur.be
He has always been involved in the whole software development cycle. From (business) idea over development & testing until release, follow up (business satisfaction) and maintenance. While writing code primarily in C#, he became an Agile Coach (for very diverse teams writing in very diverse languages) in search of teams he wants to work in.
My top 2 favorite books are:
- Code Complete (2nd edition) – Steven McConnell
- Domain Driven Design – Eric Evans
Marc Evers
Website: http://www.qwan.eu
Twitter: @marcevers
Marc works as an independent coach, trainer and consultant in the field of (agile) software development and software processes. Marc develops true learning organizations that focus on continuous reflection and improvement: apply, inspect, adapt.
Marc organizes workshops and conferences on agile and lean software development, extreme programming, systems thinking, theory of constraints, and effective communication. Marc is co-founder of the Agile Open and XP Days Benelux conferences.
He knows how to combine his real-world experience with knowledge that is out there to create novel solutions. He likes to add games to highly-rated workshops, so participants have fun and learn from experience.
Rob Westgeest
Twitter: @westghost
I have been working in IT for about 18 years.
I have created software and taught and coached projects and individuals in analysis, design, programming and development methods.
I am a software engineer with a passion for both technology and people.
With WillemvandenEnde and MarcEvers I joined forces in QWAN (www.qwan.it).
We provide highly interactive training course on software development skills and agile software development in the Netherlands and abroad.
Emmanuel Gaillot
Website: http://ut7.fr
Twitter: @egaillot
Emmanuel works as a team coach, (extreme) programmer, facilitator, trainer and systems jiggler. For the last 10 years he has been helping software makers to be better at, prouder of, and happier about the work they produce.
A regular speaker at many conferences on Agility, Emmanuel also co-organizes the annual Agile Open France conference. He is one of the founders of the Coding Dojo in Paris. Emmanuel works in Paris at /ut7, a co-operated business he learns to hack with his fellow colleagues. He currently focuses his energy and passion on learning and teaching exotic programming languages, on practicing with (Virginia Satir's) techniques of family therapy, on shaping self-organizing structures and setting up co-learning spaces.
Jonathan Perret
I am an agile-enlightened, test-infected, fun-seeking software developer. My current interests: advanced functional programming in Haskell, programming with and for children, helping build and sustain /ut7, a very special cooperative.
Dajo Breddels
Website: http://www.dajobreddels.com
Twitter: @dajobreddels
Organizational Change Coach
Presented at different Agile Conferences.
Wijnand van Colle
Ralph van Roosmalen
Website: http://www.agilestrides.com
Twitter: @raroos
Ralph believes people make all the difference in every project. The skills of people, how they work together and how they feel. Scrum, Kanban, eXtreme Programming, Management 3.0, these are just tools, ideas and/or frameworks that exist to help people.
He has been working in IT since 1997. He had different roles: from developer, tester, Scrum Master, Agile coach, lead, manager to VP. What he always liked most, however, was working with people to improve the processes and the environments they work in. He is an active member of the Agile community and shares his insights and knowledge by speaking at conferences and writing blog posts. He is specialized in recruitment, building (distributed) agile software teams and management 3.0.
Nienke Alma
Twitter: @NienkeAlma
Nienke Alma is a people oriented Agile enthusiast with 9 years of experience as tester, test manager, Scrum Master, Agile trainer and coach. Employed at Capgemini in the Netherlands she mainly works for large organizations in the financial sector.
She has special interest in team dynamics. Getting the best out of individuals and teams by encouraging continuous learning energizes her. In her approach towards teams she always looks for creative ways to keep them moving forward. To reach this goal she likes to develop new training and often facilitates knowledge sharing between people.
Maurice van Wijk
Maurice van Wijk is an Advanced Agile Practicioner, LeSS Practicioner, coach, trainer and extreme Agile enthousiast. That besides a background and experience in IT, management, devops and implementation of departments, teams and processes.
He has an experience for over 15 years in the financial sector as well as ISP's. His main interest and passion is with team dynamics, developing individuals, learn and inspire, teams and culture.
To reach his goals in following this passion he likes to inspire people, as well as learn as much as possible to get better day by day.
Jan De Baere
From management point of view we are making the change from “managing a pair of hands” towards “creating something together”. Leaving the industrial revolution behind us and creating companies where not standardization but adding value is key. Helping companies making that change that’s what I do.
Last 5 years where especialy about scaling Agile.
Franky Redant
Website: http://agileinthecore.com
Twitter: @f_redant
Agile transformation consultant, coach and change leader at Agile in the Core – Cegeka. 25+ years of management experience, the last 6 years as management consultant, change leader and agility coach for large organisations . Certified scrummaster, Certified SAFe Agilist. Speaker at Nehra, Devoxx, Agile Consortium, European Commission, VOKA, and several Cegeka events. (https://be.linkedin.com/in/frankyredant)
Xavier Rene-Corail
Twitter: @XCorail
I have been working for Murex, leading software provider for capital markets, for more than 20 years now. From junior developer to development team manager to Agile coach to designer of a nearshore software factory … I lived several lives along this long journey.
I have a passion for software quality and Agility.
Ionut Balosin
Twitter: @ionutbalosin
I am certified Scrum Master and Software Architect. I have been working in a great Agile environment where a lot of "extreme practices" are put in place. I am happy to experience every day new things and stretch existing ones towards more agility.
Stephan Van Rooden
Website: http://www.van-rooden.nl
Twitter: Vragenvragen
Stephan in a 10 words or less
Highly energetic trainer – Story teller – Agile People Developer – Parttime farmer
What gets me up in the morning, racing to get to work?
I love my job being a Professional Scrum Trainer and Agile coach! So waking up is never a problem, but it’s even less of a problem when I get to teach people. Teaching them about Agility, Scrum and how to become a professional (again). I also get energy from helping those who lead and manage these professionals by handing them inspiration, tools and a mindset to become successful.
My personal mission statement
I get energy from growth, both personally and from my surroundings. By using my ability to learn quickly and think creatively. By always staying close to my own values. And ensuring a healthy body and a healthy mind.
Per Beining
Ben Linders
Website: https://www.benlinders.com
Twitter: @BenLinders
Ben Linders is an Independent Consultant in Agile, Lean, Quality and Continuous Improvement, based in The Netherlands. Author of Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives, Waardevolle Agile Retrospectives, What Drives Quality and Continuous Improvement.
As an adviser, coach and trainer he helps organizations by deploying effective software development and management practices. He focuses on continuous improvement, collaboration and communication, and professional development, to deliver business value to customers.
Ben is an active member of networks on Agile, Lean and Quality, and a frequent speaker and writer. He shares his experience in a bilingual blog (Dutch and English), as an editor for Culture and Methods at InfoQ and as an expert in communities like Computable, Quora, DZone, and TechTarget. Follow him on twitter: @BenLinders.
Lars Vonk
Agilist with a passion for crafting software
My pasion is programming in a dedicated team and building great software. I also like to help teams to raise their level of knowledge and professionalism by hands-on coaching. Advocate of XP practices like TDD, Continuous Integration and all that other good stuff. Besides programming I frequently act as co-trainer during Scrum/Agile trainings and workshops.
Current areas of expertise and interest: Ruby, Scala, Java, Sinatra, Scalatra, 0 downtime deployments, eventsourcing to name a few
Kirsten Ruys
Website: http://www.zilverline.com
Twitter: @KirstenRuys
Web developer, interested in learning new stuff.
Starting out as a front-end developer, I recently extended my stack, getting acquainted with Ruby, Java, and Objective C. As a coder I discovered that programming has a lot in common with experimental research in cognitive psychology, my previous profession. It’s all about creating structure, breaking down challenging issues into smaller, easy-to-deal-with pieces. On a project level, I quickly learned that projects are most likely to be fun and successful when working in a team, taking the time to develop good programming solutions together, working with customers instead of for them.
Frederik Vannieuwenhuyse
Website: http://value-first.be
Twitter: vfrederik
Agile & lean aficionado. Frederik is a cross-functional and multi-disciplinary consultant. He's been active for 10 years in digital product design and solutions (mostly web & mobile) and he's mostly actively working as facilitator.
Frederik has a wide interest in everything to make product/software development and management more valuable and more effective. Regarding the papers: certified product owner, certified scrum master, large scale scrum (LeSS), Lean UX.
Sven Dill
Website: http://www.linkedin.com/in/svendill
Twitter: @DillSven
Sven Dill is a certified Agile Lean Coach and Integral Agile Wizard who spent the last few years supporting ING Belgium (one of the 4 biggest banks in Belgium) to transform into an agile enterprise. He is helping individuals, teams and leaders during one of the biggest Agile transformations in Europe (more than 1500 IT professionals).
Beforehand he worked as Project Manager in the German Automotive industry for 10 years at ZF Friedrichshafen AG and ZF Sachs AG, one of Germanys biggest automotive suppliers specialised at driveline and chassis technology, where he gained a lot of insights into Lean Thinking and process optimisation.
Pierluigi Pugliese
Website: http://blog.connexxo.com
Twitter: p_pugliese
Pierluigi Pugliese started hacking code so long ago that he cannot remember exactly when anymore. He worked many years in the mobile telecommunication business, both as programmer and as a team leader, providing software for several mobile phones of known brands.
Currently he works as a consultant for software organisations and coach for individuals and teams, focusing on software development and software processes, helping them implementing sound and agile solutions.
Pierluigi is based in Munich and operates through his company Connexxo (www.connexxo.com).
Erik Talboom
Website: http://co-learning.be/
Twitter: @talboomerik
Hi, I am Erik and I am a human being. This immediately defines my biggest passion in life: humans and what it means to be human. I love challenging people's current situation, their professional and/or personal status quo. Co-Learning how we can all improve our way of collaborating and working, while having fun at the same time. That is my second passion in life: playing. I play board games, roleplaying games and computer games and I am continuously looking for ways to use these concepts in my professional life as well. Because play does not mean silly, it means fun and motivating.
My professional life is centered around my passion for people and play. I mostly work as coach, both agile and lean as well as technical coach for software craftsmanship and personal coach for deeper psychological understanding. Next to that I try to be the game master as much as possible while facilitating meetings, stimulating collaboration and helping to channel creative energy.
Sven Cipido
Website: http://www.equalminds.eu
Twitter: @cipidos
Agile Coach, Trainer, LeSS Certified Practitioner, Red Belt Collaboration Architect and Scrum Master.
Already active since 1995. Started as a programmer for PLC, went over to AS/400 and finally got a deep dive into Microsoft Technologies. First as a developer and in the end as a software architect. In 2008 he came in contact with Scrum and saw the light. He got his Scrum Master training from Joseph Pelrine that same year. Now he’s an Agile Coach at Equalminds. He loves to implement the fun part as a Coach/Game Master actively using the Innovation Games and Lego.
Already a few times, he was a speaker at the XPDays, where he presented “The Frog Factory, A Kanban Experience” and “The Agile Quizzzitch”. He’s also the co-author of the book “The Agile Quizzzitch” and worked together with some other Agile Coaches on the Dutch translation of the book “Toolbox for the Agile Coach” of Jimmy Janlén.
Annelies De Meyere
Website: http://co-learning.be
Twitter: @endimi
Annelies tumbled into Agile by proxy through her husband and the interesting network she encountered, and started mixing these newly discovered skills in her day-to-day work as Service Manager in a high security environment. Feeling the need for better communication across teams and levels within organisations, Annelies made the switch to become an Agile process coach via Co-Learning. Helping companies adapt towards a more flexible way of working, guiding teams towards better results and facilitating change management. She is now a brainstorm facilitator, trainer and coach for teams and individuals, Management 3.0 practitioner, Certified LeSS Practitioner and Certified Orange Belt Innovation Games Architect.
Jeremy Naus
Website: http://www.co-learning.be
Twitter: @jermBE
Jeremy started out as a Java developer, experiencing first-hand how agile can help the process along. He continued to become a business consultant with a strong background in Java web development.
Since 2013 he moved to a full-time business analyst/Product Owner role. Throughout his career his interest in agile was continuously growing so he obtained a Professional Scrummaster Certificate.
Now as an Agile Coach for Co-Learning he helps agile teams to reach higher standards and better results. He even applies kanban techniques in a non-profit organisation he works for in his spare time.
Frederic Vandaele
Website: http://www.trasys.be/
Twitter: @fredvandaele
Frederic works for Trasys/NRB as Project Manager and Agile Coach. Daily involved in software development projects for European institutions, he helps teams in their implementation of agile methods and provided coaching to teams wishing to embark on an Agile journey. Gamestormer and Innovation Games practitioner, he recently embarks on his journey towards participatory leadership.
Participants
![]() Jan | Jan has been working as a programmer for 5 years now. Jan loves to program. He knows a lot of languages, and a lot of tools. At work, he he is not always happy because the circumstances often force him to deliver the quality he knows he can reach. Jan explores new technologies and trends on the internet and in books and magazines. At night Jan contributes to an open source project together with 10 other guys, from all over the world. That's where he heard about agile methodologies. In the open source group, he is used to work with unit tests, but he hopes to get some real in-depth tips and tricks from experts at the XP Days conference. He is also interested to learn about the latest trends for continuous intergration tools and test automation. Meet Jan at the following sessions
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![]() Marieke | Marieke is part of a team that delivers product software on a regular basis. Several months ago, her team had an introductory training on extreme programming and scrum. Some of the ideas she learned about seemed interesting enough, but she is not sure if this methodology is applicable in their particular situation. After the course, some of her colleagues started to write unit tests, but there still are only a few, and they are not run very often, as far as Marieke can see. They also started to do a daily standup meeting, because according to the trainers that is a tool to enhance communication within the team. But these meetings are rather boring, and they tend to take 1/2 hour, every day. Team members are grumbling about wasting their time. Marieke started to think all this agile stuff is only an unusable hype. But then she heard about XP Days, and she thought "well, let's give it another chance, if 150 people go to this conference, for 11 years in a row now, maybe there is more to it". She hopes she can hear from real people in real teams how they have applied these techniques, which problems occurred in their situation, and what kind of consequences that had for them. Meet Marieke at the following sessions
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![]() Leo | Leo has been around forever. He has seen everything, done everything. Over the years, Leo has been working as a developer, as a project lead, as a tester, as an analyst, as a manager, and as a consultant. He knows from experience that everything comes back, if you only wait a few years. He has learned that the same problems and the same solutions have been invented and re-invented a hundred times in computer science. He has lived through the rise and fall of uncountable new technologies and methodogies. All of them brand new, all of them the one and only forever best way to make software. Leo wants to go to XP Days because he thinks it's an excellent opportunity to meet with a lot of young, smart and enthusiastic people. Meet Leo at the following sessions
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![]() Philippe | Philippe comes to XP Days because his boss told him to go. He has never heard about this agile stuff. He doesn't know what it is, or what it can be used for. He guesses it is something his boss wants to buy. He doesn't really care, because going to this conference means that he will be away from the hectic chaos in the office for 2 days. mmm I think maybe it is not very useful for Philippe to come to the XP Days? -Vera Why not? Let Philippe come, let him relax and have a beer and dinner with agile people. He might even attend some presentations. And, once he's relaxed, who knows what could happen? –Pascal Meet Philippe at the following sessions
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![]() Georges | Georges is a project manager. His life is filled with stress, deadlines, difficult programmers, unhappy customers and demanding bosses. Sometimes he wonders if he's chosen the right career. Lately, Georges has been hearing more and more about agile methods. Some of his ex-colleagues have converted from project management to agile coaching. They tell him tales of vibrant, exciting, fun projects where customers and developers live in perfect harmony. That can't be true. They must be exaggerating. Or are they….? Meet Georges at the following sessions
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![]() Vincent | Vincent is the IT manager of a large company. His teams don't do too badly. Some projects are allright; some don't fully satisfy their users. The CEO has asked him to propose a plan to increase the efficiency of his department by 10% in the next two years. So, Vincent looks around for solutions that might help him to create and implement the plan. He has looked at a lot of things: processes, tools, consultants… He's heard that some other companies (even some reputable companies) have had success with "agile" methods, so he comes to the XP Days to get a taste of what "agile" can offer him. He doesn't know what to expect. Hippy surfer dudes? 18 year old wizz kids with piercings? Greybearded hackers? Oh well… What does he have to lose? Meet Vincent at the following sessions
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![]() Joke | Joke is a product manager for a succesful product company. Joke understands her customers needs, she has lots of ideas for new features that would enhance the product. She knows that this product really enhances its user's lives. That's one of the reasons her company is so succesful. But they have trouble keeping up with customer demand. Joke finds it hard to talk to the development team, to make them understand what she needs in the product. If only she and the development team could work together more efficiently, they could make this product make more of a difference. Maybe this "agile" stuff can help? How does product management work in agile projects? Joke hopes to meet some developers and other product managers who can help her and give her some tips. Meet Joke at the following sessions
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