The Agile Alliance is running the OnAgile virtual conference on May 14, 2015. It will examine the impact and value of technical practices in agile transformations. A wide range of speakers will explore aspects covering microservices, continuous delivery, functional programming, exploratory testing and software craftsmanship. InfoQ spoke to Agile Alliance board member and conference chair Declan Whelan about the event.
Firstly Declan, thanks for talking to InfoQ today. Please tell us a bit about the OnAgile virtual conference
This is the first ever online conference offered by the Agile Alliance. It features keynotes and sessions that will help you understand upcoming industry trends and topics. The speakers are experts and industry masters, such as Martin Fowler and 'Uncle Bob' Martin and they will explore how to leverage agile practices to build microservices, provide continuous delivery and much more.
Why did the Agile Alliance decide to run such an event?
There is clear lack of attention to technical excellence in many agile transformations. This lack of technical craftsmanship undermines an organization's path to agility. We are seeing declining attendance by developers and testers at the Agile 20xx conferences. These are important problems that are not given sufficient weight by many in the agile community.
The Agile Alliance is holding the OnAgile conference to better serve our agile technical community by focusing attention on technical craftsmanship. We are saying "we hear you and we're doing something about it"! We chose an online venue so we can deliver high quality content at a very low cost. People can attend from any location in the world with no travel costs or time off. We are also making the content available on-demand for 90 days after the event so attendees can access content when it is most convenient for them.
What are some of the topics, and who are the speakers?
We have selected topics at the leading edge of technical agility, such as DevOps, BDD, TDD, Functional Programming and Continuous Delivery. OnAgile speakers are 'in the trenches' experts so attendees will learn from people who live and breath technical craftsmanship. Attendees will come away with practical insights and techniques they can apply in their every day work. The speaker lineup inclides:
- Martin Fowler & Rachel Laycock, ThoughtWorks, with a keynote titled You Can't Be Agile When You're Waist-Deep in Mud!
- Robert Martin, Uncle Bob Consulting LLC, with a Keynote titled The Future of Agile Programming
- Liz Keogh, Lunivore, on Behavior Driven Development: Embrace Uncertainty
- Woody Zuill, Industrial Logic, on Mob Programming
- Elisabeth Hendrickson, Pivotal, on Exploratory Testing
- Jez Humble, Chef (formerly Opscode) on Continuous Delivery
- Dr. Venkat Subramaniam, Agile Developer, Inc., on Functional Programming: Technical Reasons to Adapt
- Joe Moore, Pivotal Labs, on Remote Pair Programming: A Real-World Walkthrough
- Davis Frank, Pivotal, on XP in the Wild: A Tour of Pivotal Labs
- Gene Kim, Energy Sector Security Consortium on Top DevOps Enterprise Adoption Patterns: A 15-Year Study Of High-Performing IT Organizations
- J.B. Rainsberger, Diaspar Software Services, on How TDD Will Save You From Yourselves