So I’ve been down to the Agile2007 venue twice this week.

Unfortunately a host of converging factors prevented me from making it a priority to attend.  Leaving me to just lurk a bit on two occasions.  How can I simply lurk without attending?  Well, it’s being held in DC which is just miles down I-95 from Baltimore, my new base of operations since March 2006.

What conspire against my attending include primarily the fact that I will be "out of pocket" (that means away from my usual place of work or sleep) for the better part of 2 of the next 3 weeks. Adding a complete 4th week to that ratio would not be good for my family or my clients.

While I couldn’t attend during working hours, I’d had reason to swing through Monday and Wednesday evenings.  It was nice as I either met, ran into, or was otherwise introduced to a lot of neat folks.  Some whom I’d only corresponded with via email, and others whose works I’ve read.

Several groups and committees are taking advantage of the confluence of personages descending upon the conference to conduct some necessary face-to-face business.  One such committee met on Monday evening after the end of conference sessions, where I participated in a collective contributive effort to forge a document for IEEE.  The purpose of the document is to  facilitate  set expectations  establish relationship patterns … well… you can see that it’s still a bit fuzzy as of close of meeting on Monday.  But the doc has something to do with guiding people who want to acquire agile  software  development  engineering  services, and helping them be aware of what agile followers and buyers of agile services should consider in the transaction.

OK, so, that’s a really convoluted way of saying that it’s just supposed to help communication and understanding between (ostensibly) traditional-development oriented buyers (read: US Federal Government) and what they can expect when wanting to contract with technology developers using agile methods.  But saying that was just not gonna sit well with everyone on the committee.  All of whom were practitioners of Agile in some way and all but me and one other were attending the conference.

Among the IEEE doc crowd (all good people) was Scott Ambler, with whom I’d corresponded before, but never met in person.  He pretty much looks just like his picture.  I was bummed to not have more time chatting with him.  Outside of the group’s facilitator, I had never met or corresponded with any of the other folks, and don’t know much about their exploits.  Of Scott, I’d had occasion to volley on some lists in the past.

After the meeting a few of us were mulling about.  That’s where I saw Ken Pugh gliding by.  I’ve only known Ken for about a year when we met a consulting retreat.  Until then, I’d only been tangentially aware of his work in refactoring, actually called PREfactoring (emphasis mine).   Almost simultaneously, Clementino Mendonca of Microsoft found me and we chatted a bit about MSF for CMMI.  I told him about my fabulously easy experience conducting a "Gap Analysis" for CMMI at a client using the templates, and he insisted I write an experience article about it for him to add to their "learning" repository or somesuch.  Just a few weeks ago, I’d fielded a question on an MSF forum he moderates.  Gotta love timing.

Shortly afterwards I was heading the the direction of the WC when I heard my name being called in Scottish.  It was none other than David Anderson, with whom I’d been texting and Skyping on and off all day to figure out if/how/when we’d get together.  The plan was for later in the week, but we thought it would be nice if we could at least say "hello" while I was there.  Instead, he ushered me into the icebreaker event where I ran into Brian Lyons, CEO of NumberSix Software, of whom I blogged last month.

Wednesday evening was the APLN annual meeting.  I arrived with 30 minutes to spare, which was nice because to get to the meeting room you had to walk through the display area.  Also known as the "trade-show" floor.  I saw Ken Schwaber hanging out with the Scrum Alliance folks.  Though I’m considering becoming one of the only Lead Appraisers to also go through the Certified ScrumMaster training class (example), I didn’t want to interrupt him to just say, hello.  He doesn’t know me from Adam, as far as I know.

NumberSix had the booth closest to the room APLN was using and Brian Lyons decided to rib me about not being at the conference.

At the APLN meeting room I spoke some more with Clementino.  Only this time it was about Jeff Sutherland’s work (info here) with an organization achieving CMMI Maturity Level 5 while also using Scrum for development.  Clementino and I were agreeing about the boon to both camps that such a report could have.  In fact, I’d pointed out that the report had already caught the attention of the SEI and that the Lead Appraiser, Kent Johnson, is well-known and respected at the SEI and has been around CMM/CMMI for a while.  Here we go with timing again!

David Anderson had snuck in and sat behind my field of view and I didn’t know he was there until he spoke up about a topic of discussion.  I later learned that he’d been waiting for me outside in the lobby, concerned that I couldn’t get in to the meeting room because it was in a room in the conference area and I wasn’t properly badged for entry.  I guess all the qualified rent-a-cops were taken by DHS.

At the meeting was Alistair Cockburn, whom I really wanted to meet because he was probably the first Agile name to read my first published article and he said nice things about it.  My wife finds it fun to compare what people look like in person to what they look like in pictures, and even better, what they look like if you’ve never even seen them.  So for her, I note that Alistair is buff and was rather tan, in case anyone was wondering… but he bailed out before I could get a chance to meet him face-to-face.  Though seeing him "in action" was quite a treat.

After the APLN meeting, David and I went out for some DC culture.  The BrickSkeller (Don’t Google it.  Google returns their old, awful, site; don’t go there unless you don’t need your eyes).  I’m glad it wasn’t disappointing, in that despite having not been there in years, the kitchen was still slow but the beer was still plentiful and fabulous!  We both opted for a seasonal summer draught from Dogfish Head Brewery of Delaware that was absolutely perfect!  We munched, sipped and chatted about all things Agile/CMMI/Lean and related topics.  He then invited me to visit with some Microsoft buds (where he worked until about a year ago) who, it turned out, were dining at The Brickskeller’s sister pub, RFD.  Smaller beer selection, closer to the hotel, but nowhere near the character as it’s nestled in the newly revitalized China Town neighborhood (7th and F,G,H, I Streets, NW) of the District.  (As a complete aside, I must note how impressed I am with how effective and successful the re-vitalization of that area has worked!)

Many of these folks were also at the APLN meeting, but I didn’t know who they were at that time.  In fact, one is the current president of the organization.  One topic of conversation was a set of planning poker cards I picked up at one of the booths.  It was really pleasant to meet them and talk about agile ideas with a fun (and good-looking) group of people.  I’ve really gotta say a public "thank you" to David for is hospitality and generosity.  Not to mention his ideas.  He convinced me to write two books, like yesterday, and offered to co-author another with me.  What was that I was saying about timing?  Now, I just need to go find some more!

And well, that’s it.  I can’t exactly call it a "report" from Agile2007, but I hope to rectify that next year.  At least next year there won’t be a similar event like there is this year to get in my way of attending.