Expanding Agile Horizons

Agile 2008 will be an exciting conference about techniques and technologies, attitudes and policies, research and experience, and the management and development sides of agile software development.

The agile approach focuses on delivering business value early and being able to incorporate emergent requirements. It accentuates the use of rich communication channels and frequent delivery of running, tested systems, while attending to the human aspect of software development.

Agile 2008 puts attendees in contact with the latest thinking in the agile domain, enriching our collective body of knowledge, influencing the line of thought in the field, encouraging debate, and fostering innovative ideas. It brings together executives, managers, software development practitioners and researchers from labs and academia. The conference is not about a single methodology or approach, but rather provides a forum for the exchange of information regarding all agile development technologies.

Our opening keynote speaker is James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds - Why The Many Are Smarter Than The Few And How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies And Nations. In his book, Jim describes systematic ways to organize and aggregate the intelligence available in your organization in order to arrive at superior decisions—often better than those that individuals would make, even if they are ‘experts’. Robert C. Martin, Object Mentor (known to many as "Uncle Bob") and author of Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices will give a conference banquet speech entitled "Oh, Agile!". Our closing keynote will be Alan Cooper. Alan is recognized as "Father of Visual Basic" and the inventor of using personas in Interaction Design. He’s author of About Face 3: The Essentials of User Interface Design and is known for his provocative insights about building usable software which make him a compelling keynote speaker.

We have had a great response to our call for participation. You can browse the proposals being reviewed for our program in our selection system. The full program will be announced in early May.