General Questions
What's this all about?
This is a two day event for people who want a deeper understanding of how to bring the principles of Agility to their wider organisation.
Why 1st?
We have run an event called LAST (which stands for "Lean, Agile, Systems Thinking") conference since 2012. It is designed for experienced agile and lean practitioners. It was ranked in the Top 20 Agile Conferences in the world in 2014 by Software Development Today.
We wanted to build a different, more focused and curated experience than that at LAST Conference. We wanted to hear from some leading international names, while still maintaining the goal of enhancing learning in the agile community in Melbourne.
Who should come?
You should come if:
- you want to begin, or have recently started using agile ways of working and want to get off to a good start.
- colleagues in your organisation have been working with agile principles and you want to know more about what it's all about.
- you have experience and want to help coach your colleagues who are just starting out
- you have experience and you want to revisit the core principles that make agile so valuable
- you want to take agile principles to the whole organisation.
Job titles of people who should come may include but is not limited to: CIOs, CTOs, Directors, Developers, Product Managers, Business Analysts, Designers, UX Designers, Sales, Human Resources, Marketing, Legal, Testers, Project Managers.
What's the format
In 2018, the event will run over 2 days. Each day will have a mixture of talks and short workshops. The talks will be designed to stimulate and challenge your thinking around growing a culture of Organisational Agility. The workshops will help you to more deeply understand concepts and give you practices that you can try immediately. Added to this, The Heart of Agile framework is used as a useful bridge to Organisational Agility.
The venue
We are returning to Storey Hall at RMIT. Its amazing main auditorium will be the place for talks. Workshops will make use of space such as "The Green Brain", with fabulous views of the State Library, and seminar rooms.
What is The Heart of Agile?
We believe that The Heart of Agile framework is a useful bridge to Organisational Agility. Developed by Dr Alistair Cockburn, an original signatory to the Agile Manifesto, in 2017 we were the first event outside the USA to use the Heart of Agile as a framework.
As Alistair says on the Heart of Agile site.
“Agile has become overly decorated. Let’s scrape away those decorations for a minute, and get back to the center of agile.
When encouraging getting back to the center of agile, I found I kept emphasizing four things:
– Collaborate – Deliver – Reflect – Improve”
Will there be stress balls/t-shirts/bags/schwag?
Supporters of 1st Conference will be on hand, and they may have some nice "freebies" for you, however we believe that Content, Learning and Inspiration are far more important than "schwag". Just as "agile" has become overly decorated, we want to take a good look at your learning experience when coming to an event like this. Our reputation is built upon "community learning" providing deeper shared learning and we believe that our content is the most important thing at our event.
Will there be food?
You'll be fed and watered at morning and afternoon breaks. There will also be a post-event gathering, with sponsored drinks. Make sure you allow time to stick around and engage in stimulating follow up conversations about the day!
Registration FAQs
When will Registration open?
Registration will open at the end of October 2017. There will be a number of "Blind Bird" registrations available, Early Birds will then be open, ahead of Normal Bird registrations. We limit the number of registrations to enhance the learning experience for participants. We have always sold out this event, so please register early.
What about GST and fees?
1st Conference's registration price is inclusive of GST and Eventbrite fees.
Can you invoice my company?
We would prefer that you use the Eventbrite system to register. This keeps everyone's details in one place and makes sure that we can cater for your dietary requests and also saves administration. Savings made by automating this are passed back to you.
However, if there are multiple people from the same company registering, we may be able to register you by invoice.
Can I get a tax invoice?
Yes. We use Eventbrite who automatically send you a Tax Invoice for Australian taxation purposes.
Is my registration transferrable?
When you register, you also create an EventBrite account, which can be used to change your details or transfer your registration.
EventBrite tells you how to change your details or transfer your registration.
Why do you need extra info?
We will only use your information in the organisation of the event, or to let you know about related issues (such as other events we organise). It will be very easy for you to unsubscribe if our messages aren’t relevant for you.
We need to know your basics such as Name, and email, of course. We also ask for your mobile phone number, in case we need to contact you about something relating to the event.
We ask for your Job Title and Company, because it helps us get an idea of who's going to be coming, and helps us to tailor the day to your needs.
We need your Work Address in order to issue a Tax Invoice.
We also ask for any special dietary, or access requirements, to best cater for you on the day. Thanks for letting us know, we will do our best to fulfil your requirements.
We ask for your Twitter name. We are @1stConf on Twitter, and we use the hashtag #1stConf. We'd love to follow you..
If you agree when registering, that you would like to be contacted by our sponsors about their events, products and services, we will pass on your information. This is optional, and you must specifically opt-in during the registration process.