I was fortunate enough to attend Agile North Conference yesterday. I spent all the day in the practitioner based stream of the conference. I came away from yesterday brimming full of ideas of how to deal with some of the problems that we have at work. I’d say that most software development companies have these common problems.
Most areas where people live and work will have regular user groups for people who are interested in their craft (software development). I regularly attend XPManchester which is another great community from which to get ideas about eXtreme Programming, although there are other things which come out. Come along!
After XPManchester I met up with a couple of team members who had attended the BCS event about automated testing. I was slightly late to the pub but could hear the geek conversation going on downstairs – my colleagues were also brimming full of ideas and thoughts from that event.
These community events are really fantastic place to get new ideas from, talk to passionate people and generally get a buzz for development back – if you ever lose it!
There are loads of ideas out there, go and read about them. If something isn’t working at work then try to apply an idea to it. If it works then great – if not then don’t get disheartened keep trying different ideas until you find one which works for your environment, and even go back to ideas. If they failed back then it might be just because you didn’t do it in small enough chunks, or you didn’t really implement it properly.
Keep the changes small, and quick to reverse.
Once you’ve found something that works, share it with the community! Most other companies are having similar problems to yours!
Share the communities you find with your fellow colleagues at work – some people will definitely be interested in attending!