Ron Jeffries just announced that he will be the keynote speaker at the upcoming Waterfall 2006 conference with an intriguing keynote entitled Extreme Programming Uninstalled. From the conference page:
Feedback, we now see, is the problem, not the solution. How is it possible to get anything done if all the time you’re looking for, listening to, and – worst of all — Responding to Change? We have only to look at the present international situation to understand how useless feedback is, and how powerful the strategy is of setting a course and sailing it. It works for our leaders: it will work for us. We can set our course into a Contract, then give the Customer what he needs. Their Collaboration isn’t needed. What is needed is for them to accept what we, their leaders, provide for them. In this context, I must admit that XP and Agile had one thing right: there can be no Negotiation.
Additional seminars include:
- The Joy of Silence: Cube Farm Designs That Cut Out Conversation by Alistair Cockburn
- Introduction to Dogmatic Programming by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas
- Testing: Saving the Best for Last by Lisa Crispin
- FIT Testing In When You Can; Otherwise Skip It by Ward Cunningham
- Avoiding the Seven Pitfalls of Lean by Mary Poppendieck
Personally I’m bummed because I don’t think I’ll be able to get my employer to send me to it and Agile 2006. Then again, with the ability to clearly lay out the problems, maybe these waterfall guys are on to something.