Lyon - Bordeaux, there's no denying it, that's quite a trek ... but the trip was worth it. 🤩
On October 26 and 27 was held the 24th edition of Agile Tour Bordeaux to (re)give the presentation « Accelerate, FAST & UnFix sont dans un bateau » that I had already done at Sophia Antipolis with Yannis. But this time, there will be 3 of us on stage with Jean-Yves' help. The theme of this edition was « qualité et résilience : complices de votre amélioration continue ».
To get there I barely had a choice, train or car. The former really tempted me, but the schedules and frequencies weren't very appealing; the latter promised me 6 hours of driving. After some discussions, I finally carpooled with JY, which allowed us to take turns while chatting, which makes time and kilometers go by much faster. The rain still forced us to ease off the pedal at times; this very unstable weather slowly improved over the 2 days, finally giving us some nice clear spells on the way back.
Having arrived on site around 9pm, we rush to park the car to go to the speakers' meal; we'll see about the hotel later. To get you in the mood right away, there's one little thing I particularly appreciated about this event: the grouping of all the venues, which allows you to do everything on foot.
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« Le coq » was the restaurant of the first evening, literally 10 meters from the hotel. 3iS, which hosts the event, is less than 500 m from the hotel, so in 5 min (especially in the rain) you could make the connection. «Be Wine» welcomed us on the evening of the first day before we went to eat at « Fellini ». Being able to leave the car in the hotel parking lot and not worry about it until the end was really pleasant.
If you want to know what you missed, the program is over here.
After the very enriching opening presentation, I headed to amphitheater 105 to listen to short presentations, about 20 minutes each.
The first was « N'oublie pas ta bulle » presented by Alice Marteau, Geoffrey Graveaud, Nathalie Fontaine and Anissa Benmehidi. Very interesting feedback on setting up a community of inter-company coaches to discuss their own issues.
Being in the front row, their layout didn't allow me to photograph them all together unfortunately.
UPDATE: Alice provided me with a nice photo of the full group.
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The second presentation was « PO/Designer, duo-gagnant pour la conception de votre produit ! » by Noémie M. Rivière who explained to us the complementarity of the PO and Designer roles, especially during the product initialization phase. I discovered the role of "Product Designer" which comes on top of UI and UX. Really very interesting.
Then comes our turn!
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As at Sophia we exceeded our allotted time... but more reasonably this time. The questions that flew throughout the presentation led us to believe the audience was interested and curious about the topics presented.
Lunch break.
In the afternoon, our friend Thomas Moreau invited us to co-facilitate his workshop on UnFix. Yannis and JY did it, but I (selfishly) preferred to enjoy the speakers. So I opted for « Je te promet le chaos » by Anne-Laure Gaillard and « La matrice de compétences Agile l'outil absolu pour la résilience de vos projets et de vos équipes » by Mathieu Allouche. The former shared her experience of "chaos testing" with us and the latter explains what a skills matrix is and how to use it.
And the first day finally ends. I haven't described all the moments of exchange and sharing that you can have during these events, but they are very numerous and enriching. The rest of the evening first took place in the bar, of which I will publish one and only one photo 😅
After a somewhat short night, we set off again for the second day starting with « (Et si on apprenait à) Apprendre et partager autrement » by Aurélie Vache. I take my hat off to her for managing to deliver her presentation so well, with the elocution problems that are hers. A nice lesson in self-confidence which is ultimately one of the themes of her presentation.
Special mention to the speaker intros of this day where we saw parade M&M's, a wig, an 80s tracksuit, a guitarist and other merriments ...
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For my part, I opted for « Loi de Conway : Lorsque les bonnes pratiques ne suffisent pas » by Julien Topçu who really convinced me. It is so easy to shirk the surrounding professional mess by invoking this law, that it is pleasant to see its demystification, then different tools and a strategy to fight it as best as possible. Really very instructive.
Apparently, in parallel, Fabrice Bloch and Juliette Lorentz's conference also made quite a few followers with their « Soyez vilains, sabotez votre transfo - Arkham Management School », where some disruptive elements wanted to apply the sabotage methods live.
Last presentation of the morning with « Waterfall, Agilité : de l'utilité de se confronter et de travailler ensemble » by Anthony Praud, Alain Delachaux and Christian Simion, yellow M&M's, red and the little new blue one. That's where I understood that Fabrice and Juliette wanted to pay these rascals back. Let's say their talk was lightly sliced carpaccio-style, through unforeseen interventions. That didn't detract from the quality of what was said and rather cheerfully livened up the session ... but for those who weren't aware of these interruptions, it couldn't have been easy to follow. If I put myself in the shoes of someone outside our merry bunch, you got the impression of a joyful mess sabotaging a presentation that looked interesting.
The morning ends and we enjoy our second meal to chat with even more people than the day before ... before saying our goodbyes. Yes indeed, we still have road ahead of us and the last 48 hours have been fairly busy. Jean-Yves and I therefore skipped the afternoon and its open forum.
One last word to finish. If you're disappointed not to have come, well you're in luck! The event's host venue is an institute of image and sound, which means recording of the sessions was planned! Except for the workshops obviously. So stay tuned to the org's announcements to see or re-watch the speakers and their diatribe.
Taking part in organizing this event tempts you, but you don't know what it involves? Anne-Laure Gaillard presents it for the 2022 edition with this very nice article .
Once again a big thank you to all these volunteers who keep this kind of event alive.
