LAS 2018
The LAS (Lean-Agile-Scrum) conference took place this year on June 12th for the 9.5 time in Zurich at X-tra. This year only half a day, as next year's 10th anniversary will be a memorable highlight.
However, back to LAS 2018.
David Snowden opened the conference with his keynote speech lasting just over an hour and the promise to excite the audience. He would have intended to upset some people, and he would not have to apologize - he was doing it on purpose. With the message "Agile has arrived at the end of the lifecycle", he immediately gained all the attention.
With the help of the lifecycle curve he showed that we in the agile community have experienced the change from the innovators to the early adopters and now already reached the early majority. This also changes the requirements of the customer. While the innovators and early users have been pondering on the question "How does it work?" the early majority wants to know "What can it do and what does it do for me?"
This is accompanied by an increased demand for AGILE. The big consultancies take sentences from the agile world and integrate them into their consultancies. Another characteristic is the specialization of the idea. While a few years ago there were only Scrum, Kanban and other agile methods, today certificates in "Agile HR", "Agile Purchasing" and further AGILE specialization can be acquired.
From this point of view, the idea AGILE is at its peak and it also emphasizes what has become of the original idea. He claims that the AGILE Communiy has mutated into an AGILE Industrial Complex. Many community representatives promise that if you use this and that tool and stick exactly to the processes, then you are AGILE and thus at the destination of your dreams. But wait: what does the Agile Manifesto say? Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
The revolution eats its children and the AGILE community falls back into the old management patterns. David's presentation is available in English here.
After the keynote we could recover from the shock during the break and then we continued in 3 tracks. From field report to food for thought, everything was thematically included.
The conference was excellently organized and after the closing keynote by Jutta Eckstein the aperitif was opened. If you hadn't heard anything exciting until then, you could meet over 120 active agilists at the aperitif and talk shop until the reserves for drinks and snacks had run out.
We can't wait to see what the organizing committee has in mind for the 10th LAS. See you there! DasScrumTeam was a proud Platinum Sponsor and we were also present on site.
About the author
Peter Beck
Peter has set himself the task of creating companies that deliver value for their customers and employees. That was also the motivation behind his decision to found DasScrumTeam. Peter is a passionate Scrum Trainer (Certified Scrum Trainer, CST) and consultant with a solid background in engineering. Since 2007, he has trained and advised a wide range of development teams, specialist departments, project managers and those in leadership positions, helping them to apply the Scrum framework, agile planning methods and software engineering practices. Peter is a graduate engineer (Dipl.-Ing, TU) specialising in electrical engineering and information technology.
- Experience with Scrum since 2004 as Team member, Scrum Master, Product Owner, Coach and Trainer.
- Served as ScrumMaster in internationally distributed Scrum Teams
- Co-founder and Product Owner at DasScrumTeam AG
- Key interests: Agile companies and Scrum beyond Software
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