Agile on the Bench was a friendly, low-fi, lunchtime, outdoor, agile meetup.
It was mix of short talks and open questions about all things agile, people, teams, users and getting things done… on a bench, in a park (with a bandstand as a backup, just in case it rains).
Topics included: how the making of Blondies parallel lines is like an Agile project; what carpentry can teach you about pairing; what ice swimming can teach us about product ownership; applying lean startup and systems thinking to social enterprises and what product owners can learn from primary school teachers.
Agile on the Bench was founded in October 2014, by Emily Webber and David Lowe. it was a community event run by agile people for agile people (and passing joggers). Your host were Emily Webber along with Cara Bermingham and David Lowe.
Where was it?
We held most of our meetups once a month in Shoreditch, in the beautiful (and historically significant) Arnold Circus. And before that in Lincoln’s Inn Field
The talks
We welcomed submissions from anyone and particularly loved supporting new speakers (especially Agile on the Bench regulars). We know speaking can be daunting, so we kept talks short, gave lots of support and helped people turn a seedling of an idea into a 10 min talk.
Can I run an Agile on the Bench?
Yes you can. We have released the Agile on the Bench format under a creative commons licence, so you can run your own Agile on the Bench. Details and guidance about how you should go about it are here.
That sounds amazing, have you ever thought of running a conference in a campsite?
Funny you should ask. Yes we have and in 2015, we ran a minimum viable conference in a campsite in Essex, find out more about that on the website over here.