I’m on the plane returning from a Scan Agile conference that was just joyful. What made it that way? Was it the setting in the gorgeous looking Paastorni conference centre, was it the fact that the hotel was next door or was it because the speaker dinner the night before the conference set just about the right tone? Erm, of course that all helped, but I think it was the people.| beny23.github.io
Writings about software: development and security| beny23.github.io
Sheffield is the city of steel, and at the heart of it lies a lovely university building - the Owen building that hosted the North’s premier hacker con And I had been accepted to talk at SteelCon about AppSec and Agile and who wouldn’t want to drive over Snake Pass to cross into the wrong side of the Pennines. [Ducks]. Over the past year, I found myself going to quite a few community infosec events (I did the Northern BSides triathlon last year - Lancs, Leeds and Newcastle) and I feel lik...| beny23.github.io
Once again, I’m sat at Schipol Airport typing up my thoughts about a few days of refreshing Dutch DevOps Goodness! Ok, I admit one or five alcoholic beverages might have been involved too. This was my first DevOpsDays and it did not disappoint. My day started at 3am to catch a flight at 6am but because I was still awake at 1:30 and had decided sleep is for wimps, I arrived a little bit wired.| beny23.github.io
Many conferences have a hallway track, I loved that Agile Manchester had a jigsaw track. The organisers put out a jigsaw on a big table where attendees could mingle over searching through the 2000 pieces and chat at the same time. Such a great way of breaking the ice. And such a brilliant metaphor. A complex task is achieved through self organisation. Teams self-select and offer assistance all without intervention and imposed coordination or management.| beny23.github.io
I am back at home, a few days after my first experience of Agile on the Beach. There were a few problems with it (yes, yes, I’m baiting you, I loved it). There was too much quality, it was really hard to pick which talks to go to. There was too much fun, it was difficult to leave the after-party after the beach party. And it was hard to keep track of all the new faces and names.| beny23.github.io
As I am sitting on the 16th floor of the Okura Hotel in Amsterdam in my Batman pyjamas and facing a large mirror, just glimpsing the paper crane that was so lovingly put on my pillow, I’m starting to reflect what has happened during the day. I was lucky enough to be a guest at the DevOps Enterprise Summit. There was certainly plenty of things to get excited about. I’d meet Gene Kim, who’s been running this conference for 10 years and who wrote the Phoenix Project.| beny23.github.io