The idea was born: the first German-language RTE BarCamp.
No sooner said than done. A cross-functional orga team consisting of employees from both companies quickly came together, eager to organize and carry out the event. The target groups were quickly identified under the motto of "class instead of mass". The BarCamp was to offer an exciting exchange of experiences for experienced SAFe® users and experts, primarily RTEs, STEs, SPCs, SSMs and LACE members. Acronyms are a dream, aren't they? For the sake of completeness, it should be mentioned that an Epic Owner also made it among the participants^^. However, since every SAFe® specialist knows that this is a function and not a role, we relaxed about it. We were able to get two very experienced SAFe® users to make exciting contributions in advance:
- Dr. Thorsten Janning from KEGON, a SAFe® Fellow, with his keynote speech "Big Room Refinement"
- Peter Vollmer from Micro Focus, SCPT, with his keynote speech "5 years of SAFe® at Micro Focus".
On May 16, 2019, the time had come. The doors of wibas GmbH in Darmstadt opened for the first German-language RTE BarCamp. The organizing team was looking forward to the almost 50 participants and their exciting session contributions.
The event was opened by the three moderators Felix Rüssel (KEGON), Manuel Marsch (KEGON) and Matthias Racke (wibas), who warmly welcomed the participants and explained the organizational framework.
Thorsten Janning made the first substantive contribution to the RTE BarCamp with his keynote speech "Big Room Refinement".
The presentation of the session contributions by the participants followed with great anticipation. Fears that there would not be enough contributions were dispelled within a few minutes when a long queue formed, eager to present their contributions. More than 30 contributions came together, divided into 5 rooms with 6 sessions each.
From then on, the BarCamp took its course. The participants discussed a wide range of topics from test automation, continuous delivery pipeline, DevOps, development paths of an SPC, gamification, to metrics and leadership topics.
Of course, refreshments were a must. The catering was ready around midday. Over tasty snacks, the participants discussed the content of the sessions they had attended so far and exchanged views on general topics and challenges. Many participants already had the good feeling at this point that they were not alone with their challenges regarding agile scaling and could gain a lot of knowledge and experience here.
The kick-off after the lunch break was followed by a sociometric positioning of the participants according to various aspects, such as "arrival distance" and "SAFe® role". Group dynamics are always a dream.
Peter Vollmer then took over with his keynote speech "5 years of SAFe® in Micro Focus". It was exciting to see how a company uses several Large Solution Trains to align and coordinate a large number of Agile Release Trains.
Peter's keynote speech was followed by further interesting session contributions from the participants.
At the end of the BarCamp, a short feedback round was initiated. The organizing team was simply thrilled with the positive feedback. The same goes for the feedback given by the participants during the day and when they left the event.
The best feedback was when a participant asked if we would organize BarCamp again next year.
The answer is: YES! With this in mind, we are already looking forward to welcoming you again at the next RTE BarCamp in 2020.
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