We are excited to announce the inaugural Agile on the Beach NZ for 2019.
This will be a fantastic new format conference for New Zealand, bringing together more than 100 practitioners, speakers, and those keen to learn more, for a weekend of agile story telling and discussion, with a beach party on Saturday evening.
The first Agile on the Beach took place in 2011 at Falmouth, Cornwall, UK. Those founders have worked with us to build a framework for independent Agile on the Beach events, with ours the first outside the UK.
Many thanks to Allan, Claire, Toby, Mike, and Mark from AOTB for their ongoing support for where we are taking their concept.
We are also working with Agile Alliance NZ.
A new format
This is primarily a practitioner-led event, bringing the purpose and content closer to the needs of those attending.
We settled on a new format, one that prioritises the stories that people need to tell, both from the typical agile context and those from other fields too. We’ll mix a blend of long and short form content with time for interaction and reflection as well.
Over three days, we will experience:
- Masterclasses: During the Friday before the conference welcome event, we will run a series of half-day masterclasses as deep dives on topics of significant interest.
- Friday: We will kick the weekend off on Friday evening with a welcome event, including some talks from the local Iwi, the event organizers, and special guests.
- Saturday: We’ve curated a compelling series of short 20-minute talks, 45-minute deep-dives, and some great keynotes. We’ve also included some time for speakers panels, so that participants got a chance to quiz what some of it meant.
- Sunday: The second day will then be handed over to participants, starting with meditation, yoga, or mentored walking followed by a shared breakfast and series of OpenSpace sessions.
A regional focus and putting people first
One of the principles from the original Agile on the Beach that really stuck with us, was their choice to locate it in an area of lower socio-economic prosperity. Cornwall is the second poorest region in northern Europe, with many of its young people migrating to the cities and property being bought from people outside the area for holiday homes. This resonated with some of our regions in NZ.
As we looked for potential regions in which to hold this, we spoke with representatives of regional development organisations and local iwi (Māori tribes), and found even stronger echoes of these conditions and a desire to see the same principles at play in all areas.
We talked with people in Northland, Bay of Plenty, and Nelson … and these discussions led us to selecting the beautiful location of Mount Maunganui, set in the stunning Bay of Plenty for our first event. This combines the essential beach (without which Agile on the Beach would be difficult) with the support of local businesses and iwi.
Dates
We have settled on the dates of April 5th to 7th, 2019. For those of you who initially registered interest for 2018, thank you for bearing with us.
While we are still finalising the finer details, we are incredibly honoured and excited to be bringing this concept to NZ and giving it a distinctly Kiwi twist,
We look forward to seeing you,
David and Colart.