Last year I attended two agile conferences: Scrum Gathering 2013 and Agile 2013. I enjoyed both events tremendously. I am much better because of my time there. I have to say that they were expensive. I pay for my conference travel, admission, and hotel. I take vacation to go to these types of events. I do a comparative of these events with my local agile communities of practice. I am lucky enough to be a part of one of the largest communities of practice in the country, and it is powerful. We have incredible voices, ideas, presentations, workshops, and conversations. We are a series of regularly scheduled conferences. Good conferences...

This year I decided to attend Scrum Gathering 2014 and opt out of Agile 2014. When I compared the two last year, I paid about $3000 more for Agile 2014, I do not think that I got comparative value for the difference. Scrum Gathering is a smaller conference but I was a powerful event. Scrum Gathering 2014 was not the same as 2013. There were different "big names". I was very much looking forward to Lyssa Adkins and Michael Spayd. Their area of work has been an important focus for me lately. Different is not less. It's just different. I had two events that I looked forward to when seeing the agenda. One did not turn out well for me and I am not going to call the presenter out. My favorite was Love Agile: Life in Scope by Shannon Mason. The blurb was "Many of us practice Agile methods or principles every day but stop once we leave the office. But why? Let me show you how to take it home!" It was magnificent. She was totally involved with the audience and brought life experience into the delivery of her material. She had great passion on the subject and it was very apparent in the outcome.

The food was great across the city and I could post about that by itself. I think for the most part I was more interested in spending time in New Orleans and being immersed in its culture than I was with the conference. I received a good piece of interrogative advice. "What will you do to make it better next year?"