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Dictionary of terms

A programmer, tester, software architect, product architect, technical manager, CTO, CEO or any other person that wants to see the best practices of passionate people in the software world.

A meeting in which programmers meet and work on some requirements. The purpose of the meeting is to have fun, learn, and improve their skills by following the spirit of deliberate practice.

There are several types of dojos among which the most popular are the Prepared Kata and the Randori.

The Prepared Kata is a code performance on a screen in front of a group; it is timeboxed from the beginning and the presenter needs to explain each step to the audience. The audience may not speak during this interval. It can be done by a single presenter or by two presenters doing pair-programming.

The Randori is a group coding experience. At all times two people are writing code, in front of an audience. The audience may not speak if the two programmers writing code ask so, but there are various mechanisms of rotating the persons writing code. Two popular  mechanisms are timeboxing and Ping Pong pairing. The two programmers writing code need to explain at all times what they are doing.

1. For an open space session. The facilitator explains the concept of the meeting, all the rules, and makes sure the activities are on time. The facilitator needs to be “invisible”, without managing or directing the conversations.

2. For an open space session. The session facilitator, also called local facilitator to distinguish from the open space facilitator, is the person that submits the session to the market place. He or she will make sure that the session starts at time, and all the needed materials are at the designated place.

3. For a workshop. The facilitator is the person that presents the purpose, the rules, and the timebox of the workshop. Throughout the activity he or she will make sure the rules are respected by the attendees and that the purpose of the workshop is reached.

An exercise in programming which helps a programmer improve their skills through practice and repetition. One of the most popular lists for code katas is the Coding Dojo Wiki.

A special track for programmers that want to practice and become better at coding. During the unconference, at any time, any attendee can ask to write a program on some requirements. The requirements will contain: the problem (called a kata), a timebox after which the attendee needs to stop even if the problem is not solved completely, and a person that will review the code. The reviewer will discuss the code with the programmer and give improvement ideas. The best code written during this track will receive a special prize. An innovation of ours, as far as we know.

It is a talk type that establishes the principal underlying theme of a gathering, like a meeting or an unconference. It is delivered to set the tone and summarize the core message or most important revelation of the event. The keynote speaker is well known for his or her expertise in a particular field. It is usually a slightly longer talk at the beginning or at the end of the day.

A concept describing a programmer being able to work with any programming language, depending on the task and how useful this language is for solving that task. The concept is applied because this principles of coding go much deeper than the choice of the language.

A very visible space, usually on a wall, where the agenda of the open space is shown. The market place can be modified at any time by the local facilitators by consensus. The participants can see at any time the agenda and can move freely between the spaces, learning and contributing as they “shop” for information and ideas.

For each session of the market place the following need to be clearly shown: the title of the session, the local facilitator, the time slot and the space where to meet.

A gathering characterized by its initial lack of agenda. The participants themselves create the agenda for the group, in the first 30-60 minutes of the meeting. The agenda is also called the marketplace. The meeting is self-organized, where the only rule that applies is “The law of two feet”.

The open space starts with an introduction made by the organizer. After that one or more persons called facilitator(s) will explain the concept and invite the attendees to add subjects somewhere visible. Every person that proposed a subject needs to be at the designated place, at the respective time. That person will be the local facilitator of the session. The local facilitator does not need to know the subject, it may be just a curiosity that triggers a discussion that improves the knowledge of that subject for all the attendees.

During this unconference we will have a special track where any of the attendees can present ideas and learn from other attendees by having free conversations on interesting topics.

We define the specific interests of the audience by fictional people having names and interests.

During the unconference anyone can join this track where a team develops a product in real time.

A relatively new concept where attendees of a conference create a software product during the conference starting from nothing or almost nothing up-front. The development is made in increments of one hour called sprints. After each sprint anyone can leave and attend another session and anyone can come and join the development team.

The team is cross-functional, made from programmers, testers, business analysts, product owners, scrum masters, etc.

The users of the software are the attendees of the conference. Any user can come at the development team and ask for a feature, post a bug or give any other type of feedback.

A meeting held by a group (ex: a project team, conference attendees) at the end of an activity to discuss what was successful, what could be improved, how to keep the successes and plan improvements for the future.

During a conference the purpose of the retrospective is to keep a strong connection with the audience in order to keep the successful activities and to improve the less successful activities for the next editions.

During this unconference we will have a special track focusing on speakers delivering talks.

The talks during this unconference will be focused on code or on techniques for programmers, testers, architects, technical managers, etc.

A presentation made by one or more persons to a group. During a talk most of the time is used by the speaker. Comments may be accepted during or at the end of the session. Each talk has a specified length decided by the organizers and the speaker(s).

The general rule that applies during Open Space: If at any time during our time together you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing, use your two feet, go someplace else.

A fixed period of time allocated for an activity. If the activity is not finished during the timebox, the timebox will not be extended. At best another timebox can be planned for the activity.

A gathering that focuses on the technical side of an activity, rather than on the theoretical side. It is characterized by hands-on sessions or working in production-like settings, but with a focus on providing an environment that helps learning.

A series of activities of the same type (talks, coding sessions, open space discussions) that usually happen sequentially in the same place(s).

An unconference is a participant-driven meeting. The term “unconference” has been applied to a wide range of gatherings that try to avoid one or more aspects of a conventional conference, such as high fees, sponsored presentations, and top-down organization.

A group activity that focuses on learning by practicing an idea or a concept. A workshop is characterized by the high degree of learning due to the interaction with other members of the group.

A workshop is facilitated by one or more people who give the rules of the learning environment. The facilitator can be more or less invasive during the activities, as that person finds appropriate.

Each workshop has a specified length decided by the organizers and the facilitator(s).

A separate track of the conference during which only workshops will be organized.

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  1. […] us, during the winter retreat) we discussed this and we had some crazy ideas like the fact that we will not allow any speakers not to have code in their presentation. Or that we will build a kata lounge, where programmers could practice and […]

  2. […] guys who were sitting and I approached him. Then I saw that he was coding, he was doing a coding kata for the Kata Lounge […]

  3. […] like value objects, no naked primitives, no naked collections. Cyril has proved it with the kata from his talk. Now I’m starting to use functional programming in my Java code. Try it and let […]

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