XP 2021 Experience Report Submissions

Important Dates

• Submission system is open NOW. Click here
• Feedback and revisions on proposals: January – February 28
• Final date to submit or revise a proposal/change it to “ready to evaluate” state: February 28, 2021
• Notification of acceptance/rejection: March 14, 2021
• Shepherding process begins: March 14, 2021
• Final version of experience report due: May 14, 2021

All dates are defined as the end of the day anywhere on earth (AoE).

Submissions

The Experience Reports Track provides the opportunity for you to share observations, hard-fought wisdom, and practical advice through a paper and accompanying talk at the conference. An experience report is a first-hand description of challenges faced, approaches taken, observations, and insights. Unlike a case study, an experience report is personal. We encourage authors to introduce themselves to their readers and to reflect on their experience. We invite potential experience reporters to submit a proposal that describes in more detail an original, unpublished experience related to agile and lean software development and what you intend to focus on in your written report. The experience reports will be oriented toward industry practitioners and welcoming to interested academics.

If your proposal is accepted, you will then be shepherded as you write your report. Experience reports are short papers (maximum 8 pages) that will be published on the conference website in ACM full-page format (authors will be provided a file template). Authors retain the copyright to their work and sign a permission form granting XP 2021 the right to publish their report online. Authors of accepted proposals are further expected to prepare and deliver a virtual presentation.

Proposals are submitted electronically via the Agile Alliance submission system by the defined deadlines. You do not need to upload a full paper as part of your initial submission but you are encouraged to write an extensive abstract and submit a detailed proposal sharing highlights of your experience and what you intend to focus on. We encourage you to give us enough information so we can make an informed decision and ask you clarifying questions. There will be an opportunity for reviewers to ask questions and for submitters to revise their proposals before selections are made.

Guidelines

These questions might help you decide how to focus your experience report:

• How did you uniquely adopt, adapt, evolve, blend, or scale Agile practices?
• How have you uniquely tackled architecture, development, design, usability, quality assurance, deployment, marketing, product definition, requirements, or documentation?
• How did you introduce Agile practices to your organization and manage the transition to an Agile culture?
• What were the challenges you faced? How successful were you in overcoming them? What challenges remain?
• What mistakes did you make? What insights have you gained that others could learn from?
• If you’ve been doing Agile development for a long time, how have your values or ways of working changed? What are you doing now and why?

Shepherding

We know it’s not easy to get ideas onto paper. Whether you’re a first-time author or you already have some publications under your belt, we can all benefit from some guidance and help. ‘Shepherding’ is a process where more experienced authors guide and coach you through writing your experience report paper. If your proposal is accepted, you will be assigned a shepherd to work with you to help you shape your paper and get it ready for publication.

Shepherds work closely with authors, reviewing drafts and freely giving advice. Shepherds ask clarifying questions and suggest improvements. But ultimately it is you, the author, who decides what to tell and how to tell it. A shepherd is not an editor, although they may generously make detailed comments on how to revise your paper. Once the shepherd agrees that your report is acceptable, you will submit your final version to the track co-chairs who will check that it is ready for publication and conforms to our publishing style guidelines.

Review, Feedback, Acceptance

Prospective authors are encouraged to request feedback on their initial submission. Once you are satisfied with your proposal, you must change its status to “ready for evaluation.”

Topics of Interest

As 2021 marks twenty years since the creation of the Agile Manifesto, we are particularly interested in experience reports that reflect on how agile practices have evolved and new innovations. Consider these areas if you are looking for ideas to focus on in your experience report. Topics of particular interest to the conference include, but are not limited to:

• Delivering Value and Creating New Business

• • Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery
  • Modelling and understanding customer value
  • The Lean start-up, including experimentation and MVP

• Large-Scale Agile

• • Adopting and adapting Agile and Lean in large projects and organizations
  • Global software development and offshoring
  • Agile transformations

• Agile practices and their evolution

• • Novel practices and techniques related to requirements, testing, architecture, development, deployment, UX design, marketing, product definition
  • Experiments in software development and their relation to Agile methods
  • Tools for Agile development
  • How your Agile practices have evolved

• Human, Organizational, and Managerial Aspects

• • Social aspects of teams and groups
  • Forming Agile organizations
  • Agile coaching and mentoring
  • Management and governance
  • Measurement and metrics for projects, programs, processes, and teams

Programme Committee

Co-chairs Email

• Rebecca Wirfs-Brock
• Lise Hvatum

Reviewers/Shepherds:

• Frank Olsen
• Ken Power
• Susan Burk
• Jutta Eckstein
• Avraham Poupko
• Cherifa Mansoura
• Siva Kumar
• Steve Adolph
• Niels Harre
• Nathalie Hammering
• Staffan Eriksson
• Ademar Aguiar