VikingPLoP 2006 Report By Aino Vonge Corry, Kristian Elof Sørensen and…

VikingPLoP 2006 Report
By Aino Vonge Corry, Kristian Elof Sørensen and Pavel Hruby

VikingPLoP 2006 was a three day conference, held from September 28 to October 1 (from
Thursday evening to Sunday afternoon) at Højstrupgård Castle near Helsingør, 60 km north
of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Organizers
Program chair: Aino Vonge Corry
Conference chairs: Kristian Elof Sørensen and Pavel Hruby
Program committee: Juha Pärssinen, Uwe Zdun, Kevlin Henney, James O. Coplien, Klaus
Marquardt

Attendees
VikingPLoP was attended by 19 participants, and by 3 guests that joined Saturday afternoon
and evening sessions. VikingPLoP still primarily serves Nordic countries and Germany.
Participants per country are: Denmark ­ 6, Norway ­ 3, Sweden ­ 1, Finland ­ 1,
Germany ­ 5, USA ­ 1, Canada ­ 1, India ­ 1.

Papers
Organizers received 11 submissions, from which the program committee rejected one paper
before shepherding and one paper after shepherding. The decision to reject a paper before
shepherding was based on three expert evaluations that all indicated that the paper shows
lack of domain knowledge and shepherding would not sufficiently improve it for writer's
workshop. One paper was rejected after shepherding, because of lack of improvement of the
paper during shepherding.

Program committee accepted 9 papers for writers' workshops; 7 pattern papers and 2 non--
pattern papers (a case study and a paper about formalizing patterns). The reason of
accepting the non-pattern papers was their high quality.

Program
We scheduled 2 parallel tracks of writer's workshops for pattern papers. We decided to
workshop the non-pattern papers in a large writer's workshop with all conference
participants, because the papers were interesting for participants in both groups. See also
comments in Lessons Learned ­ Suggestions for Improvements.

We had four focus group sessions scheduled for all participants (two sessions on Christopher
Alexander's Nature of Order, one on Model-Driven Design and one on Dating Patterns).

Thanks to Jim Coplien as a game master we played usual PLoP games. As an alternative way
of team building we also scheduled golf training for beginners on a par-3 golf course around
the castle (green fee was only 50 DKK (less than 10 USD) for conference attendees, and we
wanted to take advantage of this opportunity).

Finances
VikingPLoP has been budgeted with a small profit, and the budget was based on our
experience and actual data from VikingPLoP 2002, held at the same location. The financial
result of the conference was a loss, because of substantial and unanticipated increase of
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prices at the conference centre (mostly consumption that does not appear in a contract and
had to be estimated) since 2002.

Lessons Learned ­ Things to Keep
· We should keep a location outside the city.

·   The rain game and the name game seem essential, and morning and after-lunch games
    are highly appreciated, too.

·   An entertaining evening presentation, a light, but a pattern related topic. Aino Corry held
    a focus group "Dating Patterns" in a bar, based on a Solveig Haugland's book Dating
    Design Patterns.

·   High quality of writer's workshops is important and contributes significantly to overall
    satisfaction. Therefore, organizers should only accept papers of outstanding quality and
    reject the rest, even if it would mean less number of participants.

·   The golf event was positively mentioned several times, but it should be a voluntary event,
    part of "free time". Some people prefer other kinds of activities.

·   We should keep bar as a natural part of the conference program. This assumes free soft
    drinks, beer, wine, and snacks. We had a beamer and screen in a bar, which we used for
    Aino's presentation, and for showing pictures from earlier pattern events. The bar also
    had a jukebox and piano ­ both were heavily used, although not at the same time. After
    dinner, we served coffee in a bar, which made a smooth and natural transfer from dinner
    to bar.

·   The writers' workshop groups stayed together for lunch, which was positively commented.
    Writers' workshop was scheduled just before lunch and people moved from the writer's
    workshop room directly to dining room when their writers' workshop ended.

·   Participants appreciate excellent food, but we in fact have never tried serving bad food,
    so honestly speaking, we do not know how important good food is.

·   We have not printed draft proceedings and instructed participants to download and print
    the papers themselves. This worked quite well.

·   People like quick responses to e-mails (within hours) and organizer's ability to quickly
    resolve special requests from participants before and after the conference.

Lessons learned ­ Suggestions for Improvements
· We still do not know what to do with non-pattern papers, but we know that writers'
   workshops for non-pattern papers and large workshops do not work well. We should
   probably not accept non-pattern papers for writer's workshops. We might accept non-
   pattern papers for shepherding and, for example, suggest the author to hold a focus
   group for a non-pattern paper.




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·   We should evenly balance the workload during the days. There should be similar amount
    of writers' workshops every day (an introductory workshop does not count). People easily
    accept different schedule every day, but require similar amount of work each day.

·   We should schedule for longer breaks (we scheduled 15 minutes) between writer's
    workshops, so people could talk to the authors right after the workshopping their paper.

·   Include free time during the day. Free time in a bar does not count. Our program was
    filled with activities, and we should also schedule some time for "doing nothing".
    Organizers should inform about sport activities in the area.

·   The conference should be cheaper. This is a conflicting force with excellent food, free
    bar, long conference, and location outside the city. If we balance the forces, the
    conference should definitely not be more expensive.

·   Surprisingly many participants play some music instrument. We might instruct
    participants to bring music instruments with them, and arrange a jam session.

·   Have a single place in a conference centre for announcing schedule. As there are
    changes in the schedule, there should be a single place to post the most up-to-date
    schedule.

·   Timeline (which Linda Rising often makes) is required by many participants. Timeline is a
    wall with time axis, on which participants post colored cards with a text describing their
    impressions and thus providing feedback. Participants do it during the whole conference.

·   Marketing: organizers should make more effort to advertise PLoP conferences outside a
    pattern community. While non-pattern mailing lists do not seem to have a tangible
    effect, a solution might be in personal communication ­ simply mention VikingPLoPs at
    presentations, meetings for other communities the organizers and potential participants
    attend.

Lessons Learned ­ Finance
VikingPLoP 2006 used the "Nordic Design Patterns Association" set up for VikingPLoP 2004
and administered by Rebecca Rikner, as a legal entity and bank account. For the future we
should find an account with smaller annual costs, able to keep the balance more or less
intact in a period between conferences.

Organizing pattern conferences is still considered as a kind of service to the community. It is
based on voluntary work, and organizers strive to make the conferences as cheap as
possible. If conferences are budgeted around break-even point, it is natural that sometimes
there is a profit (such as VikingPLoP 2002), and sometimes loss, due to unexpected events.
If we would decide to keep the profit from VikingPLoP 2002 in Denmark instead of helping
following VikingPLoPs, we would still be in a positive balance. Current expectation, in which
the organizers pass eventual profit to the next year conference, which they cannot influence
in any way, but have to cover the eventual loss from their own money, seems unfair.

So, the current situation should change, and it can change in various directions ­ from
making VikingPLoP conferences for profit, to a decision of not organizing a conference,
unless there is a corporate sponsor, such as VTT in 2005.


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Appendix: Conference "Writers Workshop"
At the end of VikingPLoP 2006 we held a "writers workshop" on the conference itself. The
conference chairs were flies on the wall, Cecilia Haskins a moderator, and the rest of the
participants made a circle providing feedback. The feedback is relevant mainly to the
organizers of the next VikingPLoP.

The following text is a transcription of the notes taken during this writers' workshop.


Positive Feedback and Things to Keep

·   Location
    - Outside a big city
    - You have to be at the venue all the time during the conference
    - You have to stuck here, which is a positive thing

·   Games, especially those at the beginning of the conference (editorial note: the rain game
    and the name game), they facilitate interaction among the participants.

·   Quality and amount of food were good (editorial note: there was unlimited amount of
    food).

·   Drinks - free bar (editorial note: we had beer, wine and soft drinks)

·   Golf

·   Best chemistry amongst people of any PLoP the commenter has ever been to

·   Everyone at the conference was very responsive; it felt as if I knew them already. (said by
    a first time participant)

·   Perfect number of people - facilitates interaction (editorial note: 19 people took part in
    the whole conference, 3 visited for one afternoon and evening)

·   The "Dating Design Patterns" Focus Group was great

·   Small writers workshops (editorial note: the 19 people was split roughly evenly into two
    groups)

·   It was great to connect the usual PLoP curriculum to Nature of Order and Alexanders'
    work in general. (editorial note: we had a focus group on Nature of Order Volume 1)

·   The Writers workshop groups stayed together for lunch. This was good. (editorial note: It
    happened because a writers workshop was scheduled right before lunch and people
    moved from the WW to lunch when their WW ended)




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·   Before the conference organizers feared they would have too few papers for the writers
    workshops, but after the writers workshops were finished we felt that the amount of
    papers was correct.

·   The bar worked very well. (Editorial note: we had a cozy, living-room-kind-of a room
    available in the evening with a bar, coffee, cake, snacks and a piano. The entire group of
    people mingled and talked in small groups or held BoF style sessions in a bar every
    evening)

·   The bar also works at EuroPLoP but not at PLoP (editorial note: this is a participant's
    comment).

·   The transition from dinner to bar worked. There was not possible to sneak away after
    dinner. (Editorial note: we had a two course dinner in a dining room, and coffee and cake
    was served in a bar).

·   The welcome session


Suggestions for Improvements

·   Large writer's workshop of non-pattern papers (editorial note: 19 people) do not work
    well. Authors lacked a conclusion of a session, and they did not distinguished very well
    between suggestions for improvements and things to keep. If we do a large workshop, we
    should not do it with a first-time author. The result is that we do not know, yet, how to
    handle the non-patterns papers.

·   Do better at helping authors of non patterns papers (editorial note: the authors of non-
    pattern papers were informed 1 day advance that their paper will be workshopped in a
    large group, because a large group should provide more expertise and therefore better
    feedback. This obviously did not work, see the comment above).

·   Pay more attention to details in the organizing of the conference.

·   Day 1 had a much lighter workload than day 2 -> strive to even out the workload. 1 WW
    on day 1, the rest on day 2

·   Make the conference shorter and cheaper.

·   The conference should not be shorter because the group dynamics, and building trust
    requires about 3 days; a weekend is not enough.

·   Make the conference longer, there was no time for longer sessions.

·   Provide information on the conference website on sports facilities etc. available near the
    conference venue




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·   Ask participants to bring music instruments, or arrange some (editorial note: one of the
    participant attended a conference, with a hired professional musicians and equipment,
    and they facilitated a jam session for nearly all conference participants)

·   Make conference papers available to the conference participants earlier (editorial note:
    final conference papers were posted on a web site about 2 weeks prior to the
    conference, and workshop groups were announced about a week prior to the conference)

·   Schedule time for talking to authors in private, immediately after their papers has been
    workshopped.

·   As the conference schedule changes during the conference, there should be a single
    place in a conference site that contains the most up-to-date version of a schedule.

·   Make a timeline which Linda usually facilitates (editorial note: timeline is a wall in which
    participants can post colored cards with a text providing feedback. Participants do it
    through the whole conference.)

·   "as the conference did not do any marketing . . . " (editorial note: we sent a call for papers
    and a call for participation to the mailing lists somehow related to patterns. We should
    obviously find a way to reach non-pattern audience. However, at VikingPLoP 2002 we
    made much bigger effort in non-pattern mailing lists, but did not seem to have any
    tangible effect - all newcomers come for different reasons than these postings.)

·   Does it have to take place right before or after JAOO? (Editorial note: only one participant,
    Eric Evans came to VikingPLoP also because he attended JAOO). It would be worth of
    investigating beforehand whether JAOO organizers will invite people from patterns
    community, and base a decision on this information.



A short poll on Where First Time Participants Heard of VikingPLoP

·   3 heard of it from someone who had been to earlier VikingPLoP conferences
·   2 found it on the Hillside website




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