On March 10th, the board of the Agile Alliance held a reception here in downtown Nashville at B.B. King’s Blues Club. They were in town to tour the Gaylord Opryland Hotel where they will be hosting the Agile 2010 conference in August.

The reception gave local Agile enthusiasts the chance to sit down with these thought leaders and have some great conversations. Benny Baggott, from Ingram Book, told me how great it was to chat with Henrik Kniberg since his book “Scrum and XP from the Tranches” was very influential in his organization's adoption of Agile practices. I talked at length with Laurent Bossavit  about Agile adoption, certifications, and more. It was a real treat.

Phil Brock gave us a sneak peak the new community section of the Agile Alliance website and invited the Nashville Agile User Group to be a test group for the site. If you are interested, please sign up on the site and provide us your feedback. The hope is that more groups will use this site which will provide a cohesive community.

Jim Newkirk gave us an overview of the upcoming conference in August and opened the door for anyone in Nashville who would like to volunteer. If you are interested hit me on Twitter and I will get you in touch with Jim.

It was a great night and there were many new faces in the crowd and I really hope this will translate into surge in activity in the local Agile community. So sign up on our new website and we will see you at our next meeting!