Held March 8th through 10th at the Gaylord Palms Convention Center in Orlando, FL the 2010 Scrum Gathering was a ‘Who’s Who’ of the Agile & Scrum communities. Organized by the Scrum Alliance the event was kicked off with a keynote from Scrum Alliance President and Chairman Tom Mellor.

Breakout sessions and presentations at the event included speakers such as Jeff Sutherland, Lyssa Adkins, Karl Scotland, Tom & Kai Gilb, Sanjiv Augustine, Jimi Fosdick, Mark Perry, and Richard Perrin (to name a few). It was great to finally meet and hear presentations in person from people like Gerry Kirk (@gerrykirk), Mike Cottmeyer (@mcottmeyer), and Jurgen Appelo (@jurgenappelo) who I’ve followed on twitter for quite some time.

It was great to catch up with some of our instructors who were in attendance, including Bill Gaiennie (@AgileAdvisor), Peter Borsella, and Jim Smith.

The hot topics for the event seemed to be coaching & managing self-organized teams, Kanban, and various techniques and games to encourage collaboration and Scrum concepts. I actually spent most of my time on March 8th learning and practicing improv techniques, then relating them to Scrum concepts. The workshop was completely out of my character (I’m usually the quiet guy in the back taking pictures), which is why I chose it. I had a blast getting out of my comfort zone, and creatively collaborating with others in a new way.

Additionally, the Scrum Alliance announced some big news. Tom Mellor will reign for another year, but the organization will be adding 2 members from the user & practitioner community to the Board. There’s a great recap of the event at InfoQ report on the Orlando Scrum Gathering.