Tuesday 23 May 2017

You can still create new Working Sessions and the Owasp Summit Schedule is not final !

(email sent to all Summit participants)

Hi Summit Participant, I had a couple emails about the Summit schedule which seem to imply that it was the final version, and that changes would be hard to make.

Just to be very clear. The final schedule will most likely only be published a couple days before the Summit (if not the day before). This is by design, and is a key factor in the Summit's success (to give you an idea of how much better we are this time around, at the last Summit (2011), we only had the first draft of the schedule about 4 days before the Summit started)

Our objective with the schedule is maximise participant's time and their need to be part of specific Working Sessions. From a practical point of view, what this means is that we map out first the key players and organisers of a particular Working Session, and then make sure (as much as we can) that there are no conflicts.

There are also very interesting dynamics, where some Working Sessions really should occur before others.

One of the advantages of having the Participants 5 days in the same location, is that we have quite a lot of flexibility on how we create the schedule (and from the participant point of view, what matters is that the Working Session happens and the conflicts are minimal)

The only Working Sessions that are staring to be 'locked' to a particular day (not to a specific time), are the ones where the organisers are only going to be at the Summit for 1 or 2 days (which so far are very few cases). We will try to add a visual clue on the schedule to indicate which sessions are in this situation.

For the other 95% of Sessions, you should consider the current schedule as fluid and in a liquid state  :)

This is why it is so important that you register for the Working Sessions you want to be actively involved, since that is the only way we can help you.

Regarding the creation of new Working Sessions, again we are still in full darwinian mode, so please keep creating them (up until the Summit starts). 

The 'only' requirements for Working Sessions to be added to the schedule, is for them to have: energy, focus, quality and a solid 'definition of done'. 

In the last Summit, some of the best and most relevant Working Session only 'appeared' close to the start date (and some during the Summit).

To give you an idea of the current rate of Working Session creation, here are the 13 created last week:
I hope you agree with me that there are some VERY interesting topics and ideas in these recently added Working Sessions.

The questions you need to ask yourself is: 

Given the amount of talent and knowledge that will be at the Summit, what should they work on? 

What can only be created when you have all that brain power gathered in the same location and focused on working together on a common topic?

If the answer to your question is a topic that is currently not covered in one of the Tracks or Working sessions, then use this template and create a new Working Session for your idea. If you need help, please contact one of the Summit Editors (CCed in this email)

Thanks
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