Next Thursday 26th I will be attending Software Craftsmanship, hold at the BBC Media Center in London.

It’s a one-day event about how to build software the right way, as the own conference’s motto states. Most of the speakers, rather say all of them,  have an extensive background on eXtreme programming. Some of them, as Ivan Moore or Keith Braithwaite, are in fact well-known speakers at some of the most important conferences on Agile methodologies as Agile 2008, or Qcon.

What attracts me the most is the practical approach of the programme, where most of the speeches are actually seminars. In some of them, an exercise and a set of questions are proposed to the audience, then with the help of the speaker the audience should withdrawn their own conclusions and discuss about them. And there is always the chance to peer with somebody, what reinforces the importance of the role that Agile methodologies have in the whole conference.

Lastly, I wouldn’t like finishing this post without mentioning that Igalia has kindly covered most part of the expenses. As you may know, here at Igalia, every worker (from the second year on) got a pocket budget for training. This budget can be used to strengthen our knowledge on different areas we’d like to improve, ranging from technical things to business, finance, etc. On the other hand, accommodation will be fully covered by the brand-new apartment Igalia has rented in London. Thought in the beginning as a good way to help workers go abroad for improving their English, I think it can also be a good tool for many of us who would like to take advantage of the many conferences and events that are organize in London throughout the year.

This kind of policies show the high commitment of Igalia on training and education, something that I personally appreciate very much.