Start-ups sought to pitch to enterprises at Australia’s largest agile development conference

The Agile Australia conference gathers together thousands of developers and business leaders to discuss the power of the agile development approach and best practice approaches.

Agile development is an iterative process of small developments discussed and reviewed by teamwork. The conference is currently seeking start-ups who use this approach to be part of the line up at the two-day conference.

Conference keynote speaker Brant Cooper told StartupSmart from San Francisco that there would be lots of options for start-up talent.

“There is not a start-up in existence today that isn’t doing agile at this point. Even if you’re not following the lean methodology, if you’ve got your own developers you’ll be doing some flavour of agile,” Cooper says.

Cooper says agile has become necessary for any tech start-up given investors will no longer back an idea without some evidence the business model will work.

Beyond investment, he adds, agile just makes sense for start-ups.

“You want to get code in front of early adopters as quickly as possible. If you’ve under-developed that’s okay, you keep going and you haven’t wasted anything. Whereas if you over-develop, you might have used up every resource you’ve got,” Cooper says.

Given the popularity of the approach, many courses and tools have been created for aspiring founders, but Cooper says these can often be a distraction.

“Buying the tools and following the processes really carefully can feel bloated. But agile is pretty darn easy. You may think you need training, to do courses and get certified, but that’s not true,” Cooper says.

He adds extending the agile approach from development to the business side of a company is where start-ups can really benefit.

“Agile doesn’t just belong to engineering; you can move the needle of the organisation if you make the whole company agile. That’s the next evolution for this,” Cooper says. “Just try it. Get everyone in the company in a room and identify what has to get done that week. Then get it done, report back and set new goals.”

Start-ups that want to speak at the conference can submit an application around the topics they wish to explore. The ideas are then discussed in an online community and conference chairs select the line-up.

Conference coordinator Rachel Slattery told StartupSmart it would good to have the best of start-up stories alongside companies as big as Telstra.

“The conference theme is ‘embracing disruption’ so any start-up (and most of them are disrupting!) who can talk to this as well is well positioned to submit,” Slattery says.

Start-ups can apply on the conference website.