And the winner is… UK Agile Awards 2012 winners

I attended the UK Agile Awards on Thursday night, which was a good evening. Master of Ceremonies comedian Steve Punt cracked an Agile joke during the first few minutes which went down well. There were 8 awards, and the winners were:

Most Valuable Agile Innovation of 2012

Won by The 10 Second Build. This award was presented by Brian Henley from emergn who gave quite a long speech about his company. Luckily this didn’t set a precedent for future presenters. Emergn were also nominated in this category for their Value, Flow, Quality tool, and while the award sponsors had nothing to do with the judging and were allowed to enter the category they were sponsoring, it probably would have been a bit embarrassing if he had been presenting the award to someone from his own company.

Best Agile Newcomer

Won by Emma Hopkinson-Spark from United Health, who was praised for her impact, delivery and leadership skills as well as her understanding of agile methods and her coaching ability. Presented by Rob Smith from Indigo Blue.

Best Use of Agile in the Public Sector

Won by The Ordnance Survey Goose Team for their online e-commerce platform. They seemed very pleased by it. The award was presented by Ian McKenna from Project Success.

Best Use of Agile in the Private Sector

Won by Red Gate Software who were praised as a ‘truly Agile company’. The Chairman of DSDM® Consortium presented the award, saying that 2012 is “the year that Agile comes of age.” “Let’s not let too much process get into Agile,” he added.

Best Agile Team

Sponsored by Tata, Telefonica UK won this award. They started with a team of 40 and the goal of reducing ‘customer lost hours’ although it wasn’t explained what they are. O2 created a collaborative and learning environment and the team has now grown to 220 people, all working in an agile way.

Best Agile Coach or Mentor

Won by John Wright from Indigo Blue who has 10 years of experience at a range of levels from PMO to CXO. He was praised for his ability to lead by example.

The Agile Special Recognition Award

Went to Dave Putman, but I don’t remember why. I’m sure he deserved it.

Most Valuable Agile Player (UK)

This award was presented by Keith Richards, who won the award last year. He talked about Forrester research saying that 27% of companies were agile and said he disagreed. “Mature agile at enterprise level is extremely rare,” he said. He added that this was a great awards night because it was good to see people doing Agile well and being with people who have worked in an Agile way for a long time. “Maybe we are the fast moving water,” he said.

Keith predicted that there will be a meteoric rise in Agile adoption and accreditation, and said that it is the Agile project management certification from APMG is the most requested product that the organisation offers.

Keith presented the award to Shaun Smith from Barrens Consulting, who was praised for his coaching, team engagement, collaborative skills and ability as a mentor.

I attended the awards as the guest of APMG.