Last week I was in Paris for the NewCrafts Conference – as both speaker and participant. WOW sums it up. A quick recap of what stood out. What makes NewCrafts special: it doesn’t revolve around a… | Tom Asel | 12 comments

Last week I was in Paris for the NewCrafts Conference – as both speaker and participant. WOW sums it up. A quick recap of what stood out. What makes NewCrafts special: it doesn’t revolve around a single method or tech stack. It asks the bigger question: How do we want to build software today and tomorrow? That mindset creates a strong mix of topics and attracts an audience that’s deeply engaged. The conversations between sessions were worth the trip alone. Many thanks to the amazing people that made this happen, especially to Anneke Schoonjans, Hilde Goossens, Ilse De Smet, Maxime Sanglan-Charlier. I ran an interactive Wardley Mapping hands-on session in the evening slot. Even at 18:00, after a full day of talks, the group came in with impressive energy — and the collaborative format made it easy to turn that momentum into a great session. We told a business story through a Wardley Map and explored where the narrative might go by examining its strategic implications. One participant even contributed their own business context, which we mapped together. It was intense and fun – and if security hadn’t politely pointed at the clock, we might still be sticking notes to the walls. Here are the talks that stood out for me: Chris Simon – “A Defense of Technical Excellence” A brilliant argument for why Technical Excellence needs defending in the first place. His use of causal feedback loops connecting TDD, DDD, and collaboration was masterful. Lutske de Leeuw – “Machine Learning 101: Where to begin?” A crisp overview of where ML stands today. What impressed me most: how good the tooling has become for experimenting and applying ML in practice. Emily Bache – “How to become a Technical Coach” Coaching whole teams is one of my favorite forms of work. Emily’s talk reminded me how important it is to make this part of my work more visible. “Samman Coaching” was new to me – and it’ll stay on my radar. Nina Siessegger & Susanne Kaiser – “Architecture for Flow” Hamburg’s power duo. I still don’t know how they managed to present their case study with such depth in just 45 minutes. As a fan of Susanne’s method (and her book!) this was a highlight. Again. Clare Sudbery (she/her) – “Continuous Integration – That’s not what they meant” A sharp reminder of what CI really is – and what it isn’t. Also: why trunk-based development doesn’t “just happen” and what the actual path looks like. Every team lead should see this talk. Hadrien Mens-Pellen Excellent advice on how developers can stay healthy and effective in challenging environments. And I unexpectedly learned a lot about the role of unions in France. Steven Goodwin – Closing Keynote Before the conference I didn’t know him. His keynote on Ada Lovelace and the world’s first program was absolute gold – comedy, history, and computer science in perfect balance. Side note: All models are wrong – but some are beautiful. This one made it onto my desk, thanks to my kids who helped assemble it. | 12 comments on LinkedIn