2010 Implementers Meeting After Action Review

Owned by Michael Downey
Last updated: Sept 12, 2010Version comment

Contents

Thursday 9 September

What did we expect to happen?

  • Make a schedule
  • Entertaining introduction from Chris Bailey
  • Highly-anticipated talks would be spread through all days
  • Update on OpenMRS and its development status
  • Meet new people in OpenMRS and mobile apps
  • Find out where OpenMRS is
  • Sun throughout the day
  • Meet Sy Haas & Mark Goodrich

What actually happened?

  • We set the agenda for day 1
  • High-level update of OpenMRS project
  • It rained
  • Darius met a bunch of people who he had only e-mailed with before
  • Chris Bailey did not sing

What did not happen today? (Bonus question?)

  • No chance to debate agenda once it was put up
  • The internet "didn't totally suck"
  • No report back from sessions
  • People did not get to all the sessions they wanted
  • Not enough time in sessions
  • Very few people added their notes to the wiki

What could we do differently?

  • Allow a way to add new topics for upcoming days
  • Encourage new attendees to participate more
  • Consider longer sessions
  • More seats in the pool room
  • More transfer time between sessions
  • Discuss more issues on training & capacity building
  • Group common topics together
  • Lightning talks & demo sessions
  • More stringent time-keeping

Friday 10 September

What did we expect to happen?

  • Better coordination
  • Longer sessions
  • More salad
  • Higher door handles
  • Good internet
  • Sunshine
  • Hear about some implementations
  • To have an "I want to see/do/talk about" board
  • Local wiki for postings
  • More participation from all including new people

What actually happened?

  • There was sun
  • Longer sessions
  • Transition time between sessions
  • Lots of data talk
  • Saw implementations
  • Better schedule
  • "Internot" worked
  • Good collaboration/participation
  • Some of the same old people said new things
  • UI roadmap
  • Timing was flexible
  • We "unconferenced"

What didn't happen?

  • "Internot" didn't work
  • Couldn't post to the wiki
  • Both wifi overload and insufficient bandwidth
  • Didn't rain
  • Didn't get to surf
  • Didn't have too many complaints
  • Didn't look at the "want to see" board

What could we do differently?

  • Changing the venue to something larger
  • More chairs in the small room
  • More implementer showcases
  • Lightning talks
  • OpenMRS ask-the-expert
  • Indicator reporting methods & architecture
  • UI Framework developer discussion
  • UI use cases
  • Web app architecture tutorial
  • Attendee list with e-mail addresses, organization, country
  • Chris Bailey could sing

Final Conference Thoughts

What did we expect to happen?

  • See a bunch of demos
  • Learn where OpenMRS is going
  • Connecting faces to e-mail addresses (faces were better than expected)
  • Change where OpenMRS is going
  • Build community
  • Be surprised by some amazing work being done that we didn't know about
  • New developers and implementers to learn new things about OpenMRS
  • Meet people outside the core community that were coming in
  • Hear Chris Bailey sing
  • OpenMRS/OpenROSA cohesion
  • Meet a lot of business development people
  • See all the different ways OpenMRS manifests itself

What actually happened?

  • Had some demos
  • Feel a notch closer to being part of OpenMRS community
  • Implementation showcase / speed-geeking
  • Didn't have great internet connectivity
  • Roadmap talks were more about community than software
  • Didn't starve
  • 100 people who wanted to attend could not attend

What could we do differently?

  • More implementer showcases
  • Showing more interoperable examples like OpenROSA
  • Have an attendee list at least a week in advance of the conference, ideally with photos
  • Much more involvement by new people
  • Discussion about platform and apps to build on top of OpenMRS
  • More lightning talks
  • More fishbowl format (e.g. capacity building session)
  • More demos
  • Get the timing of sessions right next year
  • More communication next year
  • Set a template for the agenda in advance
  • "Minute madness" at the beginning of the day to "advertise" potential sessions
  • Consider voting on topics in advance of conference
  • More "ask the expert" time
  • OpenMRS form sharing event
  • More clear topics & understanding of what level they are
  • Have technical people arrive ahead of time and do things like day-long technical work sessions
  • Short list of topics wanted or offering to give
  • Entrepreneurship/business development sessions
  • Much earlier decisions about attendance (to prevent visas, flight problems, etc.)
  • Avoid religious holidays and consider days of week
  • Be more focused on next steps after conference (goals, outcomes, etc.)

Other notes and open questions

  • What are the pro's and con's of the location and frequency of the meeting?
    • One un-conference and one "traditional" conference?
    • Who attended because of the meeting's correlation with another conference (e.g. Medinfo)?
    • More regional events?
    • Be careful of the dynamics of the event