Conference Organization

Conference Chair: Andreas Fiesser

Program Chair: Paris Avgeriou

Focus Group Chair: Aliaksandr Birukou

Web Chair: Michael Weiss

EuroPLoP 2011 Focus Groups

• Organizing xPLoP events
  Focus group leaders: Lise Hvatum, Klaus Marquardt

  There are several recurring PLoP events happening around the world each year. Each event has its own style, which is a variation over the main theme with workshops and games. The organizers are volunteers from the patterns community. In this focus group, we will discuss the applicability of patterns to capture some of the knowledge needed for the organizers, and proceed to explore the knowledge area. Specifically we will discuss around conference quality and conference sustainability, paper process, logistics, and any other theme that the participants may bring up. All EuroPLoP participants are of course welcome – and we especially hope for participants with experience in organizing smaller conferences!

• Non-relational databases
  Focus group leader: Tim Wellhausen

  Non-relational databases (also known as NoSQL databases) have recently gained a lot of momentum. These databases are primarily targeted at highly scalable, high-performance web applications, where low latency and high troughput are more important than guaranteed consistency at all time.

  The NoSQL market offers many products with distinct functionality and features. (This is different from relational databases that offer you a consistent, well-defined set of features, regardless of the actual product you take.) The variety of NoSQL features makes it difficult to decide which NoSQL database to take for a given project.

  From a pattern perspective, NoSQL products implement well-proven solutions. It’s just not clear which problems are solved by these solutions. So, the goal of this focus group is to dig into the problem side of NoSQL features: What problem do you need to have so that a particular feature is helpful?

  Beyond this focus group, the goal is to come up with an introduction to NoSQL in form of patterns. These patterns should guide the reader to find the right product suited for the actual problems that a project faces.

  Participation is free for everybody interested in NoSQL databases. Please note that the focus group can only take place if at least some people have prior knowledge that they can contribute.

• IMPROJECT: Improvisation Techniques in Projects
  Focus group leader: Anne Hoffmann

  Do you want to know, what project management and improvisation theatre have in common? Here, you have the chance to find out. Do you want to get to know a workshop format, how to train your team towards better soft skills competencies? Or do you just want to have fun? Then come along.

  This focus group will be experimental and aims to try out and evaluate some games. Depending on the interest of the participants, there could be the option to take over, and try out the workshop format as the trainer, as well as adjusting game variants on the fly.

  The workshop format had been formerly introduced on the “Third International Workshop on Multimedia and Enjoyable Requirements Engineering (MERE’08)”.

• Tooling for pattern languages (with cool demo!)
  Focus group leader:James Siddle and Mandy Chessell

  This focus group is about tools for pattern language based design and development. The session will start with a demo of an experimental tool developed at IBM which allows users to easily and quickly create a design by selecting patterns from a pattern language. This will be followed by a discussion about the key use cases and features of the tool, and about tooling support for patterns in general.