The UCLan Multiplier event was held on the 23rd May 2018 and was attended by students, academics and industry. The event was held in the CT building of UCLan and was followed by a lunch in Foster Building at UCLan. The event included demonstrations of the LEAP software, demonstrations of work by students that referenced Agile Software Development, networking with industrial visitors who were looking to recruit students and learn about the project and an invited talk on Agile Development in Industry by Jeremy Coates, the CEO of Magna Digital, a UK software company.
The introduction was used to explain to the attendees what the aims of the LEAP project were and to outline the activities for the day. Students had been taught Agile Practices at the University so appreciated the products that were being demonstrated to them. The industrial visitors were all from local software companies and these had different views about Agile practices.
The visiting speaker (Jeremy Coates) was controversial in so far as he began his talk by saying that students should NOT be too Agile in their approaches to working in the IT industry. He talked about how agile thinking fitted into a modern software job and also explained to the students about how he had progressed through his company, about the changing landscape for jobs and about recruitment in IT. He gave top tips to students about getting interviews.
The talks were followed by a lunch with demonstrations of the LEAP products and by students. This allowed industrial visitors, like those from YYY to mingle with the students and talk about Agile in the IT industry and see the LEAP products first hand. IN this way the LEAP multiplier event was able to have a maximum impact.