Rödermark Parkhotel near Frankfurt on Main, Germany: Going crazy!

The annual PROAD Expert Meeting (#proadx2015) took place this year on October 9 in the Rödermark Parkhotel. It was all about agile methods in software development and the new PROAD Sky agency software. The fact that former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was not present was hardly noticed.

Steve and Stefan - both have the same ancient Greek origin. Those in the know are aware: The name derives from Stephen - the victory wreath/crown/the crowned one. One of them - Steve Ballmer - guided an international software company for 14 years. The other - Stefan Dörrstein - still does that; for over 25 years he has managed the J+D Software AG.

With such a degree of commonality it is no wonder that both utilise the same stylistic media when making presentations; thus Stefan Dörrstein hopped onto the stage like a dervish for this year's opening of the PROAD Expert Meeting, completely in the style of Steve Ballmer's crazy performance at the international developer conference in 2006. You know, I LOVE THIS COMPANY!! It's true, maybe the Rödermark Parkhotel isn't exactly directly comparable with the popular US hotspots, but the appearance was not without effect.

It was just after ten o´clock in the morning of October 9^th and after this contribution the approx. forty participants of the PROAD Expert Meeting were wide awake as if they'd just downed a good Italian double expresso, sitting slightly amused in their seats in the conference room of the Parkhotel - among them Sascha Neckermann (Sassenbach Advertising), Daniel George (rabbit eMarketing), Andreas Lerner (Signalwerk) and Andreas Moser (Kresse & Discher). Without wanting to exaggerate the parallels between Steve Ballmer and Stefan Dörrstein or Microsoft and the J+D Software AG, here, too, at the annual J+D customer event, it was to a large extent all about the topic Development/software development.

Since October, 2014, the company has switched its processes to agile methods. Matthias Pauers, CEO of Teamprove GmbH, who sees himself as a development worker when it comes to software, explained how such techniques work in practice. Pauers explained how agile methods enable products to be developed faster, better and more inexpensively. A trick here, for example, is to break down the total projects into many small sub-steps or short cycles. The new PROAD SKY agency software, for instance, was developed at J+D with these methods. It provides access to complete job management - from any device, at any time from any location. The user experience has been optimised and the operation further simplified. In short, the existing workflow, as Michael Schmiechen emphasised in his presentation, has been decisively optimised.

The PROAD Expert Meeting was also all about dialogue with users. What works well? What can be improved from a customer perspective? What tips and trick are there to work even more efficiently with PROAD products? All this was clarified in two sessions in the afternoon with the three PROAD experts Frank Kaufmann, Morris Metschan and Michael Schmiechen. In open Q & A sessions, they clarified the most important tricks in using the PROAD agency software.

The event finale took place where it had started an evening earlier: very comfortably in the fireplace lounge of the Parkhotel. To all participants; thank you again for coming! Next year again, okay?