Lead a session at SPA
How to lead a session
Session proposals are now closed and the programme is now published.
SPA stands for Software Practice Advancement, and the conference is about practitioners from any aspect of software development and any technology stack sharing their thoughts and knowledge, and learning together.
To produce the best programme that we can we would like to incorporate new ideas, old ideas rediscovered, workshops, stories of real experience, creativity, the unexpected, reflection and fun. Plus more things that we haven't even thought of yet. To do this we need your session proposal.
What Are We Looking For?
Traditionally the conference has centred around software development practice, and sessions are usually interactive. There have been sessions on programming languages, tools, techniques, technology, design, architecture, testing, requirements, team dynamics and process.
We have also had some great sessions on topics you might not expect at a software conference, like sketching, speed reading, and education. We really like sessions like this too - they give us more opportunities to think about and try a wide range of things.
SPA is not the place to re-run a workshop or a talk that you've done at 5 different conferences already. It's the place to try something new. Experiment. All submissions get feedback to help them improve, and accepted sessions may be assigned a shepherd to help with preparation so this is the time to try out that great new idea.
We like interactive sessions (such as workshops, tutorials, goldfish bowls etc), where the attendees get to take part rather than just sit and listen. But the programme also benefits from great case studies, experience reports and talks.
You can get an idea of the sort of sessions that have run previously from the websites for previous years' conferences: SPA2016, SPA2015, SPA2014, SPA2013.
But don't be constrained by any of these ideas; maybe you've got something totally new to bring. We'd like to hear it.
Who Should Submit?
- Anyone!
- Seasoned presenters with new ideas.
- New presenters.
- Practitioners with stories of hard-won experience.
- Academics with research that will affect development practice.
- Business people, designers, artists, musicians - anyone developing software and doing something different and interesting.
We particularly encourage speakers who are new to presenting at SPA. If you submit early, our feedback process will allow you to tune your proposal before the final review stage.
The Submission and Selection Process
To submit your proposal, just complete the form on the website.
Your submission is completely anonymous right up until we have the draft programme - then we just check that you're not down to do two talks at once.
All sessions submitted by midnight on 1st February will receive feedback to help improve the proposal.
Submissions can be edited until the hard deadline of 28th February.
After the deadline, all sessions will be reviewed by by at least three different reviewers . A programme meeting in March will decide on the final programme - sessions are still anonymous at this stage..
The programme will be announced on the 1st of April 2017.
All speakers will also be supported by our well-established shepherding process which has ensured the standard of sessions at SPA is exceptionally high.
The submission and selection process is described in more detail here.
What We Offer
We will help you make your session the best it can be, both through our feedback process prior to the submissions deadline and our shepherding process if your session is accepted. More detail on these stages is here.
The first two named presenters of each accepted session receive a free ticket to SPA. If you have already purchased a ticket before the programme is announced, you will receive a full refund. See here for conditions.
We do not pay accommodation costs or travel expenses for speakers because the conference is not run for profit and we do everything we can to keep costs down for attendees. However, if this will make the difference between whether you are able to submit or not, please contact us to discuss it as we may be able to make a small bursary available.
Important Dates
The conference: 26th - 28th June 2017 - British Computer Society, London, UK
Submissions deadline: 28th February 2017
Submissions submitted before 1st February 2017 will receive feedback and may be resubmitted.
Programme announced: 1st April 2017
If you're uncertain about whether to submit your idea, or have other queries, please feel free to get in touch with us at
Alex Wilson and Leon Hewitt, Programme Chairs, SPA