How can you justify "being away from work for 8 hours":

In a work context it is not unusual to have to consider the Return-on-Investment of proposed activities. What is the short- or long-term value that a certain thing will bring to the person, the project or the company? Leaving your company for a whole day to enjoy yourself at the Italian SCM summit for many participants need more reasoning than "I like to hang out with a group of cool people".

So, what could you get out of participating in the Italian SCM summit?

• being here as a contributor:
  • with a presentation:
    • you have structured and reflected on a working solution so it can be put to the test
    • you get feedback and input from experts for how to improve and make the solution even better
  • facilitating an Open Space:
    • you have reflected and structured slightly a problem your company has had for a while
    • you get feedback and ideas from experts for how you might address and solve the problem
• being here (also) as a participant you could learn:
  • one single new thing that can save you 8 hours of work in one year
  • one tiny thing that can save each developer in your company 1 hour of work in one year
  • one trick that can make your company effective (and later efficient) for something that it cannot do today
• you will get a glimpse of some of the latest practical/applied research
• you company has made an investment in employee further education and job satisfaction
• all this for free - seems like a good deal ;-)