Systems thinking about software development
Marc already has the scoop, details and a pretty word cloud to explain the theme, so I’ll keep it short and simple. The next Agile Open conference in the Netherlands will be September 10 & 11, in Baarn.
We chose the theme ‘my method is bigger than yours… or is it?’ because it seems that as this agile software development thing goes mainstream more and more people lose sight of what we perceived was one of the underlying goals of the Agile Manifesto: get continuous experimentation and learning going by developing software and helping others do it across communities – hence the signing by people involved in all ‘lightweight’ methodologies at the time. We like the Named clouds meme and hope it spurs some discussions.
Even if this theme does not speak to you, come to Agile Open Holland anyway – anything goes, and new cloud formations are likely to form during the conference. Named ones in the sessions and the hallways, unnamed ones in the sky (we do hope the sun shines most of the time though..).
One of the things that made the xp2009 conference exceed my expectations was the beach. Here you can see photos from thursday, May 28th – Patrick Kua hosted an Open Space session on ” is there a lean versus agile versus kanban divide?” that turned into one of the best sessions of the conference. The guys from agical organized an unplanned barbecue, which was great; most participants were there, and the hotel management was very supportive.
I’ll process and post the rest of the photos when time permits – I decided not to do everything in a big batch this time 
(which sometimes means the batch never gets executed and photos are not published). Tomorrow Marc and I depart to Luzern, Switzerland for the first instance of our Agile Product Development training, so there is not much time left.
Raphaël Pierquin has scanned the first batch of session notes from Agile Open France.
Some of the attendees are excellent (visual) note takers – even notes of sessions I did not attend speak to me. Enjoy (works best if you can read a bit of French, although the glyphs also speak volumes)
Does this look like a place of work to you?
Hotel Arnold at dawn
To me neither. This was my place of work for three days during Agile Open France. The effect it has on me is hard to explain, I hope the pictures help paint a clearer eh, picture.
Continue reading ‘Agile Open France – refreshingly simple’
Harald Walker shot a little video at Agile Open in June. He edited it, so that it became a nice little explanation of the Open Space “rules” in three minutes.
I’ll be co-hosting exploring the agile space at the Agile Business Conference (October 2 and 3 in London), and it seems at xp days london as well – People vs Process: Cultural Patterns of Software Organisations both with Marc Evers. I also recommend you check out the continuous integration and testing unconference – CITCON Europe 2007 in Brussels, October 19 and 20.
The Agile Open 2007 Europe Book of Proceedings is out now!
Monday planning session
It contains photos as well as results of individual sessions. We asked the session conveners to provide (handwritten) notes of each session. Raphael Pierquin scanned the session notes, and combined them with photos of flipcharts and people in the session to PDF documents.
Diana, Stephan, Bernard Zero and Rachel have Fun with Agile
We ran this as an expiriment to see if we could have an in-between form from open space by-the-book (handwritten proceedings copied to paper – is timely, but costs lots of paper and is not searchable ) and a wiki (does not need paper, is searchable, but participants often leave writing down the results for ‘later’ ).
The book of proceedings is not yet complete, published in the ‘release early, release often’ spirit. The PDF’s are attached to an an individual results page for the session – we hope participants will transcribe some of the results, so we have both timely as well as searchable results.
Jan, Nynke, Robert and Erik enjoy the scenery
At Agile Open, I have heard rumours that there is going to be a Guerilla Open Space @ XP 2007. Today I have heard a rumour that the Agile Alliance is going to sponsor it.
I heard good stories on the Open Space being run last year at XP 2006 in Finland – Many attendees, extra rooms needed etc…
This year, the conference organisers decided not to have an Open Space. Charlie Poole, who facilitated it last year, offered to organise it again this year. He heard nothing from the organisers for a long time. At the last moment they said they are not going to have an Open Space. Does the word ‘stonewalling’ sound familiar?
Question: Why would a conference organisation not support a part of the conference that was highly succesful last year??
So, if you are in Como for XP 2007 or otherwise (for the guerilla open space you probably will not have to register), I recommend you check out whether this Guerrilla Open Space rumour is actually true. Quality is guarenteed by the passion of the people who choose to be there .
(Answer: the ‘acadamic paper’ programme at xp200* is weak and people spontaneously apply ‘the law of two feet’ – they go if they can learn or contribute more somewhere else).
I hope to write something substantial again, soonish 
. Meanwhile some announcements you might be interested in.
On June 15 Marc Evers and yours truly are hosting Agile Open @ the International Association of Facilitators Benelux conference (In De Bovendonk, Hoeven, Noord-Brabant, Netherlands) . This year we are taking our eXPerience with open spaces on the road, and do open space related workshops inside other conferences. The one @ the IAF conference is more meta – a small experience of Open Space followed by reflective practitioners And then some more practice in the Open Space that afternoon, facilitated by Nynke Fokma an participants in the morning workshop.
I have heard registration for the IAF conference is going well (around a hundred registrants), and there are still some places available. The event is partially in Dutch, but I’m sure the Open Space will adapt to the right people . And the Appreciative Inquiry workshop by Andrew Ballance (parrallel with Agile Open @ IAF) will be in English for sure. Hope to see you there!
Willem van den Ende
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