This week begins with another Agile First: the first ever Mini XP Day Benelux conference. The one-day conference is a second chance to attend 9 of the session favourites from XP Days Benelux 2008 based on last year’s participant and conference organiser feedback.

What Went Well

• 48 participants attended the first ever Mini XP Day Benelux conference!
• As organisers, we improved our effectiveness by using kanban boards to organise ourselves prior to the conference and on the day
• The cheery and funny Rob Westgeest and Marc Evers were entertaining as conference hosts
• Elewijt, the conference venue, was spacious, airy and well-equipped
• Working smoothly as a triad to co-present The Business Value to a home crowd with Vera and Pascal
• Trialling a number of improvements on The Business Value Game based on player feedback from the many previous sessions we’ve run
• ‘Working with Resistance’, with Olivier Costa and his sensei Frank Vanhoeck, a beginner’s Aikido session
• Catching up with Beneluxian Agilistas such as Johan Peeters and Xavier Quesada
• Meeting new Beneluxian Agilistas such as Jef Cumps and Kris Philippaerts
• The thoughtful giveaways selected by Vera
• Belgian food is D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S!
• Being present at an organisers’ dinner meeting and conference retrospective in person
• Running 9k in hilly Tervuren forest without stopping once!

What Went Wrong

• I didn’t meet as many participants as I would have liked – one day is so short!
• Long queue for buffet lunch
• Ran out of some buffet choices for last ones in

Puzzles

• If you already work well as a team, why use Agile?
• Who learns more: the one who talks more or the one who listens more?
• Why weren’t topics posted for the Open Space track?

Lessons (Re-)Learnt

• When I resist, flow instead
• Exercise is equally important for the mind and the body
• A good teacher accompanies their student to discover the answers together instead of just giving them their opinion
• Talk less, listen more
• Challenge everything, most of all, myself
• 2009 is the year of cartoons in Belgium!
• XP Days Benelux 2009 (to be held this November in Belgium) is going to be F-A-B if the past conferences are anything to go by. I hope to see you there!

A Note about Pigeon Fanciers

‘Duivenbond’ means ‘Pigeon Club’ in Dutch. Duiven Bond is a place where local pigeon fanciers gather to race their pigeons. Many Belgian towns have one of these. As far as I understand, pigeon racing is fraught with three major challenges:

1. Race-pigeon-doping (because some folks bet vast sums of money on races)
2. Anxiety among owners as they  crouch in the pigeon’s cage awaiting the return of their pigeon
3. For the competing pigeon, the threat of being turned into pigeon pie if they lose the race.

What have you learned today?

What I liked about the conference

• Recognising familiar faces from last year’s conference and getting to know the people behind the faces
• Seeing new faces and getting to know those folks, too!
• Pitching Agile by David Harvey and Peter Marks – David and Peter made us think hard about what the Agile way of working brings in comparison with other approaches and how to scale the Agile Enablement in large, distributed organisations
• Pairing: Beyond Programming by John Daniels and Dave Cleal – the session was an excellent mix of facilitation and different types of individual, pair and group activities to encourage us to develop a deeper understanding of why pairing is valuable
• Catching up with Agilistas from XPDays Benelux and XPDay France
• Running a followup workshop to The Business Value Game with Pascal and Vera where we learn to apply the game’s principles and techniques
• Running the conference as a non-residential conference
• Learning and improving: the conference has improved significantly as a result of last year’s feedback
• SPA provides a friendly place where folks can be courageous and try things out

What would make SPA perfect*

• Practice the Agile principle of ‘signing up for work’: Invite session presenters and shepherds to match themselves up to improve sessions together
• Include details of the session format in the programme session description
• Give presenters the option to present a 15-minute (abridged) version of their session prior to the conference to practice and receive feedback
• Re-introduce Official One Minute Presentations (OOMPs) at the start of each day to help participants decide which session to go to
• Non-residential and residential conferences provide different experiences – perhaps we could alternate between the two one year from the next?
• Have a mix of shorter and longer scheduled sessions to increase the diversity of topics, perspectives, presenters and participants

My conference takeaway

Agile is about delivering the highest business value possible faster by focusing on people and Continuous Improvement. To change the organisations we work in (or with) for the better, the most important question to answer is this: ‘What’s the smallest action we can take as an individual to become more agile today?’

* The format of this retrospective is known as The Perfection Game. It’s a great way of sharing feedback, bearing in mind that ‘Perfect is something we aspire to, it’s elusive by design‘.

What Went Well

• The organisers were really warm and welcoming
• The organisers set a good example as an Agile team – working to help one another
• The participants were enthusiastic
• The candid conversations about the Agile Values and our personal agility
• The range of session subject matter
• 60 out of 96 participants attended Pascal‘s and my session: Les cinq premiers pas pour devenir vraiment agile
• We had lots of fun together
• We all had a good laugh
• Vincent Raemy made a great conference chair
• The dinner in the dungeons at Les Armures where we dined on fondue like real hedonists
• We even played the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves card game with adventurous participants

What Went Wrong

• We didn’t expect to have 60 participants in our session – the session was designed for between 20 – 30 people
• There wasn’t enough room to network comfortably during lunch
• One day is too short for such a great conference!
• There weren’t enough interactive sessions
• We didn’t do a dry-run of our session with volunteer participants

Puzzles

• Where will next year’s XP Day Switzerland be held?

Lessons Learnt

• Set a maximum limit to our sessions
• Our personal agility is better judged by others than by ourselves because it’s usually difficult to evaluate ourselves objectively
• The Agile Values are just as important for beginner-Agilistas as they are for expert-Agilistas
• We become agile by always living the Agile Values
• Hedonism means finding what you love to do and doing it such as egalitarianism, community and friendship
• Being agile means knowing we don’t know it all
• Suisse fondue is made with three cheeses (Gruyère, Vacherin and ?). Now I have an excuse to return to Switzerland to find the answer!

This entry is also available in French!

Qu’est-ce qui était bon?

• Les organisateurs étaient très accueillants
• Les organisateurs faisaient un bon exemple d’une équipe agile – cela veut dire qu’on s’entre-aide l’un et l’autre
• Les participants étaient enthousiastes
• Les conversations ouvertes autour les valeurs agiles et notre agilité individuelle
• La diversité des sujets des sessions
• 60 sur 96 participants ont suivi la session Pascal et moi ont crée: Les cinq premiers pas pour devenir vraiment agile
• On s’est bien amusé ensemble
• On a bien ri
• Le rôle du facilitateur principal joué par Vincent Raemy
• Le dîner aux oubliettes au restaurant Les Armures où on mangeait la fondue comme les hédonistes
• On a même joué le jeu de Blanche Neige et Les Sept Nains avec quelques participants ludiques

Qu’est-ce qui était mauvais?

• Il n’était pas prévu qu’on serait aussi nombreux dans notre session – on n’attendait qu’entre 20 à 30 personnes
• Il n’y avait pas assez de place pour la circulation pendant le déjeuner
• Le congrès ne durait qu’un jour!
• Il n’y avait pas assez de sessions intéractives
• On n’a pas fait une répétition en avance avec les volontaires

Les questions grandes et petites

• Où se tiendra XP Day Suisse l’année prochaine?

Ce que j’ai (re-)appris

• On décide à la limite de participants dans nos sessions en avance
• Notre agilité personelle est jugée par les autres parce que normalement nous ne sommes pas assez bon juge de nous-mêmes
• Les valeurs agiles sont aussi importantes pour les débutant-agilistes que les agilistes expérimentés
• On devient agile en vivant les valeurs tout le temps
• Dans l’hédonisme il s’agit de trouver et de faire plus ce qui nous fait du bien, comme l’égalitarisme, la communauté, l’amitié
• L’agilité cela veut dire qu’on sait qu’on ne sait pas tout
• On fait la fondue avec trois fromages en Suisse (le Gruyère, le Vacherin et ?). Maintenant je suis obligée de retourner en Suisse pour trouver la réponse!

Voir ici pour ce billet en anglais!

‘Tis the Season to be Jolly

One of the best ways to learn is from people, irrespective of their age, level of proficiency, interests and habits. What better way to do that than to attend conferences?

I’m really excited about my visit to Geneva next week for 5 reasons:

• It’s the first ever XP Day Switzerland!
• It’s my first time to visit Switzerland!
• Pascal and I are co-presenting our first session together in 2009 (and it’s always a guaranteed and healthy balance of hardwork, nervousness, fun and lots of laughter)!
• We are presenting a brand new session titled ‘Les Cinq premiers pas pour devenir vraiment agile‘ (‘The First Five Steps towards Becoming Really Agile’) where we’ll be sharing the 5 most useful and effective tools we use as Agile Coaches!
• We’ll be presenting in French!

Does it get better than this? Well, yes it does. The reason we continue to present at Agile conferences is because it allows us to better understand what being agile really means, to others and for ourselves. And why is being agile important? Because it enables us to better respond to change and deliver more value.

Survival of the Fittest

To many the recession is turning into the ultimate nightmare, especially for those who know they don’t know but don’t care enough to improve. To others, the recession is a gift. A chance to challenge our personal and professional beliefs and effectiveness based on how well we weather the storm. It’s true you don’t know what you don’t know, but that’s okay so long as you continue to learn and change for the better.

Fact: Time is our most valuable asset. Everyone has time. How will you choose to squander or invest yours?

One way to measure the maturity of a community is by laughter. Laughter is what happens when folks with a common interest get together. They have fun. They laugh together. This is especially true with Agile because people form the heart of Agile.

Knock, Knock – Who’s there?
In my experience, nowhere are these outbursts of laughter more audible than at Agile conferences. Agile conferences are a great opportunity to learn, laugh and recharge. They’re also a chance to test your agility because Agile attracts a mixed bunch of people, sometimes with conflicting interests, motivations and values.

The Secret sits in the middle and knows
‘Have you met Daedalus?’ asks Ralph, an Agile Coach and collector of things darkly comical. Ralph gives a nod towards a small crowd of bobbing and shaking heads by the buffet table. Not one to miss an Agile moment in the making, I head towards the hullabaloo.

‘So I go to see a new client who say they want help with Agile,’ begins Daedalus, ‘and what they were looking for was an Agile installation engineer. They were expecting me to just wheel out a box, plug it in, flick on the switch, then T-A-D-A!’ He clicks his fingers, ‘Everyone becomes agile – just like that!’

Most of us are silent as we stand flabbergasted, recalling the risks and hardwork that come with the magnitude of what we try to achieve with Agile. Organisational change. People change. I’m reminiscing the many seemingly impossible moments when people halted learning because they resisted change. I know because I catch myself doing the same sometimes.

To paraphrase Dolly Parton, ‘If you like rainbows, there’ll be some rain.’ As an Agile Apprentice, it’s the thought of rainbows that keeps me going. I’ve also come to appreciate the rain because I know those are the days when I have the greatest chance to grow.

All’s well that ends well
Being agile isn’t just a laughing matter. It’s a serious business. Because people matter. And remarkable things happen when we come to understand that the Agile Values aren’t just elementary, but elemental.

What Went Well

Team Compensation by Vera Peeters and Yves Hanoulle: I attended the rehearsal session by Vera and was ‘WOWed’ by the excellent use of Playmobil to illustrate the impact of a maladjusted reward system on team behaviour. This session is a definite MUST-SEE workshop if you get the chance!

Coaching Self Organisating Teams by Joseph Pelrine: Joseph compares team performance with making chicken soup. There are 5 possible states to the Heat Model: Burning (results in team burnout and death marching), Cooking (ideal temperature for continuous improvement), Stagnating (discipline is lost and bad behaviour begins to fester), Congealing (team gets too comfortable to achieve and bad habits become the norm) and Solidifying (control takes over and change is no longer possible).

The Real Options Space Game by Pascal Van Cauwenberghe and me: Pascal and I tried out version 2 of the Space Game board and materials with 18 intrepid adventurers. Thanks to the feedback from Vera during our rehearsal session, Pascal and I improved our pair presenting on the day. Find out how one participant, Al Priest, has been applying Real Options.

Open Spaces: Although I was unable to attend any, the feedback from other participants were positive on the whole. It’s always good to see active participation and exchange of ideas among practitioners! I look forward to participating in Open Spaces next year.

The Yellow Brick Road Revisited (aka The Road to Agile Adoption through Peer Coaching) by Duncan Pierce and me: This was a session Duncan and I presented last year at XP Day London. The intention was to create a ongoing network for Agile practitioners to help one another through adopting Agile. Thanks to Douglas Squirrel and Simon Woolf for their Lightning Talk on their peer coaching experience as a followup to the session!

Complaints with Recommendations

• One of my main reasons for attending XP Day London this year was to hear David Stoughton give a talk on User Stories, Agile Analysis and Business Value. I know that many others wanted to attend his session too but missed out, so it would be great to schedule such sessions as a keynote for next year.
• There were 4 scheduled sessions on the afternoon of Day 2 of the conference when there was only one scheduled session in the morning. It may be an idea to spread out the scheduled sessions more, especially when speakers were available to do so. This would give people Real Options.
• In my experience, catering is one of the most important things to get right at any conference. Tasty meals and snacks would have made the conference more enjoyable.

‘Twas the night before Geekmas…

‘Happy Geekmas Eve!’ said Portia and Pascal.

‘What’s Geekmas Eve?’ I hear you gasp with anticipation.

Geekmas Eve marks the official day before the launch of the latest version of the Real Options Space Game. It’s an auspicious day when species gather from around the galaxy to marvel at the folly of humankind.

‘Can we trust those humanoids to preserve galactic peace?’, quibble the alien Council members in unison.

‘Fools!’ snigger the evil Montague clan from Beta-564, poised to swallow all that is of earthly beauty in one sloppy gulp.

Never fear, Real Options is here!

I hope you will join Pascal and me this Friday to play the best ever Real Options Space Game* this side of the galaxy at XPDay London. Be there, or risk becoming human snacks.

* No aliens were harmed in the making of the game.

‘SimBlogging‘ offers a his-and-hers viewpoint as Pascal and Portia timebox-blog simultaneously

‘Fun, Learning, Sharing, Smiles and Laughter’

These five words best describe my first and last impressions of XP Days Benelux 2008.

The conference opened with a warm welcome from the organisers Pascal Van Cauwenberghe, Vera Peeters, Nicole Belilos and me. Next up were Day 1 presenters who promoted their sessions as OOMPs reduced to 30 seconds (pronounced ‘oomps’ aka Official One Minute Presentations).

The conference hall shuddered with laughter as the mini-marketing exercise transformed previously mild and quiet presenters into creative and boisterous marketeers. A few members of the audience even shrieked with delight at the mention of fairytales and the search for happy endings.

Close of Play

Another unique feature was 30 second OOMPs from participants as part of the closing on each day.

Participants stood up to share their thoughts and lessons learnt as Pascal called out the title of each session of the day.

Behind the logistical scenes were the ever resourceful Rob Westgeest (another of the great conference organisers) and Olivier Costa, flanked by a rotating set of volunteers ready to help whenever help was needed. Now that’s what I call a self-organising team.

Fun and Games

One example of F-U-N in action was the Persona Game where each conference participant identified themselves with a particular conference participant stereotype. To win a prize, each participant had to form a team of different persona types to deliver a team OOMP.

Another example was the Games Night where more than 30 grownups played board and card games until the wee hours of the next morning (2:30 am to be precise).

Session Favourites

Critical Chain by Christophe Thibaut and Olivier Pizzato – Mecanno experience is hard to come by, but we can deliver value if we share our knowledge, expertise and tasks

Seeking to Perceive More Than to be Perceived by Emanuel Gaillot and Bernard Notarianni – Where we learnt about three more tools to add to our Better Communication Toolkit: “Investigate Protocol” (from Jim and Michele McCarthy), “Soft Focus” (by theatre director Tadashi Suzuki) and “Emic Interviewing” (from American anthropologist Marvin Harris)

The Business Value Game by Pascal, Vera and me – Learning how the game can be scaled up to 6 teams of 6 participants with 3 facilitators while preserving the quality of learning and gaming experience

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall… Why Me? – Amusing 33 grownups with the retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves Tarantino style

Working with Resistance by Olivier Costa and his Sensei – Where we learnt about the importance of exercising the body with the mind by doing some basic Aikido exercises. Many participants left beaming and reinvigorated by the experience before heading to the bar

Cultural Remarks

• A Dutch road slows down traffic with a “verkeerseiland” or “slowing down / traffic island” instead of a speed hump (aka “sleeping policeman“)
• Dutch quiches are served in blocks and cut up into cubes of cheesy goodness instead of being round tarts or tartlets (as served in the UK and in France)

Final Thoughts

What immediately struck me about XP Days Benelux was the spirit of inclusion, instead of exclusivity as seen at so many of the other conferences I’ve been to in the past. XP Days Benelux is a unique gathering because it’s based on what you want to know instead of who you know.

One Nice-to-Have echoed by several people would be more sessions for more seasoned Agile practitioners. I would like to see how this would be implemented next year.

I regret missing the Werewolf Game this year so I’ll be sure to participate in next year’s Games Night!

Many thanks to the wonderful photos by Xavier Quesada. Cheers Xavier!

Conversation overheard in a galactic corridor

(At an Agile conference in a galaxy near you)

A: I am Agamemnon the Agile.
P: That’s nice for you.
A: I am Leader of the Alliance.
P: There are many alliances.
A: Join us.
P: Thanks, but I prefer to keep my options open.

What are Real Options?

Real Options is a decision-making process for managing uncertainty and risk. It’s a simple and powerful approach that helps us make better informed decisions, as individuals and in groups, by understanding and responding to the psychological effects uncertainty has on our behaviour.

Real Options means:

1. You don’t have to decide now (aka ‘Decide at the last responsible moment’)
2. But you know when to decide
3. Keep as many options open for as long as possible
4. Actively gather information until you have to make the decision
5. Only commit when you must or when you have a good reason to.

A Real Option:

• Has a value
• Has an expiry date or condition
• Costs: cost of buying the option + cost of exercising the option.

The idea of applying Real Options in Agile comes from Chris Matts. You can read more about the original concept here.

The Real Options Space Game: The New Frontier

Pascal and I began working on the idea of a Real Options game after co-presenting a Real Options session at SPA 2008 with Chris back in March this year. Within a month, Pascal and I had a first version of the Real Options Space Game ready for trial in London. Since then, we’ve played it at Agile North and XPDay France.

The Real Options Space Game *New* Version 2.0

During our travels far and near, we’ve encountered many different species of Agilistas and made many friends. We’ve learnt to think more deeply about options and opportunities, for ourselves and in relation to others. Most important of all, we’ve stumbled across the secret to preserving galactic peace.

Meanwhile, Pascal and I’ve been tweaking and polishing the game thanks to the feedback from all the players. We’re pleased to announce that version 2.0 of the Real Options Space Game is now ready for play.

Go, go game play!

Come join us at XPDay London (11 – 12 December) if 1) you think you can take on the ultimate challenge in common sense; 2) you want to know the secret to preserving galactic peace (it’s this kind of general knowledge that gets Agilistas out of tricky spots of bother).