2009 Belgium Agile Open Space part 2

Saturday, the 2nd day started with breakfast, hotel checkout, feeding the parking meter and hiding our suitcases in the trunk of my car. We took our laptops with us to the conference. We didn’t dare to leave them in the car.

Memorable of this second day were the sessions “Can architecture be agile?”, which Katrien and I hosted, “writing a book on Agile means” and “Play Politics.” Of course the one about agile architecture since Katrien and I hosted this together. We traveled from enterprise architecture to application architecture and forth and back and forth. I made a few notes that can help me to gain more insight . That is very nice.

The session on Agile means was a sticky note session on which the participants recorded all tools and means you can use to facilitate Agile processes. Some needed no explanation, others were completely new to me and explained. Great session!

In the last (double session) ‘Play Politics’ we formed political parties that had to promote a program, established by fate, and get votes from other parties. So, coalitions were formed, negotiations were performed, we debated, we dealt (I strongly suspect even bribes came into play). Marc and I formed the ‘perfect pair’ party and finally won the most votes (and money). Participant argued that I put the rules to my hand, spoke ‘to the point’ and reinvent the game on the fly. I surprised myself by playing this political game so well, where, in reality I get really allergic. Am I that political or did I learn by experiencing? Mmm, time to personally investigate my behavior .

Again I enjoyed myself this day. At noon a cook served lasagna, salad, French bread, vegetable burgers and Mousaka. Very nice! The cook said he had great admiration for the fact that we attended the meeting in such large numbers on our Saturday day off and were so keen to work. Peter explained we we’re really happy to do so.

After this very interesting day Machiel and I, despite the extensive lunch, went to eat Thai food at around six and then leave for home because driving on an empty stomach is not pleasant. Because Eva tomtom gave directions in a very soft tone, I drove in the wrong direction (to the city center), but after a few maneuvers we got back on the E17. En route, we talked about our favorite music so the 2 hour drive to Hilversum seemed very short. To get to my home place it was just a short ride.

I had two great days. Harald and Stefan posted photographs on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/groups/agileopen/pool/show/