Posts Tagged ‘Agile’

Cultural dimensions and adopting Agile practices

In this blog I want to prove that the extend in which Agile practices are adopted is strongly related to a country’s culture.
On two separate occasions: Gartner Xebia Agile maturity master class and Agile consortium Benelux / Agile Holland’s conference ‘Integrating Agile’ the 2 invited foreign speakers – Dave Norton and Rob Thomsett – emphasized that our country, the Netherlands (NL), is the ‘hot spot’ for adoption of Agile methods & practices. In their experiences and looking at the analyzed facts and figures, many companies in the Netherlands are practicing Agile methods or are seriously exploring the possibility to adopt them.
I asked both men if they thought this could have anything to do with our Dutch culture. For some time now, I’ve been playing with the thought that culture and agile maturity /adoption grade could have a link. They both considered this to be very well possible.
You might know Geert Hofstede’s comprehensive study on how values in the workplace are influenced by culture. I wanted to compare the outcomes of, this study to Dave Norton and Rob Thomsett ’s insights on agile adoption in the Netherlands and other countries. Do they relate?

Dimensions
According to this study there are 5 dimensions on which countries can be compared: Power Distance, Individualism, Masculinity, Uncertainly avoidance and Long term-orientation. Hofstede indexed the differences on a scale from 0 to 100.

Dimensions explained:
Power Distance Index (PDI) is the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. (This represents inequality accepted from below, not from above)

Individualism (IDV) (its opposite is collectivism) is the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups. On the individualistic side we find societies in which ties between individuals are loose: On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families. The word ‘collectivism’ in this sense has no political meaning: it refers to the group, not to the state. Again, the issue addressed by this dimension is an extremely fundamental one, regarding all societies in the world.

Masculinity (MAS) versus its opposite, femininity, refers to the distribution of roles between the genders. It is considered another fundamental basis for any society in finding (other) solutions to corresponding issues. The assertive pole is called ‘masculine’ and the modest, caring pole is called ‘feminine’. In feminine countries, both women and men have the same modest, caring values; in masculine countries women are somewhat assertive and competitive, but not as much as men: masculine countries typically show a gap between men’s values and women’s values.

Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) deals with a society’s tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity. It ultimately refers to man’s search for truth. It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel, unknown, surprising, different from usual. Cultures that avoid uncertainty introduce strict laws and rules, safety and security measures. On a philosophical and religious level, they have a belief in absolute truth; ‘there can only be one Truth and we have it’. Its members are also more emotional, and motivated by inner nervous energy. The opposite types, members of cultures that accept uncertainty, are more tolerant of opinions different from what they are used to; they try to have as few rules as possible, and on the philosophical and religious level they are relativist and allow many trends to flow side by side. People within these cultures are more phlegmatic and contemplative, and not expected by their environment to express emotions. Uncertainly avoidance has a lot to do with acceptance of change.

Long-Term Orientation (LTO) versus short-term orientation: this fifth dimension was found later It can be said to deal with virtue regardless of Truth. Long Term Orientation is associated with values like thrift and perseverance; values associated with Short Term Orientation are respect for tradition, fulfilling social obligations, and ’saving your ‘face’.

In this picture you can see a comparison I made using Geert Hofstede’s model:

To make this a bit more visual I made this graph:

In Belgium, power distance acceptance is high, in the other chosen countries below world average.
In almost all chosen countries, except for Scan, Germany and Belgium individuality is very high. In USA highest.
Masculinity in NL and Scan is extremely low, Germany and USA rank highest.
Uncertainty avoidance, and in my view therefore resistance to change, is highest in Germany and Belgium, lower in the Scandinavian countries and the other chosen countries score below world average.
NL scores about average with the world on long term orientation. Taking risk is more applicable to UK and Canada. Unfortunately no index figures are known of Scan and Belgium of this dimension.

Conclusions:
When we take into account what is said about the Netherlands in relation to Agile adoption / maturity and look at the differences between the cultural dimensions of the chosen countries we can cautiously come to a conclusions.
The chances for successful adoption on Agile methods & practice are obviously strongly related to a low masculinity index and low acceptance of power distance index (NL and Scan) and uncertainty avoidance (NL and Scan lower than world average)

In Belgium (high power distance) for instance, it’s much more important to first gain executive support for Agile practices. In the Netherlands you have to prove that Agile works and gives sustainability.
Belgium’s higher score on uncertainty avoidance suggests less acceptance to change. Belgian decisionmakers might have a higher need for clear measures, rules and more waterfall-like project methods. NL and certainly the UK and USA will be more open to other solutions. Germany is -’in between’.
In the Northern European countries, the practice of one of the Agile methods – scrum- is very common. Could there be a link between MAS score to the fact that in Norway 25% of the executive board is female? And in Denmark about 40%? This is a challenging idea. The degree of masculinity may be muted by a larger feminine participation and sponsorship from the boardroom for Agile development methods (executive support is in the top ten success factors for a project: No. 2 on the list in the studies of Standish University)

In conclusion, we can agree that, based on cultural differences in Belgium and Germany, chances for Agile project methods to be adopted are less than in the other six countries. Also the UK, the USA and Australia seem culturally less inclined to adopt Agile practices.
I think, keeping the cultural differences in mind, it can help us to find ways to tailor (training in) Agile methods and practices to fit within a culture.

Your opinion:
Now what do you think of the relationship between agile adoption and cultural differences? Do you work in one of the countries mentioned here? Did you actually experience the assumptions just mentioned, or do you have a different experience of your own? Please feel free to share your thoughts with me.

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/

2009 Belgium Agile Open Space part 1

I was very eager to participate in Agile Open Space Belgie2009 in Ghent.

The day of departure on Thursday, February 19 was a long and exciting day in which I had to ‘devoure’ a lot of miles. First, from my home in Assendelft to Nijkerk to go to work, then drive to Nijenrode at Breukelen in the afternoon for the last of a series of seminars on change management, and then pick up Machiel in Hilversum for a joint trip to Ghent.

In Ghent we arrived at our B and B hotel where we were welcomed by two very friendly hosts. We decided who would take which room. I took the room in which a lot of African art and things were displayed, singing ‘welcome to the jungle’… Machiel took the room that looked like an office. We were invited for a glass of wine and were also served a snack. I think that we chit chatted for over an hour. Because of 8:00 am breakfast next morning, we wanted to go to our rooms early.

Friday morning we were served a delicious breakfast. We were not even 300 meters away from the conference location IBBT and therefor got there in time. We saw some familiar faces and a lot of new people. So, meet and greet. Of course we started with kick-off, explain how Open Space works and topics were suggested by the more than 50 participants. Very interesting topics for me as well. The most interesting this first day were Machiel’s session about scrum Kanban and the one hosted by Koen about Agile Consortium Benelux (ACB).

The scrum Kanban session was an intense meeting of proponents and opponents of the combination scrum + lean. Some of the participants were very passionate and got quite personal. Machiel reacted very professional and calm with caution, imho. The questions and replies gave him a good opportunity to sharpen his approach in real life. That’s why I like Open Space and am so happy to join.

The session on ACB focused on the, still very small, participation of Be in the ‘Benelux’ and about what ACB could mean to the Agile community. At this moment it is more a Dutch initiative (and possibly European when UK gets involved). The observations and suggestions made during the session, gave Koen and Patrick things to research or insights on the possible added value of ACB to (Belgian) Agile community.

IBBT turn out to be very suitable for this type of meetings. Hot coffee and tea (with biscuits) were available throughout the day, in the afternoon tasty sandwiches were served for lunch and later in the afternoon we could also take soft drinks to our liking. After an intensive and enjoyable day, dinner was served in ‘Vooruit’, which was located appr. 1800 meters from the conference site. Machiel and I would get directions on how to walk to this place by one of the other participants, but instead we got a ride to Ghent town centre in ‘Amsterdam’ style.

The daily special with fish, vegetables and basmati rice was very tasty. The drinks flowed abundantly. The moment that a few pints of beer ended up into Rob’s lap, was a sign for us to go back to the hotel. It was a nice walk along a Ghent’s canal, called ‘Muinkkanaal’, and a lot of vintage industrial buildings. There wasn’t anything wrong with our coordination for, even though we were not familiar in Ghent, we walked straight to our hotel. In my room I called my spouse to say goodnight. And then, before my head even touched the pillow, I fell asleep.

Agile Consortium Benelux

On the 27th of February I attended a knowledge-sharing meeting of the Agile Consortium Benelux (ACB) which is a successor of the DSDM consortium. DSDM, as you might know, is a particular way of executing a software project with joint requirement planning (JRP) and rapid application design (RAD) and users as ambassadors. This method wasn’t seen as one of the – real – Agile practices until it was renamed Atern about 2 years ago.
Anyway, the old consortium needed to be revived in these Agile times. And , because Agile is becoming mainstream, the board is very keen on becoming Agile for commercial purposes.

As with the DSDM group, this consortium consists of a bunch of companies (70 at this moment); Other Agile groups are more organized around people, like Agile Holland, Agile Belgium and Agile Luxemburg. Mission and vision and also strategy still need to be formulated. The majority of the companies that will join are not known in the market for their Agility. So now there is a platform to help these companies.

ACB wants to publish whitepapers, articles and books, initiate research on Agile aspects, support local agile initiatives, organize conferences, knowledge sharing meetings for members and special interest groups etc. They would like to identify what combination of Agile practices and methods can be used depending on the kind of project and the environment it’s in. Of course I told them that Alistair Cockburn has done the same thing. (ISBN 0-321-482751)

This subject appeals to me because I am doing the same research in conjunction with more formal frameworks in daily life and doing so for more than a year now.

ACB wants to become a Agile certification body for companies and individuals, as well as a place where Agile practices are taught. I wonder how this will be implemented and what accreditation they have in mind. Unfortunately, the person from the board who is responsible for this couldn’t attend the meeting.

The planning for this year is to organize several knowledge sharing meeting, some inner circle meetings for the happy few, and an Agile conference in June. A call for papers will be made. This year’s theme is ‘time to market’ although I heard some of the topics that were discussed were not related to TTM.

Anyway, most of the concepts used will appeal to the management level of the larger members. For the individual developer or consultant this doesn’t look like a close fit. Especially since many of us are already certified scrum master and Prince2 or PMI certified. The same thing applies for specialized companies that already practice Agile development. It does not seem an advantage for them to join. Or is it?

The chairman asked me if I would like to contribute to a research group (area: 1. how to introduce agile project management in organizations and 2. making a methods application framework). I asked what the individuals that are asked to help research and work groups, will gain when they’re not employed by the larger companies the ACB addresses. At first it seemed ‘a volunteer job’. Somewhat later they have asked me to prepare a small business case for the reasons why they should make it appealing for an individual to contribute; what it will take. Actually kind of a weird question. To be continued?

change management 4, change is an easy trick

Change is just an easy trick

Under the title ‘change is just an easy trick’, professor dr. Marc Buelens presented the fourth session of the change management seminars at Nyenrode University. He started by quoting Sumantra Goshal: ‘You cannot manage third generation change with second generation processes and first generation managers’. This meaning that the old fashioned way to manage change which was applied after WO II, although updated in later years (the 70- ties and 80-ties), doesn’t make sense in the 90-ties and later.

Quickly we understood what the link was between this insight and his presentation. Marc Buelens pointed out and shared with us his view on the main principles that were (and are) leading with first generation managers after WO II, the economical types. According to me in fact a rational-empirical paradigm of managers worldwide.

It has to do with the view of principal and agent relations with reward systems which had to ensure that the agent did what the principal expected him / her to do. Meantime Marc mentioned all kinds of literature in which these ideas are formulated.

He explained to us the law of Coase which says that a company grows to the point that its `internal’ cost of operation becomes equal or more than the external operation costs (which in the course of times has just decreased). Perhaps that’s why it became more economical to outsource.
Furthermore he shared he with us his idea that a company is in fact a dictatorial system in a `free market economy’. How this influences a change program he did not say. He just shared his amazement about this.

Marc distincts the (1) mechanical change type (engineering strategy), the (2) process style (kaizen and quality circles), the (3) learning organization and (4) strategic change type and he claims that manager generations have followed these change strategies. According to him these 4 `pure’ change types you can plot on two lines (array). One axes reflects power distance and other axes reflects the degree of uncertainty. Now, you may be thinking: ‘I have come across this earlier’, and yes indeed, these are two of the cultural dimensions by Geert Hofstede.

1st generation sought burning platforms (creating a crisis as reason for change) where people were remembered of their duty and responsibility. Kipling and Kurt Lewin (the latter being the one that distinguishes freeze, unfreeze and refreeze periods, I think)
2nd generation managers rule with insights from of Covey, Collins and Kotter and use SWOT, balanced Scorecard, TQM and ‘play matrix’.
3rd the generation managers originates from the `Einstein’ generation. Their ideas come from ‘the learning organization’, where the principal is just one of many stakeholders, Their activities are multitasking and residing in cyberspace.
4th generation change isn’t clear yet for this professor. According to him it has to do with the network organization and having meaningful and satisfactory digital relationships, a phenomenon so very strange to him.

The title of the lecture prof. Buelens started with, wasn’t meant to state the case, on the contrary.
Still, I didn’t learn much more than the quotation of Sumatra Goshal, he began this lecture with.
‘Als je een hamer hebt zie je in alles een spijker’ is a Dutch saying that explains a lot. In English it means that when you know to use a hammer you are likely to see a nail in everything and change becomes an easy trick.

I would gladly invited him to a discussion by means of Internet, e-mail or LinkedIn but he isn’t present there… moreover he is a Belgian professor and therefore he likes the power distance to be larger than the Dutch are accustomed to, according to Geert Hofstede. If I may rank this lecture I would give it a 7-

Of course the Dutch version of this post can be read at www.abc-thinkBIG.com.

SOA and Agile

On the weblog I posted on a presentation about SOA and Agile during XP day Benelux I got some nice responses. We at Approach think it is very important for the maturity of IT and SOA to share opinions and knowledge. That’s why I elaborate further on this topic here in this posting.

Most people still seem to be searching for answers about what SOA has to do with Agile and vice versa. Most discussions start high level but quickly go down to the nitty gritty technical details and use a lot of three letter acronyms. There are not a lot of people in the Agile community that think SOA can be Agile (as meant by the Agile Alliance). On the contrary: most people say that SOA is an open invitation for Big Upfront Design and therefore can’t be Agile.
So(a), let’s talk about SOA and Agile by looking at the 4 core values from the Agile Manifesto:

- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

This statement is about the development process. This can be applied to any architecture, including SOA. There are, obviously, some processes and rules about tools in place when working in a SOA. For example: If you need a change in a service that other service consumers are using, you need to make sure you don’t break anything when you implement the change. This sounds very similar to changing an interface in a Java program: you need to make sure you don’t break any other classes that are using it.
Agile development has some good ‘processes’ in place for that: test driven development, to name one.

- Working software over comprehensive documentation

This statement is about focus: do you spend most of the time in a project in designing and documenting your code or do you create self documenting code and only write documentation that is actually needed by the stakeholders. Again: this has nothing to do with architecture. Of course, if you want to reuse services, you need documentation and some thought about the interface. Writing testcode for the services you have built is a very good way of documenting services. To reuse service, they need to be working. Again, no clash here.

- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

This statement is about the contract for developing software. A lot of fixed price contracts go over budget. It is very hard to calculate cost exactly at the beginning of a project. Again, this has little to do with architecture. One of the nice things of SOA is decoupling of code. This makes it easier to change, and easier to prioritize: we talk about a business service that adds value to the business. Implement the most important services first. Value can be measured in different ways: for one specific customer to reach enterprise wide goals or to reduce risk.

- Responding to change over following a plan

The reason for SOA is agility, flexibility: by decoupling service providers from consumers, it becomes easier to change implementations. By using standardization it becomes easier to change. By using separation of concern, it becomes easier to change. Etc etc.

Conclusion:
The first three statements from the manifesto are about developing software and apply to any architecture, including SOA. The last statement is striking: SOA is all about change… The way you implement it, should be about change too. So to me, SOA and Agile are a very good fit.

XP Days Benelux, second day

21 November 2008

The bed I slept in was very good. It had become very cold in my room and the heating didn’t work. Took a hot shower and dressed. I should have gotten my breakfast (package) at my room but it never arrived. There was no personnel and no one answered the phone. So no breakfast. I went down to wait for the cab and found out that the baker left my breakfast on the doorstep of the hotel in a cardboard box (in the rain!). The taxi was right on time. So I took the fruit drink and left for the second day of the XP day’s conference.

We started out with an opening plenary, where the sessions were introduced in 30 sec. The introduction made me change my mind and I rearranged my choices. Only ‘Agile and SOA’ and ‘resistance to change’ stayed on my list. Two topics at this time in life that interest me a lot.

I attended ‘introducing scrum in a large organization‘ by Didier and Jan. This session started out and finished with commercials for the company’s products. In between they explained the start of the project as usual: budget, time and goal. Then explained how they first introduced XP. This was Agile in the small, and they added metrics and retrospectives and some more Agile instruments and explained ways they extended the whole approach. It was interesting enough to let the law of two feet go by. I could distil some pointers of things that were meant to introduce Agile in the large… Perhaps they should read Jutta Eckstein’s book. Their approach was instrumental and technical and we understood what issues were left unaddressed.

The second session was about Agile and SOA. For this session I was well prepared. Unfortunately again a very technical architectural view. It focused on a ‘utilities departments’ management problems. The presenters was throwing threee letter acronyms at us. 3 or 4 times I tried to take de discussion to another level by asking tempting questions but it didn’t help so I left the session after approximately 15 minutes. Very disappointing.

After lunch I attended the session named ‘Overcoming resistance to change‘ by Dave and Lasse. This is one other of my ‘pet’ topics. It was a very enlightning session and there were some good hints and tips on approaches to overcome resistance to change. Some of which I wouldn’t like to practice, but still. (e.g. manipulate, question someone’s credibility;)

The last session I attended ‘Hey scrum master! Let the team decide‘. This was a very interactive session that starting with a lot of humor. We explored the possibility of letting the team decide whether to do retrospectives or not and to give them room to fail. To facilitate this we looked for possibilities and attitudes the scrum master would have to master. I loved this session.

In the closing session prizes were awarded to the teams (our team too). The awards were: a license to some IDE and each a bottle of Belgium beer. After that drinks were served by courtesy of one of the sponsors. Unfortunately, I had to leave because my taxicab would arrive at 6 o clock to take me to the train station again. Heading home in the train I wrote this second report of XP days. I am certainly going to attend a XP day’s conference again! Met some beautiful, knowledgeable and very friendly people again and spoke to old and new friends.

XP days Benelux, first day

20 november 2008
The Benelux XP days were held in Veldhoven, a little town near the city of Eindhoven. Because of the heavy traffic from my hometown near Zaandam to the conference place I decided to go by public transport. At 6.15 hours I left home by car and went to the train station at Zaandam to take the intercity train. I could read the morning paper and do some Sudoku’s. A relaxed way to travel and quite a new experience. Took a cab at the train station in Eindhoven to arrive there at the conference centre at about 9 o’clock. First registration and coffee, choosing what ‘persona’ you resemble the most, and saying hello to some of the people I already knew.

The opening plenary started at 9.30. We immediately got an assignment to form a team of 4 members of different personas and to have a kick-off meeting during the day. Then all presenters told us in 30 seconds what their session would be about. We formed our team in a short time: we were complete after the first session. I realized again that people like to be asked to join. We agreed to hold our first team discussion during lunch. This first day 4 rounds of sessions were held. Sometimes it was hard to choose. I picked the following:

‘Dynamic planning for fixed price projects‘ led by Koen and Walter. They explained what they think is the difference between iterative and incremental, and what is disruptive about iterative. These guys explained that dynamic planning gives better financial results. They showed a two-dimensional diagram; on the Y-axes discounted cash flow, and on the X axes a cost curve and break-even point and return on investment they named ‘time’. I didn’t understand even after they tried to explain it again. I am well educated in financial accounting and I perhaps missed a third dimension, or would replace discounted cash flow for discounted budget expenditures and ROI for ‘return on revenue’? I think I have to do some reading: I got a tip from a new friend Yann to read a book by Alistair Cockburn. What I liked was the explanation of the difference between project results like ‘dirt’ road, ‘cobblestone’ road and ‘asphalt’ road. The whole thing reminded me of the three ways things move in many projects within the triangle of cost, time and functionality. The different roads stand for alternative functionality..

The next session was ‘So now you are an agilist… what’s next‘ by Jurgen. He pointed out 6 of his 12 law’s of software development or actually 6 of the 12 laws of ‘creative teams’ and the relationship and difference between ordered, complex and chaotic systems. We discussed some important assumptions. This was a very nice session.

Our (Ward, Stefan, Yann and me) kick-off team lunch was very good to get to know each other and to discus some of the topics.

After lunch I attended ‘mirror, mirror on the wall” by Portia and Pascal. We did something that was a bit like speed dating. To get to know as much people in a very short time. And then listen to the story of Snow White and the seven dwarfs and realize that these characters resemble types of people (like with Belbin’s team roles and Myers Brigg type indicators) The thing I liked most was that you could really experience that teams that consist of different characters work very well, a theme I like best: ‘Diversion and Inclusion’. Coincidentally I co-organized a meeting just the day before: a Women-in-Charge session in Rotterdam that was about this theme. I enjoyed myself very much.

The last session I attended was the one titled ‘the 9 fit falls of adopting scrum‘ by Eelco and Cesario. In this session they focused on big organizations and to 4 of the 9 pitfalls: not preparing the organization, defective product owner, doing scrum only by the book and no organizational learning. This was very informative; we had some good discussions and tried out the ‘fishbowl’ format. That is a kind of informal forum discussion. I found out I like it a lot.

After the closing-ceremony there was an Aikido workshop that was real fun. Somewhat sweaty I helped gathering Lego building blocks from previous sessions and then we had diner. Unfortunately I had no room to freshen up so I had to do this in the powder-room We had a lovely diner with again some nice talks and discussions. The food was very good. At about nine I said goodnight and ordered a cab which drove me to hotel Que Pasa. All rooms were booked and I had to book this hotel about 2 km from the conference centre. I phoned my loved one and after taking a shower wrote this part of the story on my laptop. Read my email and sms and voicemail messages and closed my eyes at about 23.00 hours. It had been a long but very good day!

Agile Open Space

On June 5th and June 6st I attended a so-called Agile Open Space conference at the Universiteit of Utrecht. ‘Open Space” is a way to confer with a minimum set of directives and no predetermined topics.
The only rules that do apply come from ‘Open Space Technology’:

• no agenda established in advance
• participants that attend are the right people
• the law of two feet.

The latter meaning: leave the session whenever you want. Quite ‘loose’ for the structured person I am, but I felt I had to experience this at least once.
To accommodate the process, there were whiteboards, paper, stickies, markers and a `rubber duck’. This ‘rubber duck’ was used as a kind of microphone but without the sound amplifier. Who ever held the duck spoke. Who wasn’t did not. Everyone said it was a `chicken `. But really, it was a duck!
A diagram with timeslots for the sessions was taped to the wall. There were four places in the location where the session could be held. The participants wrote/noted their session topic or issue on stickies. The stickies were arranged in the timetable. After arranging the sessions, all participants could indicate which sessions they wanted to attend. On one session many people were present (especially the ones held in the garden because of the beautiful weather!) and at other sessions nobody showed up.
No problem at all, to me it felt like a natural ‘flow’. This is self-organizing and therefore very `agile’. Some of the topics were: the role of the product owner, the benefits of irresponsibility, systems thinking, best books to read, Agile testing and much more. Fierce discussions were held, but people respected each other and debated with a lot of humor.
I haven’t seen anyone that didn’t participate.

A big THANK YOU to Marc and Willem for organizing the event, location, drinks & lunch during the conference, Koen for sponsoring the evening drinks and Erik for sponsoring the absolutely delicious diner. But above all I would like to thank all participants for their active and constructive contribution.

I met some nice people, spoke about and listened to interesting topics and enjoyed myself very much.
This won’t be the last time a will join an Agile Open Space event!