Agile in Europe (#scanagile #scrumgathering)
Some reflections on two recent agile conferences I attended (and ran sessions at). Both very stimulating, with a great deal of learning going on. Both raising questions for me in several directions.
I’m not going to make this a blow-by-blow account of each: you can check out the programs at the respective web sites (Scan-Agile 2009, Munich Scrum Gathering). What did strike me at both was a very distinct difference between a European sensibility and that of our US colleagues. Speaking with individuals at both events, we agreed that there’s a very different feeling with respect to community, to sharing, to exploration and pragmatism and much less emphasis on dogmatism, personalities, personal brands and reputations, fashion (as a side-effect, so many in the agile world seem incredibly hung up just now on issues of precedence – who described/codified/invented what, and when). I think we suffer in Europe because of this: there’s a residual belief in businesses in silver bullets and witch doctors, and most of the European agilists aren’t selling this sort of certainty. What we are increasingly about on this side of the pond is engagement, constructive conversation, good science and sustainable change. Maybe, just maybe, in the face of some of the US pioneers of Agile we feel inferior? (We needn’t, of course).
Even so, there are dangers. It’s good to meet like minds, but I see a lot of group-think in the agile world just now. We can have any number of entertaining and stimulating discussions amongst ourselves to sustain a strong community in Europe, but increasingly we need to take these conversations to the businesses we work in. We need to talk sense, and in the appropriate language, in our businesses, who really are not interested in whether we call things Agile, Lean, Kanban, Scrum, Scrumban or whatever, and who won’t take to team coaching (for example) if it’s described in some of the new-age ways I’ve seen. Let’s continue, and spread the habit of, speaking the language of organisational effectiveness: we need to work on making good some of our beliefs and assertions with sound data backed by pragmatism and experience.
Specific highlights for me? In Helsinki, Dave Snowden’s talk (and talking with Dave before and during the conference) – put most if not all the other sessions in the shade. In Munich, Harvey Wheaton’s keynote on agile practice at Supermassive Games (good, solid, pragmatic experience), and Liz Keogh’s Haiku workshop – 90 minutes of innovation, leaving diehard programmers with confidence in their inner poets and suggesting many powerful ideas for coaching (paying attention to what happened, not pre-interpreting, and more specifically some ideas for innovation coaching, which is a subject I’m getting particularly interested in just now).
Both conferences ran “alternative” streams. In Munich, I’m not sure that the discussion room was heavily used as an innovation space, though it was a great venue for the Haiku workshop and the Scrum Clinic (this was a great idea: individuals could sing up for 20 minute sessions as doctor or patient, the patient posed a question which was then discussed, result some good conversations and good advice. The screen-and-chairs layout made it feel more of a confessional than a clinic at times…). Open-space sessions in both worked less well than they could have (and yes, I know that “whoever comes is the right attendance” etc etc, but still). Both reinforced for me the fact that this style of session needs effective facilitation: you can’t just say “let’s have an OS” and hope it will magically organise itself. [DH: see comments below. “preparation/organisation’ probably better words here. No criticism intended of the people who worked hard during both OS events to make them work, rather a point of reflection and improvment for the next ones.]
Outside of the conference: in Munich, it was good to visit the Alte Pinakothek and stumble across some of my favourite paintings: this Dürer self-portrait, two gorgeous works by Boucher, Altdorfer’s stunning narrative painting The Battle of Issus, and an amazing Rembrandt self-portrait.
Looking at all of these – especially the Altdorfer and the self-portraits – I find myself wondering what it would be like to encounter these images in an era without extensive images in print, on TV, DVD, youtube, the Internet. It’s easy to develop image-fatigue: visiting a gallery and going with open eyes and mind is a great refresher.
Hi David and thank you for your take on the conferences - I didn’t attend scanagile - so I can’t comment.
I take from your post about Munich that you feel as though the OpenSpace did not have effective facilitation. If that is indeed your feeling then…that is an interesting view - because it was facilitated (quite effectively , under the circumstances, by Deb Hartmann Preuss). I think the lesson it reinforces for me is that you can’t just say ‘we’ll decide on day 2.75 of a 3 day conference to have Open Space and hope it magically organises itself and generates the interest it usually does’.
cheers
Mike
Hi Mike - that’s my point, exactly. Maybe “organisation” would have been a better word. Certainly in Munich the OS felt like an afterthought. No criticism of the people who tried to make it work.
In Helsinki the OS was planned as part of the conference from the start. The problems were different: partly due to a couple of high-profile speakers the previous day stating publicly in a panel session that they “didn’t believe in Open Space”, partly too because the physical space didn’t work (all in one round hall, groups around the edge, lots of people’s backs facing the centre of the room, lots of noise: not conducive to conversation).
I like Open Space (and have as my model of a successful event the UK Agile Coaches Gathering earlier this year), it’s a pity to see it failing to meet expectations and giving people a poor experience of what can be a very useful style.
David, but the Open Spaces at Munich were an afterthought in the sense that they were not prepared in advance by the organizers, but rather were a guerrilla effort by Deborah, Tobias and Mike. Given they had no space and little time I think they did a pretty good job.
You’re spot on re. cultural differences, BTW.
Andy, agreed (see above!), but - in the end, and as Mike implies - I think Open Space deserves to be more than an afterthought.
Open spaces are fairly new in Finland and a new concept to many who don’t often attend conferences. The Scan-Agile open space suffered from the legacy of last year’s open space. This year we determined to put an effort into facilitating a proper open space though there still is a lot to be improved.
My beef with open spaces is that you cannot pick your audience. It can be tricky keeping a conversation on track in the face of a motivated, loud individual determined to steer the conversation his way. Likewise conversing between practitioners is challenging if the group includes several enthusiastic shu-level agilists quoting the book at every turn.
That being said, a lot of good things can be said of the open space. The energy level is great, networking opportunities are abundant but having deep, structured dialog can be difficult. You really need to set a theme for the open space, and establish a topic and some guidelines for sessions and perhaps even limits on who can attend.
Applause for pointing out we need to take conversations to our respective businesses, and for talking sense. Too much of agile is developer centric, and focused on agile itself as an inherent value.
The differences between the North-American and other Agile communities (not just Europe) come from our different cultures. Even withing Europe there are some countries where the individualist approach to Agile and the personal branding is regarded as “the way to go”. Right now my conclusion is that the infighting within the Agile community is actually causing more harm than advancing dialogue.
This is happening both because we are growing as community and starting to pay attention to *real* business results (not just promises of such), but also because the infighting is not really helping those of us that are trying to implement Agile in practice in our work places. I saw a concrete example of this community infighting in a conference recently where key people/spokes people for the Agile community were having a “fight” on stage and that cannot help us advance the state of our industry.
It is due to this, I think, that in the coming years we will focus again in the basics (science, experience sharing with data) and not exclusively on story telling.
This is perhaps a small part of what you experienced.