The Art of Parking My Car

As it turned out, not even driving around for over an hour looking for a non-existing parking spot can spoil the fun of giving my Agile Management course. (Although it could be that some of the Flemish residents of the picturesque city of Mechelen by the end of that hour learned how to curse with a fluent Northern-Dutch accent.) On the bright side: I got to enjoy the beautiful old city centre, which definitely is worth the while.

The course, in co-organization with AgileMinds, was attended by a group of twelve, that, by a difficult formula only known to myself, was divided in two groups of exactly six. Throughout the two days we did many exercises and games and, according to the participants, the most popular were Meddlers of Catan, in which they had to think up organizational structures for Agile projects and Complexity Thinking, in which the goal is to match common mistakes with a list of fallacies. By popular demand, these will definitely be part of future courses. (Before you ask: I do not have descriptions available for these games, yet.)

As always, I learned a lot, especially through the sticky note feedback that followed each module. With direct feedback throughout the day from my ‘students’, I can directly take useful comments in account and improve while teaching. Always shorten your feedback cycles!

In my previous blog post Agile Management Course (beta): Epilogue I stated that “I must eat my own dog food” to improve future training sessions, and I’m happy to see that I can wag my tail. Less struggling with cards and whatnot this time, and so the radical changes and gradual improvements are paying off!

All in all it was a positive two days with great reviews. I’m looking forward to the next course, which will be in Hamburg on the 7^th and 8^th of April. Want to join? Subscribe here.