ALEnetwork @ XP2011

On 10 May 2011, at the XP2011 conference in Madrid, 32 people from different European countries joined to create a common vision for the Agile Lean Europe (ALE) network, using the StrategicPlay concept. The result was a Lego model that described how the participants felt about the purpose of our emerging network.

You can see the video of our purpose here:

I asked everyone in the room to sign their names in a book, because I was sure some people (including me) would feel that it was a historic moment. (This was confirmed when I heard a few even felt a bit emotional about being part of our little event.) And even though signing your name on a piece of paper is a silly thing, it helps to emphasize the power of the moment.

The next day, on 11 May 2011, we used the vision to generate a few dozen ideas in a world café format (more or less). People had flags to represent their countries, and they used markers and stickies to describe ideas on big papers. They put the ideas on the walls, used dot voting to select favorites, and I asked everyone to commit themselves to help implement at least one of the ideas. Again, the people in the room signed their names in The Book.

You can see the full range of ideas on pictures here:

People and discussions (Picasa)

Ideas and names (Picasa)

And then, on the third day of the conference, people used various open space slots to discuss ALE-related topics. One of them was about preparations for the first ALE2011 conference (7-9 September in Berlin). A lot of people have expressed interest in helping to organize this event. And Olaf Lewitz did a great job getting people together and moving things forward. I am sure you will hear a lot more about it soon!

There couldn’t have been a better start of the Agile Lean Europe (ALE) network. Now let's see if the network can really get things going…

Do you want to join the Agile Lean Europe network? It's easy. Just follow the discussions here.

(some pictures and video courtesy of Olaf Lewitz)