Very recently, Jurgen Appelo (Noop.nl) launched a reflection on a European positioning of agility through a discussion on LinkedIn.
His conclusions and the synthesis of comments took the form of a “post” on his blog: Agile Europe, let’s take action. I propose to translate it below and I suggest to all agilists of France and Navarre to get in touch with Jurgen. In French or in English, because that’s the first thing I allowed myself to raise: the problem of language, particularly in our country. I am sure that we have plenty of talented agilists who don’t understand anything in Shakespeare’s language. It would be a shame to lose their contribution. Apparently Jurgen Appelo is already well aware of this difficulty, inherent to our European condition.*
One last reflection before translating his call. The debate on European agile identity seems very fruitful to me. Indeed, for my part the “Can Do” Anglo-Saxon side regularly clashes with the “I think therefore I am” of our French sensitivity (I think before doing). It would seem very interesting to me to philosophize a bit about this because agile is a culture above all else. (ps: the improbable flag on the left comes from my twisted mind).
Jurgen Appelo, Agile Lean Europe, Let’s take action.
In my previous message, I analyzed the discussion about a network of agile & lean thinkers in europe (and doers). My conclusion was that many of us want better interaction and collaboration across Europe. But we also cherish the ideas of diversity and emergence.
We need people to push things further. But without creating a hierarchy or a desire for control.
I had lengthy discussions with Olaf Lewitz and Ken Power, and here is my action plan…
Step 1: Create the big list
The first step towards better collaboration in Europe is to know and visualize the network. I call this the big list. This will be a list of all the people in Europe who are a) representative of a community, a group b) have ideas c) live in Europe. This list will contain authors, bloggers, speakers, conference organizers, and all those who are involved in sharing ideas about Lean and Agile.
The first step, Olaf and I compared and merged our contact lists. I will contact many people in many countries this weekend, and I will ask you to give me more names. Next week I will publish a first version of this big list, and I will ask everyone to give me their feedback on it. I will probably forget important people and I am ready to take hits for it (no one better than a Dutchman for that I suppose). We will need a few iterations to have a fairly precise idea of the people who cultivate ideas in Europe (idea farmers).
The big list should help conference organizers, speakers, and authors to get in touch across Europe. It will also be useful for new initiatives that will need contributors from different countries.
Example: When the big list is almost complete, I will ask people to propose a better name for this future network (ALE is still an option). I would also like to see a meeting or a conference in 2012 organized with the maximum number of people from this list.
Step 2: Create the small list
For certain activities we will need a small list of the best thinkers in Europe. They can call themselves “opinion leaders” or “gurus”, but that’s not important. What is important is that the network will decide who they are. It will be a meritocracy (meritocracy), instead of a selection of people who will have chosen themselves. (I have experience with creating these “best-of” lists, so no worries).
This short list should be composed of a few dozen people (let’s say about fifty) enlightened individuals who are the best in Europe for producing ideas and creating dynamics between people. I like the name “small list” because it doesn’t sound too pompous (like the big list [note from me: I prefer “big list” than “large list”]). And that’s how it should work in an agile world. The network is more important than the elite.
Example: the small list will be very useful for publishers, conference organizers, European institutes, and all those who want to know who are opinion leaders and the main players at the European level. People from the small list can serve as an entry point for the (agile) social network.
Step 3: Meet up
Face-to-face communication is the best way to move things forward. So I will gently push people in this network to meet and take action. One thing I would like to achieve would be to have 20 thinkers ([idea farmers, note from me: “intellectual” one might say in France]) at the XP 2011 (XP2011 conference) conference in Madrid. I will perhaps ask people from the small list to nominate representatives from their group. We could call this subset the “very small list” (It would be even less important than the small list).
At the XP2011 conference I will ask this “very small list” to have a better vision for this network, additional ideas, and how to transform these ideas into actions. But it’s too early to go into details. As Olaf showed me at the Play4Agile conference, we must deal with these details “at the last responsible moment”.
Your help
Naturally, I need your help.
I’m not going to do all the work. My job is to boost the network, let people organize themselves, set some constraints, and let things grow, push (I observe like a gardener).
I don’t want to be Director, nor President or CxO, because we are not going to launch a new alliance, a new consortium or a new institute. We already have plenty of them. We are just going to make our network blossom. I would like however to be the single entry point of the network (Singleton) for a while. I am available to catch, create, redirect, orient the network’s material.
Here is how you can help me now:
- Make us visible (blog, tweet, discussions, etc).
- Join the Agile Lean Europe group on LinkedIn and stay informed.
- Give me the names of Agile and Lean people in Albania, Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, or Turkey. Because I don’t know anyone in those countries. (You get a bonus if you name agilists from the Vatican)
Thanks for your support!