We want to make Agile Finland even better, who wants to join? A platform for 2014-2015

The ideas below reflect the discussions we (Maaret Pyhajärvi, Martin von Weissenberg, Vasco Duarte) have had while reflecting on our Visions for Agile Finland. We hope these ideas are discussed and developed within the Agile community in Finland, and end up in a set of actions for the Agile Finland Executive Committee 2014-2015. We also commit to present ourselves as candidates for the Agile Finland executive committee in the next Annual Fannual meeting and are open to you joining our group to be part of the next executive committee.

If you share our ideas, get in touch and join us for the Agile Finland board. If you don’t share our ideas, please join the debate! Publish your ideas, volunteer for the next Agile Finland board on your own or as part of our list. Our goal is to spark debate and ensure we will have a strong group of committed individuals to continue the work that we feel Agile Finland needs to complete.

Read our ideas below, and let us know what you think.

Community services

Agile Finland needs to take a role in the progress of software industry in Finland. One way in which we can do that is by cooperating more closely with the companies that identify themselves as Agile companies, both consulting and product/service production.

We want Agile Finland to be a platform for all members of the Finnish Agile Community, be they individuals or other organizations (for profit or not). As an example of this cooperation, we want to establish a yearly market research process financed by Agile Finland that would deliver a yearly “state of Agile in Finland report” and distribute it to the companies in the Agile community as well as to the media and individual Agile Finland members. This report can include topics such as:

• Market size for Agile contracts
• Market size for Agile software development (revenues, number of jobs, etc.)
• Key trends from the Agile market in Finland (topics of interest, business models, etc.)

The full list of topics to cover is to be decided by the group that will create the report.

Sponsorship and funding for Agile Finland

Over the past years, conferences (especially Scan Agile) have been a major funding component for Agile Finland. We want to propose some changes in this respect. We recognize that it is today unclear for Sponsors to know which events to participate in as sponsors. If you support Tampere Goes Agile does it make sense to support another major conference like Scan Agile? How about conferences that happen at similar times? Which one to choose?

We find these choices confuse sponsors and do not adequately serve our present Agile Finland members either. Therefore we propose a change in model for 2014-2015. We propose that companies interested in sponsoring Agile Finland be able to sponsor the whole year of events (several major events are held by Agile Finland every year) and be allowed to choose which ones they participate in. For example, if Company A purchases a yearly sponsorship from Agile Finland they could be features in Scan Agile, Tampere Goes Agile and local events that will happen during the year.

Alternatively, companies could still purchase sponsorship packages for specific events just like they did until now.

Additionally we want to propose a change in the Agile Finland bylaws to allow corporate membership. This membership would allow companies to have access to services such as market research, recruiting communication and other services that Agile Finland may want to develop in support of the Agile business community.

Sponsoring local events

Agile Finland wants to support local Agile communities around Finland, therefore we will commit a minimum amount of money to self-organized community events. All that is needed is a request to the board and the funding will be approved provided we stay within the agreed limit. If you have an idea to support your local community we want to help you without a long wait for either practical or financial support. We want to help local communities get more active, and our support (advertising and financial support) will make it easier.

Developing a future for the Finnish software industry

In 2014-2015 we want to start what we hope will become a trend for the future of our industry. We want to support events designed to support future professionals get familiar with what it means to work in a software organization. For that we will organize events with school-age children on topics such as what the “maker” community already supports all over the world. Creating projects that young Agilists could work on, from concept to execution. But we will also try to grow partnerships with student organizations, universities and companies to have a mentorship program started to help integrate students in the software industry easily.

Major events for 2014-2015

Events such as Turku Agile Day (which we want to support actively), Tampere Goes Agile and Scan Agile are events that attract a large audience and spreads knowledge and awareness of Agile within our community, but also helps establish strong links to other communities.

We want to continue to host and these events but also recognize that a voluntary-only approach has risks that must be tackled. We will consider how to support these events on a case-by-case basis and will work to make their organization a sustainable project that does not require heroic efforts from some of our members every year.

We recognize that each event has their own identity and we want to support that diversity.

As first actions we will:

• Reach out to the Turku Agile Day group and learn how we can further support their goals;
• Help find voluntaries to help host Tampere Goes Agile and Scan Agile;
• Work with each event to make sure they receive the support needed, including professional services for event organization, design, web-hosting, etc.

Do you want to help shape the next year for Agile Finland? Participate by sharing this blog, commenting or tweeting/blogging about the topic yourself! Be active, let's make Agile Finland even better!

Amazing content created by Agile practitioners can change lives

Have you heard of Scrum? An Agile methodology that swept the world by storm? Or Real Options? An approach that can change you manage risk and value in your projects? Or Impact Mapping? Probably the most revolutionary product management and requirements management approach created in the last 10 years?

You can change people's lives

I believe that many of the people attending agile conferences around the world have amazing content to share with the world. I have lately tried to help people get started expressing themselves by sharing what they have learned. And some have already done that. But how to help you?

I have been thinking about what are the obstacles that prevent us from taking the steps to start sharing what we have learned. Some of us are busy, maybe too many things started, maybe we dont feel comfortable with being "out there" and potentially being judged by people that we admire?

Honestly, I dont know. The reasons are different for everyone. What I do know is that I can help you by removing some of the obstacles that stand between you and your future audience. The people that will learn from you, from what you have learned,  from what you have achieved. 

My mind was blown today!

This became very obvious to me today when I was talking to Joe Justice of Wikispeed fame, I was so happy to meet him and to be able to tell, him that I had followed his work for a long time and admired his achievements.  But then he surprised me. He told me that he had learned something that he valued from my talk on #NoEstimates!  My mind was blown. Wow! I created something that somebody liked and that someone was an Agile idol of mine?

The thing is, many of you can do the same! By sharing your knowledge and helping people around you do the same you can change people's lives.

Happy Melly Express: A project to help you

The project that I am working on is

Happy Melly Express. The goal: to help you publish your work, and help your audience grow, touch real people in your community and (probably) change their lives.

Knowledge is a powerful life changer. Remember people believed (knew?) that he Earth was flat, or that waterfall was the right approach to develop software. That has forever changed thanks to people willing to share their stories,  their experience.  When will you do the same?

If you have an idea that can help get Happy Melly Express achieve its purpose share it with me. You can find me on twitter (@duarte_vasco) or via email (duarte_vasco at yahoo).

LESS goes Stockholm for LESS2011, join us there in October

Last year I was involved in the organization of a unique conference. LESS2010 was a unique conference because it brought together different communities. We wanted to make sure that people with different points of view would discuss those points of view. The aim was to create a space for sharing ideas from different communities in the hope that new ideas would emerge. And emerge they did!

When the conference was done we had brought together the academic community which is involved in researching Agile adoption in the real world; the Agile community that is day-in-day-out applying Agile ideas in their own places of work; the Lean community and finally the Beyond Budgeting community that is sharing novel ways to manage and lead companies. This year we are doing the same, only better!

LESS goes Stockholm for LESS2011

You can check the details of the conference in the web-site, but here's a hint. We are working again on bringing different communities together!

The tracks that we have chosen are around the topics of Agile, Lean, Beyond Budgeting, Complexity Sciences, Systems Thinking and one topic that we deal with every day: Organization Transformation.

This year the trend is even more clear that LESS2011 is a conference for leaders in R&D organizations. Perhaps the only leadership focused conference in Europe at this point.

I do hope that more of these start happening because that's the next frontier for Agile and Lean adoption in our places of work.

So, I encourage you to submit a paper/session to the conference. Being there and talking to the the people with the experience and ideas is very important for us to continue our day-to-day work with new ideas and fresh energy!

See you in Stockholm!