Nat Pryce wrote me about the previous entry:

I just read your blog post about the review processes for XP Day Benelux and London. I just want to assure you that all submissions will get feedback. If the review process doesn’t provide feedback to some sessions the programme committee members will write three (or more) reviews for those sessions before deciding the final programme and informing the presenters of acceptance or not.

I’m glad to hear that all sessions will get feedback. In the past, feedback on session descriptions has helped me improve both the session itself and its description. See e.g. the differences in the way we described Balancing Act the first edition written more from an organisers perspective and the second edition more compact and focused on tangible outcomes for the attendees.

How and when to involve the program committee in the review process was/is a puzzle for xp days benelux. This year some of us waited for the other reviewers to get started, and then the committee reviewed the remaining sessions. For next year, we’re toying with the idea on starting first, to encourage other reviewers to also start early.

After a fairly open review process and animated discussion in the program committee, the XP Day Belenux 2005 Program is now online.

The only ‘regret’ I’m having about the program, is that I’m not going to have time to attend many sessions, since I’m co-hosting three fun-filled active sessions myself :-) :

• Gummibears
• Drawing Carousel
• Balancing Act

I’m proud of our more open review process this year, where we invited every session organiser to participate in the review process. We did the reviews on a wiki, so that everyone who bothered to review could see how others were working on reviewing sessions.

We were also happy to have plenty of sessions to fill two days instead of one. I’m hoping the program has a bit more air, and the participants have more time to meet each other (e.g. during the conference dinner on Thursday night).

XP Day London is taking this a step further, they are experimenting with a voting system (everyone who sends in a session gets five votes) and have made reviewing obligatory if you want to have a session accepted. I applaud their courage and am curious to find out how this worked for the program committee.

Sending in and reviewing was fun anyway. The program is not finished yet, reviews have closed yesterday. So far it looks like Balancing Act and The Agility of Domain Specificic Languages seem to stand a good chance of being accepted, since they each attracted five votes. Temperature Reading got three votes so far.

As a session organiser, I see one drawback in the voting approach – the Gummibears session description didn’t attract votes in London. It also didn’t attract any feedback, so it’s difficult to learn something for a possible next description.

Some sessions seem to have attracted feedback without votes, possibly because they are more controversial, or don’t fit well with the theme of the conference.

Anyway, exploring what works and what not in sessions, their descriptions and creating a conference program remains fascinating. I hope to write soon about how Rob Westgeest and I use mini-retrospectives to incrementally improve the eXperience Agile course.

Keith Ray wrote about Scott Berkun’s essays . I am particularly drawn to why smart people defend bad ideas . It describes some common ways of bad idea defenses, and some countermeasures. And it’s fun to read.

I don’t believe there is anything wrong with having bad ideas. I know I’ve had plenty. If you try to have only good ideas, you’ll be blocked. Generating many good and bad ideas, and deferring determination of their goodness or badness is key to
techniques like brainstorming, working in iterations and pair programming.

I believe the key is in defending bad ideas. I know I’ve done that too… Once you find out, through ruminating or feedback from the real world that an idea might be bad, you need to reconsider, or generate new ones. At least you have to be open to the possibility that an idea might be bad.

I’ve also been on the receiving end of other people defending bad ideas. I guess it’s a bit more obvious if you receive the “defense”. Actually the “defending” often feels more like an attack in disguise. It often goes through manipulation. Scott describes several manipulations, some of which I’ve encountered often. I may have used them as well, but I’m not really aware of that – manipulation works best if the one who manipulates isn’t aware of it…

If you’re not convinced about reading it yet, let me offer this quote:

[..] Worse, if they got away with it when they were young (say, because they were smarter than their parents, their friends, and their parent’s friends) they’ve probably built an ego around being right, and will therefore defend their perfect record of invented righteousness to the death. Smart people often fall into the trap of preferring to be right even if it’s based in delusion, or results in them, or their loved ones, becoming miserable.

So, the next time you’re attacked by someone defending a bad idea, have pity on them. It probably hurts them much more than it hurts you.

The next time you feel miserable defending an idea, think again… It may be a real bad idea to defend this one…

While reading getting things done I came across this quote, which aptly summarizes the workshop experience:

It is easier to act yourself into a better way of feeling, than to feel yourself into a better way of action. - O.H. Mowrer

So these, I think, are the three big lessons open source and blogging have to teach business: (1) that people work harder on stuff they like, (2) that the standard office environment is very unproductive, and (3) that bottom-up often works better than top-down.

Ever since reading The Timeless Way of Building, I've been looking at many office environments with bewilderment. Usually, they're not the right place to be creative. Even with all the values and practices of agile software development that can make it more prredictable, It takes time to play and reflect to arrive at truly simple solutions. If I want to solve something, or ever write,

I'm usually better off going into the garden for a bit. How many offices do you know that have gardens?

At the end of the piece Paul Graham goes into startup culture (as most startups start out of home). When people ask me what it is like to run your own company, like I do, I usually say (with a smile) 'don't try this at home, kids'. But, as Paul Graham writes:

And as the example of open source and blogging suggests, you'll enjoy it more, even if you fail. You'll be working on your own thing, instead of going to some office and doing what you're told. There may be more pain in your own company, but it won't hurt as much.

I had some pain, it does hurt, but not as much. I 've met people who paid far more 'learning money' than I did (so far). If something goes wrong, I've got only myself to blame, I can learn, and try again. Recently I find, that I am finding more and more the work I excel at and enjoy. As Lynne says: 'live the life you imagine'.

I believe that the growing popularity of blogging, open source, wikipedia, Dilbert, agile (software development) and starting your own company is no coincidence. People are looking for better ways to live and work, and many are no longer waiting, like children, for their employer to make this happen.

Do I believe it is possible to achieve this inside companies as well? Yes, if you manage to change slowly, work with proven results, and keep playing the 'professional' games necessary to keep you in step with the rest of the company. Many agile teams enjoy more fun and productivity, and other ways of working and more respectful interactions are spreading. For most of us, it's probably easier to try other ways on our own, or within the confines of a team (but watch out for being too succesful ;-).

Some businesses can change from the inside, many business can change only if there is sufficient outside (e.g. market) pressure. Many more change into non-existance, because they are outcompeted. It's no coincidence.

If you don't want a swinging song to stay in your head all day, I recommend you do not download Chinese Fairytale ;-). Sweet pop music with a groove, a la Saint Etienne. Enjoy.

With me in this case. The world is also interesting, with many things going on on the energy front at the moment.

I just arrived home from the pair programming party in Mechelen. I worked with Pascal van Cauwenberghe on our new project 'hourensou' (Japanese for spinach, and for a practice from the Toyota way). We're building hourensou to help us level out the load for the various events we organize.

The amount of 'stuff' we have to do is getting to the level that some pragmatic automation will save us time. We've got about six people signed up to help already, as this will also be a fun exercise in making a ruby on rails application.

We also talked a bit about blogging. Pascal suggested making small deadlines for yourself and finishing 'whatever' within that deadline. So that is what I did, I made up most of this blog entry (and some more) while I drove back.

Agile Alliance election results

I was eligible as member for the agile alliance board, and I didn't get elected. A friend asked me about the election results today, apparently they haven't been made public or sent to the members yet.

Looking at the list of board members on the agile alliance website it hasn't been updated for at least a year, so I'll break the news then, this is what Rachel Davies mailed me:

The people who were elected this year are: Mike Cohn, Rachel Davies, Jutta Eckstein, Ron Jeffries, Ole Jepson, Brian Marick, Angela Martin, Rebecca Wirfs-Brock.

I congratulate the new board, and wish them a lot of fun in a year where the alliance continuously delivers value.