Agile Management | NOOP.NL

Stoos Stampede: Improve Everything (6/6)

The original “Stoos 21” selected Amsterdam and 6+7 July for the next event of the Stoos Network. And then I stepped forward to try and make it happen by being a Management 3.0 leader…

Improve Everything

The sixth and last part of the Management 3.0 model is Improve Everything.

So, what will I improve the next time we start organizing an (un)conference?

Next time we will have more compelling sponsor packages.

Next time we will do more marketing in non-Agile channels.

Next time we will better explain the un- part of the unconference.

Next time we will have a sorted list of participants at the registration desk.

Next time we won’t wait for attendees to create a happiness index.

Next time we will know that praying will not improve wi-fi access.

Next time I will delegate even more.

Next time…

Hope to see you next time.

Go and read the Stoos Stampede Story...

See also:

• Energize People (1/6)
• Empower Teams (2/6)
• Align Constraints (3/6)
• Develop Competence (4/6)
• Grow Structure (5/6)
• Improve Everything (6/6)

     

Stoos Stampede: Grow Structure (5/6)

The fifth view of the Management 3.0 model is about information paths and organizational structure.

Network Structure

Well, I can be brief about this one. Basically, the Stoos Network has no structure. But it’s worth noting that local Stoos satellites are popping up like mushrooms on a rainy day in Amsterdam. And it all happens with the blessings of John Styffe, who came up with the idea of organizing local collaboration.

There is also no real definition of what exactly is a Stoos Stampede or StoosXchange. It’s just a bunch people getting together incidentally, traveling from many different places. Whatever name works to motivate them is the right name for the job.

For me the stampede is over now.

I am curious to see what happens next.

Go and read the Stoos Stampede Story...

See also:

• Energize People (1/6)
• Empower Teams (2/6)
• Align Constraints (3/6)
• Develop Competence (4/6)
• Grow Structure (5/6)
• Improve Everything (6/6)

     

Stoos Stampede: Develop Competence (4/6)

In the Management 3.0 model Develop Competence is about stimulating learning and measuring progress.

Better Learning

I think better learning is one of the reasons the people at the Stoos Stampede in Amsterdam got together in the first place. Organizations have sucked for decades, and Melly Shum is still hating her job.

It seems we’re not doing a great job changing the world.

I think we need better change agents, better approaches, and better collaboration. That’s why we started the Stoos Network. And that’s why I wrote the little book How to Change the World. I know, I’m just one little fish in a very big pond full of change agents. But if we coordinate the wagging of our tails, we should be able to make a big splash…

Measuring Progress

How do you measure progress when changing the world?

I have no idea. Maybe the number of active participants in the LinkedIn group is an indicator? Or maybe we should go for the total stakeholder approach and use global happiness as the ultimate measure of success of world change?

Within the context of the event itself I was glad to see a time-scaled happiness index emerge in the central hallway. It told us the organizers and participants did a good job at generating value, at least for each other. Except for the problems with wi-fi, of course. But when you’re changing the world, it’s nice to keep some things predictable.

Go and read the Stoos Stampede Story...

See also:

• Energize People (1/6)
• Empower Teams (2/6)
• Align Constraints (3/6)
• Develop Competence (4/6)
• Grow Structure (5/6)
• Improve Everything (6/6)

     

Stoos Stampede: Align Constraints (3/6)

This third post in a series of six is a rewrite of a lengthy comment I wrote in reply to a blog post by Deborah Hartmann-Preuss…

Learning Networks

We have defined “Stoosian” to be about learning networks. The Stoos Stampede organizers also aimed to learn. Donald Reinertsen described in his latest book that learning is maximized when people do experiments. That's what we did. We ran an experiment with the format of the conference.

Some would have felt more comfortable with "a known approach" of either a normal open space or a regular conference, which would have been safer either way. But we already know where those approaches succeed and where they fail. Where's the learning if we do things only the safe way?

Diverse People

What I miss in some people’s pleas for unconferences is that people are different. Maybe open space is a perfect format for you. But it's not perfect for everyone. (It's certainly not for me.) Another Stoosian principle is diverse people. Well, this means taking into account that what works for you might not work for other people.

When you announce an unconference as purely open space you usually only get the people who already believe in the value of open space. When you announce an event as a regular conference, you only get people who believe in the value of standard conferences. I hear open space fans say, "I'm not going to standard conferences anymore." And I hear other people say, "I'm not going to an event without knowing what will be discussed." Where's the diversity in that? Why not invite both kinds of people and resolve the inevitable conflicts?

Management and Leadership

Deborah Hartmann-Preuss points out that empowerment needs leadership and facilitation. True! But that doesn't have to be the same people. In fact, with my Management 3.0 hat I always claim that managers don't have to be leaders themselves. They have to create the constraints in which leadership can easily emerge.

As event organizers (I think) we were primarily managers. But we did enable leaders to step forward and help others. This is exactly what Management 3.0 advocates, and I'm glad several people did what I hoped would happen. As organizers we invited leaders and followers, and let them self-organize. Although we could not predict what kind of leadership would emerge, we did allow and invite leadership to happen.

Constraints

Self-organization only happens within boundaries. It is up to managers to experiment with the boundaries in the hope that something beautiful will emerge. Our constraints were a venue, a mailing list, and an initial version of the program. And then we let things go.

True, our experiment was not perfect. But we succeeded, and we learned.

Go and read the Stoos Stampede Story...

See also:

• Energize People (1/6)
• Empower Teams (2/6)
• Align Constraints (3/6)
• Develop Competence (4/6)
• Grow Structure (5/6)
• Improve Everything (6/6)

     

Stoos Stampede: Empower Teams (2/6)

The original “Stoos 21” selected Amsterdam and 6+7 July for the next event of the Stoos Network. And then I stepped forward to try and make it happen by being a Management 3.0 leader…

Self-organizing Team

The team that organized the Stoos Stampede didn’t need to be empowered. There is no authority responsible for the Stoos brand, therefore anyone can empower themselves to organize an event under that name. (The public will decide if what you do also makes sense.)

We decided to experiment with a format in between open space and regular conferences. An issue with “normal” open space unconferences is that sessions are proposed only at the start of the event. This means that attendees have no idea what will be discussed during the event and cannot prepare for the sessions. The issue with “normal” conferences is that they allow people to prepare, but they leave very little room for improvisation and self-organization. We hoped to have the best of both worlds with a format in between these two extremes.

This was just one a number of choices we made. Other decisions included the choice of an old church monument instead of a conference hotel, session leaders instead of speakers, a program wall instead of a program guide, and buttons instead of badges.

Self-organizing Attendees

We hoped that the attendees would self-organize as well. The location, in Amsterdam city center, was specifically selected to allow for spontaneous gatherings in Amsterdam’s many lunch rooms and restaurants. The venue itself enabled people to gather spontaneously in the bar, on the balconies, in the foyer, and in the big hall. And we specifically decided against printing a static program guide, so that people felt free to change, add, and delete sessions on the fly. By having a central program wall in the foyer we enabled people to take ownership of the program.

As I said on Friday morning when the event started, “The organizers are done. Now the participants should take over.”

And they did. (With a little help from Deborah Hartman-Preuss!)

The second view of Management 3.0 is Empower Teams. Smart managers understand you get the best results when people can take ownership of the outcome and make decisions together at the last responsible moment.

Go and read the Stoos Stampede Story...

See also:

• Energize People (1/6)
• Empower Teams (2/6)
• Align Constraints (3/6)
• Develop Competence (4/6)
• Grow Structure (5/6)
• Improve Everything (6/6)

     

Stoos Stampede: Energize People (1/6)

The original “Stoos 21” selected Amsterdam and 6+7 July for the next event of the Stoos Network. And then I stepped forward to try and make it happen by being a Management 3.0 leader…

From Closed to Open

I said I would only participate in a next event if it was open for anyone to join. In January we got clear feedback that people wanted to be part of our conversations. And where there’s passion and energy, you must facilitate it. And so the idea of a “stampede” was born. (The cool name was Melina’s suggestion.) And I started looking for a venue.

I decided to focus exclusively on the people who wanted to come to Amsterdam. Some of the original “Stoos 21” were reluctant, skeptic, or silent. And that’s OK. But right from the start I only wanted to invest my time and energy in people seeking to satisfy their needs for curiosity (“what is this stampede?”), relatedness (“ooh, I want to be part of that”), and purpose (“let’s change the world!”).

Risk Management

One thing I had to do was find partners to carry the risk of the event. What if we didn’t find enough sponsors? What if we didn’t get enough registrations? Someone had to guarantee the event would take place.

So I called Laurens Bonnema of Agile Holland and Patrick Verheij of Agile Consortium. I said my aim was to get more than 100 people together, many of them traveling from all over the world, to discuss organizational transformation. I argued, surely the leading Agile communities of The Netherlands would want to play the host for this great gathering and make sure Holland reinforces its positive image in the world? It is clear I played the honor card here (“let’s satisfy and exceed people’s expectations”). We quickly agreed that we would share the financial risk of the event between the three of us, thereby making sure the organizers could move forward.

Team

The organizing team of Melina, Erwin, Wouter and Astrid formed organically over time. If you want to know what motivated me and the others, you will need to ask us individually. Maybe some of our motivators were power (“by doing this I can make a difference”), freedom (“let’s do this thing my way”), order (“let’s make sure it’s not a mess”), or status (“yay, I’m the organizer of the first stampede ever!”).

Or maybe it was curiosity, honor, relatedness, or any of the other 10 intrinsic desires that drove the team members. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that work was done by the ones who liked doing it. And what we didn’t like, simply wasn’t organized (such as stuffing conference bags with crap).

Energize People

The first view of Management 3.0 is Energize People. Smart managers understand you get the best results when you adapt work and responsibilities to people’s intrinsic motivation. Not the other way around.

Go and read the Stoos Stampede Story...

See also:

• Energize People (1/6)
• Empower Teams (2/6)
• Align Constraints (3/6)
• Develop Competence (4/6)
• Grow Structure (5/6)
• Improve Everything (6/6)

     

Almost Stoos

It's only a few more days until the Stoos Stampede. Almost 150 people will be galloping to Amsterdam this Friday and Saturday to trample all over De Rode Hoed, a famous venue for television and radio programs. But this time it will be hosting a non-typical event emerging from the Internet generation.

Why do still so many people hate their jobs?

Why is organizational change so hard everywhere?

How can different change movements work together?

We will discuss this and other topics related organizational transformation in 2 full days.

I'm sure we will have great conversations, good coffee and fun.

There is still time to join us...

How Can We Help Melly Shum?

In 1990 a big photo by an artist named Ken Lum was placed in Witte de With, a street in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The title of the work is Melly Shum Hates Her Job.

Ever since 1990 the situation hasn’t changed.

Melly Shum still hates her job.

Why?

Why are there organizations with jobs that people hate, but won’t leave?

And how can we help transform those organizations?

At the Stoos Stampede in Amsterdam I hope we will discuss this. And I think this photo can serve as a great visualization, and as a goal setting story.

How can we help Melly Shum?

If you have some good ideas, join us!

What's Your Reason to Join the Stampede?

Why do people register for the Stoos Stampede in Amsterdam?

Let’s try and make some educated guesses by using the champfrogs schale.

Curiosity

I am sure plenty of change agents are curious to know how this new kind of event will play out. Will it lead to actionable results for organizational transformation? Will it lead to nothing? No better way to know than to be there.

Honor

Maybe some will feel it an honor to be there. It will be the first “stampede” under the Stoos umbrella name. And there are already rumors that others will follow on other continents. It’s great to be among the first.

Acceptance

Some who attend the stampede might be looking for acceptance. I know that many change agents feel like aliens in their own organizations. But at this event they will be among similarly-minded people.

Mastery

The point of being a change agent is to become good at changing a little bit of the world around you. At the Stoos Stampede we will share stories about how to do this, which will help people to become more competent at it.

Freedom

Many people who are trying to change organizations are looking for freedom from command and control. The Stoos Stampede organization is exactly like that. There is (almost) no control. And lots of freedom.

Relatedness

There’s no better way to get connected with other people than face-to-face conversations where we inspire each other about organizational change. I’m quite sure this event will lead to lots of new relationships being forged.

Order

Ah, a tricky one. The people who crave for a bit of order should not feel disappointed. The stampede will not be a chaos. We will have some rules and constraints in place, to maximize the power of self-organization.

Goal

People who look for purpose won’t need to look further. Everyone who gathers at the Stoos Stampede is looking for ways to get happier employees and customers, and more meaning to running a healthy organization.

Status

Hm, this will depend on yourself I suppose. A change agent is only as good as the change he or she was able to introduce in the system. And status will follow if you did a good job at that.

What is your reason to come to Amsterdam on 6+7 July?

Stoos Stampede - Session Proposals

With the Stoos Stampede in July we’re going to try something different.

This time there will not be a session selection by a program committee in an ivory tower, leafing through session proposals and judging which ones they like best.

Instead, we’re using IdeaScale to collect session proposals, and we will let participants decide which ones seem the most interesting. The only thing our program leaders will do is try and make sure that all proposed sessions are accepted. The only problem to solve is… which sessions will happen where?

Our main venue (De Rode Hoed) has a fixed number of rooms, and the organizers will decide on a fixed number of program slots. It should be just a matter of matching the popular sessions with the biggest rooms. The trick is to find the last responsible moment to do this.

What if we have more session proposals than program slots?

Well, that’s the easy part of the plan. This is exactly the reason why we selected a location in Amsterdam city center. There are plenty of bars, restaurants, coffee houses, offices, and meetings rooms within 5 minute walking distance from the main venue. What we need to do is send some scouts into the area and make a list of breakout locations where there’s a bit of room, free wi-fi, and a table.

The only thing that session leaders will have to accept is a bit of uncertainty. Will they end up with 50 people in the big room at De Rode Hoed? Or with 3 people at a table in the Bagels & Beans around the corner?

Want to know more about the Stoos Stampede?
Subscribe to the mailing list and stay up-to-date!