Agile Open Holland 2009 was a true eye-opener this year. 69 participants! At first I thought, “That’s just too much”. But no.

The intelligence of the creature known as a crowd is usually sqrt(n), where n=the number of people in it. At #agileopen it was exp[n].

I enjoyed meeting new people, known people, and some people I hadn’t seen in ages, in sessions on tools, business and enterprise architecture.

Great new insights, we freed ourselves from BDUF but we’re still trapped in some other old patterns. We seek exploration of the blank spots on our maps, but we do not investigate what we believe to be “known” enough. Verification, validation, and communication can easily solve that. The second day I picked up the courage to run a Ship of Fools session.

A surprise was that Agile people did the Ship of Fools sculpt with pre-determinded organisational elements in around 60 minutes, and in the midst of chaos, managed to decide to and have the ship steer away from the reef. Amazing.

I thought they would be fast, but did not expect lightning fast. Thank you all that participated. I am now busy using what I gathered from the session at Agile Open for improving the sculpt. The new version will reflect your wisdom, in an unserious serious way of course.

And I’d like to thank all that also played rowdy perjured rascals around round tables. I enjoyed all the authentic story telling. Very much. Not boring. Thank you.