[OSList] OST Proceedings, Experience Report: Agile Day in Boston 09/29/2011

[Daniel Mezick]

Hello Friends,

In previous posts, I mentioned some stuff we learn here in Boston as we 
execute  on producing the  Agile Day event held 9/29.

The text below explains some of our OST Proceedings story, what we 
actually produced as Proceedings, and what we learned.

Experience Report: Proceedings

This is our fifth OST production in Boston. Earlier, we experiment with 
and produce 4 other varying-quality Open Space events from late 2008 to 
late 2010. After the first one, we begin to seriously study the OST 
User's Guide book, and other OST books. We learn more about OST, 
cultivate experienced local facilitators,  and develop new facilitators. 
We notice that what we are doing is a really subset of canonical Open 
Space. Ralph Fink, personal friend and Agile Boston member, digs into 
Open Space. He brings back important knowledge after attending workshops 
where some of the OST pioneers are participants. Ralph starts strongly 
emphasizing Proceedings as essential to genuine and authentic OST.

We pay attention.  Still, we decide to pass on creating proceedings for 
the next few OST events, due to several factors. One is the perceived 
logistics and effort overhead. The other is the question of whether the 
convener/initiators might actually shy away from creating sessions ... 
if there is an explicit commitment to collect data, and file forms. Our 
primary goal is to acclimate our community to OST.

Time passes and we gain experience. I facilitate a few private Open 
Space events for clients, experimenting in my role as Agile Coach. I 
learn and become fascinated with the OST Facilitator role dynamics. I 
encourage proceedings for 2 of these private OST meetings.  I notice how 
Proceedings are essential-- and non-trivial. There is a lot to it. Clip 
boards with pens, for example, are required to make things simple for 
conveners. Pre-printed forms must be at the ready to fill in. Two-sided 
forms are non-obvious to conveners, etc. How much self-org to encourage 
from participants becomes an essential question around the topic as we 
study it. Ralph and I start getting hard-core about OST Proceedings as a 
result of gaining knowledge and experience.


Agile Day in Boston- 9/29/2011

This year, we decide to take a shot at real proceedings, and also try to 
innovate.  We notice that:

* Few Open Space events in the Agile community actually produce the 
Proceedings artifact;
* Typical proceedings are photo-copies of handwritten forms that are 
often less than complete and less than legible;
* Digital versions of OST proceedings are often primitive, ie, scanned 
images of proceedings which are handwritten by initiating conveners and 
copied into a PDF.

We discuss these issues, and during planning we commit to taking a real 
shot at producing a searchable PDF. We organize around this goal, create 
a plan, engage Volunteers, and aim to deliver the searchable PDF 
document to event participants within 2 business days.

We learn a lot as we plan, execute and make delivery on the promise of 
these text-searchable PDF Proceedings.


Searchable Text

The PDF listed below (link) contains OST proceedings of all the sessions 
reporting, plus the images of supporting flip-chart artifacts. The 
proceedings are searchable since the content is in plain text.

The Agile Day in Boston proceedings artifact also includes:

* The vision, mission and values of the Agile Boston community
* Sponsor,  Speaker and Volunteer information;
* Some event pix

We are just now drafting a series of blog posts on our experience 
conceiving, planning, constructing and delivering this proceedings 
artifact.
We are learning and we welcome and strongly encourage any help and 
guidance you may be able to provide to us, as we strive to produce 
higher-impact OST events in the Greater Boston region which are aligned 
with the canonical OST form as described in the OST User's Guide.

Lastly, please feel welcome to contact us at any time with any questions 
you may have about the production of this OST proceedings artifact.


Agile Day in Boston- event and proceeding links. (Download is 90MB of 
text and images, 320++ pages).
http://newtechusa.net/user-groups/ma/agileday2011/


-- 
Daniel Mezick, President
New Technology Solutions Inc.
(203) 915 7248 (cell)
AgileDay2011 Sept 29! <http://newtechusa.net/user-groups/ma/agileday2011/>

Bio <http://newtechusa.net/dan-mezick/>, Blog 
<http://newtechusa.net/blog/>, Twitter <http://twitter.com/#%21/danmezick/>,
Team Training <http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-training/>, 
Team Coaching <http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-coaching/>
Agile Boston! <http://newtechusa.net//user-groups/ma/>
-- 
Daniel Mezick, President
New Technology Solutions Inc.
(203) 915 7248 (cell)
AgileDay2011 Sept 29! <http://newtechusa.net/user-groups/ma/agileday2011/>

Bio <http://newtechusa.net/dan-mezick/>, Blog 
<http://newtechusa.net/blog/>, Twitter <http://twitter.com/#%21/danmezick/>,
Team Training <http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-training/>, 
Team Coaching <http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-coaching/>
Agile Boston! <http://newtechusa.net//user-groups/ma/>
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