eNewsletter Archive

e-Newsletter Archive

January 2006 Update

We held an APLN board and program committees meeting last Friday and Saturday in Dallas. It was our first face-to-face meeting since Agile2005 and we made progress in a number of areas that I'd like to bring you up to date with. We are now at the point where we can involve more of you in programs. The first thing we did in the meeting was to write acceptance tests for a successful meeting and then work towards those. I want to report briefly on several areas and encourage you to contact one of the program chairs, board members, or myself if you would like to help.

NETWORKING

There are two core elements of the APLN. First, distinguishing ourselves from existing organizations by becoming a leader in creating social-professional networking groups. Second, in setting up these groups, for the APLN Networking committee to build the "context" for interactions, not the content (although, as with e.g., farming, part of building context is creating seed content). Members will be the source for most content. To further these aims the networking committee developed a 2-D grid with "Delivery mechanisms" on one axis--social (face-to-face) and technology (on line) and "Why are people interested?"--local and topical on the other.

People will network on the basis of geography or themes (find local people to talk to, or find people anywhere interested in a topic). In either case, APLN can help them interact face-to-face or online. Similarly, the actions the APLN needs to take are either of a social-action nature or of a technology-mediated nature. This makes a 2x2 grid that serves as framework for discussing the APLN networking initiatives. We will want to see both that every quadrant is served, and also that there is flow and balance across quadrants, e.g., local groups and mini-conferences report on their meetings online; that the online services support people organizing local groups and mini-conferences.

We hope to have a technology decision shortly on how to implement these various interaction types. Those interested in working on the networking committee should contact Sanjiv Augustine or Preston Smith.

AGILE2006

There are a number of ideas for working with the Agile2006 committee, some of which are still in the discussion phase. Several APLN members are actively involved in the conference planning. Hopefully many of you submitted program proposals.

We are also investigating having our own booth/table, a reception (we may have a sponsor), a membership meeting, and a board meeting. If you are interested in helping out, please contact Jim Highsmith.

RELATIONSHIP WITH THE AGILE ALLIANCE & OTHERS

Both the Agile Alliance and APLN boards have each passed resolutions defining a relationship between the two organizations. These include cross-references on our web sites, collaborating on the Agile conferences, discounts for dual memberships, and joint board memberships. We are investigating a similar relationship with the DSDM in Europe.

CORPORATE SPONSORSHIPS

The board approved a plan for corporate sponsorships for the APLN. There are various levels of contribution and commensurate visibility. Charter corporate sponsorships (discounted for the first year) will be available until the Agile2006 conference. Please contact Jim Highsmith for more information about corporate sponsorships.

MARKETING & MEMBERSHIP

Our membership has been growing slowly, but steadily and we need to expand our recruitment efforts. Marketing will focus on gaining and sustaining individual members. A separate group will be responsible for marketing aimed at building corporate sponsorships. Our first step is to recruit a marketing team whose job will be to develop and implement a marketing plan. To give the marketing team a head start, a subgroup of Board members made a first pass at identifying channels and vehicles for getting our message out to various project management constituencies and other stakeholders. Our marketing strategy includes both direct recruitment efforts as well as partnering with other organizations such as the Agile Alliance for joint marketing purposes. Those interested in being on the marketing committee are encouraged to contact Doug DeCarlo.

Because of our slower than hoped for start on organizing, the board voted to extend the membership of anyone who joined in 2005 from 12 to 18 months.

ORGANIZING

Reviewed the by-laws (great fun). Established rotating 2-year board positions and a co-coordinating committee to nominate for new board positions.

Regards,

Jim Highsmith
President, APLN board
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August 2005

Wow, what a great experience in Denver at Agile 2005. By the end of the conference we had about 125 founding and charter members signed up. But what was really important to those of us who have worked to create and organize the APLN was the encouragement and enthusiasm of all of you who talked to us at the conference and who contributed to the DOI, Open Space, and member sessions. The founders "thought" an organization like this would be valuable and you have confirmed our vision--and expanded on it.

All the information from you, the new members, was displayed at the board meeting and greatly influenced our thinking about going forward. Probably the single most important thing we did was include the word "Network" in our name. The APLN should not be a core of people who provide services to the membership. The APLN should be a network of individual agile leaders who are all involved in helping each other.

The board identified the following programs as highest priority to work on over the next 6 months (we will be putting together release and iteration plans for the various programs). We have included some notes from the board meeting for some of these, some of the programs may overlap, and some are better defined than others at this point. Please contact the designated leaders to find our more information or volunteer to help (see the founders/board member page of our web site for email addresses (http://www.apln.org/founders.html). Contact any board member to propose a program we haven't thought of yet.

MUST DO: (some of these are enablers to others)

NETWORKING: Program Leaders--David Anderson, Sanjiv Augustine, Preston Smith
The purpose is to create and grow an environment within which APLN members can self-organize around: gatherings; issues; problems; shared interests; creating new knowledge; and professional development.

Specifically in the short term we'll be looking at member directory, local chapters, blog aggregation, forum/discussion group. Our intention is to make these 4 things available in the 2nd half of 2005. Further plans for 2006 will be announced later.

Naturally, we are looking for participants who want to work on the networking program and help us build the infrastructure to enable our purpose (defined above). We already have 2-3 groups who are ready to establish local chapters.

AGILE 2006: Program Leaders--Jim Highsmith, David Spann
The purpose of this program is to work with the AgileAlliance and Agile 2006 program committee to expand on the project management track (I guess we should change that to Project Leadership Track for next year). As the shape of our involvement for next year emerges, we will need to put a committee together. David Spann will also be working with the Executive Summit, so we can work towards integrating from the executive level to the project leadership level to the project community level.

WEB SITE: Program Leaders--Kent McDonald, Pollyanna Pixton
The purpose of the website program is to maintain and build the website in order to support all the other Program Initiatives of the APLN. Our goal is to provide a rich and effective network for our members to communicate with each other. Since nearly every program will depend on web site development for its implementation, the capacity of this committee may be a gating factor in how fast programs can be implemented. We have some ideas about how to get more people involved in this--let us know yours.

6 Month Plan:
First, we will run this program using an agile approach. Create a Product Backlog consisting of all "stories" that have been requested/suggested for the website. We will identify the Product Manager (s)) for determining which iteration elements will be added, taking into account input from the other Program leaders with respect to desired timelines for story availability. All members can submit ideas for future stories (it would be preferable to work this thru the appropriate program group). Iterations will be X days/weeks in length. The product backlog will be maintained online in the members only section. The first Release will be 6 months in length. An initial Release/Iteration plan will be available by mid August.

ORGANIZATION/ADMINISTRATION: Program Leaders--Jim Highsmith, Bob Wysocki, Donna Fitzgerald, Pollyanna Pixton
All the fun stuff--calling meetings, keeping records, financial stuff, etc. The officers will take this on to free up others for the really fun stuff. However, the organizational fun stuff will be working out the concepts and process for building an "International Collaborative Self-Organizing Network". In other words, how do we implement our values in building our own organization!

CORE IDEAOLOGY: Program Leaders--Christopher Avery, Ashley Johnson
We believe in clearly stating our philosophy or core ideology by which we live and test our decisions. As we worked together for eighteen months leading to the launch of APLN, the founders most important priority was an articulation of shared values, stated in the Declaration Of Interdependence. Being comfortable enough (i.e., there were other priorities!) with our sense of shared purpose we did not come to closure on exact wordings for other parts of our core ideology (such as purpose, vision, etc.). Therefore the stated purpose, vision, and mission on our web and brochure represent Iteration 1 (if this is an issue for anyone, we apologize and offer to make it right including refunding your membership). It is now incumbent upon us to iterate toward shared clarity.

OTHER PROGRAMS: (In priority ranking from the board meeting)

THE LEARNING PROGRAM: Program Leaders--Sanjiv Augustine, Ashley Johnson
The purpose of The Learning Program is to find a way to acknowledge individuals as Agile Project Leaders - and to give guidance to companies and individuals, who offer training courses in the field of Agile Project Management/Leadership.

Acknowledgement: Find ways for individuals and corporations to define and recognize agile project leaders. We do not believe in traditional certifications with multiple choice tests on passive knowledge - but would rather see some sort of experience based information on the member web site and not official APLN recognition. This topic will require a lot of discussion.

Training guidance: guidance to corporations and individuals, who offers Agile Project Leadership training courses and mentoring. The guidance can be curriculums for the courses we recommend and some mentoring guidelines. The values of the DOI will be extensively incorporated in this guidance. Having these guidelines - training providers can claim, that their courses are "compliant with APLN-guidelines" - and training customers can check whether this is correct or not.

MARKETING: Program Leaders--Todd Little, Pollyanna Pixton, Ole Jepson
The marketing program's purpose is to get our message out to others. It overlaps to some extent with both the outreach program and the conferences program. Notes are: PR/Marketing, Elevator Speech *, Membership Recruitment, Press releases, Branding *, Conference Presence, Magazines and Journals, Trade marking and IP *, Corporate Partnership, Agile Alliance *, Shirts, badges, & Clothing *. Starred (*) items were deemed the most important.

MEMBERSHIP/ATTRACT NEW MEMBERS: Program Leaders--none
To find other ways of attracting and retaining members, and administer memberships.

OTHER CONFERENCES: Program Leaders--Todd Little, Pollyanna Pixton, Ole Jepson
The purpose of this program is to align with other conferences to get our message out. Outcomes could be presentations or mutual In Cooperation With. >From our note, other conferences might be Australia/NZ Agile Conference, XP Agile Europe 2006, XP Days, Scrum Gatherings, Leadership Conference (ILA), Agile Business Conference, Project Summit / Business Analyst World, Project World, Design-Build* (David S.), SD West/East.

CORPORATE INVOLVEMENT/SPONSORSHIP: Program Leaders--Todd Little, Jim Highsmith, Pollyanna Pixton, Ole Jepson
We are working on a corporate sponsorship model. Our initial ideas are to have a corporate sponsorship model, but reserve membership for individuals. We were also thinking about group membership discounts so a company could sign up multiple individuals at a discount, and local user groups would also be eligible for group discounts.

STIMULATING/CULTIVATING NEW KNOWLEDGE: Program Leaders--Kent McDonald, Bob Wysocki
This program is centered around providing a mechanism for our members to create and disseminate new knowledge, or restatement of existing knowledge in the areas associated with Agile Project Leadership. These mechanisms include: White Papers, providing the mechanism to create Think Tanks, Case Studies, and Research Projects.

6 Month Plan:
Collaborate with the Web Site program to establish these mechanisms and other mechanisms identified by the members.

OUTREACH TO OTHER ORGANIZATIONS: Program Leaders--none
To figure out if there are other categories of organizations that we need to contact, etc. (PMI, PDMA, etc.)

PUBLICATIONS: Program Leaders--none
To think about what types of publications the Network might publish.

ACADEMIC: Program Leaders--none
Figuring out ways to work with the academic community on conferences, curriculum, research, etc.

Please contact any of the leaders for these programs if you would like to help define what the programs should look like and help make them a reality. Please feel free to propose new programs. The APLN will run under self-organizing, collaborative leadership principles, as Sanjiv Augustine says--light touch leadership. Naturally, we will have to prioritize $$ and web development time.

Finally, the response to our membership launch, some delays in bank paperwork, and the press of other work has slowed our administrative response to your joining. We are working to get checks deposited, credit cards run, and receipts sent out. Please bear with for a couple of weeks.

In Community,

Jim, Todd, Bob, Donna, David, Kent, Pollyanna, David, Ashley, Doug, Joe, Sanjiv, Alistair, Mike, Preston, Lowell, Christopher, Ole, Mike

APLN Board, Founders, & Core Team Members

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Connecting, developing, and supporting great project leaders.