Here's a thread with a few observations about 10 years of the Melbourne Agile and Scrum User Group (@MelbAgile), which is this month. I'll do another thread about the (all day) meetup we had yesterday to celebrate/reflect on the last and next 10 years.
.@kearnsey started the group in 2008 (by his own admission, possibly for the wrong reason!) First meetup of the Scrum User Group, was 27 Nov 08. meetup.com/scrum-12/event…. From the 37 people that RSVP'd "Yes", he was the only one yesterday, at the 1st meetup.
Martin's burgeoning family, meant that he stepped away. Cadence improving when @GeoffBurns and @brown_note picked up the mantle in 2010/11. I had returned to Mel in mid-2011, having been involved in Agile Oxford & Oxtremists, (hi @nespera) and London (@lsug Hi @geoffcwatts et al)
Since then, we have very consistently had a meetup on the last Wed of the month. Now there's 5400+ and there's around 120 meetups/events that we've run or helped promote.
We've covered topics including Data Warehousing, scaling, coaching, ITIL and agile, DevOps, Scrum Master skills, agile tools, Kanban, No Estimates, Holacracy, Complexity Theory, User Stories, Scope, UX and Agile…and a lot MORE.
Formats have ranged from 3 people in a pub to 150 people in a lecture hall, with everything else in between…lean coffee, Fishbowl, Open Space, debates, classroom sessions, sit down dinners, drinks, mime. OK, no mime yet, but maybe in the future.
Some highlights…Meeting luminaries like @snowded @TotherAlistair @jimhighsmith @scottwambler & @basvodde. Also helping AU community members like @neil_killick @venky_nk @TheresaNeate @danpleog @rowanb @brettmaytom et al find their voice or share their knowledge
For the UX and Agile meetup in 2012 that was hosted by @simonbristow at @seek, we had @uxresearchguy speak, and then a park bench sesh with other folks. Remarkably, we had 110+ RSVPs and almost 100% turnout. That's never happened again! meetup.com/scrum-12/event…
Keeping with @brown_note's "Keeping it Weird" ethos, I really liked @jchyip's "Edgy Agile things that you may not have heard of" for Halloween 2012.
meetup.com/scrum-12/event…
meetup.com/scrum-12/event…
Of course, if it wasn't for @MelbAgile, other groups in town, and also @AgileTourSyd (hi @JemBen), @LASTconf would never have happened.
I could go on, but I won't. Yesterday, we talked about how to keep involving people and how to bring more, diverse, new people and views into the group and the community. I'll cover this more in a follow-up thread. Thanks for reading!
