These are the people who have committed to attend the Stoos Gathering, on January 6+7, in Switzerland.
It started (for me) during the Scrum Gathering in London, when I enjoyed dinner with Steve Denning and Peter Stevens. We discussed the problem that management around the world is changing too slowly, and we wanted to do something about that. We just didn't know what.
And so we thought, why not invite a number of people that we know, and discuss this? Maybe together we can figure out how to accelerate change in management. And the idea for a gathering of management thinkers and practitioners was born. We pulled in Franz Röösli as a 4th member of the core team, we picked a date (6+7 January), we picked a location (Stoos, Switzerland), and we started discussing which people to invite.
That was the difficult part.
Constraints
Constraint #1… We want an event at the start of the new year. Many invitees loved the idea, but they had already committed to families or other events in January. And thus we received many replies of the type sad-I-can't-be-there-but-please-keep-me-posted!
Constraint #2… We want to keep the size of the group small, because groups larger than 20 people find it very hard to reach consensus (see: NewScientist). It turns out we have a little over 20 people now, but I hope some will be skiing when the rest are making world-changing decisions.
Constraint #3… We want a diverse group of people. This meant we couldn't do an open invitation, because we would surely end up with 3 authors and 17 Agile consultants. We intentionally dug in the darkest corners of our social networks, and came up with some very fine names.
Participants
And so we suggested contacts, voted on favorites, and started sending invites. The result is what you see below. It contains a healthy mix of book authors, bloggers, top managers, coaches, consultants, thought leaders, and idea farmers. And we have both men and women. Which proved quite a challenge!
- Catherine Louis
Agile transitions in the scope of complex product development - Deborah Hartmann Preuss
Co-Active Coach, Agile Coach, co-creator of AgileCoachCamp.org - Esther Derby
Co-author of Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management - Franz Röösli
Author, Director of the Beyond Budgeting Round Table - Heitor Roriz
Organizing Radical Management Gathering in San Paolo - Jay Cross
Business consultant, author, expert on informal learning. - John Styffe
Co-Author of Was Jetzt? ("What now") - Jonas Vonlanthen
Member of mgt team at Liip AG, an agile web development company - Julian Birkinshaw
Prof. London Business School, Co-Founder MLab, book author - Jurgen Appelo
Author of Management 3.0, initiator of Agile Lean Europe network - Klaus Leopold
Kanban coach and trainer - Melina McKim
Diverse background in innovation - Michael Spayd
Org. change & systems coach, co-founder Agile Coaching Institute - Peter Hundermark
Scrum Trainer & Coach, Community Leader, South Africa - Peter Stevens
Scrum Trainer & Coach, Community Leader, Switzerland - Philippe Hertig
Managing Director EZI (Switzerland) - Rod Collins
Former CEO, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Author Leadership in a Wiki World - Roy Osherove
5whys.com blogger, writing 'Notes to a software team leader' book - Sanjiv Augustine
Author of Managing Agile Projects - Simon Roberts
Scrum Trainer & Coach - Steve Denning
Author of Leaders Guide to Radical Management - Uli Loth
Member of Management Team W.L. Gore Europe
These are the people who have committed (with a significant personal investment) to attend the Stoos Gathering. Feel free to pester them with great ideas and useful suggestions, to increase the chance we come down from the mountain with something useful…
p.s. We received dozens of requests from people who would love to attend this gathering. My answer is always a polite "No". Self-invitations would defy constraints #2 and #3. Sorry! You may harass me later.
