I’m very much looking forward to participating in Play4Agile 2012 in Germany next month. Last year’s inaugural event was such an amazing experience that registration for this year’s unconference sold out in less than 12 hours. I registered for p4a11 one year ago today, thinking that I would take a bit of a busman’s holiday – fly to Germany for a weekend (!?!), meet some interesting people over some good beer, and hopefully learn a new game or two to use with the teams I work with.
At last year’s event, I definitely learned a few new games. I also helped create 2 new games with people from 4 different countries, taking challenging ideas from concept to a first play test in less than 5 hours, and learned some great stuff about game design along the way. I experienced the magic of LEGO Serious Play for the first time. And I met wonderful people: there were many gifted coaches there who shared their wisdom and experience through Open Space sessions, during shared meals, and over beers into the wee hours of the morning. The energy and spirit of the event was astonishing – despite having slept very little because of the time difference, I returned home revitalized, refreshed and raring to go.
So what will this year’s event bring? The theme for this year’s event is “High PLAYformance for Agile teams”. I believe that play is a critical component for successful teams, and I’m hoping to get some ideas for how to bring more playfulness into day-to-day work. I’m really looking forward to meeting up with the Europe-based StrategicPlay gang again and doing more cool things with LEGO. I’m especially looking forward to the evenings in the bar at the SeminarZentrum Rückersbach, where the days will be discussed over Werewolf or Smallworld or Bausack. I know it will be a great unconference – the only challenge will be figuring out how to get enough sleep to make the most of it.
