Agile Coach Camp Worldwide (ACC-WW) is the first designated Camp for agile coaches to share, learn, and network with others from around the Globe! And for 2025 we’re returning to our attachment with the largest Agile conference! And yes we’re in-person! Tickets for the in-person will open sometime in February. The registration button is inactive at the moment.
The first Camp in 2008 was organized by Naresh Jain and Deb Hartmann-Preuss and brought together a number of coaches from around the world. Thereafter most Agile Coach Camps were held within their own countries. This is of course great! We want coaches regionally to grow and learn from each other. The Agile Alliance’s Agile Coach Camp Initiative helps support these Camps.
The thing that gets missed though is the diverse perspectives when you cross countries and continents. This is where Agile Coach Camp Worldwide fits. These annual Camps bring together coaches from around the world, which adds deeper learning onto that experience. This started in 2019 before Agile2019 and and continued into 2020. Thanks to COVID we ended up taking ACC-WW virtual to become the Home Edition for 2020 through 2022. We returned to in-person in 2022 and 2023 again before the Agile20XX conferences. Last year, we ran an experiment of decoupling from the main conference and had some learnings that indicated that continuing on that path at the moment will be unfruitful.
This in-person Camp is set-up as a 2 day event directly after Agile2025 at the Gaylord in Denver, Colorado, USA. We should have pricing and tickets set-up sometime in February.
Due to the international nature, ACC-WW will be conducted in English.
The theme we are inviting everyone to explore for Agile Coach Camp Worldwide this year is –
What meaningful reflections do we have on Agile Coaching?
About ACC-Worldwide
We’ve found the people that attend Agile Coach Camp Worldwide are coaches that are passionate about learning through new perspectives. They know they control the topics and their learning a far different approach than traditional conferences where the topics and timing are set by others. Even the attendees to some of those sessions may no longer want to learn.
Do you need to have coach in your title? Not at all. See the Audience page for more details.
Agile Coach Camp Worldwide uses Open Space as its format to bring together people from around the globe interested in helping software development organizations and their business partners improve their craft and agility. It’s intent is to continue the worldwide energy created by Naresh Jain and Deb Hartmann-Preuss from the very first Camp in 2008. You can learn more about Agile Coach Camps and the various regional camps at the agilecoachcamp.org site.
What is Open Space?
Open Space was discovered by Harrison Owen as a means to self-organize meetings and conferences around what mattered most to people. The basics of holding space are simple, yet powerful. People come together around a high-level topic or need and create their own agenda; then people gather into groups to brainstorm, debate, or otherwise discuss the topics proposed on the agenda, known as the marketplace. The overall Open Space event is opened by a single facilitator.
This marketplace is created after the space is opened and the following principles and 1 law are reviewed:
“Whoever comes are the right people.”
“Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.”
“When it starts is the right time.”
“It’s over when it’s over.”
“If you are not learning or contributing, feel free to move to a place where you can learn or contribute.” This is also known as “The law of two feet” or “the law of mobility”.
People generally attend the entire length of time set aside for a session, but some will continue on with that topic with others passionately interested in further conversation. Additionally some people will go from session to session cross-pollinating ideas between groups (known as bumble bees), while others still will flit and listen in as their fancy takes them (known as butterflies). All of these are OK and encouraged. This is what makes open space wonderful.
At the end of the first day, we’ll come together for an evening news to share some of the big ahas we have learned. At the end of the Camp, we close the space in the same circle in which we opened it. We also gather data for the organizer’s retrospective to find out improvements we can pass on to the next Camp.
This year we will be holding ACC-WW as an in-person event. Please see the Agenda page to get a sense for how each session will work and the current thinking on time periods.
As you register, and to prepare you to experience the most out of Agile Coach Camp, think about what you are passionately wanting to learn, explore, and share. Be prepared to discuss this, but don’t plan to have an agenda to lecture folks on a subject. You need to be open to dialog; as you propose topics for the marketplace, you are basically agreeing to hold a space and facilitate a discussion on the topic at hand. There is no expectation that you are an expert in that area and often these topics are coaches looking for insights from others.
