Agile Strategy Lab in The Netherlands

The Lab has established a partnership in The Hague, where we do training. Our next training is scheduled for April. Meanwhile, participants in our last training are moving along the path to certification. (In addition, our first class was so enthusiastic about what they were learning that they launched Strategic Doing Europe as a learning community.)

Two of the members of the community completed their certification requirements this week by designing and leading a Strategic Doing workshop.

Here’s part of their report:

We had a lot of fun, although it also was hard work. There were 5 nonprofit organizations, and they had to work together otherwise they would lose the subsidy from the local government (for most organizations that is their main income). They had to offer a plan before February 15th, and they didn’t know each other yet.

People got enthusiastic, and the outcome is great. They are going to get information from citizens’ initiatives, in order to develop a social agenda for the city, together with their civil initiatives. Then they want – in cooperation with each other and with the civil society – to implement the social agenda, and as a part of that they will look for possibilities to connect private companies (in the Netherlands that’s less common than in the USA, I think). They will also look for possibilities, as a part of the future social agenda, to strengthen the civil initiatives and connect more people to them. They defined their first 30-30: very specific.

Reinder and I were very enthusiastic to guide this process. But it wasn’t easy, and we were glad that we had the two of us.