Folks,

I plan to decommission the AgileATX list, domain name, and calendar in the
coming days. From what I've gathered talking to folks who have participated in
the group over the years, participation and interest have waned, and focus on
stewardship of learning and teaching continues to be displaced by interests
other than the greater good of community, knowledge, ideas, and difficult
questions.

The group started back in 2004 as a follow-up discussion space from my TDD
workshop at Microsoft Austin, and subsequent workshops given at user groups that
year in Dallas, Houston, Montreal, San Diego, and Boise. The pivot the group
made toward being a gathering place for discussions about Agile Development was
a critical move toward the establishment of Agile in Austin.

The group's contributions to putting Austin on the international map as a center
of excellence in Agile Development is impressive - especially in the Microsoft
sphere where Agile was treated with open hostility between 2001 and 2006. It was
this group that stepped up to create the foundation and reputation that other
community efforts would later benefit from. Although AgileATX's role in Austin's
evolution is often eclipsed, I consider the founding and fostering of this
community the turning point in Agile adoption in Central Texas, and a matter of
great personal pride.

I would hope that space made available in retiring AgileATX will allow for
something even better to grow in its place. I hope that new leaders who are
possessed of a vision of community potential will explore new opportunities in
light of reflections and lessons learned from AgileATX.

I hope that you will all get a chance to invest personally in building
communities of practice and holding (and often defending) space and time for
ideas - especially ones that challenge status quo and the stasis pressures the
inevitably issue from sustaining the entitlements of established community
celebrities. While it's painstaking and time-consuming, the experience is
priceless and transformative. I look forward to seeing what might come of this
intensional cultivation of potential as the responsibility for new personal
investment in character and community renewal is returned to the source.

In closing, I'd like to extend an open invitation to any and all AgileATX
members to participate in Lean Software Austin. Lean Software Austin applies the
lessons learned both in Agile Development and in community management to pick up
where AgileATX left off. It ensures the continuing investigation of better ways
of doing software development and management work, challenges ritualistic
methodology side-effects, encourages more critical thinking and analysis, and it
leverages more rigorous social contracts to insulate the space for learning,
teaching, and knowledge from some of the machinations that may have eroded
AgileATX in its later years.

This will be the last message on the AgileATX mailing list, as posting will be
subsequently disabled. Feel free to contact me directly going forward. And of
course, please take advantage of this opportunity to take community organization
and renewal into your own hands and build something even better and even
stronger.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with after some reflection. And of
course, I also expect some fearful knee-jerk reactions, and encourage an honest
exploration of the kinds of panic responses that undermine all efforts towards a
greater good. If there is dust to settle, I'm confident that whatever is
revealed has the potential to move community to a whole new level of engagement.

Best Regards,

Scott Bellware
Founder, AgileATX
Founder and Facilitator, Lean Software Austin
Originating Organizer, Agile Austin
Founder, Austin .NET User Group
Founder and Organizer, ALT.NET Conferences
Founder and Organizer, Kaizen Conf
Founder and Organizer, Monospace Conferences
Agile Track Founder and Content Chair, DevTeach Conference
Chairman, INETA Speaker Bureau
Perpetual Inquisitor of Status Quo