As many of you know I've been on the forefront of most of the Agile and Lean (I'll include Kanban in this) methods of the last 15 years. While I was at the early Scrum Gatherings where the Scrum community took form I admit having missed several watershed events.  The first true watershed event I attended I helped create -the 2009 Miami Lean/Kanban Conference.  David Anderson organized it while Net Objectives sponsored it to be the birthplace of the Lean Software and Systems Society that we both spearheaded.

It was a truly amazing conference - the best of the 100 or so conferences I've attended.  It gave a place for Lean and Kanban thinkers to come together around software development.  The next three LSSC conferences in Atlanta, Long Beach and Boston re-defined what conferences should be.  In 2012, Lean Software and Systems Society morphed into the Lean Systems Society to reflect a different structure was needed to drive systems-thinking.  At the same time we agreed to hand over the conferences to Lean-Kanban University - and these are now the LKNA Conferences put on each year.

The new format of the Lean Systems Society is that it is a fellowship of Lean and Systems thought leaders from around the world. We include folks like Mary Poppendieck, Jim Benson, Bob Charette, Don Reinertsen, David Snowden, Dean Leffingwell, Steve Denning, Michael Kennedy, Joshua Kerievsky, Steve Bell and many others of the same caliber,  While we have been doing things behind the scenes, we are putting on our first conference - the LSS Reactor Conference in Boulder, September 11-12.  While I never expected to see another conference with the same magic as the Miami Lean/Kanban conference back in 2009, this will have it. It is not your normal talking head conference, nor open space.  It is organized around Temenos and Reactor sessions to enable community building and working with fellows (I expect that half of the attendees to be fellows). From the conference page:

he Lean Systems Society, in collaboration with Cognitive Edge and you, is conducting a unique activity to deepen our shared understanding of systems work, how to improve it, and thus improve the world. Participants will explore patterns in a body of stories across the great diversity of perspectives in the LSS - the systems thinking, agile, lean and cognitive practitioner and stakeholder communities.

This is literally your chance to work side-by-side with Lean-Systems Society Fellows, thought leaders from all areas, to help create the future. 

It will be magic.  I promise you.

Al Shalloway
CEO, Net Objectives, LSS Fellow