Yola & Co got tickets for Agile Coach Camp Nederland 2016…

I really couldn’t wait before I could buy a ticket for the Agile Coach Camp Nederland 2016 edition. Last year was my first year I attended the conference and now I was waiting for the tickets to become available on Eventbrite.

Weird though, because I’m one of the four initiators of the event this year. The four of us just started the ‘Stichting Agile Coach Camp Nederland‘ and after several impediments that delayed us for about 2 months, the tickets were finally online on the 28th of February. Exactly at 12:00 the tickets were scheduled to go online for sale, but still I was waiting for the ticket sale to show up. When I saw the tickets become available I was really delighted….and off course I was happily buying a ticket.

Opposite of what others might say, setting up an institution is not that straight forward. We started our journey halfway November by determining the conceptual form of articles for the institution. Then we had contact with our notary but unfortunately we couldn’t make a appointment in December. So it was the first thing we did in January, we went to the notary. Due to the absence of the notary, who fell ill, the notarial deeds were two weeks due before finalizing. The lead time became more than three weeks.

After registration at the Chamber of Commerce the tax office should supply us with our VAT status within five workdays. On the sixth day we started calling because we were anxious to go online. “Sorry sir, but we are quiet busy here so we extended the time to fifteen workdays…You can call us daily for a status update…”. After several calls we stopped because legibly we had to wait for the letter. Now guess what? We had to call again on day sixteen because there was no letter. “Good news sir, the letter was written yesterday. It will be sent to you within five workdays….” Seriously dude? Putting a letter on the mail will take you five workdays? Are you a civil servant or what?!……darn, they are…! So I responded with the question:”Can you please send us the digital version by email? We are in a hurry you know”. “Sorry sir, but we don’t have any PDF versions of the letter…”. WTF? Are you kidding me? Is this our digital government? Politely I hung up the phone and waited patiently (not!) and indeed, on day six we finally received the letter in our mailbox.

How we felt? Now imagine four highly adrenaline rushed Agilists waiting for four sprints of two weeks to get ONE backlog item to Ready so they can get start development…what a sight to see don’t you think 🙂