Organizing Agile Besançon
What worked & what was valuable in the quest
Inspired by the after-hours learning I got at Agile Philly, I've been working on organizing an Agile user-group here in Besançon that meets monthly. We have met 4 times and had fun talking, coding, etc., learning together about topics we don't have time to discuss during the work day. We've had meetings at two different locations, hoping it would encourage more people to stay from the host companies for the given night.
A bit more detail is located here: 2009--November, December; 2010--January, February, March
What didn't work, what you'd change next time
We've found people that are interested in four companies, but so far (in the 4 months since we started meeting), people from only 2 companies have showed up. I don't know how to grow our group to the next level--to make it more self-sustaining. Agile Philly has enough members that it is self-sustaining--here it's just a push to get people to show up, let alone volunteer to organize events.
What you learned (related items from the Skills Inventory)
It takes more than a couple months to get things organized, marketing is slower than I'd anticipated, it can be fun even if it's only a small group of attendees.