The Bungsu Story - some progress

· June 22, 2016

About six months ago I got home from the adventure of our life time in Indonesia. At the time I was actually feeling very underwhelmed and that we’ve failed in our work there.

But the more I think about it and the more I speak and write about our experiences there, and especially the mind blowing transformation we led in Rumah Sakit Bungsu - the more I realize that this is an once in a life time thing that have happened.

I’m writing a book about that journey. with my good friends at Oikosofy. But I have also given a few presentations on the topic.

This post is just an update about the progress of the work around the “Salvation Army hospital that rose again” that I’m calling it.

Presenting

I was fortunate enough to be able to present at Lean Kanban North America 2016. To my great joy they were interested in hearing about the my hospital journey there. The reception of my presentation was overwhelming. I saw people drying tears during the presentation at more than one occasion and I spoke with many people after the presentation.

Here’s my presentation recorded by Lean Kanban Inc.

Since this presentation is so close to my heart I needed two dress rehearsals to keep my cool when it really mattered; one at Aptitud and one with my team at my current client. Both was well received and I got some stellar feedback that improved the presentation for the conference.

Even more exciting is a number of presentations already booked on the same topic.

  • The last thing I do before the vacation (5 weeks baby!) will be delivering this presentation with some discussion at a client to Aptitud.
  • I’m booked for the first ever Agile Island, in September with some really great co speakers for the conference.
  • Later the same month I’m speaking at the Fast Feedback Conference in Stockholm. That will again be humbling among some stellar speakers
  • My favorite developer conference has always been OreDev and I was beyond myself when they accepted my “hospital story”-speech. That will be something for the books.

The book with a site

Thanks to the super helpful people at Oikosofy there’s now a landing page for the book. bit.ly/bungsustory is the URL you need to remember.

Once there you can get the first chapter for free and then tag along as we produce more and more chapters.

This will also a place where we launch extra material that will be a nice addition to the book. I have plans for interviews and follow-up sessions with the staff at Rumah Sakit Bungsu, as well as other reflections on the journey that didn’t really fit the story-driven approach of the book.

bit.ly/bungsustory - tell all your friends!

I’ve also created a twitter account @bungsustorybook where I will share most of the information on the book.

Progress and hopes

The book is progressing… But a bit slow for my taste. I have the most excellent help from Duarte Vasco that is more a writing-coach than merely my editor.

Here’s the current status:

If you want to get a grip on the size of the thing, this diagram might help you a bit:

I have written the whole story down. I had too - my memory fails me fast. But we need to shave quite a bit of things of and also make sure that the things that are left will produce a gripping story. Very happy that I’m not alone in that …

I would love to have some serious progress and have it packed for the early autumn. That’s my hope.

Summary

This project is so close to my heart. I’m immensely proud of the work that I was fortunate to take part in. The stories from that 1,5 years needs to be told. In a great way. I will do my very best to do so.

Please join me and as always, I’d love your feedback.

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