Learn: Gain new skills, knowledge, and insights. The collective wisdom of the group is expected to be broad and deep. A carefully crafted unconference brings this expertise to the surface for mutual benefit.

Build Community: Build and strengthen relationships with other LeSS practitioners with synergistic areas of focus.

Have Fun: Build lasting friendships, experience Milwaukee in summertime, and possibly attend SummerFest too!

An unconference is run by the participants for the participants, with effective facilitation to ensure the best learning experience possible. Every attendee brings a tremendous depth of experience. The Open Space technique combined with others ensures we leverage this depth for mutual benefit.

A few anticipated topics are listed below. Far more are expected.

Attendees collectively determine topic priority. The actual topic list will be determined on the fly. Whichever spontaneous or planned topics are dot-voted the highest are the ones we will focus on.

Please contact me by email or via LinkedIn with any suggestions for additional anticipated topics.

The Global Certified LeSS Practitioner course page on the Agile Carpentry website provides more details about the course.

SummerFest is the largest annual music festival in the nation. Any of the Downtown Milwaukee hotels are within a short walk of the SummerFest grounds on the shore of Lake Michigan. The Westin is particularly well placed.

Although performances are scheduled all day from Thursday until Saturday, the better known acts are typically in the evening. A general admission ticket will let you see most of the acts, but you must pay extra to see the headliners.

SummerFest also sells package tickets which include hotels.

The basic agenda of a classic open space conference is as follows:

• Participants propose and champion topics for inclusion in the marketplace schedule.
• The facilitor schedules the most popular topics within the available timeslots and breakout rooms.
• Participants vote with their feet to attend the breakouts they are most interested in.

The Law of Two Feet says that only you know when you are learning and contributing as much as you can. So if you are not learning when attending a particular session, you can hop to another anytime you choose. Alternatively, you can spend time socializing when none of the sessions is of interest at the moment.

There are endless variations on running semi-structured conferences. Skillful facilitation requires careful preparation, along with the ability to adapt in the moment based on circumstances. The least predictable topics can often be the most interesting and engaging.

If there is a particular topic you know you want to champion ahead of time, please let me know. This is particularly important if you have pre-reading content that other attendees should be aware of. I can also pre-load the projectors with any slides or videos you need.

My preference is to have panels of subject matter experts champion any given topic, rather than a single subject matter expert. Improvements over basic lecture and Q&A style approaches will be encouraged when appropriate.

I also expect to include some structured speed networking activities.

I will provide everyone who is attending access to an electronic repository which we can use for sharing pre-read content, providing slides and video files for pre-loading onto portable projectors, and for sharing any photos and videos taken during the conference.

Here are a few references to learn more about open space and unconference style conferences:

• https://agilecrete.org/what-is-an-open-space-unconference/
• https://medium.com/the-liberators/spark-self-organization-in-groups-with-open-space-technology-700c6d62921
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_space_technology

The cost of lunch on Thursday and Friday is NOT included in the UnConference ticket.

Lunch is included on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for those attending the Certified LeSS Practitioner course.

To help keep the conference price as low as possible, we will be going out to lunch each day in organized groups. There are lots of restaurant choices within a short walk in both the Upper East Side and Downtown locations.

I recommend bringing enough cash to pay for lunch at a table service restaurant. This will make it easier for your lunch group to settle the bill without needing to ask the server to run a credit card for each person.

Beverage service including water, coffee, and tea is included in the price of the conference. It is likely this will also include sodas, and bottled water as well.

The quality and availability of the appetizers will vary based upon which event location is used. At the smaller Upper East Side event space, breakfast and appetizers will be curated and prepared by a lovely graduate of Peter Kump's New York Cooking School, now known as the Institute of Culinary Education. If we end up Downtown, the best we will get is overpriced granola bars, pretzels, and salted nuts; and then only at higher head counts once the economy of scale makes it cost effective to provide more than basic beverage service.

The optional Certified LeSS Practitioner will be held from Monday to Wednesday in the Upper East Side venue at 1918 East Lafayette Place, Milwaukee, WI 53202.

Unless the UnConference attendee count requires relocating to Downtown, this location will also be used for the UnConference on Thursday and Friday,

The Milwaukee Upper East Side Event Venue Details page provides more information regarding:

• Address Information
• Parking
• Neighborhood Restaurants
• Taking the Oak Leaf Trail
• Ride-share bicycles
• Ride-share electric scooters

If the UnConference grows large enough, I anticipate relocating it to one of the Downtown event hotels. 

The Westin Milwaukee is the first choice of larger venue if required. The nearby Milwaukee Marriott is the second choice if the Westin becomes unavailable.

As explained in the Milwaukee Downtown Hotels And Dining page, all of the Downtown hotels are only a short trip from the Upper East Side venue.

As I write this, there are still reasonably priced sleeping rooms available in both the Westin and the Marriott during the UnConference. Yet, both of these hotels are already sold out during the first SummerFest weekend.

The Milwaukee Downtown Hotels And Dining provides comprehensive details on selecting a Downtown hotel.