Retreats
Check your organization
Why a retreat?
Musicians will take much more time preparing for a performance than the actual performance. While we constantly perform on stage in our daily work, we hardly ever take time to practice. So, get with the programme and improve your performance on the “stage of life” today.
Why work with us

Tailored to your organization

Face challenges together with your teams

Instructors who know what they are talking about

Co-friend network support
Our retreats are organized in-house and tailored to your needs
Code Retreats
The Code Retreat is a highly effective one-day practical event that focuses on the fundamentals of software development and design. Away from daily pressures, developers get the opportunity to boost their skills and improve their ability to write code that will minimize the cost of change over time.
Game-storming Retreats
During a Game-storming Retreat, participants practice their skills by helping each other with various techniques. This retreat is very suitable for facilitators, Scrum Masters, team leaders and managers. In a safe environment, you can try out new things, get constructive feedback and maybe even create your own modification or combination of techniques.
Legacy Code Retreats
The Legacy Code Retreat for developers is based on the Code Retreat format, only this time with an extra twist: you’ll be working on someone’s already-written code. Participants can fully immerse themselves into some old, messy, organically grown, hard to understand implementation of a game in the chosen programming language. This retreat is a popular event for in-house sessions: your programmers can practice on their own legacy systems.
Leadership Retreats
During a Leadership Retreat, we dive into the practices and techniques any good leader can bring to the table to elevate their team or organization to the next level. We use all kinds of leadership tools and apply the Responsibility Process® to see how these are linked and how they reinforce each other.
Architecture & Coding Kata's
One of the more successful practices to acquire Technical Excellence skills are “kata’s”, practicing skills outside the domain of the real battle. Just like they are used in fight sports. You open the space for people to join weekly or 2-weekly kata sessions going from 2h sessions to full day sessions where they can learn new skills. We design and facilitate Kata's for development skills - coding kata's - and architectural skills. This works like a charm but be warned, don’t expect results from day 1, it truly is like the karate kid old version: wax in, wax out, wax in, wax out... or in karate kid new version: put it on, put it off, put it on, put it off...
Management Sessions 3.0 Brown Bag
We understand that not every team member can take two or three days off to attend our Management 3.0 Training. Why not participate in our flexible alternative that offers the same content as a regular in-person Management 3.0 Training? We’ll meet regularly over the course of time and dive into relevant topics that concern your organization today.
Looking for a retreat for your organization/team?
Our satisfied participants said the following…
“The telecom industry is a fast moving industry. Every day you have to make bold changes to be able to deliver new solutions and win the game of competition. This is why, at BASE Company, we decided nine months ago, to draw a new future: Agile. Agile is a new way of working which will help us to closely involve our customers in everything we do – better understand their needs – to better respond to their wishes. It’s working in small teams who are responsible for themselves. It’s giving everyone a responsibility and the flexibility to achieve this goal. Thanks to the expertise of the Co-learning team, we were able to look back on our process, to change our mind-set and to involve everyone in a journey that will allow us to take on the challenges of tomorrow. This challenge is to design and to develop the world’s best telecom solutions.”

“Agile. In het begin leek het me de zoveelste “buzz”. Maar de passie van mijn Agile medewerkers en de eerste resultaten gaven me het vertrouwen om door te gaan. Agile was duidelijk meer dan “vallende post-its” die verhangen moesten worden. Het was een mindset. Een filosofie. En een vooruitgang.
Dus toch maar wat verder grasduinen. Oei. Daar komen mensen met yoga en “zen” op ons af. Niet echt mijn ding, de KPI’s daarvan zijn me niet altijd even duidelijk. Dus toch terug twijfel?
En toen kwam ook Jurgen. Zonder yoga. Hij gaf het enthousiasme een nieuws schwung, in gans het team. Hij bracht creativiteit die geen spielerei was, maar concrete resultaten opleverde. En meer nog, hij wou daar zelf nauwelijks de pluimen van krijgen, gunde het aan onze eigen “voortrekkers” en profileerde zich als een échte teamspeler. Niet van een extern team, maar van ons team.
Jurgen belichaamt dan ook het Agile werken waar ik wél in geloof. En geloof mij dan maar: daar word je sowieso al “zen” van.“

“The city of Kortrijk has made it a priority to stimulate greater citizen participation. We had held a large scale survey asking our citizens what they considered to be the policy priorities for the coming years in their street, neighborhood and city. The response was overwhelming and people wanted to somehow stay involved with the execution of these plans. That’s when Jurgen contacted us and introduced us to the brilliant concept of ‘Budget Games’. It’s an innovative way to involve citizens in policy making which Jurgen helped to produce and facilitate in Kortrijk. Together with Co-Learning we were the first to use it on the European continent.”

“Jürgen De Smet has given several on-site trainings to our Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Project and Product Managers. Building on his large experience of agile coaching, he was able to adapt every course to the needs of the audience, adding lots of interactivity to the trainings.
He also helped us to build up a high level prioritized product backlog to improve interaction between business and our agile teams”

“With the help of Co-learning we were able to step into Agile. Through extensive coaching and interactive session they helped us to think beyond the limited view of Agile and think beyond with a focus on the product and business. With a straightforward view, clear business acumen and honesty Jürgen, Thierry and Erik coached us on the journey. They also managed to identify the key people within the teams that want to contribute and take the team along. We’ve had a great kick-start with valuable learnings and guidance, and with those embedded it’s our turn to continue our journey.
I’ve also attended the Certified LeSS Practitioner training where Jürgen goes beyond the theory and principles adding a lot of experience and stories combined with practical exercises. An added value when going through your Agile transformation!”

“We contacted Co-Learning to design a teambuilding focussing on how to achieve a healthy teamspirit through a diversity of personalities and job content. The creative and innovative approach Co-Learning brought to our team resulted in the realisation of the added value of self reflection as a key cornerstone for work optimization.”

“The startup coaching retreat offers value to our startups especially because it addresses their current needs and operational challenges. The coaches from co-learning do an excellent job by asking the right questions, sharing their expertise and animating the discussion.”

“Thanks to unusual training methods and interactive team follow up, Co-learning gave us the necessary guidance to get started with Agile at the company level. Jürgen and Erik anticipated changes in the company and adapted their actions to keep the focus on the most valuable transformation needs.
Through their coaching, they teach even more than a methodology explained by very instructive real life examples, but a real way of thinking and behaving to maximize value.”

“The retreats hosted by Jürgen and Erik are the perfect occasion to exercise in a failsafe environment and to share experience around innovation, creativity, Agile and problems with some of the currently applied methods in management in general and software delivery. I’ve attended two GameStorming retreats and what I learned and practiced there has been successfully applied at our RealDolmen ALM team meetings. This was direct result from their effort.
I’ve also attended the Management 3.0 training by Jürgen and his experience during his career really adds value to the course content. A must follow for everyone in knowledge work.”

“We engaged co-learning to implement Scrum 3 years ago. Today when looking back at the past I am pretty sure that we would never have succeeded without engaging an Agile coach for a few months. He made us aware what Agile means and certainly that it doesn’t stop at IT’s door.
Today the whole company is on the same heartbeat which is great : groom it, score it, plan it, build it, review it, test it, release it, learn it, … technologic ;-). New development team members are always impressed how we apply Scrum. Without an Agile coach we probably would have ended up with a daily stand-up.
During the years we have engaged co-learning also for user story mapping workshops, value mapping workshops, vision roadmaps where business and IT are participating side by side not living a part anymore in their own silo.“

Some cases
Y Soft: Multi-Site LeSS Huge Adoption (2018-2021)
LeSS Huge (Large-Scale Scrum) adoption in an organization driving innovation within the global print management market. A story of organisational agility leading to growth, speed & innovative solutions.
SFPD: Governmental, highly regulated service going LeSS (2018-2020)
LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum) adoption in a governmental organization driving innovation within their application approach and ways of working. A story of organisational agility and technical excellence leading to innovative solutions.
BASE Company: LeSS Huge adoption incl. Offshoring (2015-2017)
LeSS Huge (Large-Scale Scrum) adoption in one of the 3 biggest TelCo organizations in Belgium. A story of organisational agility with BOLD movements leading to growth, speed & innovative solutions.
THEY WORKED WITH US
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