Agile OrlandoI’m very excited to announce that Agile Orlando will be rebooting on July 23, 2013!  Our goal is to grow knowledge within the Central Florida community on lean and agile project management and software development.  I’d like to share how we started and what we intend to do.

How we got here

There is a long story to the Agile Orlando reboot which I might share another time.  What I will share now is that we are using Lean Startup principles.  This was inspired by Dennis Stevens‘ and Brian Bozutto’s talk at Agile2012 on Communities of Practice and using their modified Business Model Canvas for building those communities.  I greatly appreciate what Brian and Dennis shared.  Also, I appreciate the support of many people inside and outside of Orlando.  First, Mike Cottmeyer’s support (and hiring me into Leading Agile) has given me more flexibility to get the group rebooted.  I also greatly appreciate the support of folks I have met through Lean Coffee Orlando over the last several months who wanted to do more: Esteban Garcia, Ken Nordquist, Cory Collier, and Luis Moros.  I appreciate your ideas and willingness to step in and help.  I also appreciate the organizations that are lending their support: LeadingAgile, Agile Thought, Envy Labs and Tek Systems.

What we intend to do

Our current plan is to have different types of events that allow for different levels and types of learning:
  1. Talks from members or well-known guest speakers from industry on topics in Agile and Lean software development.
  2. Lightning talks from members on a wide variety of agile topics (short 7-8 minute presentations and usually covers 4-6 different topics in one night)
  3. Workshops that could include simulations, games and exercises on various agile concepts (see http://www.tastycupcakes.com), innovation games for product design (http://www.innovationgames.com), and facilitation of agile events such as planning, iteration reviews, project retrospectives, release planning and similar events.

Based on feedback on these events, we may expand or “pivot” to other types of events to meet our goal to grow agile and lean knowledge within Central Florida.

Other ideas? Please share them here or on the Agile Orlando site.