Agile Florida

Agile Open Florida Seeking a New Home

We have begun planning our fourth year of Agile Open Florida and we are looking for a new venue to comfortably hold the energy of 200 people wanting to learn and collaborate for a day. Last year’s venue was wonderful, but they have some competing events around our November

Remotely Agile

A distributed agile team guide for LeanAgileUS participants - remotelyagile.info

UPDATE (Aug 2020) – I finally took down remotelyagile.info as the entire world was remote.  Near impossible to track it all. If you attended my talk at LeanAgileUS.com, I likely mentioned many references on distributed teams.  I keep those references at RemotelyAgile.info (which you can also access via

Appreciations

I appreciate the Agile Florida community #ThankfulThursday

Last Friday (11/18/2016), we held the largest Agile Open Florida conference in our three year history with over 200 people. One of our new sponsors asked me what was the purpose of this event. As I mentioned in our opening, it’s not about the event; it’s

Agile Florida

Preparing for Agile Open Florida on 10/7 - Going, Growing & Sustaining Agile

We are only a few days away from our third annual Agile Open Florida conference. We have nearly doubled in size and are expecting approximately 300 people in attendance. For those new to an “open space technology” format, I often get questions on how to prepare. Those asking may be

Response, Reflection, and Small Steps Matter

Yesterday marked fifteen years since the 9/11 attacks on the United States and I’m feeling reflective about tragedy and how we respond. I realize this is a heavy subject for the start of your week, but it’s important to think about our response when we are not

Appreciations

Appreciating Sarah Baca - #ThankfulThursday

Today, I want to appreciate someone more local to me: Sarah Baca. Sarah joined Agile Orlando in January 2014 and immediately raised her hand to help. She has not stopped since and has been a tremendous help in growing and supporting the Agile Orlando community. If Sarah was standing in

Appreciations

Appreciating Don Gray -#ThankfulThursday

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I want to recognize people who have had an impact on me and who may provide examples and inspiration for you. Today, I listened (again) to a great podcast with Don Gray and Ryan Ripley on coaching, systems thinking and why you

Appreciations

Introducing Thankful Thursdays #ThankfulThursday

With the passing of my friend Jean Tabaka in June 2016, I wanted to do something else to help remember her.  Of the numerous lessons I learned from Jean, I treasure the gift of appreciation the most and always try to share that gift with others. So I’m starting

Remotely Agile

Rare beasts and more resources on remote jobs

UPDATE (Aug 2020): With the pandemic, these rare beasts were not so rare any longer.  See my resources section – https://www.markkilby.com/remote-jobs/ Last year I wrote a blog post on how to find a remote job.  Even though I warn people that it’s a different way of

Agile

Episode 11: Mark Kilby by AgileThought - a bit of my agile history

A little bit of my agile origin story and advice on how to grow as an agilist now.  (15min) Enjoy! Thanks to @AgileThought for the interview.

Agile

Do you light a fuse or kindling?

This is a different kind of post. It’s more personal and a bit longer. But there is a message for anyone who considers himself or herself a leader, a change agent, or even a follower. Allow me to set some context first. I had two friends pass away within

Agile

What shall we explore at Agile 2016?

Agile2016 starts one month from now.  Here are three things I’m looking forward to: * The new Audacious Salon track (especially Monday and Tuesday morning, 7/25-26) * A gathering of Agile User Group leaders (Tuesday evening, 7/26) * My workshop with David Horowitz on Distributed Communication and Collaboration (Thursday afternoon,

hybrid-remote

Is there a better way to talk about distributed teams?

There is an enormous amount written about distributed teams and I find most of it very frustrating. It’s not that the observations or the ideas are bad. The problem lies with the primary tool we have for exploring the principles and practices of distributed teams: the English language. Terms

Choice

What's the Secret Joy of Working Remote?

While speaking recently at a conference, I realized two important things about the nature of remote work. First, I choose to work remotely. Second, many of the people who work remotely, particularly in large organizations, did not choose this way of working. I had roughly 200 people attend my talk

Agile Florida

Rocking the Global Scrum Gathering #SGFLA with a Community of Volunteers and Slack

In my prior blog post, I mentioned how we formed our group of volunteers for the Global Scrum Gathering in Orlando. Now let me share how we stormed, normed and performed at the gathering! Warning: this may be a bit long (TL;DR) unless you are interested in how we

Agile Florida

Forming a Community of Volunteers at the Global Scrum Gathering Orlando #SGFLA

It’s been a little over a week since the Global Scrum Gathering in Orlando and our Agile Florida Slack community is still buzzing. The buzz is mostly from our volunteers! The April 2016 Global Scrum Gathering was the first time they leveraged volunteers to assist with the speakers and

Community

Is Virtual Co-Working Possible?

Since the Distributed agile teams conference in Berlin (Nov 2015), I’ve been experimenting with a number of techniques to work virtually. One of my latest experiments with Lisette Sutherland and Pilar Orti is on virtual co-working. First, let’s discuss co-working. Co-working has exploded over the last decade as

Agile Florida

Scrum Gathering Orlando - Mission Accomplished

First, my apologies to my readers for the not writing for a couple of months. Things have been quiet on my blog for a number of reasons. I reviewed two tracks for the Agile2016 conference and prepared three submissions (two of which were accepted). Also, I have been preparing for

Community

Connect for Community in Distributed Teams

Late in 2015, I participated in a great discussion with Ryan Ripley and David Horowitz on distributed agile teams on the Agile For Humans podcast. In that discussion, I mentioned “the importance of explicitly encouraging communication in the team; otherwise it’s not a company just a bunch of people”

Agile

Thankful Thursday: AgileOrlando, AgileFlorida, DATFlock and more

Over the last week in the USA, there has been a welcome sentiment of gratitude from last Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday to #GivingTuesday. Since I’m involved in a few communities, I just wanted to take a moment to thank those who have helped me support others in 2015. First,

Agile Florida

InfoQ Interview: Distributed teams and distributed user groups

While at Agile2015, InfoQ interviewed me and some of my AgileFlorida.com colleagues and you can now see the InfoQ interview and transcript (25 min). In the interview, we talk about our distributed network of user groups and how we collaborate.  A big thank you to Stephanie and Rick for

hybrid-remote

For distributed agile teams, tools come last

Having worked with a number of distributed agile teams over the years, I’m often asked what is the best tool to use.  Many people want to find the one tool that will allow their distributed team to work just like a co-located team.  I find that there are usually

Remotely Agile

Discussing Distributed Teams and Agile Coaching with @Retrium

Recently, I was interviewed by David Horowitz of Retrium.  We discussed agile coaching and distributed teams as we have both seen many.  I appreciate the opportunity to have the discussion with David and I look forward to speaking with him and others at the upcoming Distributed Agile Teams camp.

Agile

You're not alone when agile - Find your Podcast community

In early 2014, I switched from being a consultant coach back to an internal coach.  It has given me the unique opportunity to see what it’s like to be on the inside of an organization again.  One thing I was reminded of is this challenge: if you are one

Agile

Agile2015 - Processing day 2

Last time, I covered Day 1 of the Agile 2015 conference. This time, I’ll share hilights for Day 2. Most of this day I spent focusing on my AgileFlorida.com presentation and helping my colleague Sarah with her Rewire your Brain talk. I did find time to hangout in