Agile Florida

Join me at Agile Open Florida on Friday, Oct 25, 2019

2019 marks the sixth year of the Agile Open Florida conference. This conference brings agilists from across Florida (as well as outside the state) to explore, share and learn from each other. And there is much to share. Are you scaling or de-scaling? Should you hybridize your approach? Where does

Agile

Many Learning Opportunities Outside of Agile2017 (Aug 5 update)

There are many people planning to come to Agile2017. This year is estimated to be more than 2500 attending. Others find this conference too expensive. Unfortunately, that’s true for many of my fellow Florida agilists. So if you are coming to the conference or if you are in the

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

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

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,

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

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

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

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

Agile Florida

Recommendations for someone new to the Product Owner role?

I often get questions of the form of “How do I start this (practice/role)?” Recently, I got the following question in a lean coffee (details altered to protect their identity): I’m a manager with a local company who works mainly as a product owner and internal customer point

Agile Florida

Long live @AgileFlorida (RIP Orlando Scrum)

This post is part celebration of agile in Florida and part bitter-sweet memories for me. I rarely share personal stories nor long blog posts, but I share the following to encourage others who struggle with building a “user group” or building anything from scratch that cannot be built alone. This

Agile Florida

My wish list for Meetup as a user group leader (thanks Meetup)

NOTE: This post is updated at the end with a very quick response from Meetup.com (Thanks!) Warning: this is a rant. I’m currently writing an Agile2015 experience report telling the history of AgileFlorida.com and AgileOrlando.com specifically. Meetup.com was a key element of our success, but

Agile Florida

Preparing for Agile Open Florida 2015 - No One Size Fits All

Later this month, I have the privilege of facilitating the Agile Open Florida 2015 conference. Final preparations are well under way and we have sold out six weeks before the conference. There is some personal preparation that would benefit everyone as well. I’ll use the rest of this blog

Agile Florida

Agile Roadtrip to Valpak

This past Thursday I had an opportunity to road trip from Orlando to Tampa to meet with folks from Valpak whom I’ll be collaborating with on the next Agile Open Florida (AOF). What an awesome trip! The picture is me with Diana Weber, my co-facilitator for AOF and agile

Agile

Answering questions from Driving Value with Agile Teams

This past Tuesday, I had an opportunity to speak to a combined audience from Central Florida IIBA and Agile Orlando. It was a great session and I hope everyone had as much fun as I did! Thank you for the opportunity. If anyone took photos, please let me know so

Agile Florida

Reflecting on Agile Open Florida

It’s been over 2 weeks since Agile Open Florida happened and I’m still buzzing with the possibilities of where Florida can go next. Not only did we hold our first state-wide open space for agilists, but we were able to have one of my favorite OST facilitators, Ainsley

Agile Florida

Agile Open Florida on June 27

The first Agile Open Space conference is coming to Florida on June 27! Since I attended my first open space at XP Universe 2001, I have been hooked on the open space concept. Never attended an “open space” or a Un-conference? Wondering what it is like? Think back to one

Agile Florida

Serving Lean Coffee to build a Learning Community

Lean Coffee is a lightweight way for self-organizing a group of people together to share information. Originally started by Jim Benson and Jeremy Lightsmith in 2009 in Seattle, I have found it can be a very simple way to bring together or build a community. I have been running lean