One of our key values is helping the community and its members grow as agilists. We do this though:

• Sponsoring our communities of practice
• Supporting external educational events and communities of practice
• Mentoring new Agilists

We sponsor and facilitate a 30-minute, weekly community and a 90-minute, monthly community. While we may introduce techniques to educate and to keep the meetings engaging,  the communities decide the what and the how. If you would like to learn more or join either community, please send a note to info@agilen2n.com.

Weekly Community

Our Friday noon (CT) virtual micro-sessions provide an opportunity for new and experienced Agilists to come together and discuss a very narrow topic. The community constantly evolves session format to best serve its members. Our meetings may feature:

•  a question or situation offered by a participant, followed by a discussion
•  a 5-10 minute presentation by a participant to introduce their topic/situation/question followed by a discussion
•  a half-hour presentation by a participant with Q&A
•  discussion of the top item of the backlog
  •  Certification vs understanding vs experience – impact of model prescriptiveness
  •  How does the current Scrum Guide tie sprint goals more closely with product goals?
  •  How do you remember technical debt items – story, 3M note, just-fix-it
  •  If you’re not getting value from [fill in the blank] you may be doing it wrong
  • FinOps
  • Who should see which Agile metrics?
  • What is the role of a PM in an Agile organization? How many teams can a PM support? Does this change with maturity?
  • How granular does a road map need to be for different levels of the organization?
  • What tools exist to coordinate the dependencies of a set of enterprise agile teams?
  • What behaviors should a PM retain when transitioning to an Agile organization?
  • Should SAFe be introduced from  Team up or Portfolio down?
  • Should teams pick their own project management tools? Development? Does this change for complex projects/services?
  • Barriers to safety within a team
  • Barriers to safety outside a team
  • How do we measure “success” – pick a “success”

Monthly Community

We sponsor the West Suburban Agile Community of Practice on the third Thursday of the month, 7:00-8:30pm CT (virtual for now). Since February 2015 the community meeting provides an opportunity for new and experienced Agilists to come together to network and to have a wide-ranging discussion of Agile topics. The meeting format is highly interactive with minimal presentation and maximum on sharing of experiences through discussion. Attendees can share their valuable experiences and have an opportunity to learn from each other. The community determines the topics and format it will use for the meeting.

Agile N2N supports other organizations and their work to share Agile knowledge. We have provided speakers or sponsorship of professional organizations and education institutions such as the Project Management Institute, the Illinois Institute of Technology, the IEEE, the Human Resources Management Association of Chicago, and the American Society for Quality.

We are a proud partner of the Western Chicago Suburbs Agile Meetup Group.

Several of us mentor new and experienced Agilists in their career development. The mentoring involves one-on-one sessions where we discuss books and topics in great detail over a three to six month period. We also provide guidance on creating an Agile focused resume and interview preparation.

If you are interested in learning more about this opportunity, please contact info@agilen2n.com.