Agile Alliance Election: Board of Directors
Location: Online and at Agile2008 in Toronto, Canada, From Aug-05-2008 To Aug-05-2008
Contact Phil Brock, Luke Hohman
Link to Event
Agile Alliance is holding its annual election for the Board of Directors. As a member, you are invited to vote for five of the individuals listed (from the nominations committee). Nominations may also be made from the floor at the Member Meeting. Ballots may be cast via email elections@agilealliance.org or in person at the annual Members meeting to be held at the Toronto conference.
Nominees and their statements of qualifications/interest are listed below – in alphabetical order:
Jennitta Andrea:
I have been on the Agile Alliance board for the past 2 terms (4 years), and have served in a variety of different capacities, such as: treasurer, executive committee member, and Functional Test Tools Program director. The skills that I bring to the board include: – analytical thinking (getting to the core of a topic, and suggesting a variety of different perspectives, which has helped contribute to the board’s tactical and strategic decision making) – collaborative/distributed team work (e.g., Elisabeth Hendrickson and I have been extensively collaborating on organizing the AAFTT program’s two workshops. This type of collaborative & distributed team work is what being on the board is all about.)
I am motivated to run for another term on the board by the desire to help with the ‘conference in a box’ concept. I am especially keen on making sure that it is easier to plan/organize/execute small, practice-specific workshops. I believe that small practice-specific programs/workshops (like AAFTT) can significantly improve the state of the art/practice by engaging practitioners in meaningful collaboration and envisioning.
Evan Campbell:
I have dedicated most of my career to the continuous improvement of software process and methodology for teams and organizations in diverse industries. I have been a software development leader in big corporate IT, in venture start-up and public ISVs, and in professional services companies. I didn’t become very consistent in delivering software productively, humanely, and sustainably, until many years into my career, witnessing great improvements after discovering and refining agile development processes. I often wish I had known then what I know now, to have served the teams and customers I worked with then better. Over the last 5 years, I have built a 125 person agile contract-project development organization, and developed and managed two agile consulting organizations focused on helping teams and organizations deploy and benefit from agile practices. I work occasionally as an Agile Coach myself, and take great pleasure in working with organizational leaders to plan and manage the rollout of agile practices and philosophy in large organizations. One of my favorite parts is helping leadership teams develop trust and confidence in delivery teams, sufficient to empower and delegate decision making formerly reserved for middle-managers.
As far as my specific interests in contributing to the Alliance: my breadth of experience, and familiarity with discussing the benefits of lean and agile practices with senior executives within and beyond technology organizations should prove valuable to the development of stronger corporate sponsorship and partnership with larger corporations. I feel that much of the energy in the Scrum and Agile community is focused on the development of teams and individual practitioners, while relatively little energy is going towards solving the larger and more complex challenges of running agile at the large organization level. Issues of steering, program and portfolio management, as well as agile approaches to product realization are some of the most critical levers for organizations to realize the full benefits of agile. I’d like to support the Alliance in gaining a stronger sponsorship and community of practitioners at that corporate leadership level, and help develop forums and projects where we work to develop and promote success with large scale agile.
Paul Culling:
I was surprised (and honored) when Philippe Kruchten and my fellow board members of Agile Vancouver asked if they could nominate me for the Agile Alliance board. I have worked with Agile Vancouver as a board member for the past 2 years. I have worked with VersionOne for almost 2 ½ years, working primarily out of Vancouver, BC. I now spend a considerable amount of my time working with and supporting user groups and Agile communities at a local, regional and national level. Through my work with Agile Vancouver and many of the other groups I have worked with, I have learned the many and varied needs these groups have in their quest to start, grow and succeed in creating active user communities. I believe I am in a unique position to evangelize the programs and activities of the Agile Alliance and would bring new ideas and energy to the board with respect to the support of the Agile community as a whole. I have experience working within committees and have shown myself to be a person that can accomplish a great deal in volunteer based environments. Although I am not a prototypical Alliance board member, I feel this is why my colleagues believe I would be a good candidate. As Philippe pointed out in his nomination letter, I offer a different set of experiences from within the community along with a very strong creative and tactical skill set. I believe I make me an ideal candidate for a board position because:
- I am both personally and professionally dedicated to the growth of Agile communities,
- I have a proven ability to park my employer allegiances at the door when necessary, and
- I have an employer that recognizes my potential time commitment to the Agile Alliance as an important contribution to our community.
Rachel Davies:
I have experience as an agile developer and agile coach using XP and Scrum since 2000 so I have a good appreciation of what it means to be agile. I have served on the Agile Alliance board since 2003 and in past years have been elected chair and secretary to the board. I am Agile2008 conference chair and I have introduced the concept of stages and been the product owner for the submission system and conference website. I helped organize the first XPDay in London in 2001 and have worked on Agile200x, Agile Business, Agile Development, SPA200x, XPDays and XP200x conferences. I also founded our Conference Sponsorship program, which provides publicity and funding to community run agile events
I’d like to help Agile Alliance continue to build our own Agile conference into an event which re-energizes the agile community and is run consistently with agile principles. After Agile2008 I’ll be putting more energy into the Conference Sponsorship program. I’ll be working on creating a “conference in a box” package to provide infrastructure and advice to help new conferences get started. If elected to the Agile Alliance board I’d like us to work on connecting better with the international agile community and supporting more new programs.
Steve Freeman:
I’m involved in the Agile movement because I believe that it’s the most effective way to ship useful software. It plays to how people really are, not to how some think they should be. It emphasizes bringing the best out of people rather than getting the most out of them. It tries to get the crud out of our working lives and allow us, once in a while, to be inspired. I’ve seen this work with individual teams and, occasionally, larger organizations, and I’d like to see the ideas more widespread. We’ve made a good start, and we have a way further to go.
As a member of the Agile Alliance board, my main interest would be to ensure that we keep alive the notion of the “Whole Team”. With the larger community that has come with our initial success, there’s a risk that the different disciplines involved (managers, analysts, testers, developers, and so on) start to splinter and only talk to their own. The one great innovation of Agile has been to help us look at the bigger picture, and we shouldn’t let that go. In practice, that is likely to mean supporting individuals, programs, and events that make a point of bridging between disciplines.
As for me, I am one of the pioneers of the Agile software movement in the UK where, over the years, we have built a vibrant community of practitioners. in London, our eXtreme Tuesday Club is approaching its 10th anniversary. I was chair of the first London XpDay and have been involved ever since, and have been a track chair and reviewer at several of the North American Agile conferences. In 2006, I received the Alliance’s Gordon Pask award, jointly with Nat Price, for this effort and for our work on Test-Driven Development.
I am an independent software consultant based in London. I have spent a scarily long time working in software, with diversions into research, shrink-wrap (for IBM’s OTI Labs), consultancy, and academic teaching (University College London). I’ve also consulted and taught courses in Europe, North America, and Asia.
Thank you for your support.
Todd Girvin:
I am a pragmatic business person who likes to get things done. For many years I have practiced, coached, and consulted on the application of Agile methods to software development projects and business operations. Now, I live the dream on a daily basis by co-leading the growth of my company using Agile practices. I learn more about teams and management every day while enjoying real accomplishments as we tackle new problems together and grow ever larger as a business.
As a board member of the Agile Alliance, I hope to bring this pragmatic mindset and corporate experience to the leadership team, helping it relate to and communicate better with industry. My drive and experience with building communities around best practices meshes perfectly with the mission of the Agile Alliance. I also bring experience with market analysis, strategic planning, communication, and developing partnerships that will magnify the effectiveness of the already powerful group. The opportunity to take part in such a significant movement within the technology and general business arenas is both an honor and an inspiration. I look forward to being a part of the team, contributing more, and accomplishing more.
Janet Gregory:
I am an independent consultant, coaching, training and helping test teams integrate into agile projects. I also have hands on experience facilitating retrospectives and actual testing in agile teams. I am a founding member of the Calgary Agile Users group, and am very involved in Calgary’s local quality group talking on agile practices. I have also been part of the organizing committees for several previous Agile conferences. Currently, I co-authoring a book on Agile Testing with Lisa Crispin for publication in January 2009.
As part of the Agile Alliance Board, I would like to see programs reach out to new communities who don’t have the resources or local skills to start their own users group or know where to access the resources available.
Todd Little:
I have been on the board of the Agile Alliance since 2005. In 2003 I was the Vice Chair of the inaugural Agile Development Conference in Salt Lake City. I was the Program Director for ADC2004, Agile2005 and Agile 2006. I am currently the Program Director of the Steering Committee for the Agile200X conference program.
I have a passion for forwarding the agile movement. The conference has been one place where I have been able to make a contribution to the community as the event grew from about 200 attendees to over 1100 during my tenure. I continue to have passion to help the Agile Alliance and the conference be successful.
I am currently a Sr. Development Manager at Landmark Graphics leading several development teams producing commercial software for the oil and gas industry. For most of my tenure on the board I have been one of the few directors that was not a consultant or working for a consulting company. I believe that my industry background and management expertise provides a valuable contribution to the Agile Alliance board.
Ahmed Sidky:
Irrelevant of being a board member, I am currently supporting the alliance’s purpose simply because I really believe in the agile values and principles. I have used my connections in the Middle East and helped organize the first agile conference in the region; Agile Egypt. I was able to get enough funding to make the conference free of charge. Over 450 people learned about the agile values and principles. Also because of my academic background, I am frequently asked by students to help with their research in the field of agile. As long as I have the bandwidth, I never say no. Another way I support this purpose is by attending conferences, volunteering at conferences (even when I am speaking at the conference), attending user group meetings, speaking at events, and simply being there for people that have questions about agile.
By being a board member I hope to support the community even more by helping more people become aware of agile and the benefits of adopting an agile mindset. One way to do this is by encouraging more people to hold awareness events about agile, not just in North America but all around the world. I would also like to find ways to specifically emphasize the humane aspect of the software industry. If I could, I would ban managers from calling people “resources,” but I’ll find another way to get the message across. One more thing I hope to achieve is to increase the alliance’s membership. I am sure that there is more than 4300 or so people interested in agile around the world, I would love to be part of an effort to double our membership. Anyway, the bottom line is that I am a fond believer of agile and whether as an individual or as a board member I will continue to spread the message as much as I can.
Whether it be fresh ideas, new perspectives or renewed energy, I think there are some obvious gifts any new member brings to the board. Besides all the standard gifts, I think I will be bringing some unique qualities to the board. I think one of my unique gifts is related to cultural diversity. I am very aware of multiple cultures especially those related to the Middle East. One example is knowing that the Agile conference will fall within the holy month of Ramadan for the next 3 years and that in order to be really a global community we should accommodate the needs of those fasting during that holy month.
Another gift I think is that I am actually not new to being part of the board of directors for a large organization. I was vice president of a huge non profit student organization that overlooked around 500 chapters in the US and Canada. My role was involved with increasing membership, re-branding the organization’s identity, defining programs to serve the members and organizing 4 yearly conferences all around the US and Canada.
One of the new program ideas I have is related to readiness assessments. Many people have questions whether they are ready to adopt certain agile practices or not. The idea of the program is to create a forum for people to share questions that could help assess whether teams are ready to adopt for certain agile practices or not. I could also help run the conference program because of my background in conference organization. I have been organizing conferences for over 4 years. The conferences ranged from 800-4000 attendees. Also I could help run the Agile Research or Conference Sponsorships programs.
Bryan Stallings:
At the time I learned about agile, I was managing performance improvement and organizational change initiatives at a fast-moving financial services firm. In the matter of a few days I read everything I could find on the subject, and by mid-week we had launched a five-team pilot. Within the next 9 months the number of teams grew to 35—a pace that some have called the largest single simultaneous rollout of Scrum at that point in time. Agile became a source of competitive advantage which allowed us to be a disruptive force within our industry.
That start was years ago. I’ve now contributed to successful initiatives to embrace Agile principles and practices at dozens of companies, first from a position of accountability as an employee at three companies, and later as a consultant and trainer. Today I am a director at SolutionsIQ with responsibility for an outstanding team of consultants, and I am have a leadership role in the company’s ongoing agile transformation.
I support the purpose of the Agile Alliance in my efforts as a professional. Participating as a board member would enable me to broaden my efforts to do the same as a volunteer. I am a committed individual and become deeply engaged in all that I do. I have a demonstrated history of focused involvement in the several organizations where I volunteer.
I have a different background than many in this organization-while always involved within IT, my efforts have been focused on Process Improvement, Organizational Change, Project Management and Business Intelligence. In addition to expertise in each of these, I bring to the board experience, customer-focus, integrity, international perspective and diplomacy:
- Experience at helping individuals and organizations apply Agile principles and practices—at considerable scale and at all levels, from team members through senior executives
- Experience in accomplishing the work of similar volunteer organizations through involvement on committees and in leadership roles
- Focus on the “customer” in whatever role I play, a perspective that has been deeply-rooted in me from a background in performance improvement
- Integrity is of paramount importance to me, both personally as well as that of the organizations with whom I am affiliated
- International perspective obtained from living in four countries and education that includes an MBA in international business and studies in foreign language and culture
- Diplomacy in my approach to communication and collaboration
I believe I could effectively participate in any of the programs, or assist with shepherding any new programs. I would like to propose the board consider a program of outreach to universities that would increase the exposure that students receive to agile methods. The program could begin by encouraging agile communities to collaborate with universities in order to incorporate students into local meetings and events, and to offer agile expertise for campus guest lectures. I would like to see this kind of program to result in strong relationships with educational institutions. Ideally a program of the Agile Alliance could assist in the initiation of multi-disciplinary programs at universities where senior engineering and business students collaborate using agile methods to complete development projects.
Tamara Sulaiman:
I would support the purpose of the Agile Alliance by developing and/or furthering current programs that reach out to those practitioners in the Agile community, and those newcomers who are looking for information on Agile practices, programs and literature.
Gifts that I bring to the board include: enthusiasm, availability, a healthy sense of humor and pragmatism, as well as practical experience with Agile teams and practices, knowledge of the Agile community, and deep experience with non-profit organizations—working with and through volunteer committees.
My Agile experience includes working as a ScrumMaster for InfoTech Inc. in Florida. I helped lead the Agile transition there in 2003 – 2005. Following that work as a ScrumMaster and coach for teams at SolutionsIQ, from 2005 – December 2007. In January 2008 I have “opened the doors” (virtual doors!) on my own Agile consulting company, Applied Scrum, LLC. These last six months have been a whirlwind of challenge and change. I love it and am thriving. While at SolutionsIQ I qualified as an Certified Scrum Trainer and have been continuing to successfully coach and train teams in Agile practices ever since. I have presented at the Agile 2006, and Agile 2007 conference. For Agile 2008 I am working as assistant producer with Esther Derby for the Open Jam stage. Through all of this I have been writing articles on my thoughts and experiences with Agile practices. These articles have been published in the Agile Journal, Methods and Tools, Projects@Work, and Gantthead.com.
My non-profit experience includes four years as Executive Director of the American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM). During that time I sat on the Board of the chamber and directed he re-building of AMCHAM’s the programs and the profile of the chamber from the ground up. I was able to be highly successful in this role, working with a small staff and through various volunteer committees to rebuild the processes and programs, as well as a highly successful outreach to the community. As part of this position I organized numerous functions and programs, including chairing a committee to put on an international 4-day conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the Asia Pacific Council of American Chambers of Commerce (APCAC).
I also worked at NAPM as a project manager, working on building their distance learning programs. This involved interacting with volunteer subject matter experts for content as well as software development.
While I am willing to server where ever the Board needs me, I have two major interests. I would like to bring my conference organizing skill to helping with the Agile Conference and or the conference sponsorship programs. I would also like to lead or participate in a program to raise the profile of the Agile Alliance, it’s programs and benefits to the larger Agile community. While I commend the past Boards for the work that they have done in putting the programs together and publicizing them; as a member of the Agile community I believe that more people can benefit from what the Alliance is offering if they had easier access to information on the available programs.
